BRINGING EXCELLENCE TO THE SAUDI WORKFORCE
I was handing over a donation to the homeless shelter when the phone rang. It was a telemarketer, telemarketeering, making a solicitation from downtown Denver. I guessed it was a fraud and had no time to speak as I was heavily involved in volunteerism and making awesome pies for the bake-sale booth at the food pantry next to the synagogue on W15 East Side, CT, USA.
On my way there, in my auto, a guy in the rear started gesturing, tailgating and honking at me! I thought I was in for a fender-bender too, so I failed to yield at a yield sign, side-swiped another Chevy, rear-ended a truck and totalled myself. My driver anger quotient was way up, I can tell you. As my head hit the wheel, all I could hear was, ‘Break, break, break!’
If that wasn’t bad enough, I got home to find my apartment had been over-run by pest infestation, the dead-lock bolt was now alive and I had a total power outage. Jeez! What a day! So I set the bait traps for the cockroaches crawling everywhere (I even found two screwing in my sock, Godammit!) and got the hell out of there, pronto man.
Checking in at a nearby hotel, the question: ‘Absent? Absent? Absent?’ flew into my mind. Louder and louder, faster and faster, more and more insistent. ‘Why teacher!? Why teacher!? Why teacher!?’ the voice was now demanding. It was then that I realised I needed a break! Time to smell the coffee, if you get my drift.
But on Monday I had to give a lecture on housing discrimination for kids on tuition assistance and adults knee-deep in pay-day loans from the credit union, so at the hotel reception I had to call the bellman (more of a bell-end, if you ask me) who gave me a hand with all my audio-visual equipment – an LCD projector, a screen, an overhead projector, and a data port, whatever the hell that is. The gear filled the room I had reserved, with two queens just in case a buddy dropped by, and then I got the business centre to make copies of my flyers. The housemaid found a sewing kit and had a go at my broken zipper too.
I lay down on the rollaway but suddenly the chant; ‘Bathroom! Bathroom! Bathroom!’ was rushing through my head and I had to take a leak, quick, pissing in the john like a burst pipe.
Horizontal again, this time on a queen, I thought; ‘Hell! I need to reschedule my life! I need to put prioritization over procrastination in order to reach perfectionism’, and I was thinking all this when housekeeping turned up with consommé and tomato bisque and asked for an imprint of my credit card.
I ate my meal, getting the necessary nutrients, but still feeling like an overweight couch potato needing to limit my salts and stay away from fatty stuffs, keeping my servings low. Gazing up at the ceiling I noticed it needed a paint job, while I needed a blow-job (but Bahrain this ain’t), and I guessed they had a hotel-owner’s insurance policy, rather than a home-owner’s.
Back it came: ‘Break time! Break time! Break time!’ Beating into my brain like a hammer. Unrelenting. Without remorse.
By the time I got out of that hotel and the roaches were dead like the bolt, I found myself in a different world; full of government censorship of books and movies, organised prayer in public schools, moral issues surrounding shoplifting, etc. And talking of shopping, I had to go down to the mall to pick up my weekly dose of Fat-B-Gone, made from the bark of the ancient Chinchona tree, found only in the la Mancha region of Spain, as well as a pack of Rackinusha for my nail fungus and psoriasis, which has been recently rediscovered in a forgotten pyramid, trying to steer clear of controversy but pondering all the while over the Bill of Rights; an impartial document amended onto the Constitution of the United States of America, which categorically states, “We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure blessings of liberty to ourselves and our prosperity… blah, blah, blah.” May God Bless America!
‘Teacher! Teacher! Teacher!’ Rang like church bells, close-up, through my brain, some kind of call to prayer, I guess.
In the meantime I had an urgent appointment with the doctor who told me to avoid quackery at all costs, although my question was really whether or not celery burnt fat. He didn’t have an answer to that, so I got a counter-offer from a witch doctor whose professional affiliations weren’t quite above board, or even chronological. I’d like to have seen his resume and starting position title, because his face was a red flag and I couldn’t be sure of his accomplishment areas.
But, I’ve gotta say, I’m totally, like, gullible you know, as I’ve always been under the impression that I’m a little milkshake and should take more Amazing Mr Muscle Man Cream with my cereals and grains at brunch, but it costs big bucks eating like that.
Break time! Break time! Break time! Why absent! Why absent! Why absent!
So I told ‘em straight: “Because you weren’t f+$*ing here!”
And you know what they said back? “Welcome teacher!”
(With thanks to the invaluable input from the authors of Workplace Plus 4 – Mrs. Saslow who teaches at General Motors auto assembly plant, Tarrytown, NY, and Mrs Hoffman who taught the Miccosukee tribe of Indians, but was unfortunately scalped and tied to a cactus last Fall semester.).
©Andrew Parker 2009