Takin’ Care of Business
Together…Wherever We Go
Well, Halloween has
come and gone, which means Floyd and I have been together 16 years. We
met in the third grade, of course.
We’re not usually big
on presents, but this year we gave ourselves the best Hallowversary gift
ever: we sold our store. That’s right, after five years of
manufacturing a boring but necessary product we are free at last, free
at last, thank God almighty, free at last.
This is how we operate:
no matter what one of us does for a living, the other person gets sucked
into it, as in the word “sucker.” Call it cooperation, call it
codependency; we don’t ask questions. “Together, wherever we go,”
that’s our motto.
So, despite having no
business acumen whatsoever I went to work at what I came to think of
affectionately as I Hate My Job, Inc. You see, after watching Floyd
endure years of me fighting and scratching my way to the middle as a
resoundingly mediocre opera singer, I thought it only right to help him
fulfill his dream of running his own business. (And let’s face it, I
needed a job and had few skills other than the ability to sing loudly in
several languages.)
With the exception of
an institutionalized mental patient, I can’t imagine a person more
unequipped to become a businessman. I couldn’t even operate a staple
remover properly. The first month we were in business I put my head down
on the desk and cried every day.
And with good reason.
Our heat broke in the winter, our air conditioning in the summer
(“It’s not meant to withstand 100 degree temperatures,” our
property manager told us. “What the hell is it for then?” I asked.)
The store flooded in the fall and, yes, was actually struck by lightning
in the spring. It was like the Book of Job; all I needed to do was to
break out in boils. Oh, wait, that happened, too.
I lost sleep and gained
weight. I suffered from headaches, backaches, and stomachaches. I had so
many aches I had scrambled aches.
A job you hate is like
a vampire; it can suck the very life out of you. One night after another
14-hour day I cooked up some zucchini for pasta primavera only to
realize afterwards that I had stir-fried a cucumber. I then proceeded to
pour the spaghetti in the sink to drain without the benefit of putting a
colander there first. Too tired to care, I fished a pound of pasta out
of the garbage disposal, drowned it in olive oil and called it dinner.
Succeeding at business
felt to me like passing a test in school—I was happy to make the grade
but wished I hadn’t been tested in the first place. Of course there
were some days I didn’t hate my job, like on the weekends, for
instance. But most mornings I had to peel myself out of bed like an old
Band-Aid stuck to the skin.
Not just anybody can do
a job they loathe; it requires real mental strength to marinate in the
discontent and resentment.
The worst were the
networking meetings. There I’d be at Dark O’Clock listening to some
Vice President of Paper Clips go on about a job even more soul-killingly
dull than mine, willing to chew off my own foot to escape (but settling
instead for the Costco muffins) and I’d think, “This isn’t the
Chamber of Commerce—it’s the Chamber of Horrors.”
I tried to make it fun,
honest. Our store was a franchise, so one day in response to a request
from the corporate office for ways in which they could help us better, I
typed a quick e-mail that said, “Lap dances would be nice.” I hit
“Send,” not realizing I was distributing it to 400 franchisees
nationwide. Store owners in the Bible Belt were not amused.
Sometimes customers
would call and say, “I’m looking for a quote,” and I’d say,
“Sure, how about ‘To thine own self be true’? Or ‘Frankly, my
dear, I don’t give a damn’?”
Maybe I was just trying
to remind myself who I was and why I was doing what I was doing. Being
Mr. Business Owner wasn’t being true to mine own self; but it was for
mine own partner and he is the love of my life. So I gave a damn.
And when the
opportunity to sell came along, Floyd turned to me and said, “I want
to do this for you. I want you to have your dreams, too.” You see,
that’s just how we operate. Together…wherever we go.
And that, my friends,
is The Gospel According to Marc.
Marc
Acito has now joined the ranks of the unemployed and couldn’t be
happier about it. Write him at MarcAcito@attbi.com.
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