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December 03 So you think YOUR job is bad?I find myself embarrassingly low on funds at the moment. The next remittance check that my family is due to send to keep me safely away from society and in the wilds of Colorado is not due for some months yet. So, I have found temporary employment with one of the few outfits that specializes in hiring ne'r-do-wells, such as myself - the company responsible for the delivery of new phone books every year. Ahhh, phone book delivery in the Colorado snow in November and December! Nothing to compare with it!
It's a shit, temporary job and they hire ANYONE (read me!) who shows up with a vehicle that runs, a driver's license, and insurance or reasonable forgeries there-of. Routes pay a flat fee. Your gas, oil, and vehicle wear and tear (which is considerable) all come out of that before you even begin to get a distant glimpse of a profit. Oh well, I've done worse things in the past out of desperation than this. I awoke bright and early on the day I was report in for my first route and began to beat a path through the wolves at my door out to the street where my battered Ford Explorer was illegally parked. A light rain was drizzling down to match my sullen mood. I crumpled up the assortment of damp parking tickets that had been decorating my windshield and began to clear out last summer's camping equipment from the car's interior. I really prefer driving around with my camping gear at all times. It gives me a feeling of security knowing that I can head for the hills at a moment's notice should the government ever discover where I actually live. In place of the camping gear, I threw in my battered boom box and a selection of tapes with suitable music to provide a sound track for my task - an eclectic mix of Emmy Lou Harris and the Spy boy Band, Shawn Colvin, Jewel, Reba Macintyre, Matchbox 20, Toby Keith, and Sheryl Crowe. I grabbed my battered book of El Paso County road maps and set off for the distribution center. I've done this job before, and as I drove along, I mused over the high points of past year's adventures with various phone book delivery jobs. There was the time I forgot to deliver the other side of the streets on half my routes and I was forced to go back and re-do the whole thing when the error was discovered, driving down residential roads and cul-de-sacs at midnight to make my deadline. Once, I mistakenly delivered 500 books to a gated community that actually wasn't on my route. Another time I got so far behind in my deliveries that I forced the station manager to wait 3 hours on me because I was the last delivery person to finish up my route - no wait, he had to come in the next day, come to think of it - just for me. One year I took a route that I thought would be in my own neighborhood, but I had transposed the zip code numbers. The area turned out to be far away on the eastern plains of Colorado and encompassed 300 square miles. I got lost continually out there, and once I ran out of gas, 20 miles from the nearest filling station. For this effort, I got a flat rate of a lousy 100 bucks. If it was a regular job I'd be fired in a heartbeat, but since they're used to the motley collection of derelicts and tramps that show up each year, they hire me back and don't remember about me until too late. I couldn't wait to see what excitements this year will bring. The distribution center is in a warehouse in a crummy part of town. The area resembles a bombed out section of Baghdad as much as it does anywhere else. A couple of disgruntled looking workers with their collars pulled up against the rain were leaning against several enormous pallets of tightly wrapped cellophane bundles of phone books outside a dilapidated building. In case their was any remaining doubt as to what the place was, the entryway sported a bright yellow banner reading "Phone Book Delivery Here!" "Well, at least it doesn't say Arbeit macht frei" I thought to myself as I walked beneath the sign and through the door. An artificially cheerful man of about 35 who was, apparently, the station manager greeted me. Luckily, this was his first time doing the job, so he didn't remember me. He actually smiled at me as he waved me to a seat among the 4 other eager would-be phonebook delivery "contractors." The group was having an animated discussion about the best way to stay warm in one's car. They all looked as though they brought considerable real life experience to their thoughts on the subject. The woman in front of me swore by a 5 pound coffee can stuffed with a roll of TP onto which a few drops of alcohol had been poured. "You drink the rest," she advised her audience with a wide grin. Mr. Artificially Cheerful broke up the debate by announcing that it was time to view the 10-minute training film after which we would be called up one at a time to choose our routes and sign paperwork. Everyone obediently stopped talking and turned their eyes to the video, which started out by stating the rigorous requirements for selection as an independent delivery contractor with the Yellow Book Company. You have to be 18 or older and present a document that bears at least a faint resemblance to a driver's license. I figured my Colorado State ID card would suffice. I am a legally licensed driver, I just can't figure out where I put my drat license. It's been missing since before the election, and I haven't gotten around to going and standing in line for 3 hours at DMV for a replacement. I spent the rest of the time the video was playing by pretending to take notes while actually drawing nice bright suns with my new gold ink pen and thinking of other jobs where I was too old, too over-qualified, too under-qualified, too over and under EVERYTHING to even get my resume read by the janitor before he burned it in the company furnace. I thought about my last semi-real job as a gardener's assistant where I made the mistake of telling the woman in charge of our crew (a fundamentalist Christian) that there was scientific proof in favor of the theory of evolution. I was fired a couple of days later. Oh well. sic transit gloria mundi After the video finished I went up with the rest of my fellow independent contractors to view a large map of El Paso County tacked on the grey wall. Since Yellow Book delivery had already been underway for about a week or so, most of the choice, best paying routes were already gone. However, I spied two good paying (it's all relative) routes left on the very top-most northern part of the map. I pulled a metal folding chair up to the map and snagged the two route stickers. You were only supposed to take one at a time, but I figured it wouldn't hurt anything if I "reserved" one, and no one seem to notice when I put the extra sticker in my pocket. I walked out of the building with my first route sheets in hand - 530 phone books destined for some god-forsaken new housing development on the rolling plains 20 miles north of town. The drizzle had turned into light snow. The dock guys flung heavy, plastic wrapped 4-packs of books into my Explorer until its suspension was practically dragging on the ground and the snow had begun to fall in menacingly large flakes. Winter storm warnings had been duly issued, schools closed, and a drivers' advisory blared forth from my car radio telling everyone to stay home. This was my signal to set out for the northern plains, so I hopped in behind the wheel and headed toward the Interstate. You have never driven unless you've driven a Ford Explorer with the clutch giving out and piled with about a thousand pounds of phone books. My Explorer responds like a hog in a mud hole under such situations - it's sluggish, lethargic, but has enough momentum to go into one hell of a slide if your attention wanders from the task of steering the thing for even a moment. I waddled out onto the interstate with my first load of books and found myself cruising along at 70 mph to my amazement. Good Explorer! Good girl! Alas, I didn't see my exit sign looming up ahead through the snow flakes until too late, and I didn't dare slam on the breaks and swerve to the right hand lane with my heavy load on the slick highway (inertia will get you every time). I ended up driving my heavily laden vehicle an extra 5 miles to the next exit ramp and then 5 miles back. I was amazed when I finally pulled off I-25 at the correct exit. Only 5 years ago, that particular stretch of land had been nothing but rolling prairie. Now it's a vigorous new cancer of a suburb complete with a King Soopers, a liquor store, and even a Starbucks with a convenient drive thru. Through the blowing snow I could faintly discern houses dotting the landscape like mushrooms, and each one was destined to receive its very own Yellow Book courtesy of yours truly and a gimpy '92 Ford Explorer. I pulled into the King Soopers parking lot to get my bearings and bag up the first load of books. Each plastic wrapped 4-pack must be broken open and then each book repackaged into a nice litterbug yellow individual bag. I found a deserted part of the parking lot and began to throw 4 packs of books out of the Explorer. I estimate that each pack weighs 20 pounds - not all that much, but enough if you are a middle-aged woman unused to manual labor. I had about half the route - 60 packs - in my Explorer. The best technique for breaking open the packs is to hit the pack smartly upon your car bumper. When executed properly, this maneuver will yield two neat half packs from which the books can then be easily removed and placed in their individual bags that are then slung back into thru tailgate of your car. With a little practice, you can sling the books all the way to the front passenger's side. I had been breaking open, bagging, and slinging books for about 20 minutes and had lost all feeling in my hands and feet when a couple of kids on lunch break from some local construction crew pulled up in their truck to eat their King Sooper's deli sandwiches and watch the show. When I finally decided I had enough bagged books for my first run and got in behind the driver's seat to take off, one of the kids yelled, "Go get 'em, lady!" I gave them a peace sign as me and the Explorer slithered off in search of our first stops - on a street with the unlikely name of Leather Chaps Drive. I rolled down the driver's side window, cranked up the boom box to top volume: ("Should of been a Cowboy/Should of learned to rope and ride/wearing my six shooter/taking my pony on a cattle drive/ I could of had a side-kick with a funny name/ riding wild through the hills chasing Jesse James/ Ending up on the brink of danger/ Riding shotgun for the Texas Rangers! / Oh, I should of been a Cowboy!") I sang along, changing "cowboy" to "cowGIRL." Coulda, woulda, shoulda. Well, we all make wrong choices at some point in our lives. Might as well sing about it as bitch. I started throwing books (not recommended by the friendly people back in the distribution center, but they're not driving through 3 foot snow drifts with a rabid pack of farm dogs chasing them and the clutch on their vehicle giving out)... _________________ Trackbacks (7)The trackback URL for this entry is: http://manitousprings.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!DC64E33824A9DF56!128.trak Weblogs that reference this entry
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