I'm Such a Charlie.

Well, actually I guess I'm not this Charlie.  You see, he's a janitor, which apparently I'm not qualified to be.  You think I'm just being overly-dramatic?  Well, why don't you chew on this letter I got today, while I go configure a proper noose that will hold a 170 pou...160 pound man from a ceiling fan.

Dear Shaun:


We appreciate your interest in the position of Custodian-10089290. After careful consideration, we regret to inform you that you have not been selected for this position.


We will retain your candidate file in our database and may inform you of job openings that match your profile if you selected this option. 


We thank you for your interest in Cintas and wish you all the best in your career.


Sincerely,
Cintas Human Resources

Now there are a few things that bother me about this.
1. Uh, yeah.  I didn't get a janitor job.
2. This is the second janitor job I have applied for that I didn't get.  The first janitor interview took place in a converted house/office with two hookers who also applied for the job.  I'm guessing there were some extra "interview techniques" that I didn't know to perform.  And yes, I said, "janitor interview".
3. Um, if I wasn't qualified for the JANITOR position, exactly what mf'ing job opening on your website WOULD match my profile?

and, my favorite part of this whole thing...

THEY SENT THIS TO ME TWICE.

Yes, as if that first kick in the gut of "You really don't meet the stringent requirements we here at Cintas place on our Janitorial positions" wasn't enough, they felt the need to send me this email two times in a row.  Sort of to say, "Heh.  We here at Cintas would just like to REALLY make sure you understand how pathetic you really are, by sending you a janitor job rejection letter...twice.  Tomorrow you will also be receiving a certified letter by USPS, as well as a note by carrier pigeon.  We also assume you do keep a morse code machine in your home.  It will come in as dot dot dot, dot, dot dot dot dot, 5 more dots and a beep.  We would ask you not to reply to the morse code as it is an automatic sender and your reply will only serve to wake up the stable of carrier pigeons that maintains our Rejection Notification Office.  Thank you for your interest in Cintas."

DEPRESSED CHARLIE

 I really hope that one day dude just snaps and beats the hell out of Lucy.  If I was on the jury, I'd say the chronic back injury he suffered from all those years of missing the football warranted the violence. 

So maybe I'm less a Charlie from Sunny in Philly and more a Charlie Brown.  The luck sure isn't there.  And although I don't say "Good Grief" as much as I do, "This is bullshit, Goddammit", the comparison is apt.  Let's start with the night at the toy store tonight, THE worst night yet.

When I first get there, I know we've got a truck so I'm already not in a good mood.  Then Bitch Johnson who thinks she's the leader when she's not, comes over and addresses us.  She tells us that we need to watch where we leave boxes and it's not someone else's job to clean them up and whatever.  Thankfully Karma got that package of weed I sent in the mail, because about an hour later, she cut herself on a box.  She ran up to me all frantic and goes, "OH. OH.  That's not good! That's not good!"  I look and say matter-of-fact, "I'm sure there's a first aid kit."  Then she runs off.  Good.  That's what you get for playing God.  Apparently God bleeds, though, doesn't She.  Anyway, she wasn't even the worst part of the night.

After a few minutes, the actual real Boss takes me and three other guys to the back.  I thought we were going to put boxes on the shelves or something, which I wasn't happy about because that's rougher work than opening boxes.  Well, I was in for an even worse surprise.  We were going to unload the semi.  Now, I hadn't done this before, so I had NO idea what I was getting into.  Basically a guy rolls boxes down the shoot, Bossman calls out a color, throws a box to us, and we lay it on the pallet that corresponds with the color.  Now for the first 30 minutes or so, I was actually having fun.  It was like playing catch.  He'd toss the box, we'd catch it, run it to the end zone, (or pallet), spike it (lay it down on the pallet), and turn around and catch another one.  It's a lot of running and catching.  However, after about a half hour it went from a game to torture.  The boxes never stopped.  And when a pallet was full we had to lift it, drag the whole thing out to the store, run back and catch more boxes.  I lost all concept of time.  My legs were hurting like a stripper who's only bit is doing that squat/booty-dance thing that, while fun to watch, doesn't make up for the bullet wounds and C-section scars.

The boxes kept coming.  We kept catching and running. I was sweating like a slave and being treated like one too, as Bossman pulled out bottle after bottle of water, drinking it in front of us in what seemed to be a blatant taunt while we picked cotton drinking our own sweat for sustenance.  The only thing is the slaves had it better because at least they weren't as hot seeing as they could go shirtless and were outside in the fresh air.  This warehouse smelled of stale butter and rape.  And for all their Kumbaya's and such, those slaves couldn't have handled this shit today.  For one, you needed muscle, and skinny-ass slaves, while fit, were bred for endurance, not strength.  Secondly, after about 2 1/2 hours of catching and moving boxes, I looked down at my hands.  They were akin to what one who's name was Toby might have seen after a long day in the fields in the slave days of yore...black, grimy, a smell of fear, misery, and want of the white woman.  Thirdly, I am way off base here and before I alienate everyone who reads this blog who isn't white and in charge, I'll stop right now.

Finally, around 1:00am, after three straight hours of unloading this truck, Bossman says, "Why don't you take a five minute break."  Oh really?  Thanks, dude.  Even sports coaches know that you can't bust players' asses for three straight hours without some sort of time to recuperate.  So five minutes just isn't going to cut it.  But whatever.  I officially hate you and I've done my time, and if you are one of the people who subscribe to the stereotype that "blacks are lazy", well, my friend, wait till you see me after this "five minute break".  Asshole.

HOMICIDAL CHARLIE

When you look at Charlie Manson and think, "Christ, he actually looks better than me, then you're REALLY in trouble, Mel Gibson."

So after the five minute break, I was rejuvenated a bit, and decided to forgo the lazy bit and actually work, moving pallets, dumping boxes, etc.  I knew my lunch was in an hour, and I honestly was considering going to lunch and never coming back.  I brought my lunch but I was so sore and pissed off by this point that I just wanted to go home. And I should have.  I went to McDonald's at 2a for "lunch", ate in the car because I was sick of everyone, and then something happened.  I had my first Coke in I don't know how long.  Holy shit.  When you haven't had Coke in months, it's like that first hit of heroin the morning you get out of rehab.  It was amazing.  I loved it.  I was smiling in the car listening to "Just Got Paid" by Johnny Kemp, and for one brief second I wasn't so pissed anymore.  Not only was I drinking Coke, which was awesome, but I was picturing Johnny Kemp doing the exact same thing I was doing, but his life probably sucked even more because seriously, at one point he was Johnny Kemp the singer.  Now he's Johnny Kemp the clean up on aisle four.  Sad.  Much sadder than me.  So I decided to go back in.

DRINKING CHARLIE

HAHAHA!!!!  What a freaking mistake that was!!!  I walk in there, and things have gone to shit.  There are boxes everywhere and really nothing has been done.  For some reason they had all the old people out opening the boxes, and their frail little fingers can apparently only move so fast because of the Bersitis or whatever they've got.  There is something called "Bersitis" right?  Well, even if there isn't it sounds like something old people would get in their fingers.  But the point is that the stupid Bitch Johnson fake-ass boss was running around telling us to do one thing, the second-in-command who looked like the spawn of Bill Gates and Rita Rudner would tell us to do another, and nothing was getting done.  And tonight I told them that.  They didn't care to listen but just wanted to bark out orders that meant nothing.  Me and the other guys started talking about how shitty things were and how we wanted to get drunk.  Well, they MENTIONED how vodka would be nice, to which I felt the need to display my true self by saying, "Sure, vodka's nice, as long as it's backed up with Jager and about a 12 pack of beer."  An unsure chuckle.  I felt the need to continue by saying, "I think a 10am drinking start tomorrow sounds about right."  No one responded.  That's fine.  I'm guessing if I had said, "I'm guessing a 9am start to stalking that senior citizen who lives in the apartment next door" would have been something better for them to identify with.  Honestly, the ONLY fun time I had from 2:30-6 was when I opened a box of these plush dolls called Webkinz, and in 1.2 seconds this scenario ran through my head:

ME: Hey girls, guess what Daddy did at work today?
GIRLS: What? What?
ME: I opened a box of WEBKINZ!!
GIRLS:  Really? Did you bring us any?
ME: No.  No, I did not.

I found that funny for some reason and I laughed out loud.  The rest of the night was really disorganized and stupid, topped off by the end of the night, when I was leaving, and of course Gates Rudner asks me all disappointed, "You're leaving??"  After I said yes, he says all smug, "Well, you know we've got three more trucks next week...so, you know, it's going to be like this all week."  I said nothing and just walked away.  Because I'm thinking that "We" don't have anything next week sir.  YOU might, but WE sure don't.