Anyone who reads this should know that I have been operating under the assumption that anyone who knows my name could be reading this blog. This has been true from day one.
This is a work of fiction in that it proceeds entirely from my imagination, yet it concerns real people and real situations and real incidents.
But remember, your perceptions of what is real and what is not real proceed also entirely from your imagination.
Some people have the power to speak and write freely, and to impose their imagination onto reality. Therefore, the reality of a person who is lesser in power may be imposed upon by the imagination of others, who do wield power. In time, the imagination of those who hold power can become the reality of those who do not hold power. This is not always a bad thing, necessarily, but in my experience it has been and can be.
I am trying to make my way in this world and often I perceive myself being misperceived at the same time that I am powerless to correct those mis-perceptions. That is also what this blog is about, in some ways.
Do not speak to me unless you are prepared to hear my answer. Be real with me and I will be real with you.
Know that I have the power to write. I could be working on the next best novel, for all you know.
I’m going to leave this alone now. This experimental fiction thing could make a person crazy, although it has also kept me sane, and if I need it to serve the latter function again, I will come back to it.
Until then, thanks for reading, passengers.
Friday, May 23, 2008
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
And another thing
I know very well that we are living in a surveillance society. I don't like it, but that's the way it goes.
I would not be surprised at all to know that the challenges that I've posed to all the very important people I work for have raised their hackles enough that they could want surreptitiously to find out a little bit more about me, even to try and drag out a little bit of dirt to smear me with.
I have been in a situation before in which a challenge I posed to power provoked that power to try to end my life as I'd known it up to that time, in an effort to break me. I survived that, and I will survive this.
If there is anything you want to know, you could simply ask.
I would not be surprised at all to know that the challenges that I've posed to all the very important people I work for have raised their hackles enough that they could want surreptitiously to find out a little bit more about me, even to try and drag out a little bit of dirt to smear me with.
I have been in a situation before in which a challenge I posed to power provoked that power to try to end my life as I'd known it up to that time, in an effort to break me. I survived that, and I will survive this.
If there is anything you want to know, you could simply ask.
do people read Harper's?
This was their lead editorial this month. I believe it to be very appropriate to what I've been trying to do here. Thanks for reading.
Democracy and Deference
Democracy and Deference
Mark Slouka
I blame my parents, which is trite but traditional. Six years after stepping onto the troubled shore of Senator Joseph McCarthy’s America they had a son and promptly began to fill his head with nonsense. In America, they taught me, talent and hard work were all; allegiance was automatically owed to no one; respect had to be earned. In America, the president worked for us, and knew it, and the house we allowed him to live in for a time—that great white outie of the Republic—was known as The People’s House. Would that I had been suckled by wolves.
Turn on the TV to almost any program with an office in it, and you’ll find a depressingly accurate representation of the “boss culture,” a culture based on an a priori notion of—a devout belief in—inequality. The boss will scowl or humiliate you…because he can, because he’s the boss. And you’ll keep your mouth shut and look contrite, even if you’ve done nothing wrong . . . because, well, because he’s the boss. Because he’s above you. Because he makes more money than you. Because—admit it—he’s more than you.
This is the paradigm—the relational model that shapes so much of our public life. Its primary components are intimidation and fear. It is essentially authoritarian. If not principally about the abuse of power, it rests, nonetheless, on a generally accepted notion of power’s privileges.1 Of its inherent rights. The Rights of Man? Please. The average man has the right to get rich so that he too can sit behind a desk wearing an absurd haircut, yelling, “You’re fired!” or refuse to take any more questions; so that he too—when the great day comes—can pour boiling oil on the plebes at the base of the castle wall, each and every one of whom accepts his right to do so, and aspires to the honor.
You say I’m tilting at human nature? That the race of man loves a lord—and always has? That power (and what good is power if it can’t be abused a little, no?) has always been one of the time-honored perks of success, and that, of all the lies told, the one about all men being created equal is the most patently absurd? Perhaps. But surely one could argue that the American democratic experiment was at least in part an attempt to challenge this “reality,” to establish a political and legal culture from which would emerge, organically, a new sensibility: independent, unburdened by the protocols of class, skeptical of inherited truths. Willing to be disobedient. To moon the lord.
Alas, if that was the plan, it went sideways a long time ago. In today’s America, the majority is nothing if not impressed by power and fame (its legitimacy is irrelevant), nothing if not obedient. As for mooning the lord, the ass to the glass these days is more likely to be the lord’s, and our own posture toward it, well, something short of heroic. Worse yet, should someone decide to take offense, and suggest that it is not the lord’s place to act thusly, he will be set upon by the puckering multitude who will punish him for his impertinence.
At a White House reception a couple of years ago, President George Bush asked Senator-elect Jim Webb how things were going for his son, a Marine serving in Iraq. “I’d like to get them out of Iraq, Mr. President,” Webb replied. “I didn’t ask you that,” the president shot back. “I asked you how your boy was doing.”
Webb, a decorated Vietnam War veteran, had not only risked his own life in the service of his country but now had a child in harm’s way, serving in an ill-conceived and criminally mismanaged war sold to the nation under false pretenses by the man standing in front of him. One might expect this second man to be nice. To show a modicum of respect. Should he fall short of this, one could at least take comfort in the certainty that the American people would hold him accountable for his rudeness and presumption.
Which is precisely what many of them did—they held Jim Webb accountable. “I’m surprised and offended by Jim Webb,” declared Stephen Hess, a professor at George Washington University, in a New York Times article entitled “A Breach of Manners Sets a Tough Town Atwitter.” Admitting that the president had perhaps been “a little snippy,” Professor Hess went on to extol the democratic virtues of decorum and protocol, interrupting himself only long enough to recall a steel executive named Clarence Randall who, having once addressed Harry S Truman as “Mr. Truman” instead of “Mr. President,” remained haunted by it for decades.
Hess wasn’t the only one to be shocked by Webb’s behavior. Letitia Baldrige, the “doyenne of Washington manners,” termed the whole thing “a sad exchange.” Judith Martin, a.k.a. Miss Manners, made the point that “even discussions of war and life and death did not justify suspending the rules,” then declined to comment on l’affaire Webb-Bush, saying, “It would be rude of me to declare an individual rude.”
But it was left to Kate Zernike, the author of the Times article, to place the cherry atop this shameful confection in the form of a seemingly offhand parenthetical: “(On criticizing the president in his own house, Ms. Baldrige quotes the French: ça ne se fait pas—‘it is not done.’)”
To which one might reply, in the parlance of my native town: Why the fuck not? Répétez après moi: It ain’t the man’s house. We’re letting him borrow it for a time. And he should behave accordingly—that is, as one cognizant of the honor bestowed upon him—or risk being evicted by the people in favor of a more suitable tenant.
But let’s not kid ourselves. The outrage over the Webb-Bush exchange was not really about decorum. It was about daring to stand up to the boss. Rudeness? Stop. This is America. We’re rude to one another more or less continually. We make mincemeat of one another on television, fiberoptically flame one another to a crisp, blog ourselves bloody. No, rudeness, as deplorable as it is, is not the point here, particularly as Webb, judged by any reasonable standard, wasn’t rude at all.
But wait—maybe rudeness is the point after all. Maybe rudeness, in our democratically challenged age, has morphed into a synonym for insubordination. If true, this explains a great deal. It suggests that in America today, only something done to those above us can qualify as rudeness. Done to those below it’s something quite different—a right.
Which brings us to the case of former Secretary of State Colin Powell, whose dueling careers as soldier and statesman fought it out before the U.N. Security Council on that memorable day as the nation prepared for war. The soldier, not surprisingly, dispatched the statesman, to our ongoing grief and Powell’s everlasting shame.
In a nutshell—or shell casing, perhaps—it came down to this: despite his doubts about the “intelligence” he had been provided, despite the fact that he spent days “trimming the garbage” from Vice President Cheney’s “evidence” of Iraq’s weapons programs and its ties to Al Qaeda, Powell went ahead and shilled for the liars anyway. Why did he not threaten to expose the whole thing publicly? Because, as he has said, to do so would have betrayed the ethic of the loyal soldier he believed himself to be.
What kind of culture defines “maturity” as the time when young men and women sacrifice principle to prudence, when they pledge allegiance to the boss in the name of self-promotion and “realism”? What kind of culture defines adulthood as the moment when the self goes underground? One answer might be a military one. The problem is that while unthinking loyalty to one’s commanding officer may be necessary in war, it is disastrous outside of it. Why? Because loyalty, by definition, qualifies individualism, discouraging the expression of individual opinion, recasting honesty as a type of betrayal. Because loyalty to power, rather than to what one believes to be true or right, is fatally undemocratic, and can lead to the most horrendous abuses. Powell’s excuse—that he did not want to betray the ethic of the loyal soldier—was precisely the one used by the defendants at Nuremberg, and if you say that the analogy is a reckless one, that Colin Powell is no Rudolf Hess but a generally decent man—an A student, a team player, a loyal employee, a good soldier—I’ll agree, and say only this: God save us from men and women like him, for they will do almost anything in the name of “loyalty.” Something to consider, perhaps, as the nation contemplates electing to the presidency John McCain, a member of our warrior class for whom loyalty constitutes the highest possible virtue.
What we require most in America today are bad soldiers: stubborn, independent-minded men and women, reluctant to give orders and loath to receive them, loyal not to authority, nor to any specific company or team, but to the ideals of open debate, equality, honesty, and fairness.
Democracy, of course, is not an absolute but a relative value: “We’re not perfect,” the cry will sound, “but show us who is!” I’ll take a pass on perfection, but I’ll say this: when it comes to the egalitarian attitude democracy presupposes, the Brits, for all their wigged getups and parliamentary histrionics, have it all over us. It’s not just the formal, procedural differences between the two political cultures (the mandated brevity of the British election season, or the government’s strictures on how much money a candidate can spend) that cast us in a sad and diminished light; it’s the difference in spirit that lies behind, and informs, these distinctions.
In general, the Brits act as though the government is their business and they have every right to meddle in it. Americans, by and large, display no such self-assurance. To the contrary, we seem to believe, deep in our hearts, that the business of government is beyond our provenance. What accounts for the difference? My wife, whose family hails in part from England, has a theory: unlike us, the Brits don’t confuse their royalty with their civil servants, because they have both, clearly labeled. Acknowledging the universal desire to defer, they channel that desire, wisely, into the place where it can do the least harm, a kind of political sump. Americans, on the other hand, lacking the royal catch basin, are squeezed between pretense and practice. Though we continue to pay lip service to the myth of the independent American, we understand it as a fiction—nice for a Friday night with a pint of Ben & Jerry’s but about as relevant to today’s world as a butter churn.
On the other side of the Atlantic, meanwhile, the Brits have become, in large part, what we were once supposed to be. Consider, for starters, the unavoidable (if largely symbolic) fact that our president lives ensconced in a palace, while 10 Downing Street is a row house. From there, consider the regal arrogance of the president and the president’s men: their refusal to justify or explain policy, or abide by the Constitution, or respond to the concerns of Congress. Next, consider the spectacle presented by the president’s “meetings with the people,” when he deigns to have them. Consider the extent to which he is scripted, buffered, coddled; the extent to which his audiences are screened to assure that they consist of cheerleaders whose “questions” are nothing more than praise couched in the shape of a question, or who don’t even bother with the interrogative form and, like one woman at a Bush “rally,” walk up to the microphone and say things like “my heroes have always been cowboys,” then sit down to thunderous applause.
More? Recall an average press conference: the president striding to the podium, his slightly irritated, patronizing manner. Recall the press corps’ sycophantic chuckling at every half-assed quip, its willingness to accept the most insulting answers, its downright Prufrockian (“and how should we presume”) inability to challenge an obvious untruth. Consider the fundamental inequality implicit in the fact that the president is always addressed as “Mr. President,” while septuagenarian journalists are invariably “Tom” or “Judy.” Survey the whole sad spectacle, soup to nuts, then dare to consider what the alternative might look like.
To indulge this fantasy, look up one of the question-and-answer programs on the BBC and watch a prime minister sweat, literally, while answering questions from an audience specially selected, according to the New York Times, to assure that its members “are tough and knowledgeable.” Or take in one of the many lengthy press conferences, noting in particular how seriously the PMs take the process, or how, on being told that they haven’t answered the question precisely, they apologize (apologize!) and try again. But why stop there? Make it hurt. Look up the session in which former Prime Minister Tony Blair appears in front of a live audience whose indignant members demand an apology from him for going to war, and respond to his answers, as one woman did, with “That’s rubbish, Tony.”
Now recall that steel tycoon who, upon accidentally addressing the president as “Mr. Truman” rather than “Mr. President,” was never able to forgive himself for the breach of etiquette. Which one is the citizen, and which the subject?
The real problem we face is not the Bush Administration’s imperial pretensions, its quasi-cultish stress on loyalty, or its instinctive suspicion of debate and dissent but the extent to which the administration’s modus operandi is representative of a society increasingly conversant with the protocols of subservience. In the long term, it is this tilt toward deference, this willingness to hold our tongues and sit on our principles, that truly threatens us, even more than the manifold abuses of this administration, because it makes them possible.
Over a century and a half after its publication, Tocqueville’s Democracy in America has largely calcified into a reference work, a Bartlett’s Quotations for journalists in a hurry. To those who still bother to read it, however, it offers something invaluable—a chance to plot our position on the road from, or to, despotism. Like any map, Tocqueville’s simply charts the terrain between two points—call them freedom and tyranny. Which direction we happen to be traveling, and how quickly, is up to us to determine; which “goal” we are currently approaching is the question at hand.
It’s not a difficult question to answer. On the contrary, unless one has been in a deep sleep for the past seven years, the answer is glaringly obvious. Tyranny isn’t something up ahead; it’s right here. It’s in the soil, in the very air we breathe. It’s the other climate change, and no less real. The old tyranny, from which we emerged as a nation, has been transformed by the wonder-working ways of time and advertising into a powdered wig, a tricorn hat, and the God-given freedom to burn hot dogs; the new tyranny, meanwhile—infinitely more dangerous, Made in America—looms just ahead, so large as to be very nearly invisible.
Why haven’t we noticed? Perhaps we’re too busy, or too stupid, to recognize the political beast when it stands before us, slavering in the road. Perhaps we’re so confused by the rope-a-dope tactics of our would-be dictators—just look at them, falling back into winking buffoonery one moment, attacking the enemies of righteousness the next—that we don’t quite know what to think.
There’s another possibility. Maybe we’re not out on the street protesting this administration’s abuses of power because we’re no longer the people we once were, because we’ve been effectively bred for docility. Equality, Tocqueville pointed out, “insinuates deep into the heart and mind of every man some vague notion and some instinctive inclination toward political freedom.” And inequality? Might it not, by precisely the same calculus, insinuate “some instinctive inclination” toward political tyranny? Of course it might. Once the idea of inequality is allowed to take root, a veritable forest of ritualized gestures and phrases springs up to reinforce it. The notion that some bow and others are bowed to comes to seem natural; the cool touch of the floor against our forehead begins to feel right: from classroom to corporate cubicle to the halls of Congress, deferential way leads on to deferential way, and at the end of the road, as Tocqueville foresaw, stands a baaa-ing polity “reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.”
Lincoln had it right: “If destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher.” We’re off to a fine start.
1. The primary goal, after all, is not power per se but a higher profit margin, a motivation amply shared, in today’s America, by those in the “business” of governing. I am assuming that there is still some useful distinction to be made between the public and the private sectors, between the Bush Administration’s CEOs and their brothers in industry, between the increasingly authoritarian behavior of our “elected” representatives and the generally authoritarian climate of the American workplace, which seems unlikely.
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Friday, April 18, 2008
fiction(non)fiction
This is fiction(non)fiction in that I am using a narrative voice you can feel comfortable ascribing to me, in order to improve your understanding of a real situation. In doing so, I hope to make my own situation more bearable.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Pretend Like You Don't Read This
There was a board meeting this week.
The board works in mysterious ways, its wonders to perform. We find the board fascinating. We wish we knew what they talked about in those meetings, because we are sure they talk about us, at least sometimes. But when we overhear them in the lobby or the elevator, they only seem to talk about really important stuff that we don't understand. They use big words like "asbestos abatement" and "architectural specifications".
Everybody on staff is always super aware who board members are. We single them out for special treatment. We kowtow to them. We know they are the ones who make the decisions that affect the way the building is run, and thus, our working lives. Although the building is a community of almost one hundred apartments, we know that less than a dozen of the people that live here wield any real power, and we pay special attention to that half-dozen or so. If we can remain in the good graces of the board members, we can feel assured that we will be somewhat comfortable at work no matter how we behave when the board members aren't around. It's ugly, but that's politics. After all, we are really just children, a bunch of boys in uniforms, and who is more baldly manipulative than a child? Besides, I suppose that if I were on the board, I would enjoy being singled out for special treatment by the staff. It would make me feel very important, to have a uniformed man baldly making a fool of himself trying to please me.
Speaking of uniforms, I do hope the board discusses the issue of uniforms for the staff. I can't speak for the others, but I badly need uniforms for working in the front.
The day I made the move from overnight doorman/elevator operator to evening elevator operator two years ago, I went to a uniform store on 6th avenue looking for a tie. I remember when I was in school, part of the move from little boy to big boy was when a boy learned to tie his own tie. I remember my father teaching me to tie a tie the way he’d learned in the Air Force. I looked for a tie that matched the uniform and was the same texture as the clip-on ties that we get as part of our uniform. I couldn’t find one. I went across the avenue to Filene’s Basement, where I found a navy blue tie on sale that matched the navy of our work uniforms. Although it was silk and had a bit of a sheen, it was close enough to the color of my uniform that I was willing to risk it. Besides, it was only 10 dollars. I did not want my status to regress to little boy so many years after I became a big boy.
There was some commotion in the locker room that day. Everybody noticed me tying my tie. Achilles said I was going to get into trouble. Oscar told me that we wore clip-on ties because if we were ever called to physically defend the building, the attackers could use our ties like garrotes against us. Although I was flattered to think of myself as the bold and fearless defender of ## Best ##th St, I could not recall doormen ever manning the barricades against howling mobs of marauders, so I stuck to my Filene’s Basement tie. Almost every doorman had something to say about my tie, and most of them were very impressed that the little tag on the back said Tommy Hilfiger on it, although they concluded that I thought I was better than them and left it at that. Some of the residents noticed my tie, too. They were very complimentary, and I was flattered red in the face.
The only uniforms I was issued were 6 short-sleeve shirts. Most of these were pilfered by my colleagues, understandable in a scarcity situation, but annoying nonetheless. By last summer, the only uniform I had was the single pair of dress uniform pants that even resembled my size, with a glossy seat and a seam in the crotch that refused to hold no matter how many times I sent it to be repaired, and a single jacket missing one of its buttons, the cuffs of which were so worn that the place where they fold under no longer had frayed away. I made do with that uniform, and it didn't matter extremely much to me, but I did wonder why the Co-Op corporation, understandably concerned with keeping up appearances, would allow an employee to look so shabby.
I asked the super for uniforms. I told him I needed them. I asked until I felt like a beggar. I offered to buy them myself, as now I felt and looked like a beggar, albeit in a gorgeous (if shabby) uniform. I had no answer.
As my supply of shirts was reduced, I took to taking them home to launder myself, sometimes twice a week, as my supply was reduced to two, otherwise I would have had no clean shirts at all. But it was too much trouble to iron them myself, so I folded them neatly and wore them soft. But that didn't look right. So I started ironing them at home and folding them neatly onto a rigid cardboard square to carry to work. But that too was messy. Finally I brought my own iron in to work one day, and ironed my shirts on the break-room table, but that was way too much of a production, although no one complained about my shirts for a few days.
Finally I sent them out to be cleaned by the cleaners the corporation chose for our uniforms. I always wondered why we used that cleaner. They lost stuff all the time, and the shirts never smelled clean. They were very nice, though. They always sent a tip for the doormen at Christmastime. I thought that was inappropriate, but I appreciated the ten dollars, and besides that, I’m not paid to think. If I’ve learned anything, it’s that. Maybe they tipped the super as well. I would have mentioned this to someone, but that person would have had to have been the super. I respect the chain of command. I’m a responsible person. Besides, the super was chosen by the board. The board never makes mistakes. The board does not even deign to communicate with us directly, only through the super, and in the kind of language you would use with a child. The super’s paid to think. We’re just children, although some of the guys that have been here twenty years have been here long enough to be considered grown-ups. They get a pin to prove it.
One day last summer, my shirts and pants were missing when I went to pick them up from the cleaners. None of the clothes that were on the rack downstairs fit me- in the waist or in length. A tall slim guy wearing the pants of a short or even medium sized fat guy looks like a clown, and I do not like to look like a clown. I still had the uniform from my time as a midnight porter, though, and as the lobby was under renovation and extremely dusty, I thought I might get away with wearing it. I even clipped a tie to the collar of it, as my real tie looked funny on the collar of the scrub shirt. I started my shift at the usual time, and gave one elevator ride to a very particular lady who always keeps up appearances. Not five minutes later, the super, who was not in the habit reviewing uniforms, nor in fact, of even coming into the lobby at that time of day at all came over and looked me up and down with an appraising eye and told me I had to go and change. He was well aware of my uniform situation. I told him the cleaners had what little uniform shirts I had. I told him that the only shirts on the rack were 3 and 4 sizes too big and that I felt like a fool wearing them. He insisted, although I acquiesced, believing myself to be the bigger man, although my strongest urge at the time was to bloody his nose, because he, of all people, put me in this humiliating situation, as he was aware of my dire lack of uniforms, and he was the only person in a position to do anything about it. I also suspected that the particular lady to whom I’d given the elevator ride had him on speed-dial, as she had the ear of the president of the board at the time, but I could never prove it.
I was furious for a while after that, because there was nothing I could do about my uniform situation. Luckily, someone who was only a bit smaller than me retired soon after, and I inherited lots of shirts, a jacket that still had two buttons and intact cuffs, and best of all, two pairs of pants. I had been wearing the same pants every working day for a year, and although it didn’t bother me personally, I can tell that the people I work for are very concerned with keeping up appearances. The pants were a little tight, but I’m in good shape, and I’m not embarrassed to wear tight pants. And I’d already learned that these people don’t care what condition your uniform is in, or whether or not it fits- they just care that you’re in uniform.
The union contract says that if uniforms are required, the building must provide them, and I almost want to get the union involved, but everybody knows that only trouble makers go to the union. I would talk to someone about this, but it would take too long to explain, much longer than the time it takes to get the elevator from the lobby to the floor where any of these people live, and it’s not my place to make demands on any of these people’s time. After all, I’m just the elevator operator.
The board works in mysterious ways, its wonders to perform. We find the board fascinating. We wish we knew what they talked about in those meetings, because we are sure they talk about us, at least sometimes. But when we overhear them in the lobby or the elevator, they only seem to talk about really important stuff that we don't understand. They use big words like "asbestos abatement" and "architectural specifications".
Everybody on staff is always super aware who board members are. We single them out for special treatment. We kowtow to them. We know they are the ones who make the decisions that affect the way the building is run, and thus, our working lives. Although the building is a community of almost one hundred apartments, we know that less than a dozen of the people that live here wield any real power, and we pay special attention to that half-dozen or so. If we can remain in the good graces of the board members, we can feel assured that we will be somewhat comfortable at work no matter how we behave when the board members aren't around. It's ugly, but that's politics. After all, we are really just children, a bunch of boys in uniforms, and who is more baldly manipulative than a child? Besides, I suppose that if I were on the board, I would enjoy being singled out for special treatment by the staff. It would make me feel very important, to have a uniformed man baldly making a fool of himself trying to please me.
Speaking of uniforms, I do hope the board discusses the issue of uniforms for the staff. I can't speak for the others, but I badly need uniforms for working in the front.
The day I made the move from overnight doorman/elevator operator to evening elevator operator two years ago, I went to a uniform store on 6th avenue looking for a tie. I remember when I was in school, part of the move from little boy to big boy was when a boy learned to tie his own tie. I remember my father teaching me to tie a tie the way he’d learned in the Air Force. I looked for a tie that matched the uniform and was the same texture as the clip-on ties that we get as part of our uniform. I couldn’t find one. I went across the avenue to Filene’s Basement, where I found a navy blue tie on sale that matched the navy of our work uniforms. Although it was silk and had a bit of a sheen, it was close enough to the color of my uniform that I was willing to risk it. Besides, it was only 10 dollars. I did not want my status to regress to little boy so many years after I became a big boy.
There was some commotion in the locker room that day. Everybody noticed me tying my tie. Achilles said I was going to get into trouble. Oscar told me that we wore clip-on ties because if we were ever called to physically defend the building, the attackers could use our ties like garrotes against us. Although I was flattered to think of myself as the bold and fearless defender of ## Best ##th St, I could not recall doormen ever manning the barricades against howling mobs of marauders, so I stuck to my Filene’s Basement tie. Almost every doorman had something to say about my tie, and most of them were very impressed that the little tag on the back said Tommy Hilfiger on it, although they concluded that I thought I was better than them and left it at that. Some of the residents noticed my tie, too. They were very complimentary, and I was flattered red in the face.
The only uniforms I was issued were 6 short-sleeve shirts. Most of these were pilfered by my colleagues, understandable in a scarcity situation, but annoying nonetheless. By last summer, the only uniform I had was the single pair of dress uniform pants that even resembled my size, with a glossy seat and a seam in the crotch that refused to hold no matter how many times I sent it to be repaired, and a single jacket missing one of its buttons, the cuffs of which were so worn that the place where they fold under no longer had frayed away. I made do with that uniform, and it didn't matter extremely much to me, but I did wonder why the Co-Op corporation, understandably concerned with keeping up appearances, would allow an employee to look so shabby.
I asked the super for uniforms. I told him I needed them. I asked until I felt like a beggar. I offered to buy them myself, as now I felt and looked like a beggar, albeit in a gorgeous (if shabby) uniform. I had no answer.
As my supply of shirts was reduced, I took to taking them home to launder myself, sometimes twice a week, as my supply was reduced to two, otherwise I would have had no clean shirts at all. But it was too much trouble to iron them myself, so I folded them neatly and wore them soft. But that didn't look right. So I started ironing them at home and folding them neatly onto a rigid cardboard square to carry to work. But that too was messy. Finally I brought my own iron in to work one day, and ironed my shirts on the break-room table, but that was way too much of a production, although no one complained about my shirts for a few days.
Finally I sent them out to be cleaned by the cleaners the corporation chose for our uniforms. I always wondered why we used that cleaner. They lost stuff all the time, and the shirts never smelled clean. They were very nice, though. They always sent a tip for the doormen at Christmastime. I thought that was inappropriate, but I appreciated the ten dollars, and besides that, I’m not paid to think. If I’ve learned anything, it’s that. Maybe they tipped the super as well. I would have mentioned this to someone, but that person would have had to have been the super. I respect the chain of command. I’m a responsible person. Besides, the super was chosen by the board. The board never makes mistakes. The board does not even deign to communicate with us directly, only through the super, and in the kind of language you would use with a child. The super’s paid to think. We’re just children, although some of the guys that have been here twenty years have been here long enough to be considered grown-ups. They get a pin to prove it.
One day last summer, my shirts and pants were missing when I went to pick them up from the cleaners. None of the clothes that were on the rack downstairs fit me- in the waist or in length. A tall slim guy wearing the pants of a short or even medium sized fat guy looks like a clown, and I do not like to look like a clown. I still had the uniform from my time as a midnight porter, though, and as the lobby was under renovation and extremely dusty, I thought I might get away with wearing it. I even clipped a tie to the collar of it, as my real tie looked funny on the collar of the scrub shirt. I started my shift at the usual time, and gave one elevator ride to a very particular lady who always keeps up appearances. Not five minutes later, the super, who was not in the habit reviewing uniforms, nor in fact, of even coming into the lobby at that time of day at all came over and looked me up and down with an appraising eye and told me I had to go and change. He was well aware of my uniform situation. I told him the cleaners had what little uniform shirts I had. I told him that the only shirts on the rack were 3 and 4 sizes too big and that I felt like a fool wearing them. He insisted, although I acquiesced, believing myself to be the bigger man, although my strongest urge at the time was to bloody his nose, because he, of all people, put me in this humiliating situation, as he was aware of my dire lack of uniforms, and he was the only person in a position to do anything about it. I also suspected that the particular lady to whom I’d given the elevator ride had him on speed-dial, as she had the ear of the president of the board at the time, but I could never prove it.
I was furious for a while after that, because there was nothing I could do about my uniform situation. Luckily, someone who was only a bit smaller than me retired soon after, and I inherited lots of shirts, a jacket that still had two buttons and intact cuffs, and best of all, two pairs of pants. I had been wearing the same pants every working day for a year, and although it didn’t bother me personally, I can tell that the people I work for are very concerned with keeping up appearances. The pants were a little tight, but I’m in good shape, and I’m not embarrassed to wear tight pants. And I’d already learned that these people don’t care what condition your uniform is in, or whether or not it fits- they just care that you’re in uniform.
The union contract says that if uniforms are required, the building must provide them, and I almost want to get the union involved, but everybody knows that only trouble makers go to the union. I would talk to someone about this, but it would take too long to explain, much longer than the time it takes to get the elevator from the lobby to the floor where any of these people live, and it’s not my place to make demands on any of these people’s time. After all, I’m just the elevator operator.
Friday, April 4, 2008
Pigeons
There are pigeons in the courtyard faced by our lobby window. Should I bring birdseed and train them to be my friends?
I would have to be very careful how much birdseed I allowed them. Otherwise it would get very messy.
I would have to be very careful how much birdseed I allowed them. Otherwise it would get very messy.
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Loose ends
The silver braid on my uniform jacket tends to fray. I went to fix it, but I didn’t want to unravel the whole thing so I went about it very carefully. There are always loose ends, and pulling one end of a thread increases tension on the other, and sometimes the weave, the warp and the weft, is so complex you just can’t be sure what the result of worrying an end will be. If I were to pull on the frayed threads, the results could be disastrous for my magnificent silver braid. First I pulled at it slowly, and it seemed to be coming out too easily, so I wrapped what of it I could around my forefinger and gave a sharp tug, and it broke off clean.
Oscar taught me a better trick for dealing with this, though. He showed me how to hold a flame close to the loose end and melt it down- the thread is synthetic material. The results of this operation are much cleaner than the other method, although holding a flame to one’s sleeve is never recommendable.
Oscar taught me a better trick for dealing with this, though. He showed me how to hold a flame close to the loose end and melt it down- the thread is synthetic material. The results of this operation are much cleaner than the other method, although holding a flame to one’s sleeve is never recommendable.
Thursday, March 27, 2008
these uniforms...
look disturbingly familiar.
But the second one's wearing sneakers, the one in the front's wearing white socks, and the one in the back's wearing brown shoes. The super must be a slacker.
But the second one's wearing sneakers, the one in the front's wearing white socks, and the one in the back's wearing brown shoes. The super must be a slacker.
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Theater of the Absurd
Day. The elevator. A building lobby on the Upper Best Side, quietly and tastefully decorated in the style of the co-op board decorating committee.
The elevator operator is in his elevator, stage right. Minutes pass. Although there is no one in sight, the elevator operator stands at military attention. The elevator bell rings, prompting the elevator operator to spring into action.
The elevator door closes as the stage darkens. The elevator remains lit. The light from the golden dome in the temple of vertical motion suffuses the space that is understood to be the elevator. The elevator operator turns the knob that runs the elevator. An engine is heard to start. The elevator is moving. As the elevator is understood to be ascending, a light just in front of the elevator door begins to become brighter, revealing The Maestro. He is wearing knee socks, corduroy knickers, a Boy Scouts of America windbreaker and a Smoky Bear-style hat. The engine stops. The elevator operator opens the door for him, taking no notice of his strange attire- it is The Maestro’s everyday garb.
The Maestro- Good morning, sir. (His accent, while legible, is thick and soupy, as though he has several accents at once, say, upper-crusty English, along with Portuguese and Castilian Spanish.)
The elevator operator nods a quiet good morning as he closes the elevator door. The bell rings. The engine starts again when the door closes, although it does not run as long as it did when the elevator went up before. Although it is understood that the elevator is on its way down, because passengers are never made to ride in the opposite direction they intend to go, it is also understood that the elevator is making another stop before the lobby. As before, a light outside the elevator brightens to reveal Miss Barbera. She is wearing a huge green snorkel-style fur-trimmed parka which obscures her face, which is further obscured by red plastic-framed spectacles. A pair of white sneakers stick out of the bottom of the parka. She is carrying a large worn paper shopping bag from a defunct department store and a shoulder bag, both of which are as full as they can possibly be with indeterminate matter. She will be carrying the same bags, equally full, when she returns to the building an hour later. As she enters the elevator, she asks The Maestro, who has been her neighbor for decades…
Miss Barbera- Oh, are you a state trooper?
Maestro- No, I am a scoutmaster. What are you dressed up as?
The elevator engine stops as all the lights come on. The elevator has arrived at the lobby. There is an awkward moment as the neighbors, who are now dramatically ignoring one another, negotiate the etiquette of leaving the elevator. The elevator operator returns to his posture of military attention, although the dazed look on his face leads other residents, who will ride the elevator later, to speculate that he is under the influence of something. He wishes he were.
The elevator operator is in his elevator, stage right. Minutes pass. Although there is no one in sight, the elevator operator stands at military attention. The elevator bell rings, prompting the elevator operator to spring into action.
The elevator door closes as the stage darkens. The elevator remains lit. The light from the golden dome in the temple of vertical motion suffuses the space that is understood to be the elevator. The elevator operator turns the knob that runs the elevator. An engine is heard to start. The elevator is moving. As the elevator is understood to be ascending, a light just in front of the elevator door begins to become brighter, revealing The Maestro. He is wearing knee socks, corduroy knickers, a Boy Scouts of America windbreaker and a Smoky Bear-style hat. The engine stops. The elevator operator opens the door for him, taking no notice of his strange attire- it is The Maestro’s everyday garb.
The Maestro- Good morning, sir. (His accent, while legible, is thick and soupy, as though he has several accents at once, say, upper-crusty English, along with Portuguese and Castilian Spanish.)
The elevator operator nods a quiet good morning as he closes the elevator door. The bell rings. The engine starts again when the door closes, although it does not run as long as it did when the elevator went up before. Although it is understood that the elevator is on its way down, because passengers are never made to ride in the opposite direction they intend to go, it is also understood that the elevator is making another stop before the lobby. As before, a light outside the elevator brightens to reveal Miss Barbera. She is wearing a huge green snorkel-style fur-trimmed parka which obscures her face, which is further obscured by red plastic-framed spectacles. A pair of white sneakers stick out of the bottom of the parka. She is carrying a large worn paper shopping bag from a defunct department store and a shoulder bag, both of which are as full as they can possibly be with indeterminate matter. She will be carrying the same bags, equally full, when she returns to the building an hour later. As she enters the elevator, she asks The Maestro, who has been her neighbor for decades…
Miss Barbera- Oh, are you a state trooper?
Maestro- No, I am a scoutmaster. What are you dressed up as?
The elevator engine stops as all the lights come on. The elevator has arrived at the lobby. There is an awkward moment as the neighbors, who are now dramatically ignoring one another, negotiate the etiquette of leaving the elevator. The elevator operator returns to his posture of military attention, although the dazed look on his face leads other residents, who will ride the elevator later, to speculate that he is under the influence of something. He wishes he were.
Friday, March 21, 2008
servility, obsequiousness
Oscar’s use of the word slave to describe himself in the last chapter really bothered me. It seems unreal and impossible to me. This is the 21st century. I am wanting to believe that he was responding in kind to a teasing question, or that some language issue is at issue in his use of the word, although I well know that the words for slave and servant, in Spanish are esclavo and sirviente, respectively, and that it would be difficult to confuse them. Besides that, the workers in my union are neither slaves nor servants- they are building service professionals who make an excellent salary- close to 40,000 a year, and with our celebrated Christmas bonuses, we must take home close to what someone making 50,000 a year does, hardly slave wages, especially when you consider that the work we do is not physically taxing in the same way that, say, construction labor is. So why would he say that?
I’m as baffled as you are, although I suspect I have a clue.
There’s a sort of self-abasing false humility that we service people use sometimes that insults our own intelligence, and what’s more, insults the people we work for. Servility is not the reality, but our obsequiousness implies it.
I prefer deference, myself.
I’m as baffled as you are, although I suspect I have a clue.
There’s a sort of self-abasing false humility that we service people use sometimes that insults our own intelligence, and what’s more, insults the people we work for. Servility is not the reality, but our obsequiousness implies it.
I prefer deference, myself.
Thursday, March 20, 2008
the febreze.
Does the building really have to smell like K-Mart's Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval?
enough.
enough.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
A way you could think me to be
A friend of mine who thinks too much thinks he’s a writer, but the only thing he’s ever written, as far as I know, are a few entries in a blog. He says the blog was supposed to be a joke, mostly, but I don’t see much humor in it. It’s mostly him blowing himself up like he’s some kind of big deal. He hasn’t written in months, though. He says he doesn't have time- he goes to school and he works full-time. He’s ambitious, my friend. He always says "if I'm still doing this when I'm thirty..." while he shoots himself in the head with his finger, rolling his eyes. I think he’s kidding. I hope he’s kidding. He’s got a couple of years. I think he’ll figure something out before then.
I like having someone I can talk to about work, though. When he quits, I’ll miss the conversations we have.
I’ve done all sorts of work. The best job I ever had was summers in high school when I worked for a landscaper. I’d get up at five in the morning and spend the day walking behind a four-foot Honda mower, mowing rich people’s lawns all over the suburbs where my parents used to drive on Sunday afternoons, hoping someday to own a house like those ones. I wish I would have thought to have worn a pedometer one day, to keep track of how many miles I walked, up and down and back and forth in razor sharp rows. Many, many miles I walked behind that mower. I was the only white boy on the crew, but I didn’t let anybody think I slacked off because of it. By the end of every summer I was burned dark red and brown. My friends called me a Mexican, but I didn’t care. I had more money in my pocket than them. I saved a lot, too, enough to put me through a year of college at NYU. I was lucky to get in. I wrote a good application, I can talk smart when I need to. I wanted to be a lawyer back then, not that I knew anything about it- the first lawyer I ever talked to was at this job, although I’d mowed plenty of lawyer’s lawns. I just thought it would be a cool life, to be a big shot with plenty of money, nice suits, nice car, and a hot secretary, like on TV.
I remember the summer before I started classes at that school, there was an orientation for freshmen. There was this girl I liked, she was beautiful, I was talking to her, small talk, but flirting, too, even though I didn’t know too much about that. I was surprised when she acted like she really liked me, she got real close to me and squeezed my arm, feeling the muscles I built up lifting green barrels full of grass clippings. She asked how I got so tan. When I told her, she backed off me like I was a really cute puppy she just found a flea on.
It’s like that with this job, too, my friend agrees. When you’re wearing this uniform, women look right through you, it doesn’t matter how good you look, you’re not getting anywhere. I’ve tried telling the women I meet outside work that I work in real estate, which is what my friend does, but that doesn’t explain why I can’t meet up any nights but Tuesdays and Wednesdays. The black and Spanish guys at work, they don’t have any trouble getting women, but when I try to talk to black and Spanish girls, I just come off like another soft white boy, and with American girls, the first question is always “What do you do?” I tell them and shazaam! I’m invisible.
I couldn’t afford to stay at NYU, and my parent’s wouldn’t co-sign student loans. Or they said they wouldn’t. They were real religious and they said they wouldn’t pay for the kind of godless education I would get at a school like that. I think they couldn’t, but they were too proud to tell me. I wish I was black or Spanish sometimes. I knew kids whiter than me at NYU that had lower grades than me and lower SAT scores that got full free rides because they had Spanish last names. Meanwhile I’m the white kid with a GED and broke-ass parents and nobody cared if I had to drop out or not. They made such a big deal out of diversity at NYU, but they didn’t need any white boys who had to get GED’s because their parents were crazy fundamentalist Christians who sent their kids to school in the church basement. I’m the diversest person I know.
I’m the only white guy on staff where I work, besides this one other older guy. The only white American, I mean, if that means anything. There’s a couple guys from European countries I’ve never heard of that I can’t pronounce the names of either, but mostly Jamaicans and Dominicans and Puerto Ricans. There’s another older white guy, but he’s not really someone I can talk to either. He’s the kind of guy that says he’s not racist but whenever anyone messes up, he’s like “whaddayou expect from these animals?”. Sometimes I think that’s how he keeps it together, “at least I’m not an animal” he can tell himself.
It’s real funny to me that most of the guys I work with- the ones that come over here from somewhere else, or the ones that grew up here in the city- the only white people they’ve ever really spoken to are the ones that live in the building where we work, and me and the other white guy. I like that I get to be the coolest white boy these guys ever met.
I feel bad saying I pity some of these guys, because you almost have to feel like you’re better than someone to pity them, but I do. For most of them, this is their dream job. I envy them, because I wish I could say I had my dream job. They just think different. One night last summer, beautiful night, clear, warm, not too muggy, I was working with Oscar and this guy that lives on the 7th floor comes in. Mr. 7th floor, he’s a real cool guy, doesn’t talk down to you or try to pretend to be your buddy, just acts natural. Anyway, he’s kind of teasing me and Oscar, like “what are you guys doing here? It’s a beautiful night, you should be out enjoying it.” I got the joke, I don’t mind being teased a bit, especially when the alternative is pretending like there’s no where else in the world I’d rather be, or feeling like someone feels bad for me, because that just makes me feel worse. Anyway, Oscar, who’s Dominican, says “But Mr. _______, we are slaves.” And he was serious.
One day I’m going to try to write some kind of book about all the stuff I see at work. I took this class once with all these black writers, and they wrote about a lot of the kind of stuff I think about, except they thought that everything that happened to them was because they were black. I think the same way as a lot of those guys do, except I can’t say it’s because I’m black, because I’m not.
But I’m not a very good writer. In fact, that friend of mine I told you about before, he’s the one that wrote this, but he said I could have it because the words were mine.
I like having someone I can talk to about work, though. When he quits, I’ll miss the conversations we have.
I’ve done all sorts of work. The best job I ever had was summers in high school when I worked for a landscaper. I’d get up at five in the morning and spend the day walking behind a four-foot Honda mower, mowing rich people’s lawns all over the suburbs where my parents used to drive on Sunday afternoons, hoping someday to own a house like those ones. I wish I would have thought to have worn a pedometer one day, to keep track of how many miles I walked, up and down and back and forth in razor sharp rows. Many, many miles I walked behind that mower. I was the only white boy on the crew, but I didn’t let anybody think I slacked off because of it. By the end of every summer I was burned dark red and brown. My friends called me a Mexican, but I didn’t care. I had more money in my pocket than them. I saved a lot, too, enough to put me through a year of college at NYU. I was lucky to get in. I wrote a good application, I can talk smart when I need to. I wanted to be a lawyer back then, not that I knew anything about it- the first lawyer I ever talked to was at this job, although I’d mowed plenty of lawyer’s lawns. I just thought it would be a cool life, to be a big shot with plenty of money, nice suits, nice car, and a hot secretary, like on TV.
I remember the summer before I started classes at that school, there was an orientation for freshmen. There was this girl I liked, she was beautiful, I was talking to her, small talk, but flirting, too, even though I didn’t know too much about that. I was surprised when she acted like she really liked me, she got real close to me and squeezed my arm, feeling the muscles I built up lifting green barrels full of grass clippings. She asked how I got so tan. When I told her, she backed off me like I was a really cute puppy she just found a flea on.
It’s like that with this job, too, my friend agrees. When you’re wearing this uniform, women look right through you, it doesn’t matter how good you look, you’re not getting anywhere. I’ve tried telling the women I meet outside work that I work in real estate, which is what my friend does, but that doesn’t explain why I can’t meet up any nights but Tuesdays and Wednesdays. The black and Spanish guys at work, they don’t have any trouble getting women, but when I try to talk to black and Spanish girls, I just come off like another soft white boy, and with American girls, the first question is always “What do you do?” I tell them and shazaam! I’m invisible.
I couldn’t afford to stay at NYU, and my parent’s wouldn’t co-sign student loans. Or they said they wouldn’t. They were real religious and they said they wouldn’t pay for the kind of godless education I would get at a school like that. I think they couldn’t, but they were too proud to tell me. I wish I was black or Spanish sometimes. I knew kids whiter than me at NYU that had lower grades than me and lower SAT scores that got full free rides because they had Spanish last names. Meanwhile I’m the white kid with a GED and broke-ass parents and nobody cared if I had to drop out or not. They made such a big deal out of diversity at NYU, but they didn’t need any white boys who had to get GED’s because their parents were crazy fundamentalist Christians who sent their kids to school in the church basement. I’m the diversest person I know.
I’m the only white guy on staff where I work, besides this one other older guy. The only white American, I mean, if that means anything. There’s a couple guys from European countries I’ve never heard of that I can’t pronounce the names of either, but mostly Jamaicans and Dominicans and Puerto Ricans. There’s another older white guy, but he’s not really someone I can talk to either. He’s the kind of guy that says he’s not racist but whenever anyone messes up, he’s like “whaddayou expect from these animals?”. Sometimes I think that’s how he keeps it together, “at least I’m not an animal” he can tell himself.
It’s real funny to me that most of the guys I work with- the ones that come over here from somewhere else, or the ones that grew up here in the city- the only white people they’ve ever really spoken to are the ones that live in the building where we work, and me and the other white guy. I like that I get to be the coolest white boy these guys ever met.
I feel bad saying I pity some of these guys, because you almost have to feel like you’re better than someone to pity them, but I do. For most of them, this is their dream job. I envy them, because I wish I could say I had my dream job. They just think different. One night last summer, beautiful night, clear, warm, not too muggy, I was working with Oscar and this guy that lives on the 7th floor comes in. Mr. 7th floor, he’s a real cool guy, doesn’t talk down to you or try to pretend to be your buddy, just acts natural. Anyway, he’s kind of teasing me and Oscar, like “what are you guys doing here? It’s a beautiful night, you should be out enjoying it.” I got the joke, I don’t mind being teased a bit, especially when the alternative is pretending like there’s no where else in the world I’d rather be, or feeling like someone feels bad for me, because that just makes me feel worse. Anyway, Oscar, who’s Dominican, says “But Mr. _______, we are slaves.” And he was serious.
One day I’m going to try to write some kind of book about all the stuff I see at work. I took this class once with all these black writers, and they wrote about a lot of the kind of stuff I think about, except they thought that everything that happened to them was because they were black. I think the same way as a lot of those guys do, except I can’t say it’s because I’m black, because I’m not.
But I’m not a very good writer. In fact, that friend of mine I told you about before, he’s the one that wrote this, but he said I could have it because the words were mine.
Saturday, March 15, 2008
A Formula For Keeping It Real
The Formula For Keeping It Real in the reality that is this blog can sometimes be expressed as a ratio.
(the mundane banality of the dominant reality)/(the elevator operator’s sanity)=(the elevator operator’s sanity)/(high-blown tone)
(the mundane banality of the dominant reality)/(the elevator operator’s sanity)=(the elevator operator’s sanity)/(high-blown tone)
Friday, March 14, 2008
The elevator operator in modern literature
There are four writers I can think of who used elevator operators in their work- John Cheever, P.G. Wodehouse, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Kurt Vonnegut.
In "The Startling Dressiness of a Lift Attendant", a "Jeeves" story from Wodehouse, Bertram Wooster gets a flashy pair of socks, much to Jeeves' dismay. Later, Bertram becomes involved in a sticky situation, as is his wont. Jeeves extricates him, as is his. Therefore, Bertram can voice no objection when the elevator attendant, speaking in a Wodehoustian take on "Negro" dialect, thanks him for his generosity in the gift of the lavender stockings, which, if I remember correctly, he lifts his trousers slightly to display. He is a comic character, but his freedom to wear the flashy socks denied Bertram by his valet hints at the tension between a supposed freedom to play the peacock in the more "primitive" black elevator man, and the restraint, enforced by Jeeves, that the aristocratic gentleman Bertram must display. This is the Jazz Age. Analogies can be made to hip-hop, but I haven't got the time.
In The Great Gatsby, "a reluctant elevator-boy" (one is unsure if boy refers to his age, or to his social status) is sent to fetch milk for the puppy bought on a whim by Mrs. Wilson, Tom Buchanan's mistress. He is described as taking "initiative" by adding dog biscuits to the meal of milk. Later, as Nick Carraway descends the elevator drunk with Mr. McKee, who is even drunker, the elevator operator (again called a "boy") snaps at McKee "Keep your hands off the lever." McKee denies the knowledge of having touched it, but McKee is drunk and we are unsure of his intentions, as ellipses trail off to McKee in bed, clad only in his underwear, with Nick at his side. I once took a class that read heavy subtext into the interactions immediately preceding and within the ellipsis. I am content to the read the ellipsis as an ellipsis.
The Cheever story is that of an elevator man who must work on Christmas. He courts the sympathy of all his passengers, and the resulting gifts of food, but especially, drink, leave him satiated and drunk, unable to do his job. He is summarily fired. Many aphorisms are appropriate to this situation, but the one I choose is Be careful what you ask for- you may get it.
In Slaughterhouse-Five, Vonnegut's narrator, who vaguely is Vonnegut, recalls an elevator operator whose remains he'd come across in the course of his work as a newspaper reporter in Chicago after World War II. The man got his wedding band caught in the workings of a landing door somehow, and he was maimed, then crushed by the machine he was driving. I cannot visualize this. The narrator (Vonnegut,) recalls telling a stenographer how horrific the sight was, to which she replied that she'd seen worse in the war. How Vonnegut hated war. I wonder what his life as a writer would have been had he not experienced the war so intensely.
As far as I can tell, no literary or sub-literary work has been narrated by an elevator operator, nor- with the exception of the Cheever story, whose protagonist is unsympathetic and seems one-dimensional- have they appeared as more than tangential minor devices off which are reflected the characters, the protagonists. What sort of writer would use such a character as an elevator operator as a narrator? What sort of experience would inform the life of such a writer?
In "The Startling Dressiness of a Lift Attendant", a "Jeeves" story from Wodehouse, Bertram Wooster gets a flashy pair of socks, much to Jeeves' dismay. Later, Bertram becomes involved in a sticky situation, as is his wont. Jeeves extricates him, as is his. Therefore, Bertram can voice no objection when the elevator attendant, speaking in a Wodehoustian take on "Negro" dialect, thanks him for his generosity in the gift of the lavender stockings, which, if I remember correctly, he lifts his trousers slightly to display. He is a comic character, but his freedom to wear the flashy socks denied Bertram by his valet hints at the tension between a supposed freedom to play the peacock in the more "primitive" black elevator man, and the restraint, enforced by Jeeves, that the aristocratic gentleman Bertram must display. This is the Jazz Age. Analogies can be made to hip-hop, but I haven't got the time.
In The Great Gatsby, "a reluctant elevator-boy" (one is unsure if boy refers to his age, or to his social status) is sent to fetch milk for the puppy bought on a whim by Mrs. Wilson, Tom Buchanan's mistress. He is described as taking "initiative" by adding dog biscuits to the meal of milk. Later, as Nick Carraway descends the elevator drunk with Mr. McKee, who is even drunker, the elevator operator (again called a "boy") snaps at McKee "Keep your hands off the lever." McKee denies the knowledge of having touched it, but McKee is drunk and we are unsure of his intentions, as ellipses trail off to McKee in bed, clad only in his underwear, with Nick at his side. I once took a class that read heavy subtext into the interactions immediately preceding and within the ellipsis. I am content to the read the ellipsis as an ellipsis.
The Cheever story is that of an elevator man who must work on Christmas. He courts the sympathy of all his passengers, and the resulting gifts of food, but especially, drink, leave him satiated and drunk, unable to do his job. He is summarily fired. Many aphorisms are appropriate to this situation, but the one I choose is Be careful what you ask for- you may get it.
In Slaughterhouse-Five, Vonnegut's narrator, who vaguely is Vonnegut, recalls an elevator operator whose remains he'd come across in the course of his work as a newspaper reporter in Chicago after World War II. The man got his wedding band caught in the workings of a landing door somehow, and he was maimed, then crushed by the machine he was driving. I cannot visualize this. The narrator (Vonnegut,) recalls telling a stenographer how horrific the sight was, to which she replied that she'd seen worse in the war. How Vonnegut hated war. I wonder what his life as a writer would have been had he not experienced the war so intensely.
As far as I can tell, no literary or sub-literary work has been narrated by an elevator operator, nor- with the exception of the Cheever story, whose protagonist is unsympathetic and seems one-dimensional- have they appeared as more than tangential minor devices off which are reflected the characters, the protagonists. What sort of writer would use such a character as an elevator operator as a narrator? What sort of experience would inform the life of such a writer?
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
fiction(non)fiction
I am still horrified by the thought that it is very possible that everyone in my building is reading this blog, but what is even more horrifying to me is the idea that no one is, in which case I must be some kind of hyper-imaginative megalomaniac.
It's fun anyway.
I would like to construct another blog, completely fictional, in the voice of some person who lives in a building where there is an elevator operator and a doorman, and link it to this one. It would make for an interesting narrative. There are a few paranoid types in this building who would make fine narrators for such a blog, but I don't have time right now.
Of course this blog is completely fictional as well, at the same time that is completely not.
It's fun anyway.
I would like to construct another blog, completely fictional, in the voice of some person who lives in a building where there is an elevator operator and a doorman, and link it to this one. It would make for an interesting narrative. There are a few paranoid types in this building who would make fine narrators for such a blog, but I don't have time right now.
Of course this blog is completely fictional as well, at the same time that is completely not.
Sunday, March 9, 2008
A Bit Much
The tension generated by my suspicion that more relevant people than I know know about this blog may know about this blog is getting to be a bit much. I told exactly two people, a married couple in the building, about this quite some time ago. I told my brother about it. There was a link to this blog on my private myspace account a long time ago, but that’s been since removed. I also allowed the residents of a certain other apartment in the building to find out about this blog in a roundabout way, last week. In short, the only two people in the building who know for sure that I write this blog are two in whom I have the highest confidence, and the two others, who I allowed to find out round-aboutly, may suspect but could never prove it, and I am confident that they would not feel the need to.
Why then the round-about references from people I haven't told, the “in” comments in guise of small talk? People who should absolutely not know about this blog seem to know about this blog. Some one by whom my presence once went unacknowledged for years said “thank you” to me four times the other day in the course of a simple elevator ride. I am flabbergasted.
It’s a bit much. I’m not sure if I can keep doing this.
In the meantime, here’s something everyone should read.
Why then the round-about references from people I haven't told, the “in” comments in guise of small talk? People who should absolutely not know about this blog seem to know about this blog. Some one by whom my presence once went unacknowledged for years said “thank you” to me four times the other day in the course of a simple elevator ride. I am flabbergasted.
It’s a bit much. I’m not sure if I can keep doing this.
In the meantime, here’s something everyone should read.
Friday, March 7, 2008
In which, it's not that bad
The positive has gone unaccentuated for too long on this blog. While I reserve the right to complain about about my boss and write confusing (confused?) bad poetry about misunderstandings between me and the people I work for, I have to say that my experiences are not overwhelmingly negative- in fact they are mostly positive.
I am an immigrant. I must work.
I love my work. I see every possible different kind of people every day. I manufacture a high-quality product. I like people, and I am able to provide a valuable service to many dozens of people daily. I enjoy this. I enjoy working in a relic of a Jazz Age building and polishing the surface of things until they reflect light. I like to like people, and I like for them to like me. The disdainful ones I like, if only because I feel badly for them and hope they may feel better soon. Also, I like the people who are happy to say nothing more than "thank you" when they arrive at their designated floor. I like the people who like to make prosaic pronunciations about the weather while they ride the elevator. I like the Spanish nannies and housekeepers who seem so weary sometimes, some of whose children will one day live in buildings like this, some of whose children already live in buildings like this. I like the people who wear their sunglasses indoors and affect a world-weariness that leaves me unafraid to slouch a bit. I like the suited lawyers and financiers whose deeply felt importance and bearing makes me stand a little straighter as I go about my business. I like the Carribean nannies whose lilting accents are like tunes, and whose sometimes anxious smiles belie a faith full of Armegeddon and Jehovah's fire. I like the old money people, whose finely wrought accents and intonation are same with the intricate molding in the elevator, who do not pretend to be able to relate, and so do not try, and instead just accept, gracious and aloof. I like the young couples who have just moved into their dream New York apartment and are still in awe a bit at their good fortune, who are anxious not to seem snobbish, like those "other people". I like the people who do not bother to ask "how are you?" if they don't mean it, equally as I like the people who ask "how are you?" simply because it is a pleasant thing to do; I like neither as much as the people who ask "how are you?" because they want to know, but to these I never tell the truth, because I, too, must maintain distance. I like the childless married couple, who mean it every time they ask "how are you?", whose uncalled-for kindness makes a difference. I like the woman who was unafraid that I would be insulted when she offered me her left-over chili which had been in the fridge three days because she hates to waste food- it was delicious. I like the economics professor who was the terror of all the doormen and the one none of the other apartment owners were as bad as; he recycles his soup-stained copies of right-wing journals by giving them to me to criticize on my own time. I like the old lady who lives on a lower floor and has for all her life, who must pinch pennies, and who must live on less than I do to afford to live here; she can't imagine living anywhere else; her Christmas bonus of 5 dollars is worth as much to me as any other. I like the children, who are not in on the game or the joke, allowing all of us to act naturally. I like the high-school aged young people, not yet formed, who will later be away at school, seen only between semesters, enthusiastic, who will all turn out all right. I like the senior doormen, with whom I work, who have known these children since they were brought home from the hospital, and who feel an avuncular affection towards them. I like the porters, who work in the back, because they couldn't stand to wear this ridiculous uniform, who are men who work for a living, and who lower their heads for no one. I like the immigrant doormen, whose American Dream this is. They each must have some deep secret hope that cannot be communicated in English or perhaps any other language.
I am an immigrant. I must work.
I love my work. I see every possible different kind of people every day. I manufacture a high-quality product. I like people, and I am able to provide a valuable service to many dozens of people daily. I enjoy this. I enjoy working in a relic of a Jazz Age building and polishing the surface of things until they reflect light. I like to like people, and I like for them to like me. The disdainful ones I like, if only because I feel badly for them and hope they may feel better soon. Also, I like the people who are happy to say nothing more than "thank you" when they arrive at their designated floor. I like the people who like to make prosaic pronunciations about the weather while they ride the elevator. I like the Spanish nannies and housekeepers who seem so weary sometimes, some of whose children will one day live in buildings like this, some of whose children already live in buildings like this. I like the people who wear their sunglasses indoors and affect a world-weariness that leaves me unafraid to slouch a bit. I like the suited lawyers and financiers whose deeply felt importance and bearing makes me stand a little straighter as I go about my business. I like the Carribean nannies whose lilting accents are like tunes, and whose sometimes anxious smiles belie a faith full of Armegeddon and Jehovah's fire. I like the old money people, whose finely wrought accents and intonation are same with the intricate molding in the elevator, who do not pretend to be able to relate, and so do not try, and instead just accept, gracious and aloof. I like the young couples who have just moved into their dream New York apartment and are still in awe a bit at their good fortune, who are anxious not to seem snobbish, like those "other people". I like the people who do not bother to ask "how are you?" if they don't mean it, equally as I like the people who ask "how are you?" simply because it is a pleasant thing to do; I like neither as much as the people who ask "how are you?" because they want to know, but to these I never tell the truth, because I, too, must maintain distance. I like the childless married couple, who mean it every time they ask "how are you?", whose uncalled-for kindness makes a difference. I like the woman who was unafraid that I would be insulted when she offered me her left-over chili which had been in the fridge three days because she hates to waste food- it was delicious. I like the economics professor who was the terror of all the doormen and the one none of the other apartment owners were as bad as; he recycles his soup-stained copies of right-wing journals by giving them to me to criticize on my own time. I like the old lady who lives on a lower floor and has for all her life, who must pinch pennies, and who must live on less than I do to afford to live here; she can't imagine living anywhere else; her Christmas bonus of 5 dollars is worth as much to me as any other. I like the children, who are not in on the game or the joke, allowing all of us to act naturally. I like the high-school aged young people, not yet formed, who will later be away at school, seen only between semesters, enthusiastic, who will all turn out all right. I like the senior doormen, with whom I work, who have known these children since they were brought home from the hospital, and who feel an avuncular affection towards them. I like the porters, who work in the back, because they couldn't stand to wear this ridiculous uniform, who are men who work for a living, and who lower their heads for no one. I like the immigrant doormen, whose American Dream this is. They each must have some deep secret hope that cannot be communicated in English or perhaps any other language.
Sunday, March 2, 2008
Understanding
Oh, I thought I had an understanding with the super. I was wrong.
Tonight at 11:12 (I took specific note of the time, passengers), I was acting as the doorman because Albert had worked a double and he needed to relax in the back. I had taken inventory of who was at home and who wasn't and decided that it was safe to sit on the stool at the front door and read the copy of Rights of Man and Common Sense by Thomas Paine I'd found at a bargain price at the Strand this week. I was wrong.
There are certain times of the day when I believe it is safe to read while on the door. After 9 on a Sunday is one of them. Traffic is exceeding slow.
Out of my peripheral vision, I saw the super coming towards the door on my right. I put the book down, got to my feet and opened the door before he even needed to break stride.
He couldn't ignore it. He had to say something. Brusquely, at that. "In the back." I think he may have been a little drunk. If I was home on a Sunday night, I would sure be a little drunk by 11:12. In fact, I'd be asleep in bed.
Maybe I should have just acted sheepish. But I couldn't resist telling him that I had done an inventory of who was in and who was out, and that it was safe for me to be reading, that there was no danger of it distracting me from doing doormanly duties.
He told me that the doorman should be like a statue. The doorman should be at the door like a statue.
I am not a statue. I am a human being.
I value my job, and I feel privileged to have one. This is the best job I can get with the resume I have. I do my absolute best to do my job as well as it can be done, but I am not a statue. I am a human being.
It doesn't bother me so much. At least it doesn't any more. Because I can let it go here.
Thanks for reading, passengers.
Tonight at 11:12 (I took specific note of the time, passengers), I was acting as the doorman because Albert had worked a double and he needed to relax in the back. I had taken inventory of who was at home and who wasn't and decided that it was safe to sit on the stool at the front door and read the copy of Rights of Man and Common Sense by Thomas Paine I'd found at a bargain price at the Strand this week. I was wrong.
There are certain times of the day when I believe it is safe to read while on the door. After 9 on a Sunday is one of them. Traffic is exceeding slow.
Out of my peripheral vision, I saw the super coming towards the door on my right. I put the book down, got to my feet and opened the door before he even needed to break stride.
He couldn't ignore it. He had to say something. Brusquely, at that. "In the back." I think he may have been a little drunk. If I was home on a Sunday night, I would sure be a little drunk by 11:12. In fact, I'd be asleep in bed.
Maybe I should have just acted sheepish. But I couldn't resist telling him that I had done an inventory of who was in and who was out, and that it was safe for me to be reading, that there was no danger of it distracting me from doing doormanly duties.
He told me that the doorman should be like a statue. The doorman should be at the door like a statue.
I am not a statue. I am a human being.
I value my job, and I feel privileged to have one. This is the best job I can get with the resume I have. I do my absolute best to do my job as well as it can be done, but I am not a statue. I am a human being.
It doesn't bother me so much. At least it doesn't any more. Because I can let it go here.
Thanks for reading, passengers.
Saturday, March 1, 2008
Popular Mechanic
The super is starting to figure it out, I think. Yesterday I was sweeping the rug when he came in and I made a big production of being caught sweeping as opposed to being caught reading, as if to say See, I told you so, I take my job seriously and I take my leisure to read only when the tasks at hand have been completed. It’s nice to feel like you’ve come to an understanding.
This lady, she lives on the _th floor, she was coming in at the same time, she’s been nice to me since she recently moved in, she’s a writer, she appreciates seeing people reading, she’s told me so. As I drove her to her floor, I explained to her my unusual exuberance with the broom, and she commiserated with me and wondered why reading should be against the rules at all and I told her it’s because the printed material of choice for “lotsatheseguys”, as I put it, would be indecorous (not as I put it). When I had the midnight shift, on more than a few occasions I would find skin magazines stashed in various spots around the lobby. I have nothing against centerfolds any more than any other average male, but I do have the good sense to realize that this lobby is not the place to appreciate them. There are only a couple men on staff who are inclined at all to read books, journals, serious magazines or newspapers (and a prohibition on newspapers makes sense- they just look messy), but there are a few guys there who I’m convinced are illiterate and uninclined to read even if it weren’t prohibited, and the rest are aliterate, and pretty much only interested in cheesecake pictures and glossy magazines full of things they can’t afford, which make them resentful of those who can afford them, and sometimes scornful of those who can afford them but don’t buy them. And electronics store circulars for some reason. There are more than a few guys there who could draw a graph for you of the fluctuations in the prices at of large-screen televisions at the major retailers in the area over the last five years and I only wish I was joking.
This lady, she’s flattering towards me, which is nice, as a little flattery goes a long way, I myself use it, she tells me I’m exceptional, (which I’m just vain enough to believe), that I should be allowed to read without being bothered or called out on it. I told her that that could not be the case, as, if I were not called out or somewhat reprimanded each time I was caught, the rules would become unenforceable. I alluded vaguely to many other’s choices of reading material, not wanting to subject her to the indelicacy of saying "pornography"- it makes me blush to speak of it to a certain kind of woman.
This lady, she said to me,
-Yeah some of these guys would read Popular Mechanics.
Popular Mechanic? She must have been joking. What must be her impression of me? Does she think, just because I read (ahem) literature (ahem) I would affect to look down on reading material that is merely useful? I wish some of these guys were inclined to read Popular Mechanic. In fact, left entirely up to me, I would subscribe to Popular Mechanic for the whole crew to read during idle times. And if a copy of Popular Mechanic was lying around, I would definitely read it to keep up my technological knowledge. I wish everyone I have to work with read Popular Mechanic. It would give them something to think about other than the fluctuations in the large screen television market.
I just had to clear that up.
This lady, she lives on the _th floor, she was coming in at the same time, she’s been nice to me since she recently moved in, she’s a writer, she appreciates seeing people reading, she’s told me so. As I drove her to her floor, I explained to her my unusual exuberance with the broom, and she commiserated with me and wondered why reading should be against the rules at all and I told her it’s because the printed material of choice for “lotsatheseguys”, as I put it, would be indecorous (not as I put it). When I had the midnight shift, on more than a few occasions I would find skin magazines stashed in various spots around the lobby. I have nothing against centerfolds any more than any other average male, but I do have the good sense to realize that this lobby is not the place to appreciate them. There are only a couple men on staff who are inclined at all to read books, journals, serious magazines or newspapers (and a prohibition on newspapers makes sense- they just look messy), but there are a few guys there who I’m convinced are illiterate and uninclined to read even if it weren’t prohibited, and the rest are aliterate, and pretty much only interested in cheesecake pictures and glossy magazines full of things they can’t afford, which make them resentful of those who can afford them, and sometimes scornful of those who can afford them but don’t buy them. And electronics store circulars for some reason. There are more than a few guys there who could draw a graph for you of the fluctuations in the prices at of large-screen televisions at the major retailers in the area over the last five years and I only wish I was joking.
This lady, she’s flattering towards me, which is nice, as a little flattery goes a long way, I myself use it, she tells me I’m exceptional, (which I’m just vain enough to believe), that I should be allowed to read without being bothered or called out on it. I told her that that could not be the case, as, if I were not called out or somewhat reprimanded each time I was caught, the rules would become unenforceable. I alluded vaguely to many other’s choices of reading material, not wanting to subject her to the indelicacy of saying "pornography"- it makes me blush to speak of it to a certain kind of woman.
This lady, she said to me,
-Yeah some of these guys would read Popular Mechanics.
Popular Mechanic? She must have been joking. What must be her impression of me? Does she think, just because I read (ahem) literature (ahem) I would affect to look down on reading material that is merely useful? I wish some of these guys were inclined to read Popular Mechanic. In fact, left entirely up to me, I would subscribe to Popular Mechanic for the whole crew to read during idle times. And if a copy of Popular Mechanic was lying around, I would definitely read it to keep up my technological knowledge. I wish everyone I have to work with read Popular Mechanic. It would give them something to think about other than the fluctuations in the large screen television market.
I just had to clear that up.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
it's been a month since I had time to procrastinate
I am busy.
I'm superflattered that 57 people have had the time to view my profile. Either that, or 1 person has viewed my profile 57 times, or 2 people an average of 28.5 times a piece, or 3 people an average of 19 times each, etc. I would like to believe that this is a boring enough blog and that my profile is so minimally revelatory that 57 individual people have been interested enough to look at my profile. Considering the negligible amount of time I've spent doing this, and also that I don't comment on forums, the number is considerable. Hooray for me.
Do I have your attention?
I'm superflattered that 57 people have had the time to view my profile. Either that, or 1 person has viewed my profile 57 times, or 2 people an average of 28.5 times a piece, or 3 people an average of 19 times each, etc. I would like to believe that this is a boring enough blog and that my profile is so minimally revelatory that 57 individual people have been interested enough to look at my profile. Considering the negligible amount of time I've spent doing this, and also that I don't comment on forums, the number is considerable. Hooray for me.
Do I have your attention?
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
dog-walkers, keys
Some dogwalkers dress like drug dealers
or should I say some drug dealers dress like
dogwalkers
lady believe me when I say I take
my job seriously
in fact,
The last time your son threw a party while you and your husband and the children were in the country, I called you on your cell phone and then at home in the country using the number you had left us for specifically that purpose- to let you know that your kid was having a party. (The last time your kid (not mine) threw a party while you were out of town and made a mess of your apartment, you popped your eyes at me, and asked me why I let him in, what did you want me to do, make him produce papers proving that this was his primary residence for purposes of taxation? (But I do try to be discreet, for instance, I didn't tell you he had strippers up there. I didn't think you'd want to know. You shouldn't give him such a big allowance. He's only 16.)
Anyway, the other day
I had to pee and so I went
downstairs
and this left one man for the door and the elevator
and he has to lock the door if he's going to go up in the elevator
because I had to pee. (So sorry!)
While I was gone, the dogwalker for 15D came,
the elevator man has to wait for him (building policy)
and you must have come just seconds after the dogwalker,
and then you were locked out
and when it's cold, two minutes can feel like ten.
He went straight back up,
Phil must have had another ring on another floor
(there are other people that live here,
besides you, Ma'am),
anyway here comes that
dogwalker, dark-skinned young man
whose clothes look more expensive than he should be able to afford (He lives with his moms)
and I open the door
and apologize that
you had to wait (I know you pay a lot to live here. I know.)
The incredulous look on your face
as that young man puts something in my hand
mumbling about "keys"
or should I say some drug dealers dress like
dogwalkers
lady believe me when I say I take
my job seriously
in fact,
The last time your son threw a party while you and your husband and the children were in the country, I called you on your cell phone and then at home in the country using the number you had left us for specifically that purpose- to let you know that your kid was having a party. (The last time your kid (not mine) threw a party while you were out of town and made a mess of your apartment, you popped your eyes at me, and asked me why I let him in, what did you want me to do, make him produce papers proving that this was his primary residence for purposes of taxation? (But I do try to be discreet, for instance, I didn't tell you he had strippers up there. I didn't think you'd want to know. You shouldn't give him such a big allowance. He's only 16.)
Anyway, the other day
I had to pee and so I went
downstairs
and this left one man for the door and the elevator
and he has to lock the door if he's going to go up in the elevator
because I had to pee. (So sorry!)
While I was gone, the dogwalker for 15D came,
the elevator man has to wait for him (building policy)
and you must have come just seconds after the dogwalker,
and then you were locked out
and when it's cold, two minutes can feel like ten.
He went straight back up,
Phil must have had another ring on another floor
(there are other people that live here,
besides you, Ma'am),
anyway here comes that
dogwalker, dark-skinned young man
whose clothes look more expensive than he should be able to afford (He lives with his moms)
and I open the door
and apologize that
you had to wait (I know you pay a lot to live here. I know.)
The incredulous look on your face
as that young man puts something in my hand
mumbling about "keys"
quality, not quantity
I have not written on here in weeks because I am about quality not quantity. Don't try to tell me different. It's not at all that things are so boring in one of the premier apartment buildings in the universe that there's just been nothing to write about. Not at all.
Sometime in December, This guy Julio who retired to the Dominican Republic last summer was in a horrific car accident and lost his daughter, mother-in-law, and nephew. He was in the hospital for weeks. The 20 guys in the building raised 500 dollars to help him out, and everybody signed it. I'm going to the western Union and putting the card in the mail sometime today. It feels good that we were able to do this, but somehow I wish we could have done more.
Sometime in December, This guy Julio who retired to the Dominican Republic last summer was in a horrific car accident and lost his daughter, mother-in-law, and nephew. He was in the hospital for weeks. The 20 guys in the building raised 500 dollars to help him out, and everybody signed it. I'm going to the western Union and putting the card in the mail sometime today. It feels good that we were able to do this, but somehow I wish we could have done more.
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
Working toward White Gloves
That's right the building is improving, I heard it straight from the new super's mouth. He's developing a new program to improve the building. We want the white gloves, but there are intermediate steps.
The boss has been saying things would change ever since back in June when he started. This has mostly involved obsessive Febreze spraying and harassing doormen who are careless enough to leave their radios out. And, as previously indicated here, threatening to suspend me for reading.
This is all well and good. These people that live in this high high-end jewel of a pre-war Manhattan building deserve the very best that their several thousand dollars a month in maintenance can get them. And to be blunt, in my opinion, they haven't been getting it for a long time.
There are many reasons for this, and because this is an anonymous blog, I get to tell you what I think they are.
First of all, there are men working in this building that are ill-suited to the sort of work they are doing. Good manners are essential to this sort of work, and their are some guys that work here who are downright rude. In the lobby of a building like this, conversation should be made in measured even tones, not rapid-fire shouting. Some people say This is my culture, and this is how I talk. That's well and good, but this is not your culture. This is your work, and part of your job is to maintain a gracious and welcoming tone in the lobby. Having conversations with your co-workers or on the phone at a volume just under a shout is a failure to maintain that tone. Ostentatiously ogling women as they walk by the building is also a terribly rude thing that some of these guys do. Here you are, in uniform, you're being paid to be the face of the building, and that face is leering with its tongue hanging out, no exaggeration. I don't know if my union offers a course in etiquette for doormen, but it should, and certain of my co-workers would benefit from taking such a course.
Second, we need some sort of book with clearly outlined standards for procedures and behavior and clearly stated consequences for infractions of the rules. Is reading quietly in the back as large an infraction as simultaneously eating, talking on the phone and listening to the radio at the highest volume possible? What are the consequences of these infractions?
Third, could I get some sort of performance review? Why can't an anonymous poll of shareholders be made to get an idea of what they think of the job performance of elevator operators and doormen?
Last, communication from management needs to be clear, and made in a way that is respectful. For example, this summer, the super (I won't tell if it's the new one or the old one) asked me how the temperature was in the lobby. When I told him I thought it was just fine, his immediate response was to the effect of the lobby's not for you, it's for the people that live here and your opinion doesn't matter. Then why did you ask in the first place?
But, what do I know? I'm just the elevator operator.
The boss has been saying things would change ever since back in June when he started. This has mostly involved obsessive Febreze spraying and harassing doormen who are careless enough to leave their radios out. And, as previously indicated here, threatening to suspend me for reading.
This is all well and good. These people that live in this high high-end jewel of a pre-war Manhattan building deserve the very best that their several thousand dollars a month in maintenance can get them. And to be blunt, in my opinion, they haven't been getting it for a long time.
There are many reasons for this, and because this is an anonymous blog, I get to tell you what I think they are.
First of all, there are men working in this building that are ill-suited to the sort of work they are doing. Good manners are essential to this sort of work, and their are some guys that work here who are downright rude. In the lobby of a building like this, conversation should be made in measured even tones, not rapid-fire shouting. Some people say This is my culture, and this is how I talk. That's well and good, but this is not your culture. This is your work, and part of your job is to maintain a gracious and welcoming tone in the lobby. Having conversations with your co-workers or on the phone at a volume just under a shout is a failure to maintain that tone. Ostentatiously ogling women as they walk by the building is also a terribly rude thing that some of these guys do. Here you are, in uniform, you're being paid to be the face of the building, and that face is leering with its tongue hanging out, no exaggeration. I don't know if my union offers a course in etiquette for doormen, but it should, and certain of my co-workers would benefit from taking such a course.
Second, we need some sort of book with clearly outlined standards for procedures and behavior and clearly stated consequences for infractions of the rules. Is reading quietly in the back as large an infraction as simultaneously eating, talking on the phone and listening to the radio at the highest volume possible? What are the consequences of these infractions?
Third, could I get some sort of performance review? Why can't an anonymous poll of shareholders be made to get an idea of what they think of the job performance of elevator operators and doormen?
Last, communication from management needs to be clear, and made in a way that is respectful. For example, this summer, the super (I won't tell if it's the new one or the old one) asked me how the temperature was in the lobby. When I told him I thought it was just fine, his immediate response was to the effect of the lobby's not for you, it's for the people that live here and your opinion doesn't matter. Then why did you ask in the first place?
But, what do I know? I'm just the elevator operator.
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