Second Installment of Noh Bahdi
The Mavericks:
Even though I am no longer with The Orange Giant from time to time I still mention the innovative concepts that I learned while I was working for them. Their approach was a radical departure from the conventional wisdom of retailing. The Orange Giant worshipped no sacred-cow concepts of how things should be done. In fact I think some of the original mavericks in the company wanted to rewrite the rules of retailing. They had a frontier mentality. We were doing something unique. We were doing it the right way. It was almost evangelistic. Damn the bean counters! We were putting people and customers ahead of profit just to see if the profits would take care of themselves. Guess what, the profits soared.
Honestly, I was a mid-term maverick at best. I started with the company in 1987. The company was 8 years old. We were between a $1/2 billion and $1 billion a year in sales as a corporation and we were listed on the New York Stock Exchange. The Orange Giant had already made quite an impact and a lot of noise long before I came on board.
I had just left the military after a strange 4-years-and-one-month of service. I had tried selling software for a telemarketer, wasting a whole month of my life. The only good from that experience was having found a restaurant in downtown Clearwater, FL that had the best Cuban sandwiches and some incredible espresso.
I interviewed with The Orange Giant on the morning of Friday May 1, 1987. I had just moved into a home that my father had helped me build. I needed things for the house and my father told me The Orange Giant was the cheapest place around.
While I was there I mentioned to a salesperson that I was sort of between jobs. He told me they were looking for people for the garden department. So he took me to the front desk and I filled out an application and handed it to the clerk at the counter, she went over it and immediately called for a supervisor from the ceiling fan department to come meet me. She gave me an interview on the spot. That really impressed me.
The interview went well so she gave me a strange test disguised as an opinion survey. She told me to answer extreme either one way or the other. When she scored that she came back to me with a tall, skinny Black man, named Willie who was an Assistant Store Manager. He asked me a few questions but the only one that stands out it my mind was why I wanted to work for The Orange Giant
.
“I am a hard worker and I will work cheap until I prove myself. I will make this store money.”
“Well, then okay,” Willie said. “I’ll go over this with Paula. She is looking for people. I can’t promise anything but she will probably be calling you back to give you that chance.”
I gave my father’s phone number as my number was not yet in service. I went back home and started a project only to have my father come over to the house and tell me The Orange Giant called me, asking me if I could call them back. I went over to my father’s house and returned the call.
“Oh yeah, Noh-Bahdi. Hold on, please.”
After five minutes, someone named Paula came to the phone, “Hey, I looked over your resume and application. You said you would work hard and work cheap to prove yourself. I like that. Can you start now?”
“Now as in right now?”
“When can you get here? I really need your help.”
“I can be there by 1 o’clock maybe a few minutes later.”
“That would be great. Listen, dress to work. We have pallets of stuff to put away and I have been short-handed for a while.”
“Okay.”
“Well, if you work out this company is growing fast. You can really advance as high as you want to go. You have the education that I lack, so you have that going for you. Just grunt for a while and you can be where I am in no time.”
“That sounds great. Let me get some decent clothes on.”
“Collared shirt and jeans is fine. See ya in a few. I gotta run. Ask for me at the desk when you get here.”
That was how my career began with The Orange Giant. My orientation was a week or so later, when they had enough survivors to make it worthwhile to take a manager off the floor for a couple of days to go over everything.
My early impressions were mixed. I was amazed at what I saw, and wondered how they could be making money. Yet they had the foot traffic. No popular product lingered long. I was bringing an indoor roach killer tot eh front of the store by the time I had opened enough boxes for customers that half of the pallet was gone.
I am glad that I had the experience of military training just prior to working for The Orange Giant. A normal day was bad enough, whenever they broke a sale it was a war zone.
I had believed that the original Clearwater store, #41 (later #241 and finally, before they relocated it #0241) was huge. I learned that it was among the smallest in the chain of then 63 stores. Yes that was how small The Orange Giant was when I began with them. We had a few stores scattered here and there in Florida, Georgia, Texas, Arizona and California.
The Clearwater store was a mere 67,000 square feet. The average store at that time was closer to 80,000. New stores were being built that were 87,000 to 95,000 square feet. There were plans to build 105,000 square foot stores!
It was probably well for me to learn The Orange Giant culture in a smaller store. I had to become creative in my merchandising even as a salesperson. I had to respect the shelf allocation and down-stock whenever the supply diminished. These were crucial disciplines to acquire.
My first few weeks were an awakening. I had never been as tired as I was when I got home. My first three days with the company I earned overtime! I worked 47 hours in the first three days, 47 out of a possible 72 hours or 65% of my first weekend with the company I was at work, more than twice the full time norm.
The Opportunity:
Paula worked me to death, really. Had I been in her shoes in management at the time I might have done the same. She threw things at me that she never expected me to accomplish. I had no idea or preconception as to what was possible. I simply did whatever I had to do.
My very first day I applied SKU (Store Keeping Unit) tags to a pile of brooms and put away half of the grills and lawn mowers while the guy that was supposed to be helping me was a lunch. When he returned he said he was going to like working with me.
There were times that I was frustrated beyond belief. There were days that I was certain I was going to quit. Still, I had a family to support. That was really the only reason I was there. It was the only reason I didn’t tell some of the management what I thought of them.
As the season in Garden wound down I could see what was happening. The only other guy in the department that stayed busy all the time was Irish. He was transferred to the plumbing, and a couple of other guys were terminated. At least I was still there but I was in fear of my job. On my first review Paula gave me a whole 25-cent-an-hour raise, which I was told was the highest I could get at 90 days.
She was really taking advantage of me, I knew. There were people in the store, in my department that made more than I was earning and hardly did any work at all. One of the two department supervisors was basically useless. He did nothing but carrying papers around and pretending to be ordering things. I say ‘pretending’ because whatever he was doing, none of the product that we were chronically out of ever seemed to come in.
When I reached my 6-month review I got another 25-cent-an-hour increase. I was making a whole $6-an-hour. By then Irish had been promoted to department supervisor of plumbing. Even though we weren’t supposed to know what others made, I knew that he was making a lot more than me. I had no problem with that as he was a good man and a hard worker. He had negotiated for a higher starting wage. I was stupid and I needed a job.
One of the few smart things that I did was buy stock in the employee purchase plan. A few days after the plan began the market collapsed so they let all of us out and we bought into a new plan at a much lower price. Besides that my father had bought stock in the company and even some shares for me.
Over the course of the first six months I had done anything I could, working overtime because I needed the money, even doing the work that others left undone so that the department looked good. Even as they removed people from the staffing due to cutbacks I was there busting my ass and getting it all done. I had figured that was appreciated. Yeah, well I got a whole 25 cent an hour increase. My family never saw me; every muscle I had ached; and I was probably the best goddamned salesperson they had ever hired.
I had to do something for my family. I interviewed for other jobs and was offered a management trainee position with a major drug store chain. I accepted and even had a start date. I had turned in my letter of resignation. Wallace, the store manager at the time had said, “Okay, good luck to you then.”
It was sort of an unwritten policy that whenever someone resigned, they were terminated immediately. In my case they let me work out my two weeks. I worked as hard if not harder than I ever had. Despite my decision to leave it had nothing to do with anything but the money I was making. As the store still needed to terminate some people I suppose that my leaving allowed someone else to keep his or her job.
It was my last day. I had cleaned and down-stocked the shovels because it needed it. In fact my entire last to weeks I had fixed problems that had been ignored for months while the department was busy. I busted my ass not because I cared about the people I was leaving behind. I have always wanted to leave had a mess to deal with and whatever I fixed they didn’t have to.
I was a mess and filthy when the store manager paged me into his office and asked me to close the door behind me.
“Why are you leaving, really?” He asked even before I had sat down.
“It is not about the work or the people. I like being here. It is all about money. I have a house, a wife and a kid. I cannot make it on what I am being paid. I was told that if I busted my ass I would be remarked. Two 25-cent-an-hour increases isn’t much, sir.”
“Well, Noh, Irish came in here today and told me that you are the garden department and if I am stupid enough to let you go I need to be fired.”
I smiled, “Irish is a good man.”
“Yes he is. He thinks highly of you. Why are you leaving?”
“I cannot pay the bills. I started out low because I was having trouble finding a job. Everyone looked at my education and said they couldn’t afford me or they thought I’d work for a while and then find something better.”
“Like you’re doing now.”
“I suppose it looks like that. But I don’t think I have been fairly compensated either. I was willing to work cheap until I proved myself. I think I have proved myself. I am making 50-cents-an-hour more than when I started and that might be a decent increase except that my starting wage was so low.”
“So it is really just the money.”
“Yeah, otherwise I like working here. It’s crazy at times but it is never dull. I like the people here.”
“Listen what would it take for me to get you to stay with us?”
“Well the drug store will pay me some of what they call Chinese overtime on top of my salary but while I am in training it is actually the same pay as I am making now. After the six weeks it is a significant bump.”
“Okay what do you need right now to stay with us?”
“I have to have a dollar-an-hour increase just to pay bills.”
He wrote a figure on an ‘action notice’ which was a document that changed anything to do with personnel status. He flipped it around and I saw he had added 50-cents-an-hour to what I had just told him I needed. “You can do that?”
“It is unusual. I’m the store manager, though. I have to justify every expense but in this company a store manager has a lot of power and control as long as the store is making money. You’ll see when you get there. That’s why I am doing it. It is an investment as I see it. You’ll produce and pay for it. I’ll get George to sign off on it. Anyway, that is my problem not yours but you damn well better be worth it. I need you to be ready within the month to run a department. That is what I expect now. You think you are worth more then you need to show me.”
About two weeks after that the supervisor of the furniture department quit and Wallace promoted me. We walked the department and he pointed out what was wrong. As my first task he told me that he needed me to re-merchandise the department. I had five sides of aisles sandwiched between Hardware and Paint. I had to display everything we carried and store it in such a way that it was shop-able.
My senior sales person named Tony was an almost stereotypical New York City Italian.
At the time Tony had been with the company for five years. I wondered and even worried about why the department had not been offered to him. So the first thing I did after Wallace returned to his office was to walk the sales floor with Tony, pretty-much inch by inch and I listened. I let him show me, tell me what sold, show me what the issues and impediments were that kept him from selling more product.
I knew next to nothing about furniture. Tony knew everything and took pride in it.
He told me he loved selling and that was why he had turned down offers to run the department so often that now they didn’t even bother to ask him.
His life revolved around a few things. He was a Yankees fan, so baseball season was extremely important. Although he was single, his family was also very important to him. He also promised me that I would get promoted if I listened to him. The people that had run the department, the people that he had trained were now store managers.
It might seem like Tony was full of himself but it was hard to talk to him for even two or three minutes and not love and respect the guy. It became obvious to me why he was a good salesperson. He exuded sincerity and confidence. He was exactly what he wanted to be and enjoyed doing what he did. It also became obvious that like most sales people he was disorganized, something of which he was well aware. It was probably the real reason he did not want to manage.
I learned more from following him around in The Orange Giant furniture department for a weekend than I have learned about selling from anyone else in my lifetime. In the course of that weekend he also told me what he needed to be done in order that he could sell more products. He had some very good ideas and although his merchandising ideas were a little vague I could visualize what he was suggesting.
At home at night I drew up a bay by bay floor plan for the department. When I worked I measured every box and display. I calculated clearances and tolerances and drew frontal diagrams of how each bay should be arranged.
When I had finished I went over it with Tony and discussed it, made a few amendments and redrew a few things before finally receiving his blessing. In that way I had made certain that I was not forgetting anything.
Tony said that I did good work and that the way I was laying out the department was almost exactly what he had envisioned.
E
Swept Up In Change
I have a a couple of fairly new friends. I don't know why but lately I have been meeting a lot of good, interesting people. When added to the core of great friends that I have maintained a level of communication with over the past few years. I really feel very fortunate.
A couple of days ago I met another published author. He writes books on sports psychology. He had done extensive research and has been a coach for over 30 years. He is a really nice guy. He brought his wife into my store tonight and so I met her as well. They are great people.
I was helping him with a Quark file that his publisher sent to him. For those of you that are not associated with publishing, Quark is the defacto industry standard. I prefer Adobe Pagemaker. I find Microsoft Publisher much easier to use. Quark does some things better than anything else out there and so it is the standard. I don't care for the program. I use it because I have to.
The past few days have been an emotional roller coaster for me. When you drive 4+ hours each was and are all alone you have a lot of time to think about things and with all that has been boiling up around me lately, I did some serious thinking. I have decided that I probably made a huge mistake somewhere along the line.
There are many things that I would do over if I could. I think everyone in the world feels that way from time to time. It is just that one never knows where he or she would be now if this or that had been different. There are so many variables.
That is an underlying theme in One Over X. It is also an overriding guiding principle in my recent life.
In an Internet chat a while back I had a weird discussion with someone that I know only from the internet but he has read my books. Actually he has also read roughs of books 3 and 4. So he knows a lot more of the plot than anyone else with the exception of my publisher, an editor and me. He is one of those people that try to think ahead of the writer and figure out how the book is going to end. He asked me if I had written the ending. I told him that I had written four different endings but that I had basically decided which one works the best and was likely going with it.
He thinks that if he told me how it is going to end that I would hurry and change it just to be different. So he claims that he knows how the One Over X ends but will not tell me. I of course called him out on his bullshit. After he reads the ending he will claim to me that of course he had it figured out all along. Frankly, judging from my publisher's initial reaction to the ending I really doubt anyone is expecting it. Oh the clues and the indications are there, buried beneath the red herrings.
I told him to mail his expected ending to my publisher and I would tell my publisher not to open it until after Book 6 ships. He says he will but as yet he has not. It really is bullshit I think. If he reads this, now he knows what I think. Take up the challenge!
That might actually be a great idea for a contest. Guess the ending. The person who submits an ending closest to the one that actually appears in the printed version of Book 6 wins to trip to Universal Orlando to spend a week hanging out with the the author. Submissions would be mailed to my publisher and none opened until Book 6 is in print and shipped. Well, maybe a third party would have to be used. But the idea has some merit. If the books do very well, movie rights and all maybe the prize could be a cruise. I would like to go on a cruise.
Lately I have been exchanging internal business emails with people that I hardly ever write to. I have been sending personal emails to new friends and some new readers - readers that have found me. There has been a lot of uncharacteristic behavior on my part. I have also been very straight-up and blunt with people at work, which is the real me all the way to the bone. So I am in a quandry to explain what is going on with me and my reactions to the world.
I kind of think that some things are in transition. I am swept up in change; subtly and hopefully soon I will experience a quantum shift in my reality. It has been my experience with predictions that they are never really what one would expect. We see the future as a field of soft grass and wildflowers. The sun always shines there and a soft breeze cools the air. Such a place could never exist as without rain the grass and flowers would die and when it rains the breeze is often not so gentle.
The nature of the world is balance. Whenever there is trouble it is because something is out of balance.
Here is something to ponder and another thing to check out:
First, this comes from a very close freind that I have never met but I know him very well from exchanging emails over the past few years. He is also very close freinds with Ela'na and was one of the notorious originals of the Wolf Pack.
***Just thinking again. Have you ever noticed paper? Like when you crease it or fold or wrinkle it? No matter how hard you may try with weights or anything to make it take its flat shape again it never does? Sort of like life, maybe. You try to do your best,to love, but you get wrinkled and spurned, and try as you may you can never get unfolded again. You try to unfold, but it just never happens. So there comes the time you just quit trying to unfold and accept being wrinkled.***
Second, there is someone that I met online through the special sort of sociometry that exists in groups and such. I received an invitation to join a group. As I know sveral models I assumed that one of them had offered the invite. I accepted and from that odd beginning I met ended up meeting someone that inspires me with her overall positive attitude and her seemingly inexhaustable energy. Honestly she is one of the nicest people I have never exchanged emails with. She is an aspiring model/actress. She has been a cheerleader for the Pittsburgh Penguins NHL Hockey team and has been a spokesmodel for several local businesses and products. There is a lot of competition in modeling but I am sure she will make it . She has some intangible, endearing quality that stems from her go-for-it approach and warm personality. She uses her site to promote other models as well as herself. She goes by 'Naji'. If any of you that read this blog have any connections in the modeling or entertainment biz, go check her out at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mz_naji
E
The First Installment of Noh Bahdi
The Early Orange Daze
(Fictionalization told in first person)
The End:
I do not write anything to point fingers or condemn what I still believe to be one of the greatest companies in America. As is the usual case a dispute is between people and I had problems with certain people that were in positions of authority. Those people are no longer in such positions of power. For one reason or another they have left the company. There may be justice in that knowledge. Unfortunately they were around long enough to persuade me quit.
I feel that if I could have gotten through to Bernie and spoken with him as was possible in the early days, that he would have at least listened and maybe given me a new perspective that I could cling, until someone somewhere found a place for me. I was asking for consideration. I had been promised something nine years before. I expected the promise to still be valid.
Although the corporate policy for assisting employees was always compassionate and caring, my requests for consideration of hardship met with unacceptable offers that were completely at odds with what I had seen the company do for others.
A few days after my departure, I received a phone call from someone that I didn’t even know. He worked in another store in Connecticut, a store where I knew a few people, having worked with them in the past.
“Look, here it is. I feel like I know you. I hear people telling stories about things you have done. I can’t believe that Steve let you go, just like that. I don’t know the whole story and I probably don’t need to know. But I thought you should know. What they are telling you about Florida not having positions open in management is bullshit. One of their regional managers called me yesterday and was trying to talk me into moving down there. He said that he could make a position for me because he needed me there. So, I don’t know. Maybe in the past you pissed off some people and now they are in a position to pay you back. I don’t know. I just know what other people that have worked with you say about you. I am sorry we never worked in the same store. You are a straight-shooter. I respect that.”
Past promises and enticements were designed to lure me into a false sense of expectation. Some promises are always broken. I understand that there was a need and I answered the call. I understand that situations change. Life is not always fair. In the end, I did not understand why no one was listening to me. I just expected a bit more respect than I received. Maybe I thought I was more important.
In the end I proved to be nothing more than a number. I was replaced the same day. Life and the company went on even though I was not there.
Maybe I was the one that was wrong. Having a store manager that had been with the company 8 years less than I had tell me that ‘if I was good enough I could work my way backup’ really pissed-me-off. I may have been unimportant all along. It was just that I was useful at times and I have overstayed my utility.
It is an irony that I alone could fix a specific computer glitch in the store’s internal network. A few hours after I had quit, I received a phone call from an employee asking me how to fix the problem. That was perhaps the only thing that made me somewhat indispensable. “I sorry to put it so bluntly,” I replied. “I no longer work there. My hourly rate for computer consultation is $75 an hour with an hour minimum and $45 dollars trip charge. If Paul wants to pay that, I’ll fix it. Otherwise, called Atlanta. Maybe they will finally send someone to correct the problem.”
I never received a follow on call. They got along without me.
The Last Job:
For more than 12 years I worked for The Orange Giant, the powerhouse in home improvement retailing. It was supposed to be the last job I’d ever have. Honestly I would still be working for them except for the intransigence of a regional manager and the lack of concern for my personal hardship which went all the way up to the office of the CEO. I don’t blame the CEO. He probably never heard about my situation. His gatekeeper was doing her job, protected him.
At one time I felt that I knew Bernie personally. I was even pretty sure that if I called him collect he would accept the charges. He would have at least made a couple of phone calls in my behalf. In the early days of the company when I called his office he would have answered his phone. I would have spoken to him.
After stating my case to the CEO’s administrative assistant, and telling her all about my mother with Alzheimer’s, my father with Parkinson’s and my wife and three small kids that had already moved to Florida ahead of me, the administrative assistant to the CEO and co-founder of the corporation, asked me what I thought Bernie could do for me. “You have already spoken to the people that you need to. They have to make those kinds of decisions.”
“I am hitting an impenetrable wall with them. They won’t transfer me or at best they will take me as a salesperson and ‘if I am good enough’ I can work my way back up into management. Do you understand what a slap in the face that is, not to mention the cut in pay? It’s a demotion. My reward for doing what the company asked me to do is a demotion. I have done nothing wrong here. I helped the company out when it needed my help. All I am asking is consideration of my present situation. I have never asked for anything before.”
“Well you can’t expect to make what you are making in the northeast.”
“There have been managers transferred for hardship reasons one of them was from the northeast! I know him personally. He has never lived in Florida. He went there for the sake of his wife’s relatives. So I know for a fact that it is possible. He did not lose any pay. Besides a cut in pay is not so much the issue as the demotion. That was not the deal I made in 1990. When I came to the northeast, human resources promised me that as long as I spent two years they would take me back to Florida but just no guarantee as to the store. I am not asking for a specific store. I am asking for Florida I can live anywhere for a while just so I can be closer to my family. I have spent 9 years in Connecticut, busting my tail and making the company what it is today. I have hired and trained people that are now regional managers, store managers and buyers. I have worked in six stores. I have opened a new store. I have run some of high volume most profitable departments in the company. I am probably better than some of the managers that they already have in the stores in Florida.”
“Then you should have no problem proving that and working your way back up.”
“Maybe I am missing your point or you’re missing mine. I don’t know which it is but what I am trying to get across is that I am not being treated with respect and certainly the way I am being treated is unfair. I have proven myself. I am being dismissed as just another number. This company did not used to be that way and if you have been with it for any length of time, you know that is true.”
“Well, I still do not understand what you think Bernie can do for you. You have been going through the right people. Have you tried using the HR channels?”
“Yes, even my wife has called.”
“Well then I don’t know what you expect us to do.”
“Okay,” I acquiesced. “I’m sorry I bothered you. I guess I should take ‘no’ for an answer or quit so that I can be with my family. That appears to be my choices.”
“I’m sorry you feel that way.”
“It was just that I thought Bernie was still in charge and actually controlled something. I guess I was wrong. The corporation is too big for him to manage. You know in the early days he used to fear that would happen. If you would, tell him that it had happened. After twenty years the bean-counters and bureaucrats take over a corporation and either ruin it or change it so dramatically that all its seasoned veterans leave.”
* * * *
From the outset The Orange Giant was a company of destiny earmarked for a level of greatness that becomes legendary. It had great people and great, innovative ideas. Its leaders were experienced and focused on specific goals yet they were the sorts of risk takers that never say no to an idea. They simply find a way to implement the idea.
The company’s continued greatness indicates that it still draws innovation and creativity from the entrepreneurial spirit that it generates in its dedicated corps of employees. The empowerment of the front line employees to make the right decisions for the customers may have been the only innovation that really counted. It was certainly the source for everything else that the company produced.
I won’t go into the formative years as it would be my second-hand analysis of what the founders have already been rendered into text. I will tell my own version of The Orange Giant story from the direct experience working on the front lines in real stores. That is the positive part of my story.
* * * *
The day that I resigned I felt like gum on the bottom of and old shoe. I was worried about a Hurricane Floyd that was off the coast of Florida no more than 12 miles from where my family lived in Melbourne. I had told my wife to take the kids and whatever she could put in the van and evacuate. I had told her a long time before that to go stay with my sister on the west coast but she had never arrived there and I could no get my wife on the phone. As it turned out she was still in Melbourne, believing that her friends’ house being made of brick might withstand the considerable wolf’s-blow from a category 4 hurricane.
Steve, the regional manager had decided to spend that entire day in my store all day. I mentioned my concern about my family to him and he said something to the effect, “Well, you need to focus on work. This store has some serious issues. That will take your mind off of it.”
I don’t know maybe he intended it differently than I took it. It felt rather cold and inconsiderate. He was probably right though. There was little I could do and it was better not to dwell on it when all I could do was worry.
Steve had periodically pestered me with seemingly random questions throughout first few hours of the day. I couldn’t leave the front end. Three cashiers had called out sick, the head cashier and assistant head cashier were on registers and I was covering their roles until around ten o’clock when we should be adequately staffed to get some relief. I had planned to spend time in my department finishing a fall reset while my department supervisor and two of his people worked on inventory prep. We were exactly a week away from taking physical inventory and that had to be the highest priority.
It was obvious from the reports that Steve was running in the computer room and asking me questions about that his agenda was something entirely different than mine and for the most part the company’s. He was angry with me that I couldn’t drop everything and come back to the computer room and answer his questions in person. I told him about the cashiers and even promised him that I could meet with him around ten. “You’re not running a very efficient operation this morning are you?” That was what he asked me. I did not respond. It figured it was rhetorical.
Again he was right. The store wasn’t running smoothly that day. Then again I felt he was personally blaming me for it. However I was used to that sort of attitude from him. Little if anything was ever the way Steve thought it should be. Maybe he expected me to force the sick cashiers to come into work, playing guilt trips on them. They were all part timers. From experience, part-timers do not care as much as full-timers. Even if I had resorted to the guilt trips they would not have responded. Why should they? The company was not paying them any real benefits.
At ten o’clock Paul the store manager walked into the building. “How’ it been?”
“Three cashiers called out. I have been up front all morning since we opened. I walked about a third of the store before that. Steve is here. I think he is out walking lumber of building materials. That area was rough, by the way.”
“Who closed?”
“Guess.”
“Why did he leave it that way?”
“He wrote work-lists. He knew the areas that needed attention. They have his work-list and I prioritized the tasks. It has been busy down that way this morning.
Steve has been running reports all morning. So maybe they had time to clean it up a little.”
“Great,” he said sarcastically. “How about your end?”
“Outside is a mess where we are resetting. Otherwise it isn’t bad. I have my people tagging overheads for inventory. I had planned to work on the rest but you see where I have been all morning.”
“Anything else?"
“There is a hurricane a few miles from my house in Florida and I can’t get my wife on the phone.”
“There are more important matters for you to focus on here.”
I was speechless. I could not believe he had said that. It wasn’t even a joke. It was beyond heartlessly inhuman. Whatever respect I may have harbored for him as my supervisor went out with the tide awash with rage that I did not dare to express. I needed my job, I still believe that.
As another assistant manager came in he took over the front end from me and I was liberated to spend the rest of the day in my department.
Paul and Steve walked the store together, Steve pointing out things and Paul diligently writing down every word on a legal pad. No one else walked with them.
Neither of them asked anyone any questions as they walked. Neither of them acknowledged employees or customers. That was nothing new for them but in the old days of the company walking past a customer or an employee would have gotten you some serious abuse regardless your position in the corporate pecking order.
Paul hated the garden department, knew next to nothing about it and rarely ever walked it with me. It was fine with me as I was the most experienced member of management in the store and by all rights should have needed the least help. I had been through store manager training as well. I didn’t have to be walked. Even so, my priorities and Steve’s priorities were at times diametrically opposed. Steve would rather sweep floors than down-stock product. He would rather reset merchandise than prepare for an inventory that was a week away. Earlier in the year Steve had even asked me to set an end-cap of top-soil in the inside garden department. Paul had said what a great idea it was. To me Steve was nuts. “Steve I will set some fertilizer here. Top soil needs to be outside.”
“Why is that?. Is it just because it has always been there?”
“Well customers expect it to be there. That is for certain. The real reason is that it will create the most god-awful mess inside that has ever been. I don’t want to hear you telling me that it looks like shit which it will ten minutes after we create it. We sell 30,000 bags of top soil a week in peak of season. Four pallets inside in March even when we are doing a thousand bags a week are going to be still ludicrous.”
Paul said nothing.
“Fertilizer I can live with,” Steve said. “Do that then.”
* * * *
It was five minutes after four in the afternoon. I had been in the store for over 12 hours. I had skipped lunch to work on the reset. I was pretty hungry and definitely tired and now that I had a moment to catch my breath I tried calling Florida again. There was still not answer from my wife.
I had it to the point that the two aisles that I was working on could be finished the next day, signed and product merchandised. I was even a day ahead of the reset schedule that I had prepared and Paul and Steve had approved. I had purposely build in some slack time into the schedule for unforeseen interferences, such as having to run the front end all morning as had been the case that day.
On my way back to hang up my apron, I stopped in the office and yet again I tried to call my wife. There was still no answer. I asked if anyone had heard any news about the hurricane in Florida. Tony, another assistant manager told me that it was still hanging off the coast, a Category 4 storm.
As I went back out into the corridor in preparation to leave, Paul snagged me by the shirt, “Let’s go walk your area.”
I followed him out to where I had been working on the reset. “Why isn’t this finished?”
“It probably would have been if I could have worked on it this morning as I had planned.”
“You’re giving me an excuse.”
“I’m telling you the truth. Besides we are a day ahead of plan.”
“What plan?”
“The plan I gave you.”
“Regardless, you are finishing this before you leave.”
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“Okay, fine.”
“Then over here, these pallets of fertilizer. What do you have planned for them?”
“They are here a month before they really start selling. There was a 2% discount on them that I could not override per Divisional orders.”
“Steve wants these out of here.”
“How?”
“Call the other stores and transfer them out.”
“We will need the fertilizer in a month. I cannot get anymore of it.”
“I don’t care Steve wants it gone.”
“It won’t matter no one will take it.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I wouldn’t take anymore of it. I have enough for the fall.”
“You have until Tuesday to get rid of all of it.”
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“Are you nuts?”
“No. I am your supervisor and you need to do what I tell you to do.”
“Well, my supervisor is the one that told me I could not push this order back to when I needed it because the 2% discount. Apparently that was important a month ago and you didn’t want to listen to me or buck the system. It is just like the 5% discount I got on my own in the spring and you made me transfer all that grub control out because Steve said it was here too early. You remember that, Steve? We ran out of stock within two weeks. Yeah my ass it was here too early. Steve reads a bag and decides he knows more about garden than someone that has worked it for eight years. I could not get any more in and we lost sales and aggravated a lot of customers.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“Paul, whatever Steve tells you do, you do it. Why? It is because he is your supervisor. I understand that but sometimes Steve is wrong. You owe it to him to stand your ground and tell him, Steve you’re wrong.”
“I think he is right. Transfer this fertilizer out.”
“I have inventory and a reset ahead of it in my priorities.”
“No, this is your problem. Get rid of these 90 pallets of fertilizer.”
“My problem in doing that is the same asshole that ordered this for us and told us we had to take it is the same asshole that ordered it for everyone else. The very same asshole that didn’t realize that the vendor would have given him 5% discount had he ordered it three months earlier. That why this is not going to be transferred out.”
“Then you have a problem, don’t you?”
“No I don’t,” I handed him my keys, “It is now your problem.”
Paul stood blinking his eyes at me, not a word emerged from his open mouth.
One of the employees that had been standing close enough to hear much of the exchange asked me in passing, “You’re quitting?”
“Yep.”
“No way. You’re not quitting?”
My replacement was in place the very next day so in retrospect I rather think that it might have been a set up. Even if there were no intrigue or conspiracy involved, I was turned out without any question, resistance or even an exit interview.
I would think that any company would want to know why an employee with more than 12 years experience and most of that time in management was quitting. How is it rational to allow a fully trained, experienced veteran to leave? Was I making too much money? It was expressed several times on the previous reviews that for a veteran I should be heads and shoulders above all others all the time. I felt that I was. I always had a total store concern.
“We could have two or three younger managers for what we are paying you. You need to keep that in mind,” Steve had told me.
Maybe it was an age thing. I was getting older but to the younger management, I was like a living fossil, an anachronism embodied, like a dinosaur grazing alongside a herd of sheep. I had been with The Orange Giant when it was primitive, even before some of my supervisors had even first heard of the company. I knew how it had become what it was. I knew things that had been tried, failed and forgotten some of the very same things that Steve and others suggested trying now.
I had been on an overnight pack out crew that had pizza and beer for lunch. I know how important it was for its people to speak their minds unafraid of repercussions.
I had been with the company when it was okay to be bold, brash and even bawdy at times. I heard the President of the company tell a group of managers in a training meeting that we were going to use every word at our disposal to communicate the ideas that we needed to share and if one of those words happened to be the ‘f’ word, then so be it. Anyone that would take offense to the use of that word can fuck themselves.
In its formative years The Orange Giant had been the antithesis of political correctness, had that concept even existed at the time. The company was a breath of fresh air in retail as well. No one thought it was possible to do what The Orange Giant did. Some of the accomplishments were achieved because those that made the attempt didn’t know that they should fail. When they succeeded, suddenly every naysayer took note. The accomplishments of the company had even exceeded the expectations of the founders and the original investors.
It was the open expression of feelings and the exchange of ideas that were more important than protecting someone from any possible offense, imagined, fabricated or otherwise. For the most part, no one that worked for The Orange Giant in the early days was the sort that would complain about the coarse language that they heard at work. For some reason, the primitive version of the company never attracted the prudish, thin-skinned sort.
When the company began to evolve into kinder, gentler versions of The Orange Giant, I adapted to the change while some others retired or moved on. A few of us may have lingered past our perceived usefulness. Even though I had learned to exist in the changed world, I was tolerated more than I was accepted. The Orange Giant was a huge corporation, listed on the New York Stock Exchange. It could no longer do the things that it had once condoned or accepted by omission. It was now a money making enterprise and a substantial portion of the gross domestic product of the United States. Whatever the company did that was wrong gained the attention of those wishing to make money from their allegations whether there were grounds for the legal actions. The corporation had to satisfy a variety of investors. I understood the reasons for the changes and I even understood that in our gregarious and basically male-oriented pursuit of success we might have even offended some very good people of both genders that we could have used to propel our growth.
The change in attitude toward me had been a gradual thing. I suppose that at some point there was a more substantive shift. I think I missed it. I was no longer a young and coming assistant manager but a seasoned veteran. I am not sure what demarcation I had crossed or even when I crossed it. I suspect it was between the time I worked in the store at Orange, CT and the one at North Haven, CT.
I think I passed my prime a couple of years before I became ill and required open heart surgery. I had even considered that my surgery in 1995 might have held me back in promotion consideration. After that event every time senior management from Division was in my store or anytime they saw me at a meeting, they would inquire about my health. It could have been innocent concern just as I had always taken it. Yet four years after major surgery if I hadn’t had any issues with my health that were related to the surgery it was probably time to stop asking. They still asked.
I probed, pondered and puzzled over what was really going on. Despite some initial wondering, I doubt that anyone took time to question why I left. I submitted a rather detailed, multi-paged letter to which there was never a reply. Perhaps it was determined that any response whatsoever could have exposed the company to legal action. I sort of expected a nice good-bye letter. That would have been appropriate. That might have even satisfied me. I had given so much time in my life to The Orange Giant adventure that honestly they owed me something like that. The fact that I received nothing from them at all underscored the changes in the corporation.
After more than 12 years, I did not even merit a thank you, just an ‘Okay’ from a regional manager. It is ironic and a sort of justice that when he was elevated to Vice President he failed. His regional managers could not tolerate his micro-management. They ganged up on him and Arthur personally terminated him.
It is likely that those responsible for my leaving, the catalysts had spun the events to suit them, painting me ‘an issue’ that needed to be addressed. I was a manager with too many problems and distractions. I had lost focus on advancing my career. I suppose it was something like that. How long had I allowed The Orange Giant to interfere with my personal and family life? When the problems in my personal life that were borne of my neglect reemerged, the company expected me to set them aside as usual and carry on. My wife was leaving me and taking the kids with her.
Those immediately involved in my departure, a micro-managing regional and a mealy-mouthed, spineless store manager had not cared to ask for the details. I guess it did not really surprise me. I also suspect that they were happy with the way things had turned out.
When I said, “It has been an adventure, Steve. Now, it time for me to leave. I quit.” His grossly inadequate and ineloquent response to me was, “Uh, Okay.” It was expressed with all the compassionate people-skills of a wet, pet rock.
E
For information on books go to http://www.acbooks.com
Comments To Posts and Other Housekeeping Matters
I would like for readers to make comments to the blog posts. I receive emails of the comments and can reply. There is no immediate benefit to emailing me directly and in fact some of the comments that I have received may have been of interest to other readers. Sometimes I may reply directly to some subjects. Feel free to email me with suggested discussion topics. That is really why my email address appears on my profile.
I have been considering removing some of the earlier blog material. Any favorites that you have let me know I will keep them on the active blog while removing the others. I may repost older material later on. I really want to keep the blog fresh and despite the volume of promotional material I have posted as excerpts from books, I believe the majority of this blog is fresh material, written since January 10, 2005. I have posted a couple of short stories that I have written since October, 2004 and a lot of the other material came from a book in progress that is a collection of my shorter works. A lot of that was written or at least revised within the last year. I have been attempting some experimental things in this blog. To me this is still a public journal more than anything else.
Lately as I have been engaged in revising Book 1 I have been amazed at how much my writing style has evolved. I suppose some of the change is the natural result of having the first book or two in print. The writing tends to flow from a greater self confidence. It is not that I believe that the things that I write are in final form it is just that I understand that regardless how messed up and diverted from the intended course my writing may wander, I can always fix it. I mention this because I have already received a couple of comments to the effect that my Books are different than my blog style of writing.
In response this is a narrower production window. I may edit some posts after their original post but generally I have a day to put up a blog entry. It takes weeks or even months to do a short story. It can take years to write a book. The quickest I have ever written anything of book length was 13 weeks.
There is a piece I have written that is a novella. It appears in what will be Book 12. I was thinking of posting a chapter (or section) from it each night until it has all been posted. In the meantime I will have time to complete what I was doing with Book 1. I want to read through Book 2 again and do some of the same sort of thing with cleaning up typos and fixing mistakes however there really isn't a lot wrong with Book 2.
How about some insider information that I no one knows (except for me of course)?
"Solarium", the first section of Episode Two: A Game of Hangman (a.k.a. Book 2) is a composite of several other short pieces I was working on as early as 1977. Parts of it are amongst the oldest material from which the series evolved.
The descriptive piece at the beginning of the first section was adapted from a creative writing exercise composed when I was a student at Purdue University. I may be wrong - I have been before - but I think that is the oldest part of the series. The first sixty or so pages are an amalgam of the oldest and the newest material (to the time that Book 2 was in revision). I wrote about 80% of the actual storyline in one sitting and it was after I had tried to find a way to bridge the material at the end of Book 1 with the Wolf storyline that I had composed while Book 1 was in limbo at the publisher.
E
The Taste of Words
I feel like I have been driving all day. Really, I guess I haven't. I had an 8 hour meeting in between the trip there and back from Kendall, FL (south west of Miami for those unfamiliar with South Florida geography). It is, with traffic and accidents and delays and all a 4+ hour drive each way.
Eighteen hours ago I started the whole process. I woke up even before my alarm went off, which is not unusual. I rarely ever oversleep unless I am sick or something else throws my biological balance out of whack.
First Digression:
If there is an 'out of whack', then there should logically be an 'in of whack'. Yes, I know it is an idiom and as such the same rules of language do not always apply but we are talking about logic not language. There is nothing logical about English...well very little anyway. If there is an 'out' there must be an 'in', right? There are the variants, whacked out and whacked 'in'(?) Each of them sounds vulgar enough to be removed by a censor, just out of principle.
Second digression:
Censorship - The Grammy Award winning Rock Album of the Year, Green Day's "American Idiot" has a couple of words bleeped out of the title cut whenever it is played on the radio. One of them is the 'f' bomb, of course. The other one is bleeped for being an inflammatory word unless the censor misunderstood it and thought it was the 'f' bomb. The line says "Well, maybe I am the Fag-got America." I am sorry but the tongue-in-cheek context of the lyric and the penchant for Green Day to satirize not only the world around them but their own musical commentary would likely prevent anyone from being offended. The song attacks how the media are conditioning us. They are also poking fun at the political correctness of those in power that offend us far more by their deeds and actions than their words. At least that is my take on it. And I know that the band may not have intended that interpretation at all - just like readers think that my Book 1 is a social commentary.
I guess I understand that censorship attempts to protect the 'auditory virgins' of a society. I just have an issue with who it is that makes the choices not only for the person with the power of the censor but for the list of things to be censored. It seems there should be a referendum for words that we agree are unacceptable. Simple majority rules. The Issue would look like this on a ballot:
In the referendum that the word f*@# is patently offensive and should be censored, vote yes or no.
I do not completely agree with the need for censorship these days. I have heard five-year-old's talk like proverbial sailors and I don't mean Popeye. They are not the norm but it is not quite as rare as you think.
The blame game goes like this: blame the movies parents take their kids to see, blame TV shows, especially cable TV shows, blame the parents for talking amongst themselves and with their friends and occasionally letting the 'f' bomb fly. We are all guilty. We are all to blame. So lets pretend that the world is a lot better than it is and maybe all the problems that we have will go away.
One a scale of big problems (1 to 10) where do you think the need for censorship falls?
I think that playing censor to what is and is not worthy of me or mine to be exposed to is its own sort of social brain washing. I have no trouble with my kids using every word they know to express themselves. I have explained to them that there are some people in the world that are offended more readily than we are so refrain from using those 'coarse' words in public, i.e. at school, in my store etc. They are mature enough to deal with the consequences of offending someone else.
I am against censorship because I do not think that anyone at the FCC or any other body appointed or self-selected has enough wisdom to override the prevailing wind de jur of political correctness. I do not like anyone imposing his or her taste, opinion or sense of morality on me or anyone else.
Yes, I understand that in a democracy my freedom ends wherre your freedom begins. I am just afraid that as the pendulum of 'good taste and decendy' swings to and fro there is way too much confusion created when our community standards are left to fall to protecting the most puritanical and sensitive minority. I have yet to meet a politician with Solomon's wisdom.
I get the concept of protecting the very young from the foulness of humanity's common parlance. I will say that sooner or later they will be exposed to it and eventually learn it through osmosis, from their parents, from their older siblings or from their friends. Making the words taboo or 'dirty' only fuels the fire of an inquisitive preschooler. In my estimation, the best that can be done is to inform each of our children as best we can how we must respect one another and realize that not everyone will appreciate the use of some words in their presense. If anyone is offended by anything that I say I want to know so that I can 1) apologize and 2) not use the language around them in the future. I do not need some bureaucrat telling me what is decent or correct. I do not need legislation making it a class c misdemeanor to drop the 'f' bomb in public. (I'm serious that was suggested in a place that I have lived.)
I will tell you a story as an example and hope that from it you get my point as to how silly and fruitless it is to attempt to shield a child. I grew up in a church going Baptist family. I was a poster child for the sheltered child syndrome. My parents never cursed at home - well they would use the word sh*t which offends some people, I guess but that was it.
I was six-years-old when I visited a public restroom at the Clark County Fair (Ohio), an attraction definitely designed to attract and amuse the young. I first learned the word 'f*@#'. I saw it written prominently and frequently on the wall of a public restroom, but it was the usage above a urinal that amused me and sticks in my mind even to this day.
It said: "What the f*@# are you looking up here for; the joke is in your hands."
What is a word?
It is a verbalization of a singular discrete element of a thought that when expressed is hoped that the conventions of learning a language will permit communication between the speaker and the listener. The transference of the intended meaning of a thought to another person who is receiving the message largely depends a lot of variables that the senders depends on the society to accomplish - such as basic language education, social education, moral education and perhaps even a warning never to read anything that someone like me may have written.
Words once expressed are like a genie escaping from the lamp or all the evils that issued from Pandora opening her box. I have no idea where the expression 'letting a cat out of a bag' comes from but it is damned near impossible to put a cat back into a bag once it is free and I am in total awe of whoever put the cat in there to begin with. I'll bet that they wore a suit of armor.
Expressing a word may be a similar thing. It is very hard to ever retieve a word from public discourse. If it was something stupid that you may have said I'll bet you even try defending your own stupidity for a time. I know I have. Then again I am stubborn.
Very recently I had an episode with Jina, actually a couple of days ago. I was not in the mental state to deal with her on anything near a rational level. She said some things that triggered responses from me and I said some things that were hurtful to her even if I fully believe they are true. I am brutally honest if you will recall from previous posts.
One of the mysteries of humanity to me if how and why people that used to love one another so much could ever become such apparent adversaries. I have never intended to hurt her. Maybe I have hurt her and I will allow that as I have ignored her for work because work was necessary to support the family and that she perceived that as ignoring her.
I have ignored her for writing the books which she has NEVER supported except to ask me if they have been selling. The irony here is that she told me we needed a computer and once I figured out how much easier a computer is to use as a word processor, I was camped out manually digitizing page upon page of typewritten and handwritten text.
Lately I have been thinking about my life and how people have used me, or rather how I have allowed people to use me. I generally have known when I was being used. I may have been deceived briefly but at some point I realized it and decided whether to continue to permit the use or just fade away. Shy, generally quite people like I still tend to be may determine that 'being used' is a small price to pay for having at least some social interaction.
I really feel like I was a meal ticket for Jina, a way for her to get here to the States, stay here, become a citizen and be with her friends that were already here. I know that is completely cynical and there is more than ample evidence to the contrary. That is how I feel, though. She used me, which is okay because I didn't really mind.
She is a good mother. She cares about what happens to the kids. Our children are fantastic. All things aside I have been there for them lately. It was something that I took an enormous loss of pay in order to accomplish, something that she forced me to decide. It is something that I do not regret.
It would be grand to have money and not have to worry so much but I kind of think that I am in good company, that there are more people hurting economically and just getting by than there are people that are well healed. I even dare to say that a lot of people pretend that they don't have money problems.
Money is not a huge motivator for me. I only need what I need to survive. Therein lies the essense of the problem that I have with Jina. She has never understood that about me. Yes I am very bad at managing my own money.
I guess I feel sorry for the situation that she is in. As I have said countless times though not necessarily in the blog, you cannot stop having feelings for anyone that you have loved. Jina is the lady that I married. She is the mother of my children. We just aren’t clicking on all cylinders and haven't been for a long time. That is a problem between the two of us and for the most part we have kept the kids out from in between us. On Sunday, Rob played the peacemaker. He did a good job. He should be a politician and I should bite my tongue for saying that.
The rest of it is way too personal to get attention in a blog. There are some private matters that cannot be open season.
Having to eat words is something that people are not apt to ever do. The worst words once expressed must by their nature taste very bad, really.
(Disclaimer: Self censored, just in case and just because I rarely use the words that I have censored except when necessary to underline the natural speech of a character. Also if you will note from my profile Green Day is one of my favorite musical artists.)
E
Valentine's Day Update
First of all I want to say that I hope everyone had plans for today, to spend it with someone special. Unlike Groundhog Day, I kind of like the concept of a day dedicated to people who are in love. I won't even point out that the pressure of this day tends to break up a lot of couples.
Oh well.
I have been organizing files and such on my computer all day and haven't had much time to do anything else. I suppose that I was in the spring cleaning mood. I keep feeling like I am accomplishing something when it is in fact quetionable. The work is not finished but it is a lot better than it was. My patience will wear thin soon. I need to get rolling with this writing career or move on with life. I don't suspect I will ever stop writing it just may be that I stop writing with the intention of publishing. Back when I was just writing I had more fun with the creative part of the experience. Since I have started working in a more professional way, my productivity had increased but what I write about has also changed.
My favorite subjects is still the Wolves. I am basicially finished telling the story of the Wolf Pack, I think. I know I could go into a lot more detail on the backgrounds of other characters or even take a stab writing something about the times before Rotor and Ela'na
In the course of cleaning out the unnecessary files I determined that I seem to have accumulated a lot of files some in multiple versions from all the upgrades that I did to my computers in the past. Also from the last time that I repaired my best friend's computer I still have an image file of her hard drive. I guess I didn't delete that just in case something went wrong with her computer again. The one that is not working now is a newer one.
I have to attend a meeting tomorrow in the vicinity of Miami. It will likely as not take me a good three and a half hours to get there considering traffic. I may stay overnight there. If so I will miss posting to the blog. I am a nerd but I don't carry a laptop with me.
I don't enjoy business meetings. It is a necessary evil, I know but I don't have to enjoy them. Usually the regional manager feeds up pretty well. No complaints there.
I continue to read edit and revise Book 1. It is going very well I suppose. I am progressing very slowly with it so as to find all the mistakes. There have been very few really. Several typos and a few grammatical errors. I have clarified a couple of things and reworked a few sentences to make them more readable.
I need to get some rest. I have to get up around 4 AM.
E
Other
The following is a excerpt from a revised second edition of One Over X: Episode One - From The Inside To The Closer. The base material was copyrighted 2002 by Elgon Williams and all rights are resevered. It is offered here for promotional reasons and cannot be used elswhere without the epxressed written permission of the author. Enjoy the free glimpse.
By The Way this one section pretty much explains what is going on throughout the book as well as the first series.
The short distance between them seemed to grow and a fog settled over that span. Soon all was blank and lonely. He was driving a moving van through the hillside of western Maryland, en route to Florida. All of his personal belongings were stored in boxes and stacked inside the van and his Jeep in tow behind the van. He was the same but older, experienced, knew a great deal more about the struggle. He was going to attempt to rebuild a relationship gone sour for the sake of his children.
The morning sun’s glare reflected off the windshield of an oncoming car, momentarily blinding him. When his vision cleared he was somewhere else altogether, but still alone.
Andy’s eyes opened. Small comfort found in the solitude, in that his memories were once more solely his own, he had been someone else, Brent. Was there some purpose in that?
There was also growing concern turning rapidly to anxiety, as he could not sense volume or presence of anyone or anything near him. In the absence of worldly connection he became aware that he actually knew when there was someone near to him, a sense without his ability to control. It was nothing unique to him. It was an ability shared by the entire species. It just happened that Andy was acutely aware and for the first time it was hyperactive.
As soon as he was aware of his extreme isolation from all others, a brilliant discharge of energy issued from him without any corresponding sound, so intense was it that he not only averted his eyes, but also had to close them tightly and cover them with both hands. The discharge accelerated toward the extremes of whatever limit there was around him that defined his space. In moments the discharge came bounding, back, folding in upon itself, drawn fearfully toward him, its ultimate source.
With hands over eyes, he could discern the bones in his hands as if he were looking at an x-ray. This was the end, he believed. He was going to die!
The brilliance passed as abruptly as it had come and dissipated or perhaps was reclaimed into source.
Immediately, Andy opened his eyes and saw the Other, a rather odd looking gentleman standing a few feet from him. The Other walked across the way and sat down at a table, appearing to get comfortable. In a moment, the background began to distinguish itself from the foggy blankness that had preceded it. There were a number of darkly stained bookcases containing books. Where there were no bookcases there was rich hardwood paneling stained to match the bookcases. There were two large windows set into the walls between the bookcases with heavy drapes drawn closed over them. Whether it was day or night outside could not be determined as there was no light coming through into the room. Only table lamps illuminated the room
“How did you get in here?” Andy heard himself ask, although that was not the question foremost in his mind.
“The instability is a real bitch until you get a handle on it,” the Other said. “The real question for you to be asking is how you got here. This is my place, so to speak, as I was here before you.
Then again it is your place as you have been here countless times before and generally hold title over it at the present reference due to payment of something you call property taxes. Ostensibly you own this place. I live here. It is a most convenient and amicable arrangement.”
“But...”
“You are disoriented. I know. That is the hardest part of it all. You are still learning. The correct answer to your question is something you would not understand even if I could express it in this limited language that we are using. Suffice to say that you momentarily merged with this part of the universe. It is a semi-permanent relationship. If you knew how to control your instability, you could remain here indefinitely as you could stand fast as the waves of continuity pass over and around and through you. Without the mooring, you are adrift, carried to and fro at the whim of the waves that cycle through the continuum. Likely as not you will be leaving soon enough. You may as well enjoy your stay. That’s the easiest way to explain it and although it is not completely accurate as a description, it is correct for the immediate purpose. You are a visitor here. Right?” The Other got up from the table rubbing his stomach, left the room and headed down an external corridor toward another room. Andy followed the Other, eventually entering the kitchen. The other already had opened the refrigerator door, “You want something to eat?”
“You’re hungry?”
“Of course. How about you?”
“I don’t feel hungry. Do I know you?”
“Yes…I think…uhhh, well, probably not, otherwise you would remember me right off, I believe. You would not forget things without a reason for it, although until you get used to the transitions, you will feel disoriented and you may feel as if you have forgotten something. Sometimes you will feel like an intruder trapped inside your own body, unable to prevent what is happening and unable to even speak, except that someone inside you, with you, is controlling everything...Let’s see, milk, eggs, any bacon?” He opened the freezer compartment, “Ah, yes! There is plenty of cholesterol here.”
“That is how I feel, lost.” Andy was more curious about why he was not in a panic, than that this Other was preparing a breakfast using genuine food products the likes of which Andy had never been able to afford. “You know me, though?” Andy asked.
“Of course I know you,” the Other scoffed. “You and I have met many times, just not before now. You don’t have a memory of me because in a warped way of perceiving things, this time and place hasn’t happened yet for you. You have not experienced any meeting previous to this.
This is the first of many, though chronologically speaking this is probably one of our later meetings in your reality-bound awareness. You will return the favor for me one day. I am your mentor now, as you have been mine countless times. We have done great things though, in other times and other places. ‘There is a lot to look forward too’, I guess would be the way to think about it. You are too greatly human right now. What you will be is dominant. Things will change and as they change, your control over this thinly veiled environment will improve dramatically.”
Andy watched as the Other found everything he needed to make breakfast. The entire process disturbed Andy. Why was he in this place at all? This Other seemed so comfortable in these surroundings. “You’ve been here before, you say though this is not your place?”
“Actually, it is one of the places you have lived, several times. I know the place. We are in Texas.”
“Texas?”
“You don’t know Texas, so that must mean,” the Other paused in his preparation of breakfast, appeared to be in thought. “Did you come from that world with that Ethosphere thing or was it somewhere else?”
“Uh, the place with the Ethosphere, I guess. A couple of other places in between but I have no idea where I was.”
“For the moment, you don’t have the same historical references as this plane of existence. Texas wouldn’t make sense to you at all. Texas is a member state of a federation called the United States of America, which is on the same continent that you have lived in duration the world with the Ethosphere, some of Texas would be a part of Nueva España. Some other portion of Texas would be La Republica de Tejas to you. The United States is a Democratic Republic not entirely unlike the underlying governmental structures with which you are familiar, although this place is very technologically backward compared to the Late Twentieth Century Earth with which you are familiar. The technology of this place is generally equivalent to your late 18th Century. There are several exceptions and even certain things that are even more advanced about this world than your own, but overall, much of your technology will not happen for this world until, let me see - all things equal - about 2110AD, give or take. Except for the computer hardware, that will advance rapidly in this world and due to the relative technological stagnation in your world, this version of Earth will actually surpass your world’s computer technology within fifteen to twenty years, again give or take a short while.”
Andy shook his head, his mind striving to keep up.
“I should explain, I guess.”
“I guess you should.” Andy confirmed.
“You are in a place and a time that is roughly around the moment you decided to live here again. That would be after a long absence. During that absence you were writing a novel, your sixth novel, I believe it will be. Anyway it was something to do with Wolves. You never finish it anyway so it doesn’t really matter all that much. Even if it were published it would be one of the last ones that you write, under your real name. Eventually it is published incomplete but not because of literary merit so much as reputation of author.”
“Why would anyone want an unfinished book…?”
“Your son publishes it in memorial. Ironically it becomes your most famous work, although it has what is really the most meandering and confusing plots that you ever conceived.”
“Memorial. I die?”
“Some people think that you are dead. That becomes convenient for you. In a few days there will come a slightly later version of you but one that has no direct knowledge of the Ethosphere.
That Andy will have just come here from another place and time, the same place you will stay for a summer during your college summer break, years and years ago.”
“I think you lost me,” Andy said.
“The time thing is hard to capture within language. I offer my apologies. Anyway, suffice to say that you have a lot of memories of this place. It seems a focal point. There are other places of importance. There is a beach house near Corpus, a place in Florida that is also near to a beach.
You nearly married a woman that you met one of the summers you lived in Florida. Again in your middle life you will be in Florida with a young lady you have yet to meet. She is from New York City, a city that occupies virtually the same geographical position as the technopolis of Neo-Atlantis, by the way. The cities differ substantially in their size and demographic composition but the relative importance of each in its own world is essentially equivalent.”
“I don’t remember any of this... I mean, this never happened…” Andy’s choice of words puzzled even himself, but as he considered them, they really expressed what was going on in his mind.
The Other shrugged, “So what. The ride itself is the adventure. Destinations are secondary in importance. In fact, I really don’t care where I go anymore. The going is the part of the experience to be savored. Being anywhere at any given moment may be what life is meant to be, but for those of us who can step beyond the veils of reality, ordinary life is terribly boring. It only serves to test the resolve of conviction, the quality of character, and the validity of existence.”
“I don’t like it. I mean this stepping in and out of other places.”
The Other smiled, “Like you, some of us do not like it either. They find peace with it and remain in one place for an appreciable period of time before moving on. They try to have normal lives, whatever ‘normal’ is for them. I don’t choose their way. Neither will you. Once you get used to the travel, that is. Are you sure you won’t have breakfast? I made enough, there is plenty.”
“Who are you?” Andy asked of the Other.
“That is completely unimportant and irrelevant at the moment. You know me. That is all that needs to be between us. I am. You are. Names associate us to the boring, trivial stuff. We are related. At least we decided at one point that we must be related.”
Andy found a chair and sat. It wasn’t a particularly comfortable chair but it served its purpose.
“Related?” Andy found his voice.
“Yes, I think you are right. The more I have researched into it the more likely it seems. It is either that I am your progeny or you are mine. Perhaps we are the same distinguished only by aspect. That would be a very strange alternative as we are both here and now. I never have really figured out ‘the chicken and the egg’ thing between us, anyway. It doesn’t matter, though. You and I are not creatures of temporal concerns. That we are related should suffice our relationship.” He carried a plate to the dinette table, then pulled up a chair of his own, sat down and began to eat. “That we are related may have something to do with my love for your disgusting cuisine.”
As he ate, Andy was able for the first time to really have a good, scrutinizing look at the Other’s features. He seemed artificial, contrived and unreal. It was like he was a mannequin or a puppet of some sort. Yet he was alive. Some part of him was human. He could feel it.
He must have sensed Andy’s opinions because he looked at him in that exact moment, “I don’t care how I look anymore. Okay? If you must know, I find people as revolting as my sharing heritage. A few things that are human have contributed to the base quality of my existence, this food for example; I have no use for anyone. I could look more like you, but what is the point? I am only doing this much for your sake. I do not wish to frighten you. If you were fully control of your being you would not care to appear as you do either. At this point, you are far too weak to be on significance.”
“What do you mean, ‘at this point’?”
He smiled ever so slightly, and then spoke condescendingly, “Soon you will understand as I have just how puny a man really is.”
Andy looked away. Through the small window that was over the sink, Andy saw someone. Andy stood and walked over to get a better look. A woman was standing at the railing overlooking the courtyard between two of the six wings of the building. The sun was shining outside and there was a sound of children playing games in the courtyard. How could anything be more real than what was going on outside?
“Who is she?” Andy asked.
“She is a relative. I’m not sure what her precise relationship is. I have never cared to know. I do not particularly care for her. She is an egotistical self righteous bitch as far as I am concerned. There are forty people that live on this estate and she is my least favorite of all. I believe all but the twelve servants are first, second, third or fourth generations of your progeny.”
“I have a wife?”
“You have had wives, mistresses, and concubines, yes. They come and go over time, do they not? For the present you are without a partner. The most recent bitch doesn’t care for this place, but comes here out of a sense of obligation. Despite everything else she is dutiful and faithful for the moment. She hardly ever comes here except for holidays. Unfortunately it is nearly Christmas and so she feels compelled to be here for the sake of her ten relatives, three of them children that she bore you in her moment in your world’s sun.”
Andy turned back toward him, watched as he consumed breakfast as if he had not eaten in many days.
“Why would I live here alone, then?”
“You’re hardly alone. As I have said. There are forty here.”
“No, I mean without a wife?”
“Why should you understand?” The Other huffed. “From what I can surmise, you are early on in your sojourn. This is, ironically, after a lot of the events of your life in terms of chronology.
Your problem will be in maintaining recollections of events in their proper sequence rather than anything artificially imposed upon you like temporal relationships. Since I have never been to your origin myself, I can only report what you have previously revealed to me. You come from an alternate frame of reference, an aspect in which you do some great but lethal deed in an effort to provide a better life for yourself. This causes a rift between you and your wife, and ripples throughout every other aspect in which you exist.”
“I’m dead, then. Is that what you are saying?”
“No, if you were dead, you would know it. No, you eliminated others, hence the term ‘lethal’.”
“Eliminated others?”
“You didn’t exactly kill them. You eliminated their frame of reference for existence. It was intentional but designed to be temporary, which is something I do not understand completely myself. You have a heart, useless as it is to the overall outcome. The irony is that one of your other aspects actually created the frame of reference from which you came. Small cosmos, huh.”
“I created...”
“You are an agent of change, as am I. There are a handful of other beings like us. I inherited some of your difference in regard to power outside that which is natural.”
“Supernatural?”
“More aptly it is preternatural. Our beings have existed for a long time, long before most anything else. We are not the creators but we are direct agents of the process of creation. We were trapped in the creation but are not part of creation. What is here would not exist in the same way it does without us. It might be better had we not existed at all for the sake of many things we have meddled with and corrupted over the course of time, but some of us have been bored enough to want to play god. Meddling is hard to avoid. I suppose we have to be somewhere and woe be to whatever being we choose to dominate.”
“You are suggesting that all this is for our benefit?”
This triggered a good laugh, though it was of short enough duration. When he saw that Andy was not comparably amused, he cleared his throat and thought in silence for a moment as he selected his words carefully, then, “If you want to believe that everything exists merely for your benefit, it wouldn’t matter much overall. It is not an accurate reflection of what is intended. It would seem to work out all the same anyway. Trust me, it has been suggested at times and tested by others and all this reality business isn’t for anyone’s benefit. It is a great compromise between two distinctly different approaches and sets of agendas.”
“I remember a very different place than this. I had a job there. It was a so-so job, really, but I had access to all sorts of information.”
“I know about your Ethosphere. I have been there, once with you as a matter of fact. You end up back there several times, in many different iterations of that reality, but each time you are there only for a while. You go through this self-denial thing and torment yourself in those base conditions. You created that world for yourself. You were a very old man when you made that world and you lamented greatly the loss of your physical desires for women. At least that is what you told me. You wanted to just simply be in a place where your manhood could be justified. Despite that it is not in your nature.”
“Then the world should be perfect for me.”
“That would be no challenge. How could you prove your manhood?”
“What is to become of me, then?”
“How the hell would I know? You and I have different paths. I have my own friends and enemies. There are even times the two of us are adversaries. There are powerful beings about in nature and they are not particularly happy with either of us or even appreciative of the reason that our freedom is necessary. Be watchful. They can harm us though they cannot terminate. They are part of the creation, unfortunately, and not much fun to be around. We are not part of creation. It is our prison just as much as it is their purpose.”
“A prison without bars.”
The Other shrugged. “I have my own thing here. It’s hard enough for me to cope with it. You see we are not indigenous life. I like Earth as much as the next alien, but this is just a place I come to check in on you. And,” he loaded his mouth with some food, chewed it for a time then continued before it was all settled and swallowed, “Eat some of this disgusting food that I have grown to love. I have you to thank for having a taste for greasy foods. You allowed yourself to become too human.” He wiped his chin as if for emphasis then took a long drink of cold orange juice. He stood. “Well… I’ll see you another time. Be careful.”
“Where are you going?”
“Nowhere. You’re the one who is about to leave.”
There was a momentary wavering in the fabric of reality then the brilliance, the same that pained Andy’s senses before except that this time it seemed to endure for an eternity. Finally there was nothing. Not even light. What seemed an eternity to endure now seemed to have only lasted for a moment after it was over and done. Andy became aware of himself, his body, his mind, his soul and, what’s more, a world about him.
E
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