You know how you try to be positive, but the people you try to be positive with or about, just won’t let you? One of the trainers wore a 1992-shoulder-out blouse today. Another one had on mime makeup.

Mime Make-up.

I mean…what am I supposed to do with that?

If my co-worker’s saggy, freckled breasts are yearning to be free and the other trainer’s lipstick sticks to her teeth in a way that makes her look like a vampire who recently participated in a freakish blood feast, it is my duty to comment. It’s not fair to me to have to hold it in.

If my coworker brags about eating a twelve piece wing dinner during our 15 minute break and 2 porkchops, macaroni and cheese and green beans during our half hour lunch. Am I not permitted to express my disgust?

I thought my manager was wearing a cape. She turned out to simply have a linebacker build and shoulders that made her naturally look like Captain Crunch….but still…what am I to do?

I probably could have made myself hold most of that in if a woman had not walked in with tattered acid washed coulottes and feet that either looked like she had been kicking coal or had lit each toe on fire. All I could think was that surely she had to have been shipwrecked before shift?

How about my co-worker (purple pie man)’s discussion about how he gave up dressing in drag recently or Cita’s dicussion about how her baby daddy likes her breast milk because it’s sweet…

umm yeah at that point I threw up a little…okay…a lot, in the back of my throat.

This environment is unfair to me as a recovering jerk. At this rate, I will never get my 30 day chip.

So…I am 5 days into this job and what started as an experience that I thought would be a “dance of dolts” has turned into something that I think I am going to appreciate.

The people that I work with are not idiots, as I was setting myself up to believe. They, like me are here to do a job. My trainers, though not the type of professionals that I am used to, are serious about their jobs. They care that we are comfortable and knowledgeable.

Each of my co-workers has a story and as I learn more about them, they each intrigue me.

One girl works there because she has to support her mother who recently suffered a broken neck. Another girl is there as a stepping stone to escape an abusive husband. Another guy is trying to support his household as he is getting back on his feet from a life changing move across country. Another guy just went through a divorce and is working there for extra money to support his children. One guy is a recovering addict.

And then there’s me…the jerk in recovery.

I think this is the first day that I left work feeling upbeat. It was all because I had not given into negative thoughts and unfair judgment.

I will probably still keep most of the names I gave everybody, however.

It’s official. I hate the midget with the neck tattoo. Why can’t she stop clicking that GD mouse??? It is like her baby hand won’t let go of the mouse. All I hear is:

Click click click click click Click click click click click Click click click click click Click click click click click 

And it is driving me crazy!

I know that she is probably annoying me because I am tired, I have on high water pants and I almost had to ram a co-worker for taking the last parking spot. Whatever the reason, I feel like I may make her eat that computer mouse.

Evilene-cita confided in me that she was pregnant. What a relief…she had me afraid to eat snacks,( like I used to be afraid to eat watermelon) because I thought my belly would grow.Alright… I must admit that I am starting to like Evilene-cita. She amuses me, her hair is tri-colored and she is a snack sharer. What more could I want in a co-worker?

There is this other guy in my training class. He has eyebrows to die for. He wears purple everyday and reminds me of the Purple Pie man from the Strawberry Shortcake cartoon…except he’s Mexican and tatted all over and lives an “alternative lifestyle”. He says he does his own eyebrows so of course I asked if he would do mine at break. I was half joking but mostly serious and he told me he would bring in his tools at some point.

Nice.

I think this is how you make work friends (I have never been good at that)…talk of secret pregnancy and male tweezed eyebrows, but I could be wrong. 

Training still has me wanting to slit my wrists but I have been looking at my trainers and playing a game, in my head, called “does she have a Black baby” and it passes the time.

To my left…a midget with a neck tattoo and earrings from the LL Cool J “ya jingling baby” video.

To my right…the half Mexican daughter of Evilene from “The Wiz” who has a bag full of snacks.

Straight ahead…a trainer that is built like the “hanker for a hunk of cheese” guy from Saturday morning cartoons. She has on chunky heeled mules. Really? Mules though?

Training…I contemplated slitting both wrists.

Between the manwith the half ponytail, the musty slow boy, the guy with the Arsenio Hall gums and the girl with the really fake southern accent, I am just not sure if I should be working alongside these folks or starting some sort of work-school program to acclimate them to modern society.

That was mean…I guess.

They all seem to be really nice. Evilene-cita says she has two kids and that is why she keeps a trough of snacks in her purse. Half ponytail is eager and polite and willing to give positive energy and prayer to anyone who asks. Arsenio Hall gums is ready to work and clearly has spent hours brushing those waves into his hair. Fake southern accent…well… I am sure I will find out something good about her as well.

Maybe this job will teach me something that I have not completely gained in any job…humility. Perhaps the folks that I have met will soon become names and not caricatures. Maybe by next week the conversation I heard about hiding the smell of weed with Febreze, before you come to work, will be out of my head.

Maybe the in-depth tour of the best places to smoke will leave me and the sight of the co-trainer’s mosquito bitten and bruised legs ending in dirty white Easter pumps, will be a thing of the past.

Perhaps I will even make friends…perhaps.

For the past couple of years I have been taking seasonal part-time jobs I say to get me writing, but I do like the extra money and it gives me an opportunity to come in contact with new and interesting characters.

This year’s punishment…a holiday credit call center. Yeah…I know. I told myself I never wanted to work in a call center again after the one I worked in when we first moved here. It was a room filled to the brim with fancy dressed idiots who had an over inflated view of their importance, intelligence and education. I was continually forced to make conversation with these random trolls. The good thing that came from that job was meeting Melanie. I like her and we sang together at the open mic down the street…but I digress.

So I guess I am back at this bs.

I found this job as an “all call” in the newspaper. It asked that folks “apply in person” As I sat in the waiting room I looked around. Am I in the right place? I thought. There was a big fat white lady with a rolling suitcase. A woman with skin tight jeans and slouch boots and a receptionist that definitely had Meth mouth.

Nice.

I went to a room and filled out an application. I was called into another room by a super hyper Asian lady. She was talking so fast and moving so fast that she made me nervous. So nervous in fact, that I became disturbed. I told her that I had to come back the next day.

The next day the waiting room was just as crazy…two girls who I swear just got off the pole at one of the strip clubs down the street, had Ross price tags still on the bottom of their shoes and hair the color of various types of cotton candy sat waiting to be called back.

Wait…am I in the right place?

A lady that resembled a teapot (actually more of a tea vat) came to get me. She smelled faintly of poo and had toes like little smokies. She walked me up a flight of steps and I waited while she caught her breath. We walked into a huge room filled with cubicles. I was amazed at the amount of nonsense that filled these desks. Pictures and balls and candy and folded up magazines and decorations.

 
I was taken to sit with a girl who shared the same name as a previous manager that I had had. I bristled up, remembering the mood swings, utter stupidity and complete lack of managerial skills possessed by that former idiot.

I sat down and plugged in a headset. She was on a call. Exciting. She was using the “work voice” (that voice that idiots think makes them sound educated and sophisticated, but really they use vocabulary like an ex-con and have an annoying twang.) I looked around her desk and it was filled with pictures and crafts from her kids and awards for customer service and a cheap purse.She never really turned around to look at me, but from her profile I could see her fake lashes, caked on make-up and drawn on mole. As I stared at the back of her head it became clear to me that there actually are folks who purchase and use bump-its and here was one, live and in the flesh.

Disgusting.

I was then interviewed by Olive Oil. When she saw my resume and what I do in real life, she tried to tell me about her experience. Ummm…sorry but not interested.

She offered me the job on the spot. Cool.

They require a drug test. I had never been required to take one of those before. Do people just get high and start granting retail credit? Is that an epidemic?

The drug testing place was across from the dump. I had to hold my breath just to walk to the door, and pee while some sumo wrestler type stood watch outside the door.

Tedious application…check

Ridiculous job interview…check

Humiliating drug test…check

Job I hate before I have even begun and fear of my future co-workers…check and check.

Credit Call Center, that shall remain nameless, here I come.