Danny Glover

My job is a lot easier than yours.

Just trust me on this. I almost feel guilty for using the word ‘job’ for what I do, but regardless I pay my taxes all good like, so I think it qualifies as employment. I won’t go into how or why in explicit detail – this is just something you can either take or leave.

One example of how ridiculous my job can be is we’re responsible for scheduling ourselves weekly on a Google document page connected to my ASU account. Every weekend or so, I open the shit up and look at what’s going on each day the following week and make the ultimate ruling on how I want to make my money. This is a very small liberty I realize, as I’m sure many others out there are afforded something similar. Nevertheless, the bottom line is I don’t have anyone breathing down my neck telling me, “You have to work this day,” and on the other hand, “You can’t work this day,” which is to say the days I’m up in the air on in the coming week, I can conveniently leave myself off the schedule and change my mind if I’m so inclined. Today was unfortunately one of those days.

There’s a kid at work who has a stutter named Chris and he’ll make you realize just how truly terrible a person you are just by being Chris. Don’t get me wrong: dude’s speech impediment is not anything I can’t handle. Still, when you’re at work and actually working (a rare occasion in my line of employment), you can get a little stressed out because dude can’t spit out the fucking words at the same time your mind processes what he is clearly going to say. The rude thing to do, in my humble opinion, would be to finish his sentence for him. I try my best to treat him like any other dude I work with. Still … some days, man. I swear to christ.

Here’s an example of a daily conversation with Chris:

(I see Chris coming in the front door of the office.)
“Yo, Chris. What’s up?”
“H-hey, T-T-T-T-“
(Ty)
“T-T-“
(Fucking Ty)
“Ty.”

But back to the present. Today was unfortunately one of the days I wasn’t scheduled, by my own choosing, but stupidly chose to come in anyways for some extra money. The big task of the day delegated to myself and Chris was to move the video board – a 20k hulking piece of shit equipment (powered by the sun!) used to direct traffic. Upon acceptance of the task, my immediate thought was, “I’m gonna fuck this up somehow.”

Me and Chris set out and discover the hulking piece of shit equipment in front of parking structure 4 (Some argue the best parking structure ASU has to offer), and shit is on top of a curb in the dirt. I started to wonder how the fuck we’d be able to hitch the video board and move it. We had two options.

A. Make a wide ass turn and hope to god we didn’t get fucked by the median.
B. Back the hell off the curb and hope for the best.

To frame your mind around this, it was two idiots who’ve never hauled a trailer or anything in their lives. Something shitty had to happen. Well, Chris ended up backing the hell off the curb and we eventually were in the clear. As soon as we arrived to the location, Chris the genius opted not to take the easy route and make a wide turn into the entrance, choosing instead to drive a whole fuck of a lot more around a tiny barricaded parking lot. Unfortunately for Chris, his route involved a lot of backing up which resulted in the hulking piece of shit video board snapping off the hitch and one end of it smashing into the ground.

[At this point, the two idiots get out of the car to survey the damage.]

It takes about 20 minutes standing in the 108 degree weather to determine that two strapping men cannot physically do a god damn thing to fix this, hitch it up again. I started having thoughts like Danny Glover. Like, this was supposed to be my day off. I was this close to retirement. I’m getting too old for this.

Chris stood there and stuttered about a whole bunch of garbage I wasn’t even listening to, because I was waiting for the dude to own the moment and drive back to the office, tail between his legs, and say, “I sort of broke the hulking piece of shit 20k video board.” I wanted no part in the shit storm. I was riding shotgun, fuck that.

Chris seemed pretty nervous about going back, so he stuttered about it for a long time. I started to get irritated, realizing we were just fucking standing there. Chris and his speech impediment make me realize how terrible of a father I’ll be one day.

Chris comes rolling back with some dude Mark I always see at the office, whom the only thing I know about is used to want to be a cop. We don’t talk. Mark radios in a crew of two other mild mannered gentlemen. He then instructs Chris and one dude to stand on the side that’s pointing up, while me and sunglasses pathetically attempt to lift the downed side. Miraculously, this happens somehow. So long story short, we narrowly missed breaking a hulking piece of shit 20k equipment.

Supposed to be my day off, man.