Real Talk: I’ve Got Shit to Do

Let me tell you about the time I got promoted at Denny’s for being a lunatic.

I was twenty-seven, working graveyard shifts in Santa Barbara, wearing a uniform that smelled like syrup and kitchen grease even after I washed it. I had no bank account, no backup plan, and a budget that depended on nothing expensive happening before Friday. Somewhere in my possession was a copy of The Alchemist, because apparently a young man surviving on tips also needed a Brazilian man telling him to follow his dreams.

Three nights a week, the customers were tweakers, drunks, or ghosts. The other four, it was just the ghosts. You could usually tell the difference because the ghosts were less demanding about the ranch.

There was one regular I’ll call Dick. His real name deserves privacy, and his personality deserves accuracy. Dick came in on Thursdays, ordered breakfast and coffee, and never tipped. He did, however, leave Bible verses written on napkins in red ink. I assume he believed the Lord would cover his portion, but that never happened. 

“These people will eat you alive,” my manager once told me. “You are too nice.”

I understood what he meant. Every shift involved somebody yelling, somebody stealing something, or somebody occupying the bathroom long enough to require a welfare check and possibly an exorcism. Through all of it, I smiled, refilled coffee, and tried to be useful. At that age, I still believed being useful would keep me safe. Give people enough reasons to need you, and they will surely treat you decently.

An adorable theory, right? I carried it around for years.

One night, after finishing his usual breakfast, Dick decided to offer some career advice.

“You know what your problem is? You’re too soft for this country. You gotta grow some balls or go back where you came from.”

I stood there holding the check. The man had eaten his food, drunk enough coffee to keep him awake for a week, and now wanted to find a reason to cause a fight. 

“You’re right,” I said. Then I brought the coffee pot over and poured the rest of it into his plate.

He jumped up.

“What the fuck?”

“Are my balls big enough now?” I asked. 

He puffed out his chest. I took off my apron, set it on the table, and invited him to hit me, adding that I could use the lawsuit. My understanding of civil litigation came entirely from television, but I delivered the line with confidence.

The restaurant went quiet. Dick looked around, reconsidered the evening, and left. I expected to lose my job. By morning, I had mentally spent my final paycheck and begun calculating how long I could survive on whatever was in the refrigerator. Instead, my manager called me into the back, listened to the story, and put me in charge of graveyard.

“You’ve got balls,” he said.

That was the performance review.

I celebrated with a cheap donut outside 7-Eleven. At the time, a promotion and enough money for breakfast could make you feel as if you had finally figured out the country. But more than ten years later, I’m still checking my work.

The Employment Section Has Changed

If my life followed a tidy pattern, this would be where I told you I eventually stood up for myself, walked out of an insurance agency, and strode into the sunset while something expensive played on the soundtrack. But I got fired instead. That detail creates certain difficulties for the triumphant resignation scene.

I made mistakes there, and I’ve acknowledged them. Those mistakes came from the training we received and the way the work was being done in the agency. Other people were making the same mistakes. I wasn’t the only person following those practices, yet I became the scapegoat when it was time to assign consequences.

I’m sure of that, but proving the full picture is another matter. I don’t have a way to document everything that happened or establish what everyone knew. That leaves me in the irritating position of knowing what I experienced while understanding that certainty doesn’t come with an attachment you can forward.

I can take responsibility for my own work. Being handed everyone else’s share is where my cooperation ends. Getting fired also gives you an enormous amount to think about at exactly the moment you need to concentrate on paying rent.

For a while, my mind wanted to hold a hearing every morning. Who knew what? Who should have said something? What had already been decided before I entered the room? I could build a convincing argument while brushing my teeth and improve it considerably by lunch. Unfortunately, there is very little demand for a man who can win an imaginary argument with his former employer. I checked. The benefits are terrible.

I needed another job.

Now I’m working at a new insurance agency here in Santa Barbara. New office, new routines, credentials to get in order, people to call, business to write. I’m rebuilding the practical parts of my life while the emotional parts occasionally interrupt to request another hearing.

Some clients have chosen to keep working with me. That means a great deal, especially after a period when I was questioning almost everything. Someone saying, “Yes, Gabriel, I still want you to help me,” can do more for your confidence than an afternoon spent composing a devastating response you should probably never send.

There is also the simple relief of having work to do. A phone rings. Somebody needs an answer. A policy needs attention. For a few minutes, I get to concentrate on something useful instead of serving as the world’s leading historian of my own firing.

I appreciate those minutes.

Dick Would Love the Original Lesson

Looking back at Denny’s, I can see how easily I could turn that story into permission to behave like an asshole. A man insults me, I do something outrageous, he leaves, and I get promoted. Roll credits.

Dick would probably enjoy that lesson. It would confirm his belief that the world belongs to whoever makes the biggest scene. I was young, angry, and exhausted. The coffee landed on a plate, the confrontation ended, and my manager happened to approve. There were several opportunities for that evening to become a much worse story.

At forty-one, I have enough bills to prefer fewer opportunities. I still understand the impulse, though. After you’ve spent enough time being agreeable, you start imagining the relief of saying exactly what you think. Every word, full volume, perhaps with props. The fantasy is especially attractive when someone has treated you unfairly. You want the moment when the room goes quiet, and everybody finally understands. You want the other person to feel exposed. You want a witness who says, “Yes, I saw that too.”

Sometimes you get one. Sometimes everybody goes home, and you’re left with the same bills and a remarkably detailed speech. These days, I’m trying to get more selective about where my energy goes. I can be furious and still answer a client’s question. I can think somebody behaved like a dick and still finish my work. I can leave a message unanswered until I’ve had dinner and remembered that the entire world does not require my immediate reaction.

This requires more effort than pouring coffee into a plate.

Meanwhile, I Keep Writing

Through all of this, I still want to write. That remains one of the more suspicious things about me. A sensible man might look at the last few months and decide to spend his evenings quietly recovering; watch television, go to bed at a reasonable hour, or develop an interest in something soothing that doesn’t involve imaginary people making catastrophic decisions. I open a document. There will be a sentence bothering me, or a character who needs to do something awful, or a perfectly ordinary situation that my brain has decided would improve with a death.

In The Headache, I took a familiar misery and asked what would happen if it could spread. A contagious headache moving through Santa Barbara. Most people take an aspirin and get on with their afternoon, but I apparently needed to involve the city. That is the part of writing I keep returning to: following a thought beyond the point where a reasonable person would leave it alone. You stay with the discomfort, you ask another question. Eventually, there are consequences, characters, and revisions waiting for you.

The revisions are how you know you haven’t completely lost your mind. Even madness needs an editor.

Writing in English (my second language) adds its own entertainment. I’ve spent years learning how a sentence sounds, where a joke lands, and when I’m explaining something the reader understood two paragraphs ago. Occasionally, I find a phrase I like so much that I use it three times and then have to remove it twice.

Nobody warned me that becoming a writer would involve this much deleting.

I keep doing it because I enjoy the work, even when I complain about it. I like finishing a story. I like finding the sentence that makes a scene work. I like knowing that something which existed only in my head can now trouble a stranger in another city.

That’s my modest contribution to society.

My Life Has More Than One Room

I’ve also been trying to remember how much of my life exists outside employment. I’m on the board of the Hispanic Chamber. I’ve been involved with Rotary for more than nine years. There are events to help with, people to see, books I want to read, and a woman I enjoy spending time with. Somewhere in there, I’m supposed to eat properly and occasionally clean the apartment.

The calendar has been quite rude about its limitations.

After losing a job, it’s easy to let that one event move into every room. You bring it to dinner. It sits beside you while you watch a movie. You’re having a perfectly pleasant conversation, and suddenly you’re explaining what happened again, including a supporting detail you’ve only just remembered.

I’m getting tired of giving it that much space.

Still Here, Slightly Better Dressed

I understand why a younger version of me liked the idea of being a little crazy. He was trying to learn everything at once, and he was tired of feeling small. One confrontation in a Denny’s made him feel capable of answering back. I have some affection for that man. I also wish he had known a few things before he started inviting strangers to punch him.

Starting over has become less romantic with age. I know how much work it involves. I know confidence can disappear during a quiet drive home and return halfway through an ordinary conversation. Some days, progress consists of doing what needs to be done while feeling thoroughly unimpressive.

I’m learning to count those days too.

Tomorrow, I’ll go to the office. There will be calls to make, questions to answer, and something I’ll need to look up. Later, if I have enough energy, I’ll work on a story. One of my characters will probably be having a worse day than I am.

I find that arrangement helpful.

And if Dick ever comes back, he can get his coffee at the counter.

I’ve got shit to do.

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