Another Week Passes

Friday again. I struggle to find meaning, for myself and for this blog, and it is just a little alarming whenever another week passes without my having made any progress on that. You might think it is from getting old, but the truth is that when young, it's not that we actually have meaning, it is that we're too busy to realize or worry about the fact that we don't. It's nice to be needed.

One time a few years back as my son was lecturing me (as he is sometimes wont to do) about thinking of myself as "getting old," he said I was "still relevant." This made me laugh. Not because I know that I am not necessarily relevant, but because he sounded so much like a Sixties Baby Boomer. I suppose we can't help but transmit some of that stuff.  I guess as transmitted rhetoric goes, this was pretty benign. Anyway, he was probably talking about my continued willingness to loan him money from time to time.  No--that's not fair.  He's a good man.

So, as the years go by, dreams and aspirations become hobbies, which can be defined as stuff you like to do but no one else cares. One advantage is it takes a lot less energy to do anything when you're not trying to draw a crowd.

Meanwhile, while much can be said about my two years spent as a clerk at the phone company, back in the early 80s, the thing that I remember the most vividly was how, as the only guy in an office full of women, it would sometimes be tough to navigate all the office politics. I was often held to a different set of rules and standards when it suited the other clerks. It so happened that the last two guys who were clerks in that office wound up getting promoted to management pretty quickly, and of course leaving all of them behind. No doubt this bothered some of them, or it seemed to me that it did, and I eventually learned from an ally that some of them had actually gotten together and decided that they weren't going to let this latest guy (me) get promoted this time--not if they could help it.

They were very effective at this, even though it was moot, even though they failed to understand that I wasn't there to work my way into management--my plan, which was no secret, was to put in my two years to be eligible for a transfer, and get a job as an outside repair technician. Yes, and leave them all behind. So, I was treated OK, but only provisionally. I didn't care, that much, but the whole thing was sort of un-fun.

No matter. At about the two year mark, I figured out a way to get my transfer, even if it meant moving to Oklahoma; there was an oil boom going on down there, and much more work so that it was easier to get into the type of job I wanted. I submitted my transfer request, and it took about a month or so to get it. I was told one Friday that I was to report to work in Oklahoma City in a week. Luckily for me, the short notice wasn't a problem, and I got everything I owned into a '72 Oldsmobile Cutlass and drove down the Saturday before my start date. 

I'll give you the spoiler.   At that moment I had no reason to believe that Oklahoma City, a five hour drive to the south of Kansas City, would be anything other than a fine place to live.   I saw this as a permanent move.  I'd have to stay there for two years before I could put in another transfer, anyway. As it turned out, I was anxious to get back to KC some months before the two years were up, for a handful of reasons, and I managed to do so pretty much right after I had the two years in.

But that first day on the job, that was something. You might say a harbinger, but you might not if, like me, you weren't sure what that means. I found the work location, a long, low cinder block building next to a large, brick telephone central office, and I walked in and found the smallish room where my new crew was. I was a little early of course.  The phone company was very big on punctuality, and this was my first day and all. It was a medium sized beige room with a cluttered wooden desk in one corner--the boss's, I assumed, though no one was seated there--and a couple of long tables in the middle of the room, lined with chairs, with a scattered array of telephones on them.  A handful of guys were already sitting around, and they all looked up at me. Someone asked if I was the new guy, to which I answered yes and asked where the manager of the crew was.

"He's not here today," someone said. "He said you'd be here.  You're supposed to ride with Gene."

OK, so my first day was to be spent riding along with one of the techs.  Too bad I was so stupid I wasn't dressed for December weather in Oklahoma. I ascertained that Gene wasn't there yet. Then someone, who for the life of me for the next two weeks I thought was called "Little Phil" but whose name was actually Littlefield, (Oakie accents) looked up and asked me if I had ever done outside tech work before. They had no idea where I came from, or from what job. I said, no.

Littlefield just lowered his head and blurted "God DAMMIT!  They were supposed to get somebody in here who could start working right away!" 

"I'll learn as fast as I can," I said.

Welcome to Oklahoma.