How to protect my phony baloney job?

Like a punch clown that rights itself two days after you delivered your last blow, Doof, my good friend at work, stood up outta nowhere today, all happy as usual.

"Hiya Jackson! Still a Republican today?" (That's his standing greeting. Meh. He's a good man! I call him "friend"!)

I must have looked at him like I thought he'd been long dead or something. Not dead like I missed him, but dead like I'd forgotten he'd ever been born (such a good friend I can be, when I remember you exist).

Then, "Hey, partner," he said. "You look a little down!"

I shook myself out of staring.

"Oh. Yeah. Boxx told me yesterday I can't read on the job."

"Hmm!" He nodded at the New York Times, I had folded in quarter rather than half, propped up against some eye-level machinery. "But you're not letting that stop you now are you?"

I think I was sounding like Eeyore, except he doesn't say stuff like, "Can't smoke, can't read. Can't stand here three hours like a cigar store indian either."

Doof says let's go outside and smoke and talk business then.

He's got skinny, he says.

So we went out on the concourse where the carriers and haulers were already lined up, waiting for the afternoon edition of the Crib.

It's been awhile so I'll catch you up. It all started here, in my bloggo "Marry and Me". Or, "Look, Mary, I'm a Killer". One of those.

Doof and I pointed out to management that my position was something of a hoax on the public, so far as the job is meant to track circulation numbers (important to advertisers, you know) and to keep carriers and haulers honest about their sales.

He'd been trying for years to return practices/procedures as they were intended.

We'd got half way, but there were meetings we weren't invited to and the end result was a memo of non sequiturs.

The one reform that got through cut my work load in half (not good); the other reforms were like a revocation or denunciation of the mission.

In short, management declared that one very large independent contractor had to prove his sales numbers to me.

All the carriers could phone in their sales numbers without even sending in mastheads as proof, and are no longer scofflaws but scott-free. (Scot Free? Is that the expression? Where's that come from? Look it up , will you? Report back.)

SO, except for two days, my work is done after 15 minutes, and I'm on my own for the next three hours.

I have six customers, who work for this contractor, and they are becoming very, very dear to me, like I want to have sex with 'em or something. It's not good.

So, we sit down on the bench amidst the carnival like hoopla. Every other day, we do, to swap stories and histories.

(Doof doesn't smoke, which is one reason I don't take him very seriously, but he's cool by my other standards. Like, he's my age and he wears glasses and was probably picked on as a kid and probably took a lot of drugs and got some irony in his soul.)

All the family vans with their doors open and kids spilling out, running around and playing ball and hide and go seek under foot and cars and trucks.

"Here's the deal, " he says. "You know that little box on the wall in CIRC you discovered, marked "returns"?"

"Ah. How could I forget!" I said, cheering up. That was like a day you discover your car doesn't work because this BIG WIRE HERE isn't plugged in (just never ever happens but it did, and it was a MOMENT.)

(which led to a sort of phht admission and latter a retreat from cherished company ideals, but still.)

"Yeah, what about it?"

"Well, that's where I'm picking up the carrier returns, of course. And for about two weeks now, I'm coming up short. There are at least five people every day claiming they've turned in their paper work, but they're not. You know what I think? I think they're lying!" he smiled brightly.

"Oh no." I smiled.

"So. CIRC knows too, because of course it's my job to report that. Boss told me to fudge the numbers. Go by their average. Which I did but now I'm salving my conscience by telling you, Mr. Returns Guy."

"Doof! Store your treasures in heaven, don't tell about your good deeds!"

Thinking a second. "Wait, no, forget that. That's a bad deed. And if it was a good deed...how would I know now, and..." I had something to say but ended up mumbling 'til I was , ah, finished...

A queer look, from Doof. Priceless.

"OH. Don't call me the Returns Guy, aw-right? I prefer 'Returns Magistrate'."

He continued, anyway:

"But you're going to have to finesse this very carefully because for one thing, who are you going to tell? You can't tell your boss, can you? He told you not to bring any of these issues to him. The Catch 22. Also, keep me out of trouble. Keep everyone out of trouble. Just...maybe wander around the plant, wondering out loud, abstractly, mumbling something like ...you're looking for an honest man. Like in the fable."

I figure, it's a start!

Returns guy.

No one's serious about it. Sales aren't tracked this way. I have a phony baloney job, is what this is. Like, handed down to me as a part of some ancient patronage/reward system. The shadow institution has forgotten the position's purpose, both for real and for show. Someone is going to come along someday and ask, what's with the cigar store indian in the old press room?

But there are shenanigans.

It's all I may need...