Uncoordinated

I never liked my last job. Not the first day, when I was assigned to a brown, itchy-looking cubicle, flush with the promise of a new desk and dental insurance and definitely not the last day, when I was fired while sitting on the toilet, a thick wad of off-brand TP wound around my hand like a one-ply boxing glove.

It’s not that I was surprised. That office and I were a duet bound for disaster, like Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson or P. Diddy and anyone. Just Say, Say, Say you’ll give me a good severance package.

I spent two years there trying to make it work, but couldn’t overcome le Grand suck of it all, from the matte white walls (perfectly matched with my matte white coworkers) to the liberal quoting of Scripture in my annual reviews, a practice I found unnecessary since they never invoked that passage from “Song of Solomon” that compared my tits to fawns or firecrackers or something.

My time there just felt like treading water. I was never promoted, I was never demoted, I was just moted. And I was miserable. Sure, my titles kind of changed but the “Tom Hanks: The Hooch Years”-style typecasting meant that I would forever star as the "Coordinator". The Research Coordinator. The Marketing Coordinator. The Coordstodian. Whatever. The work was less challenging than finding Waldo but the bennies were solid and it honestly could have been a very good job for somebody, the kind of somebody who didn't have any goals beyond getting a laser-etched nameplate, a free flu shot, and two drink tickets at the company Christmas party.

So I was frequently bounced around from boss to boss, department to department, like a foster kid with a file cabinet. I'd pack up my Hugh Laurie pics and prescription meds and plunk them down in another drawer in another department with another group of people who'd never invite me to lunch.

It was a temporary thing and I knew it. I interviewed with three other companies while I worked there, but never could break free. Maybe it was because of the frequent appearance of the word “coordinator” on my resume. Or maybe it was because my previous jobs all came to the same abrupt end, usually with me being escorted out of the building.

My work product always got gold stars, so in the down time between assignments I made my own fun, busying myself by setting up audible Outlook reminders for unnecessary things and making elaborate PowerPoint graphs to illustrate who spent the most time destroying the bathroom (Deborah). I played enough Solitaire to erode the screen of my Pocket PC. And, most importantly, I learned that if you’re carrying a couple of notebooks and a folder at all times, the people who spy you sneaking in at 9:52 will assume you’ve been in a meeting.*

The key to my continued successful slacking was the front desk receptionist, an older woman who looked like the result of a violent collision between Aunt Bea and Ann Taylor. I stayed in her good graces with blueberry bagel bribes and mornings spent leaning on her desk, listening as she recounted her problems ranging from the no-show refrigerator repairman to her daughter's recent vaginal irrigation. I also tithed a percentage of my paycheck to her grandkids, buying every edible they ever sold, including enough Boy Scout popcorn to leave a Family Circus-style trail behind me as I walk through the rest of my life.

Our bond (and my bagel budget) increased when I started parking in the Visitor space because (as I've written before), that word painted on the pavement was a much more accurate description of my status than what was embossed on my biz card. Besides, this was a company that makes grout** so there wasn’t, like, an endless parade of people just swinging by the office. Those visitor spaces were more hopeful than functional, much like my continued poppage of birth control pills even though I haven't had to control anything since American Idol’s Fantasia vs. Diana duel.

Anyway, on a Friday that was wholly unremarkable, save for the fact that I wore yet another inappropriate t-shirt***, I rolled into the Visitor space and strolled in late, folder in hand. Two hours later, I was sitting at my desk milking a Capri Sun into a glass (because the workplace is noplace for sippy straws) when the HR Assistant--a man who thought it was OK to wear an oxford shirt tucked into nylon wind pants--materialized in my cube.

“J-Mummy”, he whispered, mispronouncing my name. “When are you going to lunch?”

“In about 15 minutes,” I replied.

“OK, after lunch, could you maybe not park in the visitor’s space?”

“Yeah, no worries,” I said, thinking that he was basically giving me an excuse to spend the afternoon ‘working from home’. I returned to that morning’s project, creating a Venn diagram of “Excessive Gas” and “Excessive Drakkar” (the overlap of which was known as Rodney) and sizzipping my ‘Sun.

Five minutes later, the HR Director herself pounded on my cube, a gesture I didn’t immediately notice since the walls were made of something resembling discarded Build-A-Bear pelts. When I finally turned around, she was livid, crimson-faced in a black glittery W.W.J.D. sweatshirt and creased black jeans.

“J-Money, go move your car."

Because I’m an honorary autistic when it comes to reading facial cues, I glanced at my watch and said “Right on, I’ll just leave for lunch now too.” I pocketed my car keys and iPod and made for the bathroom because I had a thirty minute commute and a bladder brimming with 2% fruit juice.

My buttocks had just touched the pleasantly cool plastic toilet seat and I was leisurely perusing the label on the Renuzit can, when the bathroom door was shoved open with Jack Torrance-ish force.

“J-Money! I said GO MOVE YOUR CAR!”

Now I’m confused. And I can’t pee.

“Sure, let me finish and then I’m out of here, for real.” I placed the air freshener back on the handicap rail and tried to overcome my pee-ralysis, but I could still see her little Easy Spirited feet tapping impatiently outside my stall.

"MOVE IT NOW. You are GOING to MOVE IT NOW!".

What I should have said was nothing. I should have pulled up, zipped up, and tried to finish on my home court. What I did say was “Miss Daisy, Hoke can’t make water with you standing there.”****

And that's when she lost her mind. What’s black and white and red all over? This dopey bitch.

“You know what? You know what?” she stammered.

“What?” I asked, trying to sound innocent but failing.

“YOU’RE DONE HERE! DO YOU HEAR ME? You ARE NOT to come back after lunch. You ARE NOT to come back EVER!” I heard her tapdance across the tile and slam the door as best as she could.

What. The. Fuck. I knew I would eventually be fired, but I always assumed it would be for making inappropriate book club suggestions, for being the Laird Hamilton of net surfing, or for breaking any number of Employee Handbook Commandments. Not for this.

She was lurking in the hallways when I walked out of the bathroom, popping out of a corner like God’s own ninja.

“Give me your badge”.

“I don’t have it.”

“Go get it, J-Money. I mean it.”

“Um, actually, I flushed it. Not now, I mean. A couple of weeks ago, I pulled my pants up too hard and it flipped off my belt into the toilet.”*****

Silence.

“See, since I park out front, I use the main entrance so I really don't need a badge.”

She snapped her Suave-scented head around and took off toward the stairs. I didn’t know whether to follow her or not. If this had been a cartoon, I would have cracked an egg into one of her oversized pores and watched it cook right there on her cheek. But it wasn’t, so I didn’t.

“We’ll mail your personal effects to you.”

“Wait, so you’re, like, serious?”

“As a heart attack.”

“Actually, the chance of surviving heart failure has increased 30% since the 1950s.” I’m having fun with this. I’m going down, down in an earlier round, but Sugar, I’m going down swinging.

I doubled back toward my desk to grab a few things—namely the unfinished stack of Rolling Stones I'd snagged from the breakroom—as she shouted to anyone within earshot that they should call security, despite the fact that the only security in the entire building is the metal flap that keeps you from reaching into the vending machine.

I got to my desk and started grabbing as much stuff as I could, cramming pictures and post-its and the stapler and the computer mouse into my purse as she screamed like Laurie Strode. “SECURITY! We have a situation!” she yelled, a phrase she’d no doubt longed to use for something other than finding a dead chipmunk in the air ducts.

Satisfied that I’d gotten everything important from my work station I turned to face her, still wild-eyed and babbling, her teased bangs listing sadly to one side like a melting snowman. “I’m going to go move my car now,” I said calmly before trucking toward the main stairs.

She was on the heels of my Chucks, shrieking like a harpy at the back of my head, threats about insubordination and how I’m being terminated for cause and why I won’t get unemployment benefits. I ploppeded my overstuffed purse on the Receptionist’s desk, ignoring her bewildered expression long enough to give her a very heartfelt goodbye.

I took one step toward unemployment before turning to HR and saying with a smile, “Yelling at me makes you look fat.” And that was it. I pulled out of the Visitor’s spot and pointed my headlights home.

I still had to pee.

* This totally works. The only downside is that you can't wear a coat, ever, and if it rains you're going to have a hard time selling the story that a water main broke in Conference Room D.
** They don't, but for the sake of my not getting sued, grout it is. Their actual product line is just as exciting.
*** The tee that day was "Drop Acid, Not Bombs", a sentiment that was misconstrued by someone in accounting to mean that the military should actually fly over our enemies, dropping vats of, um, real acid, a policy he seemed to agree with. I didn't know whether I should correct him or not.
**** If I had it to do over, I think I would've gone with "Urethra Franklin needs her R-E-S-P-E-C-T."
***** Yes, for real. True Story Magazine.

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