"Rob, ...." I knew what was coming, and I thought about just walking out that door and not coming back. I'd been through the conversation so many times, you'd think I would have accepted it by now, but I hadn't. I hated working late.
"I need you to stay late. That tri-fold mailer needs to be to press by tomorrow."
"We can email them a PDF of it in the morning," I said hopefully. "That's what they're going to use to print from anyway."
"If we don't give them a sample, they'll screw up the colors. They always do. The CEO's on the mailing list, so he'll be on my case if it is wrong. Last time they got our logo color wrong, I thought he was going to have a stroke yelling at me."
Actually, he did have a heart attack a few weeks later as I recalled. Larry was the CEO's name. He was a chain smoking, coffee guzzling ADD case that didn't know what personal space was. Pumped up on more caffeine and nicotine than could legally, or medically be in anyone's blood, he would zip around the office making people run to catch up, but that was his slow walk. Over stimulation, such as from the wrong color of the company logo on a brochure, brought on a change that took his speed, lack of social courtesy and ADD to new incredibly horrible levels.
Larry would always plant his face inches away from your face, breath heavy with a mixture of tar and coffee grindings. His breath could have been used in fumigations by pest control. I was fairly certain of it.
When Larry planted himself uncomfortably close to your face, you had no options for escape. Are you going to tell your CEO, your boss's boss, his breath stinks, please back up? He's the type who would make your life miserable. I know. Why do you think I was being asked to work late?
A few months ago Larry had intercepted me in the lobby. I tried to step to the side and continue on, with him stepping into my path three times before I realized that he had intentionally blocked my forward progress.
There he was, five uncomfortable inches from my face. His breath nauseating me as it fell on me. I couldn't help but feel like I was going to barf. I didn't dare offend him, but I knew I'd lose my job if threw up on him. I didn't know what to do.
As he droned on about making spec sheets more sexy, I did all I could. I stepped back. He matched me and never moved from his stationary five inch placement in front of my face. I had to do something, so I took another step, and another. Owing to taking the step back with the same leg, and slightly pulling to the side, I ended up backing around in a larger circle in the lobby.
I soon passed the original location he had stopped me at and was well on my way to making another circuit of the lobby when he finally decided that he had transferred enough knowledge to me. The nauseating stench receded as he flitted down a side hallway, stalking some other victim.
The secretary burst out laughing.
"That was funny! You couldn't shake him no matter how fast you backed up!"
I tried to smile.
"Do you think he noticed?" I asked.
"Nah. Larry? I doubt it."
But he had. For nearly three months now, I had been asked to work late almost every night. Sometimes it was my boss, sometimes Larry directly, sometimes it was a sales, or marketing guy. None of it was coincidence. Larry's name always came up.
What could I do about it really? Find a new job? I could hear the interview already, ....
"So, Robert, why are you looking to leave your current company?"
"They make me work late."
"So you have a problem with meeting deadlines do you?"
I had no escape. I couldn't escape Larry, and I couldn't escape his company. I couldn't even escape working late another night.
I sighed as my boss walked back into his office. It wasn't his fault. It wasn't anyone's fault, except Larry's, and I had too many bills to just quit. I turned back to the computer on my desk. I already had an email from Larry, saying he was working late and wanted approve the tri-fold mailer before I mailed it off. There were two typos in the email. I decided not to tell him.
"Great," I mumbled. My mood grew darker. Larry would send it back for "minor" changes that require whole reworks, over and over. That was, when I wasn't waiting for him to get finished with a phone call or a text or an email.
I groaned again, "I hate my life. I hate this job. I hate Larry."
I pulled out my phone and dialed up my wife. The baby was down for a nap, so she answered before I thought the phone could have rang at all. She spoke in a whisper not wanting to wake up the baby.
"I need to work late," I said.
"Again? I barely ever see you and you never spend anytime with the baby anymore."
"What do you want me to do? Quit? We have to buy food."
"So it's my fault you work to much?" She wasn't whispering anymore. I wasn't sure how I had blamed her. What did I say?
I paused and she hung up before I could say another word. I pressed the red button on my cell phone. I couldn't win. I would lose my job if I went home, and I was in trouble with my wife now for keeping my job. It felt like a weight was on me that I couldn't get out from under. I felt the stress squeezing me like I was inside some sort of iron maiden. It was horrible. I just wanted it to stop.
I finished the first draft of the tri-fold mailer by about eight. I checked IM, and saw that Larry was still online. I had been hoping that he would have left, but no such luck. I IM'ed him, and he said come on up, I'm on the phone, but I'll be off in a moment.
It wasn't a moment, it was more of half an hour, and then the changes were extensive enough that I just started over in a new window and cut and paste elements in. Even the text needed reworking. He said he'd have that finished while I made the layout changes. He didn't of course, so at 9:30pm I was sitting in a chair in his office waiting for him to finish on the phone so that I could get back to finishing the new layout for the mailer. As far as I could tell, he was arranging a hunting trip with an old college buddy. I guess even the devil has buddies.
I tried not to give him the satisfaction of knowing how miserable he was making me. I tried to think about my daughter. She was 2 1/2 now, but we still called her our baby. She was our only child. Every time I came home, she would yell "DADA!!!" and run up to me. When I was home, she wouldn't leave my side. My wife even started calling her "your daughter", because she wouldn't pay any attention to my wife when I was around.
That helped for a while, but I was still waiting for Larry to get off the phone at 10. Did he have nothing better to do than to waste my time? The overwhelming pressure came back again in full force. All I wanted was relief. I wanted to go home, watch some TV, eat and read my daughter a bedtime story. It had been a month since I read her a bedtime story.
Larry got off the phone at close to ten. He took one look at the brochure and said he liked it better the old way. Bring him a new copy of the old layout with the new text he just emailed me. I forced a smile and said sure thing.
I returned to desk. The email was not waiting for me. I waited. Ten minutes later, it still hadn't shown up. I IM'ed Larry. He apologized, and said he had forgotten to click send. I didn't see the email until 10:30. Of course, it was full of typos, grammar problems and incomplete thoughts. I pulled up the old layout, inserted the text and returned to Larry's waiting chair by 11:00.
Soon he had approved a copy and I was off for the airport post office. It wasn't going to be on a plane tonight, but Larry insisted I take care of it immediately.
Dark, clear and chilled, the night intruded into my little car and my weariness, imposing its solitude on my nearly finished day. Tired of work, I pulled up at the airport post office. My little Nissan grunted and lurched as I forced it to stop. It almost seemed to enjoy the night.
Not me. All that I had left to do was drop off a package and then I could go home. I was in luck. There were only three people in line. Then I saw, him. At the counter, a blond man in jeans and a tan fake leather jacket. He had three stacks of yellow envelopes, each a foot and a half tall. The clerk was affixing postage, one ... at ... a ... time.
"Hum," went the meter. The worker affixed the postage slowly. Pause. Pause. Pause some more. Pause a bit longer, and finally, "Hum," went the meter, and the whole thing started again.
I looked up at the clock. It was midnight. The long slender red finger passed the hour, just as I looked up. The clock was grimy, like my mood. Its off white face, tanned with age and disgust. The clock's face was jaded and, ... and just wanted a break.
I looked at the blond man in jeans. He looked straight ahead, refusing to acknowledge every eye was looking at him, wondering why he was keeping them here at this unthinkable hour. Why not keep someone else from going to bed?
A middle aged woman, kind of dowdy, stood at the counter with a child, a teenager, just reaching womanhood, drawing on the box they sought to send. Black magic marker hearts and stars kept their minds off the blond man in ratty jeans. They smiled and chatted merrily about their magic marker art work, defying the clock on the wall that just wanted to go home and crawl into bed and get up too early the next morning to go to work again.
Do post office clocks have homes, or do they just tick forever until they stop, too burned out to continue, and are thrown out like trash after years of faithful service?
I looked at the clock again. Fifteen minutes after midnight, and still the pause and hum and pause, and pause. The dreadfully long wait continued over and over. I looked at the dirty blond man in ratty jeans again. He still looked forward, not daring to look our way. I figured that he too wanted to go home and just had a boss with more mail than my boss, but still, the stacks did not seem to be going down, and his hair seemed more dirty than blond and his jeans seemed rattier than they were.
"No, I don't want to put stars in the eyes," the girl blurted out, louder than made me comfortable.
"It would be cute," the dowdy woman said.
"It would be embarrassing."
"Who's the package for?" The man I had not looked at said.
He stood between the girl and the dirty blond man in the ratty jeans with a hole in the back pocket. He was unremarkable. He probably looked similar to me, to the girl that is. Just an old guy to be forgotten when this ordeal was over, a face no different than the rest to be ignored.
Hum.
12:22 AM.
"Is it for your boyfriend?" The unremarkable man continued to press.
"No," the girl answered. "Well, kinda, ... no."
"Kinda no?" The man repeated, smiling in a good natured way that won her trust.
"He would be if she had her way," the other older woman said.
"Mom, ...."
I smiled. The mom had embarrassed her daughter, but it a way we older ones found cute. I stole a glance at the girl and wondered if my daughter would be like this when she got older. I tried to imagine my daughter and I years from now standing in a post office line after midnight joking about a care package she would be sending to a potential boy friend. That little fantasy made it just a little easier to stand there waiting to go home.
"Really?" The man prodded a little more, breaking the boredom.
"He's a grad student at Yale, full scholarship in their medical program."
I sized the girl up again. She must be older than she looked. She still looked like a teenager to me.
"Sounds like a keeper," the unremarkable man said.
"Yeah," the girl spoke affirmingly. "I'm a grad student too, so we have a lot in common, but I'm in Lit."
I looked at her. I used to date women like her, ... once. Attractive, shaped with youth and vigor, good prospects, and still having no clue about the world and how mean it is. She was smiling. I smiled. It was a good memory.
Hum.
We all glanced silently at the road block at the counter, then the young woman said to the unremarkable man, "Do you want to draw a star on it?" She pushed the package playfully along the counter and handed him the thick marker she had been drawing with.
"Sure," he smiled, flirting. "How 'bout here?"
He drew an oversize star with a smiley face and a winking eye.
"Oh, that is art," the older woman said laughing.
The younger woman smiled and nodded.
"You have to sign it," the attractive woman said.
He didn't hesitate, and laid down an impressively flourished John Hancock.
"Your turn," she looked me in the eye. I looked away holding my breath.
"Just a dot!" She laughed.
"I, ...."
She pushed a sharpie at me. I took it hesitantly. I smiled at her.
"Okay."
I drew a small dot.
"Oh," she gasp. "Very nice."
I smiled, meaning it.
"Finally," the older man spoke. The blond man was gone, and then he was gone and then the women were leaving.
The lovely young woman smiled and waved goodbye to me.
I waved, goodbye. And turned to the clerk, and smiled.
"Sorry about the wait," he said shaking his head.
I smiled, handing him my package.
"Oh, that's okay," I said.
He nodded and turned to weigh the package, and that's when the power went out. We stood across the counter awkwardly in the dark. I didn't let out a string of expletives, but I wanted to.
I had long since stopped looking at my watch when I put my key into my front door's deadbolt lock. The lights were on, which could only mean that my wife and the baby were up. I would get to see my daughter awake for once. I was relieved the moment I saw them in the kitchen.
My daughter was facing my wife half way between us. I smiled and got down on one knee preparing for her to run to me when she saw me.
My wife said, "Look. Daddy's home."
My daughter turned to me, but cried and ran to her mom.
"Scary stranger!" She screamed and buried her face in her mother's pant leg. She wouldn't stop crying, and wanted nothing to do with me. She would scream louder if I got closer to her. Life's not fair. No one ever claimed it was.
I updated my resume before I went to sleep, and placed it online. I also checked the want ads and sent out three copies to potential employers. Larry had won. I had lost.
I spent a little time over the next few days collecting samples of my graphic design work from this job. My portfolio was very impressive. I had a job interview from one of the companies the next Saturday. They were interested in stealing a working designer rather than hiring one that couldn't get a job, so were very willing to interview me on a day or at a time I was normally working.
The job interview was at a service bureau. Service bureau graphic design jobs are the most technical of graphic design jobs. They have all the coolest high end equipment for creating proofs, posters and anything that gets delivered to presses and engravers. Graphic designers at service bureaus are supposed to be able to do everything that other designers can do and more. I really didn't stand any chance of getting a job there, but I was desperate, so I went for the interview anyway.
The outside of the building wasn't much to look at. This was not one of the high end service bureaus, obviously. The building was made up of three store fronts all at least 100 years old slammed up next to each other. The collision must have been violent, because bricks from the building's facing were missing and concrete in the building and out front in the sidewalk was cracked or crumbling fast. Still, I felt intimidated. I new what I didn't know, and I hoped the interviewer didn't ask me the wrong question.
I walked into the center of the three stores. It was the one with the company sign posted above the door, and the open sign turned over in the front window. The inside had a counter to drop off jobs and a woman was waiting there patiently for me to tell her what I was there for. I told her that I had a scheduled interview with the owner. She said he would be just a moment and would I mind waiting in the conference room.
The conference room table was littered with magazines, books, brochures and samples that were all arranged to impress prospective customers. I looked at a few, and spent my time deciding how I would recreate them if I were the designer in charge.
I had probably been waiting 15 minutes when the lady from the counter came in to tell me that the owner was running an errand and would be back in a few minutes, would I mind waiting? I told her that was fine. I was thinking that if this guy wasn't a "Larry", I might be able to use the guilt card to help get the job.
The owner showed up 40 minutes after my interview was supposed to start. He was an older guy, an old pressman. He did looked a bit sheepish about being late. He had forgotten about the interview.
While he looked through my portfolio, he had me describe how I would reproduce a logo that was on one of the samples on the table. It was a simple one color logo with no screens. I told him that I'd scan it, and use a vector drawing program to trace the outline.
"You're familiar with Bezier Curves then."
I forced myself not to roll my eyes.
"Yes. I have even created my own typefaces before. I have an example at the back of my portfolio. Yes, that page there." I pointed.
He was impressed.
"Are you familiar with avoiding Moire patterns?"
I stifled a deep breath. I had never had to worry about that kind of thing before. That's a problem for the service bureaus or printers, but that would be my problem if I worked here.
"I would have to experiment a little."
He smiled. "I would have called you a liar if you said otherwise. Even experienced technicians have to mess around a bit sometimes. They're pretty hard to prevent 100% of the time."
The interview went well, and as the door closed on my way out I heard the woman behind the counter say, "Well, you'd better hire him, you made him wait all afternoon." Hearing that was just beautiful to hear.
Luck was with me. They had just fired their key designer and needed someone before the backlog of jobs was too much to handle. I was offered the new job within a week. I gave my two weeks notice at my job, but as soon as Larry heard, he had security escort me like a criminal off company property. I never even cleared off my desk or said good bye to any of my friends.
The new job was still work, and not any better than the old job, but they respected my nights, and weekends, and there was no Larry. Soon my daughter was calling me "Dada" again. I'm still not certain where she picked up the phrase "scary stranger". I suspect my wife, but I know better than to bring it up.