Got struck by the first volley...
Job 2: Country Club Tennis Shop
Back to my crappy jobs retrospective. After Dollywood, I worked at the tennis shop of the country club in the city where I went to college. Looking back, this was pretty much a sweet job where we sat around most days with little to do but answer the phone, schedule courts, sell stuff, and string racquets.
The kink that made this job so hateful was that country club members were involved. Most were all right, but the handful of facelifted, peroxide blonde, wearing jewelry while playing tennis bitches (and bastards, but mostly it was the women who sucked) that made my everyday in the shop a holy living nightmare that sort of overshadowed the rest. Here's a little rundown of the characters I met there.
- The Cardio-thoracic Surgeon: If ever there was a surgeon with a God-complex, this would be him. My very first day, he walked in and yelled at me for not having strung his racquet. That was not actually a skill that I had brought with me to the table. When one of the pros (who was gorgeous and on whom I had a huge lust the entire year I was there, unrelatedly) heard this, he stepped out and explained, and CtS backed down. The next weekend, something happened that made this guy upset, and the owner had me go and fetch a beer to placate CtS. It might have worked, except that I do not read minds and got him the wrong kind, which he shoved back at me like a little bitch. Eventually, CtS came around when he realized that I was literate and could talk about books, and also was the better stringer in the shop. He once threw a tennis ball at my head which bounced off the wall behind me before I noticed it. He said he was doing a neurological test on me, and that I had failed, which he thought was hilarious. Another time, I had dragged myself into work with a fever and CtS came in and walked around behind me and felt my forehead to check my temperature. I wasn't delirious, but I sort of thought he might be attempting to strangle me or something. In the end, he made my boss let me leave to pick up the prescriptions he phoned in for me. All three were narcotics of some kind and I loved him beyond reason for that. Last I knew, he had a baby with his much, much younger wife (who he would not marry until it was confirmed that she was fertile; this was not the first time he had test-driven a girlfriend, apparently) and set his infant daughter up with a $1 million college fund.
- The Entitlement Bitch: Actually, there wasn't just one Entitlement Bitch, but this was was their queen. Of the many ways she irritated me, the main ones were that she often told me to order her lunch from the dining room (not part of the job), bitched me out for not knowing where the knee brace that she had left on the court was, and would spend an hour trying on tennis skirts and leave them in the bathroom for me to hang back up. I saw a picture of her in the paper recently, and it would appear that she has had several facelifts in the four years since I last saw her.
- Doddering Old Man: This man was nice enough, but grew increasingly senile during my stay. He had Parkinson's and could not speak much above a whisper. This was unfortunate, since one of his greatest joys (and one of my most hated activities) was to recite his poetry for me to type. Bad enough that I could barely hear him, I also had to continue to do shop things while he went on and on with the rhymie-rhyme poetry about how much dogs love God, and similar topics. He once tried to sell me a book of this poetry. He asked me to write an essay about my dog for inclusion in a book about people and their pets, told me the same story about his cat and how it had the power to cure cancer or something seven times, and when I told him that my dog had just died, responded with "Oh, I have a cat that can cure cancer..." Eventually, my boss caught wind of these little poetry slams and told me to say no. Doddering Old Man was affronted, but not dissuaded from making me listen to more verse anyway.
- Evil: Evil's nickname came from another employee's background check for the police academy. He had to answer true or false to the statement, "Sometimes I wake up evil." He instantly thought of this woman, who considered herself our boss but was not, and thought "Why the hell would I want to wake her up if she's asleep?" Additionally, we had a theory that she had murdered her first husband, who, according to her, invented Sweet Tarts. My favorite coworker and I envisioned his tombstone as a giant sweet tart, and his burial in a flat little packet. One of those only funny if you were there things, probably. Her second husband drank. I was the only female employee that she was unable to drive into a rage and have fired, and it ate her up. When I was sick and had to have surgery over Christmas break, thereby delaying my return to work, Evil called my house to inquire. My mother shrewdly declined to name the type of surgery I had, and to this day, I am certain that Evil thinks that I couldn't come back to work because I was recovering from an abortion.
A woman once hemmoraged to death in front of the desk. I was not there, but did have to force my deer-in-headlights-at-the-best-of-times boss to go home because he was wandering around in a daze saying, "I smell blood, I smell blood" and freaking out the children. Had I had the shift before that, I would have been the one asked to go and clean the blood out of her car, so that her family would not have to drive it in such a state. This is another thing which was not in the job description.
A year of working this job part-time prepared me for the next three. Sort of. Nothing can really prepare you for the smell of old cat urine, the knowledge of what fabric best protects ones skin from vomit, or what pure bleach can do to your skin. I'm nearly certain that you wouldn't guess what I actually did with those hints. Until then -
Ta!
Kate
Back to my crappy jobs retrospective. After Dollywood, I worked at the tennis shop of the country club in the city where I went to college. Looking back, this was pretty much a sweet job where we sat around most days with little to do but answer the phone, schedule courts, sell stuff, and string racquets.
The kink that made this job so hateful was that country club members were involved. Most were all right, but the handful of facelifted, peroxide blonde, wearing jewelry while playing tennis bitches (and bastards, but mostly it was the women who sucked) that made my everyday in the shop a holy living nightmare that sort of overshadowed the rest. Here's a little rundown of the characters I met there.
- The Cardio-thoracic Surgeon: If ever there was a surgeon with a God-complex, this would be him. My very first day, he walked in and yelled at me for not having strung his racquet. That was not actually a skill that I had brought with me to the table. When one of the pros (who was gorgeous and on whom I had a huge lust the entire year I was there, unrelatedly) heard this, he stepped out and explained, and CtS backed down. The next weekend, something happened that made this guy upset, and the owner had me go and fetch a beer to placate CtS. It might have worked, except that I do not read minds and got him the wrong kind, which he shoved back at me like a little bitch. Eventually, CtS came around when he realized that I was literate and could talk about books, and also was the better stringer in the shop. He once threw a tennis ball at my head which bounced off the wall behind me before I noticed it. He said he was doing a neurological test on me, and that I had failed, which he thought was hilarious. Another time, I had dragged myself into work with a fever and CtS came in and walked around behind me and felt my forehead to check my temperature. I wasn't delirious, but I sort of thought he might be attempting to strangle me or something. In the end, he made my boss let me leave to pick up the prescriptions he phoned in for me. All three were narcotics of some kind and I loved him beyond reason for that. Last I knew, he had a baby with his much, much younger wife (who he would not marry until it was confirmed that she was fertile; this was not the first time he had test-driven a girlfriend, apparently) and set his infant daughter up with a $1 million college fund.
- The Entitlement Bitch: Actually, there wasn't just one Entitlement Bitch, but this was was their queen. Of the many ways she irritated me, the main ones were that she often told me to order her lunch from the dining room (not part of the job), bitched me out for not knowing where the knee brace that she had left on the court was, and would spend an hour trying on tennis skirts and leave them in the bathroom for me to hang back up. I saw a picture of her in the paper recently, and it would appear that she has had several facelifts in the four years since I last saw her.
- Doddering Old Man: This man was nice enough, but grew increasingly senile during my stay. He had Parkinson's and could not speak much above a whisper. This was unfortunate, since one of his greatest joys (and one of my most hated activities) was to recite his poetry for me to type. Bad enough that I could barely hear him, I also had to continue to do shop things while he went on and on with the rhymie-rhyme poetry about how much dogs love God, and similar topics. He once tried to sell me a book of this poetry. He asked me to write an essay about my dog for inclusion in a book about people and their pets, told me the same story about his cat and how it had the power to cure cancer or something seven times, and when I told him that my dog had just died, responded with "Oh, I have a cat that can cure cancer..." Eventually, my boss caught wind of these little poetry slams and told me to say no. Doddering Old Man was affronted, but not dissuaded from making me listen to more verse anyway.
- Evil: Evil's nickname came from another employee's background check for the police academy. He had to answer true or false to the statement, "Sometimes I wake up evil." He instantly thought of this woman, who considered herself our boss but was not, and thought "Why the hell would I want to wake her up if she's asleep?" Additionally, we had a theory that she had murdered her first husband, who, according to her, invented Sweet Tarts. My favorite coworker and I envisioned his tombstone as a giant sweet tart, and his burial in a flat little packet. One of those only funny if you were there things, probably. Her second husband drank. I was the only female employee that she was unable to drive into a rage and have fired, and it ate her up. When I was sick and had to have surgery over Christmas break, thereby delaying my return to work, Evil called my house to inquire. My mother shrewdly declined to name the type of surgery I had, and to this day, I am certain that Evil thinks that I couldn't come back to work because I was recovering from an abortion.
A woman once hemmoraged to death in front of the desk. I was not there, but did have to force my deer-in-headlights-at-the-best-of-times boss to go home because he was wandering around in a daze saying, "I smell blood, I smell blood" and freaking out the children. Had I had the shift before that, I would have been the one asked to go and clean the blood out of her car, so that her family would not have to drive it in such a state. This is another thing which was not in the job description.
A year of working this job part-time prepared me for the next three. Sort of. Nothing can really prepare you for the smell of old cat urine, the knowledge of what fabric best protects ones skin from vomit, or what pure bleach can do to your skin. I'm nearly certain that you wouldn't guess what I actually did with those hints. Until then -
Ta!
Kate
posted by Kate | 1:36 PM
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