Weekly Work Rant

The next time I saw Guillermo after that first night I worked with him, he had shaved his face clean. He grew back the mustache later, though. I talked to him again later and he asked me if I knew about working on fishing boats in Alaska.

When I mentioned that they have six months of prominent sunshine and six months of prominent darkness in Alaska, Guillermo looked at me like I had just told him the world was not flat. I told him you could make a lot of money on the fish boats but you have to work really long hours and that there is that risk of having your head severed by a snapping cable or hypothermia if you fall in the water for more than a minute. I told him you have to stay at work or end up paying $5 for a bar of soap when you venture into town. I asked, "Do you have enough time to go to Alaska before you get married in June?"

Guillermo said, "I was going to take my wife to Alaska so we could both work." Not exactly the kind of honeymoon Utah girls would have dreamed about. I warned him that making money in Alaska is somewhat dependent on your ability to stay at work and sleep in their beds and eat their food. I told him the name of a city that hires a lot and how to look up jobs on the internet. I told him there may be complications if he tries to bring his wife in.

That was most of the conversation. Guillermo only came to work one more time after that. I asked another temp, "Adonde Guillermo?" the other night. He said, "Alaska!" I wonder how you say "Rolling Stone" in spanish.

So many people are quitting and there are so many new people. I'm like a seasoned veteran, already. Except there is a Somoan gangster named Dallin that I work with (I think he's a gangster, he has all the tattoos on his triceps), he said that all the bosses and some of the workers hang out in the parking EVERY night and drink till morning. He said he stayed and talked to them and they admitted they all have "tricks" to using the laser guns to make it look like they do more work. I assumed they did. It's annoying that they won't just tell you the fastest way to work from the beginning. You have to be "in the club" before they will tell you.

I gave George a copy of Tricky's "Blowback" CD just because it's easy to imagine him getting down to it. I asked him if he liked it. He said, "I like it. And my misses, she loves it so much." He told me he just got a new job driving a forklift at a chip factory that pays about $4 more per hour. He told me to apply. I think I will. All you have to lift is chips.

That gangster that got in my face that one night, later, made a point to find me and ask me "What's up?" I just said, "How's it going?" I think it was our way of making sure everything was cool. He's the one that freaked out in the first place, I just dropped my diplomacy. It was late.

The other night, someone hijacked the warehouse PA system and played the theme song to "Charles in Charge" over the speakers. People goofing around isn't strange. The fact that someone has the "Charles in Charge" theme song saved on their cell phone is the bizarre part. I wish I had that kind of foresight for my pranks. It was probably one of the managers but they mostly talk about having porn on their phones, so who knows.

It's always hard to remember all the strange things but they are in endless supply, so I will catch you up again next week.