August 08, 2001
firecrackers
About three months ago I stopped by Costco and bought some goodies for my people at work. A six-pound box of cookies. A three-pound box of cereal. And a box of 40+ fruit roll-ups. They finished the cereal in a week, the box of cookies in four days, and the fruit roll-ups in two. Honesty would compell me to admit that I was the one who did most of the finishing in the case of the fruit roll-ups. Fortunately, honesty and me and the journal have never been on more than friendly hand-shake terms.
At any rate, I went back to Costco and bought another box. This one I ended up leaving on my refrigerator, where it miraculously emptied out in about a week.
So I bought another one.
And another one.
(...and another one.)
I'm on my second fruit roll-up of the day. My God, I love Costco.
I'm in the middle of documenting legacy code so that we can figure out why it's breaking. I could stab myself through the eye with a bicycle handle and the quality of my work wouldn't suffer. It's good to take pride in one's work. In the meantime, for the past two days now I've been amusing myself by randomly yelling out questions from Mindtrap cards. This is a cruel thing to do to intelligent Indian women who don't trust me anyway; their English is just good enough for them to ask these questions to, and just warped enough that they'll never get one of them right, no never, ever, ever.
"You throw away the outside and cook the inside, you use the outside and throw away the inside."
That's not a question. Work ground to a standstill while the Indian women pondered this; Slushpuppy shouted that he knew the answer and came hurtling around the cube farm to hiss it at me.
Have I never introduced Slushpuppy? He's new on our team. 22, half-Korean (half-white), smart, funny, skiis, and rich. He owns his own house down in Souther California; he grew up at my company. Started here when he was 17. Got lots of stock, cashed in on the boom, and bought himself a slush puppy machine which now resides somewhere on the campus. He's available. I think.
"I should go get it," he realizes when I ask him, and his eyes will get distant and foggy with fond memories. "I'm not really sure where it is."
Buying a slush puppy machine with one's newly made millions shows an exuberant commitment to ice that I just have to admire.
Operating under the assumption that our jobs are as stable as the Marina, -- little San Francisco joke there, see, the Marina is all fill and will cave in at the first big earthquake, but it's filled with beautiful, wealthy, Caucasian twenty-somethings so this would probably just improve the gene pool and nobody's crying; I ate at a restaurant there once, and in a city that has the largest Chinese population outside of China, I was the only non-blonde there -- I've framed my "Adversity" poster and have managed to balance it on the head of a sewing pin on my cubicle wall. I lead the dangerous life. At any moment it could come crashing down and disassemble on top of my bike, also parked in my cubicle. Cheap plastic could go flying.
"You look like you've moved in here," marvels a passing stranger, and I start to wonder if I'll be able to fit all my belongings in boxes if I get laid off. Then I decide it doesn't matter, and I don't care. I love my job, dammit, and I'll worry about that if it happens.
"Would you say that egg yolk is yellow? Or that egg yolk are yellow?"
Ah. One of the Indian women took time from her busy schedule to come around the corner and give me a dirty look when she learned the answer.
"How many times can you subtract 5 from 25?"
My God, she got it right.
I wander around the corner to start a quiver of employees (quiver, n. - a gathering of two or more employees at a company that is financially unstable) outside of College Boy's cube. Our manager, College Boy, Firecracker, and another employee gradually join our little circle. We laugh, we talk, we sing--
-- Firecracker starts to complain about something her mother-in-law says. "SHE SAY, MY BABY NOT AS SMART AS HER SON. HER SON, HE ALREADY ROLLING OVER BY HIMSELF WHEN HE FOUR MONTHS OLD. NOW I WORRY MY BABY STUPID."
"You shouldn't let your mother-in-law talk to your husband," I suggest. "Like, ever."
Firecracker plows on with her litany of grievances. "SHE SAY, HUSBAND SHOULDN'T LISTEN TO WIFE TOO MUCH, IT NOT GOOD FOR HUSBAND BE HEAD OF HOUSEHOLD."
Our manager starts to laugh, while I play with images of Firecracker's husband coming home early to stuff Q-tip heads in his ears before his wife comes home.
"Get rid of his mother," I urge again. "Just don't let them talk anymore."
"I CAN'T," she wails. "THEY LIKE BEST FRIEND. I JEALOUS. HE TALK HER EVERY DAY FOR HOURS."
"Ah," I say, wisely. "Oedipus complex," I say, not so wisely.
Firecracker pounces: new word, unknown concept. "WHAT THAT? WHAT EDI-PUS COMPLEX?"
College Boy, who is even less wise than I, interjects. "I know that. Oedipal complex."
"EXPLAIN TO ME! WHAT EDI-PAL COMPLEX?"
The rest of the quiver instantly scatters, frightened into flight by the prospect of the Firecracker finding out what an Oedipus complex is. Our manager skids hastily back to her cube, eyes shiny.
"College Boy will explain it," I tell the Firecracker, and make my own quick escape over the sounds of College Boy whimpering, and Firecracker yelling. "WHAT? TELL ME WHAT EDI-PAL COMPLEX? WHAT? WHAT? WHAT IS IT? HOW YOU SPELL? WHAT IT MEAN? WHAT? WHAT?"
The Guy's car is named Bob, and he was unhappy, so I took him to get a bath and now everything's better.
We had an actual discussion about this on the phone. "We're getting very intimate," I assured him. "I drive him pretty much every day. He has a lot of moving parts, doesn't he? I named him Bob."
This met with disfavor from The Guy. Apparently, 'Bob' is a girl. "Don't be ridiculous," I scoffed. "He's definitely a guy."
This is apparently an insult to The Guy's manhood.
"How can you say that? She is so female. I could see Roberta, maybe, but Bob?"
I agreed to compromise on 'Bobby' to calm him down, but I have to admit that I'm not really convinced. Are there homosexual overtones to having a male car if one's a guy? "I wouldn't emasculate you," I whispered confidingly to Bob on the freeway, later, and he purred in response. Although now that I think about it, our apartment manager is named Bob, and he flames.
I sit here in my cube, typing harmlessly away at my journal, and I can hear the Firecracker screeching at walls, since College Boy has disclaimed knowledge and taken refuge somewhere safe. "WHAT EPI-DUS? IS DISEASE? WHERE?"
I shall always treasure the picture of her four-month old baby that she sent to our department, attached to the following email:
Hey guys, Attached is my baby's latest picture. Take a look. I choose this one to send it out is becasue[sic] this is my favor [sic] picture. If you wonder why he doesn't have any hair, that's becuase [sic] I shake [sic] all his hair off on weekend. :)
"Hey, did you really shake all his hair off?" I called over the wall, cautiously.
The Firecracker's voice came floating (cannoning) back. "YA, BECAUSE IT SO HEAVY BY MISTAKE."
"Oh," I said, weakly, and let it go.
Lest anybody think the Firecracker is adding child abuse to her other characteristics, I should explain that we eventually established that she meant 'shave,' though in my mind that's not substantially better. Her baby has a very round head. Kind of like a bowling ball, with nostrils.
We had a group meeting at work, where the Manager told us that her boss was going to be leaving the company. I was wondering why the woman had been in such a good mood for the last week or so; that would do it, I suppose. The kind of euphoria experienced by the college grad right after the last final is done and the first job is settled. "Also," said the Manager while we were digesting this, "I will be joining the company."
Overlooking the fact that she sounded like she would have preferred to read us her grocery list, we hurled congratulations and cheers over her head. Her status as a contractor had given us some uneasy qualms from time to time; it wasn't so much that most companies get rid of contractors first as a cost-cutting measure, but the fact that she could get sick of work and leave whenever she wanted to.
Although, now that I think about it, the situation hasn't particularly changed all that much.
She told us that there were going to be lay-offs, but that she didn't think there was going to be much impact in our group, if any. "Maybe some restructuring," she supposed. "They might want to farm some of us out to other engineering groups for a while. We have a good reputation for getting things done. Slowly, maybe, but getting them done at all is good. Also, we're nice and easy to work with, and we never get upset."
"It's because we're all women," the rest of us carolled in unison, then turned as one to stare at College Boy, who was sinking in his chair.
"Hey!" he protested.
"Don't worry," we said, comfortingly. "You're just one of the girls."
College Boy chose to look depressed.