iranian

Hahahaha. No, but seriously. Work hasn't been as bad as usual. Namely because I befriended two older, permanent staffers. Two men old enough to be my dad, and full of all sorts of fantastic fatherly advice. Aww bless.

The first was a fascinating Iranian intellectual who came to this area while pursuing his PhD in English about 20 years ago. Wow. We discussed politics and travel and academia and everything in between, while facing mail for two hours, usually the most onerous of tasks, involving sifting through long trays of mail, making sure each piece faces the same direction. It was the first intellectual conversation I've had in a very long time. I never realised how much I missed it. I'm not a snob, I swear! If anything, I've been a bit ashamed to admit to my edication to fellow colleagues. I hardly consider myself much of an intellectual... but every once in a while, a little deep discussion about topics besides children and shopping is a relief. At any rate, I found myself a kindred spirit, and the hours flew by.

The next evening I was paired off with another fellow, a quiet yet mellow older guy I had met several times previously but never really got to know. He commented on how I was always smiling, and I laughed. Is he on crack? I'm such a moody misfit! Ah well. Maybe not in public? Hmm...

Anyway, we got to chatting, and before I knew it we were deep in discussion about the meaning of life. Ha! It was almost pathetic in its cliches, really. But also nice. I got the feeling he doesn't open up to many people; he prefers to keep his head down and just take each work day as it comes. He doesn't participate in the work floor gossip or anything else. But then, I am notorious for getting people to blab to me - it's why I succeeded in journalism. At any rate, before long he was asking probing questions into my own personal life, trying to help sort out my relationship and family troubles, offering his own insight as a father. He has two daughters, one my age, and tried to help explain some of my dad's craziness. I wondered if he talks to his own daughters in the same way. Somehow I doubt it. It's easier to talk to strangers, isn't it?

Even the scary supervisor was being nice to me. She's all of about five feet tall, with a permanent scowl and grey hair cropped close to her head. I don't even know her name, I just call her short scary supervisor and everyone knows exactly who I mean. I've never actually been properly introduced to her, I've only had a few run-ins, and based on those, I avoid her like liver. Yuck.

Yet the other night she stopped and asked my name. And the following shift, she used it. A lot. "Hello Stacey, if you would take a seat over there. That's great. Thank you." Thank you? Wow. I couldn't tell if she was just dropping my name around left and right to prove that she knew it, or if she was genuinely being nice. And when she walked quickly by me and said "Goodnight Stacey. Thank you for your help tonight. See you tomorrow." I thought it was her snippety way of telling me to go home early. But no. She was the one who was leaving, and was pausing to say goodbye. To me. So weird. And once she left, no other supervisor came by for two hours and I managed to sneak 9 hours into that shift. Ace.

I'd like to say these wonderful soul sessions continued, but alas, they did not. The last night of work was awful. Truly, deeply. One of the worst ever actually. Snow was on the forecast, and my mother was too frightened to lend me her car, so we arranged for her to drop me off and pick me up in the morning. See, we live atop a series of very steep hills, which are just about as impassable as the Himylayas when there is any more than a dusting of snow.

When I arrived at work, it was immediately clear that we were in for a very short night. As every Sunday, there was no mail. I still can't figure out why they don't give us that night off, why they insist we work the entire weekend, and take Monday night off. But why question, eh? Useless. It's the most illogical operation I've seen anyway.

My lovely nice supervisor had the night off, however, and we were left with a pleasant enough substitute, who unfortunately knows nothing of colleague politics, and paired me up with one of my least favourite people, the extremely annoying non-stop chatterbox. Argh! Rolando, likewise, got paired off with the other most annoying psycho, his arch nemesis who nonetheless does not get the hint and keeps trying to be his buddy. Ack.

So I endured hours of misery and awful stupid stories from the wench. And just as I escaped to the canteen, to a corner table where Rolando was hiding, both of the annoying twats joined us and talked non stop throughout our precious break. I wanted to cry, Rolando started laughing and couldn't stop. When we got back, we were sent to hand sorting for a bit and I thanked my lucky stars - I would finally be able to work alone, with my trusty headphones and fun dance soundtrack I had discovered at the bottom of my box o' tapes. But no. As if I would be that lucky. Instead, we were sent to a place they call 'cardboard city,' huge temporary hand sorting units made out of cardboard, that look like they're about to collapse under the weight of one bulky letter. Eeps. The bad thing about cardboard city is 1) you have to stand and 2) you have to share your unit with other people, meaning you are constantly reaching over them and bumping into them and are overall too close for comfort.

Of course, I'm stuck in between two grumpy old men, one of whom is in a particularly chatty mood. Oh. My. God. I had had to endure a particularly tortous lunch break seated next to him once, during which he recounted his entire work history. By some miracle unknown to me, the miserable bastard had managed to get his masters degree in computer programming, even though he is as thick as curded cottage cheese. He had a good job but got laid off three years ago and has been down on his luck ever since. Aww. He couldn't understand why no one would hire him. I have an inkling. He is slow slow sloooooooow and boring and tedious and awful. He spends all his time in hand sorting as far as I can gather, whereas I only spend a few hours there per week. Yet two weeks into the job, I overheard him asking a supervisor where the mail goes once a slot is full. Um... the whole point of hand sorting is to fill the slots and empty them when they get full, which happens about every 20 minutes at the rate I do it. How could he have gotten through two weeks without once emptying a slot??? Oh, I'm being unkind. But you get the point.

So I was stuck between him and this other grouch. Rolando was on the other side, occasionally breaking into giggles - I think he's getting delirious - and eventually I couldn't take it any more and put my headphones on and danced around. Grouch kept eying me disdainfully but I didn't care. Fuck it eh? Rolando giggled even more. Luckily we were only there an hour, before returning to the machines. Well... I'm not sure that was lucky, actually. Hmm.

When I got back, the supervisor sent me upstairs. Upstairs. I had heard horror stories about the monster machines upstairs, with three levels of slots, all spewing out mail simultaneously. A non stop flurry of back breaking work I was told. Shit. It didn't help that chatterbox, my partner, was the one recounting most of the horror stories. Or that she was stupid. We finally got up there and were put on a machine identical to the ones we always work. No biggie. I started setting it up, as per usual, and she started messing it up, as per usual. Argh. Dumb broad. You'd never guess she had been doing this year in, year out.

We were up there for about half an hour, just long enough to set the machine up and begin to run the mail, when two regulars came to replace us. That was pointless then. We were sent downstairs again, found our supervisor, who didn't seem too happy to see us. He said he had no other work to give us and that we would have to go home. It was 3.30am! Shit. I explained that I had no ride home, and realised I didn't even have my house key on me. Argh. He said I could swap with someone else, and suggested Rolando's arch nemesis, the sneaky bastard who comes in an hour earlier than the rest of us, and should have been the first to go home anyway. I happily went over to inform him of such, but he refused to go. He threw a tantrum. It was ugly. Did I mention he's in his late 40s? Argh.

Eventually the supervisor was consulted and he reluctantly left, but not after ranting for about 20 minutes and shooting me ugly looks and all that. Fer chrissakes! Eventually everyone else was sent home too, one by one, and by 4.30 Rolando and I were the last left. But not for long. We too were sent off. Shit. What was I to do? The one night I didn't have a car. Fucking figures. Rolando offered to give me a ride, and I felt bad accepting. He lives practically next door to the post office, so it would be 20 minutes out of the way. But what were my options? I wasn't about to wake up my parents. And it was too far to walk.

So we made our way to my house, crawling along at 20mph the entire way because the roads were pretty bad and the Peruvian is not too confident about driving in snow... neither was I after he regaled me with tales of his two winter accidents. Hmmm. Eventually we got to the bottom of the hills, and I told him I'd walk the rest of the way up, because it was too dangerous for him to risk. I was totally underdressed for the piercing wind and snow, but was very glad that my usual pyjama bottom attire was in the laundry and I had been forced to wear jeans. It was a long, cold walk uphill, and when I got to my house I had to rifle around the back porch for the spare key I was told was hidden there. I finally found it and tried to sneak quietly in, but apparently my rummaging had woken up my dad, who was convinced someone was trying to break in. Oops. We all had a good laugh about it later. At least he didn't run around the house naked, screaming, like the time a picture frame had fallen and smashed in the middle of the night and he thought we were being burgled. I guess the plan was to scare the burglar right back? Certainly scared the shit out of me.

So yesterday was my night off. I'd rather have worked, as the job might be over on Friday and I need all the money I can get. But alas, it was not to be. So instead, I slept a few hours in the morning, then hung out with my sister all day. We ate, watched videos... mmmm. I slept over her apartment, completely fucking up my sleep schedule in the process, and now I'm back home at a loss as to how to fill all these hours. My mom made cookies though, so I know how the next few minutes will be spent. Dangerous!

Can you believe it's almost Christmas?