June 2006 - Great Push Backs I Have Known

By Anthony J. Lockwood

I push back people in power who think I read minds. You know the type: They hassle you since you are clueless in a spot where they can make sport of you. It makes them feel big.

My first foreman, a WW II vet, was like that. Now, we were 16-year-old guys. In 1970 most 16-year-old guys in Yonkers, NY, were like, man, you know, 16-year-old guys: We could not read stop signs, never mind minds.

Complicating factor: this was a summer job at a cheesy athletic club. That is, girls were afoot. The only more lethal combo than 16-year-old boys in proximity to 16-year old girls in swimsuits is a pair of 22-year-old guys with bellies full of beer and a pickup truck. The latter, of course, culls the gene pool; the former ages parents and drives bosses nuts. We drove Buddy nuts.

Buddy’s job was to train us to be the best janitors we could be. He decoded alien concepts like “sweep the floor” by humiliating you in front of everyone for not sweeping the floor right. Half of the knuckleheads I worked with had no idea that floors were supposed to be swept, never mind the mechanics. He’d yell, sigh, moan about you to folks not there, then show you how to do the job, as he muttered about your stupidity.

   

Lockwood.

One day Buddy bopped a mop off me as I was daydreaming. I snapped. Cussed him up and down. He was dumbstruck. No one had ever pushed back. The other jerks were speechless. I waited to be fired. Nothing happened, except that Buddy and I achieved détente. A big life lesson learned.

Years later, in the early ‘90s, I could no longer afford COBRA, so I shuffled off to the employment office. Talk about a place you don’t want to be. Them talking heads on TV who say recessions are good even if just a few million lives are disrupted need to do hard time at the employment office.

Anyway, I filled out my forms and sat down with the disposed of. Now, the folks who run unemployment offices figure that you’re not working, so you can sit there all day. Thus, after an hour or two, my mind wandered.

Suddenly, this burly guy is screaming my name. He’s really irked at me. I guess I didn’t hear him when he had called out my name a couple of times.

He barks and points toward 14 government-issued desks. Naturally, I go to the wrong one. He sighs and moans about my stupidity to folks not there.

Compounding his irritation, he cannot decode “technical editor,” “X.25 networking,” “videotex,” and other techie buzzwords of my career. His clientele were usually janitors and laborers, not tech word weenies. So, he launches into the “if you college guys think you’re so smart, how come you can’t find a job? I can’t even read what you say you were paid for” routine.

Finally, I had had enough. I pushed back. I cussed him up and down. He was dumbstruck. As I left, head held high, all the unemployed cheered me.

Um, that last bit is a lie. Two babies, mortgage. I needed the dough. I was scared, Pal. I sat meekly eating it. But if that jerk could have read my mind ...

Thanks, Pal.—Lockwood

Lockwood is Anthony J. Lockwood is the Editorial Director and resident bar fly at DE Magazine. Should you be so moved, you can send this joker an e-mail by clicking here. Please reference “Diatribes, June 2006” in your message.