Employee of the Month
This morning I woke up at 4 in the morning and couldn’t get back to sleep. I had one of those panic-sparked adrenalin surge flashes into instantaneous and total consciousness usually reserved for suddenly realizing your entire house smells like gas. Mine was about my finances - I awoke terrified that I was completely broke and about to be crushed by I don’t know what - my landlord or creditors or aliens or something. As it turns out, somehow, my finances were more than just in order - I seem to be more flush with dough than I was when I got canned last month. And then I got the call from Preston asking me to rejoin the weakass document review team for a project that ought to last through December, so I’m going to be even more flush with cash through the holidays.
All of this is not just to brag about my finances or lament my alien-phobic paranoia, but actually to justify how it was that today I splurged and shelled out the full retail price of $19.99 for The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou at Fred Meyer, or more specifically, to explain what I was doing in the electronics section, wherein works the actual subject of my post, this one employee whose name now escapes me.
In principle I prefer to avoid feeling deeply about things. I like to keep things sort of casually cerebral. If I’m going to feel deeply about something, I want that something to be either totally abstract, like whether the Fed should raise interest rates again, or something whimsical, like my hair. The downside of that for you, dear reader, is that there aren’t that many things (outside teaching high school kids and visiting Fred Meyer) that generally grab me enough to actually compel me to compose a post, but there is this one thing that always gets me all riled up and happy, this thing that never fails to at least partially restore my faith in humanity: I love people who are very good at and completely devoted to utterly crap jobs. I delight in people who maintain a sense of dignity and honor in whatever it is they’re doing, and I saw that tonight and it made me sit down and write this.
I hope that I’m one of those people. It’s in keeping with the personal credo I’ve been working on over the last year or so, which, while still a work in progress, goes something like this: “The best a man can hope for is to live with a little bit of dignity, and a little bit of style.” There - that’s my motto. Working document review taught it to me, although Martin Luther King (and heck, probably Martin Luther long before him) preached it 50 years ago: Be the best street sweeper you can be. That’s a paraphrase, of course - I think his had something about angels in it, but you get the drift.
Today, though, I saw my favorite Fred Meyer employee, who for the sake of this post we’ll call Bob. His name may very well have been Bob. Bob works the electronics department some weekday evenings - now I love me some Fred Meyer, but thankfully not enough to know Bob’s schedule. Bob’s probably in his early sixties. He stands around 5’7” and is comfortably portly, with graying hair that’s become very, very sparse on top and a full but well trimmed mustache - sort of halfway between State Patrol and Hitler. He wears wire rimmed glasses. He doesn’t have a British accent. I mention that because what Bob is, if you can believe this, metaphorically speaking, is Bob is the goddamn English Butler of Fred Meyer. He’s always flawlessly polite, terribly dignified, and possessing that magic sort of energetic grace and cheerful humorlessness that I had thought Sir Anthony Hopkins had somehow managed to copyright. I swear to God Bob has never cracked a smile, and has also never made me wish he would. This was something like our exchange tonight:
I approach the checkout stand with my purchases. He says “Good evening, sir.”
“Hi,” I say, “I’d like to buy these.”
“Yes, sir,” he rings them up. “Do you have a Fred Meyer Rewards card?”
“No, I don’t,” I say, “I don’t think anyone’s ever explained to me what the benefit of having one is.”
“Do you spend more than $500 in a three month period at Fred Meyer?” he asks.
“Actually, I might,” I say.
At this point, just for a second, I see sort of a weird flicker of irritation pass over Bob’s face - in retrospect I realize it’s because I’ve just accidentally obligated Bob to blow smoke up my ass, and he doesn’t like it one bit. But he’s a professional, so he puts on his game face: “There’s a brochure right in front of you on the other side of the cash register, there - see the smiling lady?”
“Er…this one?”
“No, I’ll get one for you.” At this point he goes around to the other side of the counter and returns with a brochure with a bigger smiling lady on it (it’s one of those kiosk-y sort of counters with a register on both sides, so he gets a brochure from the other side of the other register, if you get my meaning). He opens it for me and hands it to me. “Fill this out for next time and bring it in with you. With your Fred Meyer rewards card you’ll receive a 1% rebate in coupons on each purchase you make after $500 in a three month period.” I stare at him for a second, then down at the brochure, then back at him.
“One percent.” I say.
“Yes sir,” he replies - totally deadpan.
“In coupons,” I continue.
“That’s right,” he says, his face still a perfect mask of reasonableness.
“In exchange for detailed information on my purchasing habits.”
He doesn’t even dignify this comment with a response.
“Well, er…” I sum up, “Um, thank you very much.”
“Certainly, sir. You have a pleasant evening.”
Bob is the coolest dude in the universe.
All of this is not just to brag about my finances or lament my alien-phobic paranoia, but actually to justify how it was that today I splurged and shelled out the full retail price of $19.99 for The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou at Fred Meyer, or more specifically, to explain what I was doing in the electronics section, wherein works the actual subject of my post, this one employee whose name now escapes me.
In principle I prefer to avoid feeling deeply about things. I like to keep things sort of casually cerebral. If I’m going to feel deeply about something, I want that something to be either totally abstract, like whether the Fed should raise interest rates again, or something whimsical, like my hair. The downside of that for you, dear reader, is that there aren’t that many things (outside teaching high school kids and visiting Fred Meyer) that generally grab me enough to actually compel me to compose a post, but there is this one thing that always gets me all riled up and happy, this thing that never fails to at least partially restore my faith in humanity: I love people who are very good at and completely devoted to utterly crap jobs. I delight in people who maintain a sense of dignity and honor in whatever it is they’re doing, and I saw that tonight and it made me sit down and write this.
I hope that I’m one of those people. It’s in keeping with the personal credo I’ve been working on over the last year or so, which, while still a work in progress, goes something like this: “The best a man can hope for is to live with a little bit of dignity, and a little bit of style.” There - that’s my motto. Working document review taught it to me, although Martin Luther King (and heck, probably Martin Luther long before him) preached it 50 years ago: Be the best street sweeper you can be. That’s a paraphrase, of course - I think his had something about angels in it, but you get the drift.
Today, though, I saw my favorite Fred Meyer employee, who for the sake of this post we’ll call Bob. His name may very well have been Bob. Bob works the electronics department some weekday evenings - now I love me some Fred Meyer, but thankfully not enough to know Bob’s schedule. Bob’s probably in his early sixties. He stands around 5’7” and is comfortably portly, with graying hair that’s become very, very sparse on top and a full but well trimmed mustache - sort of halfway between State Patrol and Hitler. He wears wire rimmed glasses. He doesn’t have a British accent. I mention that because what Bob is, if you can believe this, metaphorically speaking, is Bob is the goddamn English Butler of Fred Meyer. He’s always flawlessly polite, terribly dignified, and possessing that magic sort of energetic grace and cheerful humorlessness that I had thought Sir Anthony Hopkins had somehow managed to copyright. I swear to God Bob has never cracked a smile, and has also never made me wish he would. This was something like our exchange tonight:
I approach the checkout stand with my purchases. He says “Good evening, sir.”
“Hi,” I say, “I’d like to buy these.”
“Yes, sir,” he rings them up. “Do you have a Fred Meyer Rewards card?”
“No, I don’t,” I say, “I don’t think anyone’s ever explained to me what the benefit of having one is.”
“Do you spend more than $500 in a three month period at Fred Meyer?” he asks.
“Actually, I might,” I say.
At this point, just for a second, I see sort of a weird flicker of irritation pass over Bob’s face - in retrospect I realize it’s because I’ve just accidentally obligated Bob to blow smoke up my ass, and he doesn’t like it one bit. But he’s a professional, so he puts on his game face: “There’s a brochure right in front of you on the other side of the cash register, there - see the smiling lady?”
“Er…this one?”
“No, I’ll get one for you.” At this point he goes around to the other side of the counter and returns with a brochure with a bigger smiling lady on it (it’s one of those kiosk-y sort of counters with a register on both sides, so he gets a brochure from the other side of the other register, if you get my meaning). He opens it for me and hands it to me. “Fill this out for next time and bring it in with you. With your Fred Meyer rewards card you’ll receive a 1% rebate in coupons on each purchase you make after $500 in a three month period.” I stare at him for a second, then down at the brochure, then back at him.
“One percent.” I say.
“Yes sir,” he replies - totally deadpan.
“In coupons,” I continue.
“That’s right,” he says, his face still a perfect mask of reasonableness.
“In exchange for detailed information on my purchasing habits.”
He doesn’t even dignify this comment with a response.
“Well, er…” I sum up, “Um, thank you very much.”
“Certainly, sir. You have a pleasant evening.”
Bob is the coolest dude in the universe.