Gulling The Wary

The boxx's office has sky blue walls, and a large slightly tinted window, out to the concourse. The door is always open, as they like to sing about, and sometimes something unexpectedly moves me to step in there. On impulse, as if to see what particular brand of trouble there is today. Maybe I want some.

It seems I enjoy our visits, but that just can't be right. Then, the house is going to win, but not everytime! Maybe this is some gambling bug I picked up on "The Boat" several years ago.
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You go in and he's direcly behind his extra large monitor, which is mounted high. It's a surprise he knows who it is, tapping on the door.

"Hello, John. What is it?"

I say, "Hey Bill. Oh, pretty good, how are you?" Because I don't like that question.

His head comes around, he peeks and squints. Ignores my misunderstanding. Says slowly, exaggerated slowly, "I'm fine, John. How are you?"

"Not so good! "
I'm not going to sit down then, I'll stand and turn this swivel chair back and forth.

"Well, you know how much I like it here, Bill. Ha, ha! Prelude, canned speech as usual but I'm not here for any favor. Oh, except could you let me off Sunday?"

"HEH?"

"I work six days a week and don't mind it at all! I mean, shoot, most of them are barely even half days. But I notice I'm on the schedule for this Sunday and ..."

"You want to give up Returns?"

"Heck no! But if I work Sunday that will mean I have 13 days without a without a without a day off , and maybe you'll have me work next Sunday too which will mean 20 days in a row and I like having days where I don't have to work."

"Weren't you sick awhile ago?"

"What? No. That was, oh...It's been three weeks hasn't it?"

"And you're always popping in here with last minute doctor appointments, too."

"What? That was for the dentist and I didn't pop in until I had got my own replacement. Both times."

"Three times."

"Two times this year."

"It's Januar....eeee, all right John, let me see here." Three mouse clicks on the computer. "So you want a day off..."

"No, I don't want a day off. I want my day off back."

Almost said, and what's the big idea anyway. 13 days in a row. And they keep me one hour short of being full-time so I have no benefits (but that's fine because otherwise I'd be on the assembly line again. And of course I don't want to give up Returns! What a wise guy, this Boxx.)

"This is a mistake," he says. "What do you want, Sunday off. I could give you Wednesday, Friday or Saturday instead."

"Doesn't matter to me. By the way, I appreciate the extra hours."

"Um, John. You're turning down the extra hours."

"Yes I know, but I want to say thanks. Thanks for the opportunity. I decline."

"It was a mistake."

"Well thanks for fixing it then. I'll take Sunday, if it's just the same to you."

"All right, now sit down, I wanted to talk to you, John."

Ah, fine. I like the swivel chair and these meetings are really sporting, like I said. Once I came out with a fifty cent raise! And an order to write a memo about how I spend each minute of my day back there in the old presse room unsupervised.

It's fun!

"Monday mornings are you still finding a big mess back there? Are they still letting the carriers in back there on weekends?"

"Yeah, and I caught one yesterday morning --- I worked yesterday morning, never have before on a Monday---It was Ghandi's brother, the sheik. Wahoozi, I think his name is. Or something like that. 'Wah'. "

Ghandi is our main customer, delivering newspapers to scores if not hundreds of racks and stores. His near monopoly goes back twenty years, I'm told. He is Middle Eastern, which is fine, but his name is Ghandi and I call him Ghandi the Jihadi, but not to his face.

What a great name for the college girls to love him. (And he is still a handsome man, 50-ish with a new born.)

"Ghandi", my eye!

(All right. I sound like a bigot. I'm sorry. It's war, though! Consider me in the context of my times. I don't address myself to posterity either, dammit, I mean you and you and you. My three readers. I mean, Today!)

"We have to get these people in to return their papers and do the paper work in a shorter time frame. I need you available. You work for Bindery, not circulation. And dammit they make a mess back there and the dock manager comes and tells me about it like it's our responsibility!"

I tell him "You'll be reversing the new policy from last October. Face the same arguments. They need to unload their trucks on weekends."

"I know. But why should that be our problem?" He picks up the only pen we have in the plant and taps it twice, like a black-jack, swinging it. I can't believe this place, there are no pens. Everyone brings their own.

"Are you new too? I thought the auditor insisted the Returns Processor be from outside Circulation, and it'd been this way for years."

He harrumphed and sat up a bit. "I had Tracy tell Kevin to tell Ghandi to tell his people, 'no'. But it hasn't happened, has it. Anyway I want you to write out for me a time line. What you're doing everyday for a week."

"I did that on December 20th."

"I know but what I mean is, take a time sheet and itemize every minute. In the description area tell me who is arriving and when. How long it takes. "

The boxx is always after my bogus job, he wants to erase it from the roles, strip me of my title. That's the game and for some reason , maybe you can explain to me, I enjoy playing.

"Oh, I see. Sure I can do that. But you do have my recommendations. We can cut the time in half if we have the non-Ghandi carriers phone in their return numbers."

"Yeah. Can't figure out why someone would want to hand deliver them when they can phone in..." he says.

I guess my game is not so much to disarm him with the truth, but impress him with my honesty, and then cross my fingers and count on him putting this issue back to the bottom of his to-do list.

"And Bill, I've said it before. This is a phony baloney job."

He nods, leans back with his hands behind his head and listens.

"It doesn't make sense my counting the returns. Everyone is confused. The fewer newspapers Ghandi returns, the more credit he gets for sales. People here think sales are recorded and checks cut by Return Numbers. They think unsold papers get credit, but it's the opposite. Sales are recorded at the stores and from the racks. Even Patrick is confused about this, he's always saying 'Keep an eye on Ghandi'. I could understand counting the papers if they were credited to people but they're not. The fewer papers you bring in, the better!"

"I don't know, I've heard both ways."

"Don the single copy rep knows the woman who cuts the checks for these people. By the way..." It hits me that I can mimick my friend Don and display some apparent business intelligence. "...Having zero returns is not good. Having a zero means missed sales, usually. I can tell in an entire neighborhood, by all these zeros, there are people wanting papers, but they're sold out early. And I've talked to people, and there is a computer program to adjust circulation but it's not evident at all. Don tells 'em over there. People complain to Don, you need to bring us more papers and Don says, I've tried to talk 'em into it, here's a phone number to call, you tell 'em."

The Boxx goes : "Huh. Well I think they could do better, yeah. If I were in charge over there. But I'm not. We're not. "

I think this is going well, despite everything. Henry Miller got turned down for a lowly Western Union messenger boy job and was so furious he marched into some executives office and dazzled the guy into firing the person who wouldn't hire him. And then Miller was the hiring manager. (Well, it's a good story anyway.)

I go on, "That program adjusts for when the school kids leave town for the summer, is all. I see all these 'zero' return numbers and then I have 2,000 Sunday returns. It's mis-distribution is what it is, Bill." (He insists on being called by his first name. It's come down from on high. We're even supposed to call Mr. Kane by his first name. I hate these people sometimes.)

"How'd that interview go across the street, by the way, " he asks, referring to a programming job in the news room.

"They didn't give me one. I'm locked out. No Journalism degree. "

Elbows on his desk now. "Oh , that's ...but you have a programming degree."

"Yeah I'll get over it. I like working in a factory. I've never worked in a factory before."

"Uh, huh."

Uh,oh. Ha,ha! I can see I've crossed the line.
I get up.
If I'm bluffing I must have a bad hand,so I better get out.

"I'll do the time sheet. Like, from 1:05 to 1:10 I went and put a gaylord together and put it on a skid and rolled it back."

"Another thing, John. I know it must be really boring back there. You just standing around waiting."

I couldn't believe we were playing this so straight. Concerned that I'm bored and wants me back on the assembly line, he says. Hm.

And like he doesn't know I spend most of my time reading the Times, snacking, and hanging outside with the old presse men laughing it up with the dog breeding, newspaper peddling hillbillies I love. And smoking ciggies every half hour.

"So you got me off on Sunday?" Day of rest.

"Yeah. Deanne will take care of it. I'll see ya , John."