Another Lost Job

My name is Barry, although it might as well be Loser considering I just lost another job. It’s the fourth job I’ve lost in the past year.

I lost my job as a customer service rep at a local cable company. We all did. Reps that is. Our jobs were outsourced to India.

I worked in collections, a thankless job, far outside my capabilities as a software tester. But in this economy you take what you’re offered.

At the end of an eight-hour shift, they herded us all into a conference room and delivered the news that our services were no longer needed. Now I’m driving south on Interstate 25 with a severance check for two-hundred dollars in my pocket and a nearly empty gas tank.

To make matters worse, I hit gridlock with ten miles to drive before I reach my exit. As traffic inches forward, intermittent screeching reminds me of my car’s bad brakes. Without a job or money for repairs, I can only hope for a few hundred more miles before the brakes give out.

Afraid I might run out of gas, and knowing there’s a gas station just off the next exit, I signal and inch to the right. But a blonde jabbering on a cell phone in the car beside mine remains parallel. The b***h won’t move, forcing me to stay on the highway.

I sigh, then look down at the gas gauge. The warning light’s still glaring, and I’m starting to get nervous about running out of gas. Still, I figure I can make it to the next exit.

As I look up, I notice a red van signaling to enter my lane. I let it in then read the back of the van. “Drivers wanted” it says.

I wonder, Can I be a driver? I’m driving now. What more experience could I need? Figuring it’s worth a try, I punch the 800 number into my cell phone. After a few rings, a woman with a gruff east coast accent answers.

“OTG Courier Services. How may I help you?” she asks. I inquire about a job, but a deep hacking from the woman drowns out my voice.

“Sorry honey. I got the emphysema. What’d ya say?”

Real professional, I think. She reminds me of my grandmother, who died of “the emphysema.” Grandma chain-smoked hand-rolled cigarettes, made of a homemade mix that smelled like s**t. Her breath always smelled just as foul.

“I’m behind one of your vans, and it says you need drivers.” I ask, “Have any opening?”

After another coughing fit, she asks, “Do you have a valid drivers license?” I hear the sound of mucus in her voice, and my stomach retches.

I reply, “Yes.”

“Are you wanted for any crimes?” she asks.

I snigger at the question. She doesn’t know I’m so high-minded that I won’t even drive over the speed limit. “No,” I reply.

“Can you come down to the office now and fill out some paperwork?” She barks and hacks, and I pull the phone away from my ear. “We can get you started tomorrow.”

With the phone away from my ear, I wasn’t sure I heard her right. “Did you say you can start me tomorrow?

“Yeah honey. Our office is in the Tech Center. How soon can you get here?”

I hesitated to answer, wondering if landing a job over the phone is too good to be true. Then I look down at my gas gauge, and “too good to be true” doesn't matters.

Although traffic begins to advance, I say, “I’m stuck on I-25, approaching the Arapahoe exit.”

“Good,” she says, “We’re located on Arapahoe. Get off the highway, and drive east to Revere Street. We’re in the warehouse on the right.”

I tell her, “I’ll have to stop for gas.”

“I’m always here; in the front office. I’ll see you shortly,” she says and gets in one last cough before I hear her hang up.

I signal, and this time a courteous driver lets me into the far right lane, allowing me to exit onto Arapahoe Road. I stop at a gas station just off the exit. While I pump enough gas to drive to the warehouse and then home, I think how smart I was to call about the advertised job on the back of that van. But part of me is still skeptical the job is for real.

My phone rings and I notice the call is from the 800 number of the courier company. I answer. It’s the woman with the gruff voice.

“Honey,” she says. “Pick me up a coffee on your way.”

Who is this woman? I think, and chuckle.

“Sure,” I reply.

“There’s a coffee shop a block before Revere. Tell ‘em you’re picking up for Margery.”

I place the gas pump nozzle back into the pump and sign. The meter stopped at five dollars, all the money I had in my pocket before I paid the attendant. I pray I pumped enough to last the day. Then I ask Margery with forced sincerity, “Is there anything else I can pick up for you?”

She replies, “That’s all honey. See ya soon.”

I get back in my car and start it. The gas gauge reads just under a quarter of a tank. I suppose it’s better than where it read when I pulled up to the pump.

As I prepare to pull back out onto Arapahoe Road, I contemplate driving back toward the highway and home. But then I feel my stomach growl, and I turn toward the coffee shop to pick up Margery’s coffee.

The afternoon traffic is heavy with commuters, forcing their way east toward the suburbs at the end of the work day. As I approach each intersection, it’s nerve-racking to watch the intermittent blinking of brake lights. When I reach the top of a hill, I notice an accident further impeding traffic. There are flashing red and blue lights that mark the spot where three cars and a truck have collided. They are blocking the far right lane. Thankfully I notice the coffee shop, where I need to pick up Marjery’s coffee, is at the next intersection.

I think to myself, driving for a living, eight hours a day, in traffic like I’ve seen today, better be worth a decent salary.

With the next green light I turn into the coffee shop parking lot, and I'm lucky to find a spot to park just outside the door. Inside the place I’m also lucky not to have to wait in line. I tell the guy behind the counter I’m picking up coffee for Margery. He hands me a large cup and says, “That’ll be $4.50.”

I’m puzzled. Does she expects me to pay for her coffee?

Maybe I’m naive in thinking she would have prepaid for her coffee. So hoping they let her pay on credit, I reply, “I don’t have cash.”

He says, “We take debit and credit cards.” Then he focuses on the next person in line and asks for her order. While she orders some bizarre coffee drink that sounds foreign, I pull out my wallet and flip through my credit cards. I scramble, trying to remember which cards I’ve paid or haven’t been max’d out. None. So I pull out my debit card, hoping it’ll go through. It does. Breathing a sigh-of-relief, I take the receipt and the coffee, and exit the coffee shop, hoping I’m not now overdrawn.

Fifteen minutes later I make it down to the next stop light, which is Revere Street. I see the warehouse off to the right, just as Margery had provided in her directions. The building is painted a striking red, like the van I’d seen on the highway. There’s also a huge sign on the side with the OTG Courier Service’s logo covering half the building. Under the logo is a slogan that reads, “Providing expert transport of life’s most precious cargo.”

I park on the street because the warehouse entrance is blocked by trucks delivering a dozen or so new red vans marked with the company logo. The business must be doing well, delivering “life’s most precious cargo,” whatever that means. I suppose I’ll be driving one of those vans tomorrow. I hope I get one of the new ones.

There’s a door marked “Office.” I enter carrying Margery’s coffee and look around. I expected the place to look similar to the post office or an overnight delivery service, but it doesn’t even look like a business. It looks like I walked into someone’s apartment. I remember Margery saying she was always at the office, and it looks like she meant it literally.

There’s a living room, decorated as such, and a kitchen with a table and chairs where an old frail looking woman sits. Her hair’s dyed a hideous shade of red, and her face is overly made up. It’s like she’s trying to look younger, but the wrinkles on her face give away her age.

The woman sits smoking a cigarette and shuffling some papers. “Barry. You made it.” she says, and I guess it’s Margery. “Bring me my coffee honey.” It’s Margery.

Then I wonder, did I tell her my name? No, I didn’t, but I leave it alone and hand Margery her coffee.

She tells me to have a seat in front of a pile of paperwork a couple inches thick. When I sit down, she hands me a pen. “Before you start, you’ll have to sign some standard agreements and contracts. All our driver sign ‘em.”

I knew this is too good to be true. I’ve never signed so much paperwork before I started a job. I nervously ask, “Agreements? Contracts?”

“Yeah honey. Standard stuff for salary, liability and such.” Then she says, “Top copy’s for salary. Fifty an hour; time and a half overtime.”

“Really?” I question. “To drive a van?” I’ve never made over twenty-five an hour, and lately I’ve been lucky to get ten to twelve. I assumed pay to be a driver would be much less. Still I’m concerned about the contracts and what she means by “liability and such.” So I ask her, “What sort of liabilities?”

“Nothing to worry about honey. We just want to make sure things are taken care of in case something happens.”

“Do you mean like an accident?”

She replies, “Yes, driving for us can be dangerous among other things.”

“So these are like insurance forms?”

She smiles out of one side of her mouth. “Yeah honey. Like insurance forms.”

“So if anything happens to me, I’ll be taken care of?”

“Oh yeah.” She took one last drag of her cigarette and put it out in the ashtray. “You’ll be taken care of.”

The smoke fades and Margery’s hacking and coughing recommences, giving me a minute to think. Do I walk away from this job, because there’s are risk? Do I continue to live and wonder where I’ll get my the next five dollars for gas or a decent meal? Or do I accept the risks? I didn’t ask these questions when I took that miserable job in the collections department at the cable company. Why now? Have I become comfortable this past year, putting up with miserable jobs that pay subpar salaries?

All these questions make my head spin until I look down at the pen that Margery gave me. I hear a voice in my head say, “What are you waiting for? Sign and your misery will end.”

Then Margery says, “Go to each page with a red tab and sign by the X.” But I don’t hear her. I’m frozen, staring at the pen.

Margery opens the contract to the first red tab and takes a hold of my hand. She guides it down until the pen meets paper. There’s an echo in my head as she and the voice repeat, “Sign and your misery will end.”

The next thing I hear is Margery coughing. My eyes refocus as I watch her pull my contracts across the table and toward her. “See, that wasn’t so bad,” she says and removes a cigarette from a gold case.

“I signed?” I ask.

“Yeah honey. All done.”

As I become more coherent, I notice that the fingers on my right hand hurt. I hold them up, and look at them. Why are they so pink? And why is there blood on my index finger?

“Be here tomorrow morning at six o’clock,” Margery says. Tobacco crackles as she takes a match to the cigarette and sucks in a deep breath.

“Six o’clock?” I cringe and forget about the blood.

Margery raises an eyebrow and repeats, “Six o’clock.”

“Go home honey and get a good night’s rest. You’ll be on the Trinidad route tomorrow,” says Margery. “Come see me when you get here in the morning, and I’ll get you in a van and on the road.”

I ask, “Anything else I need to do?”

Margery takes a drag from her cigarette, then replies. “Nothing until tomorrow. Go home.”

Reviews

[Ben]

Great write! I liked it!