Week Three, A Random Night
Kitchen, 5:34pm
The temps are sitting around talking as they usually do, but something is different tonight. I can feel it.
Julien comes in. He wipes the perspiration off his brow.
“SAP’s down,” he announces. SAP is the computer program that runs the customer service software. If SAP is down, we can’t look up customers. We can’t get work done.
There is a collective intake of breath around the temps’ table. Several people sit up straight. Sara clutches her bag. Are we going to get sent home?
Julien reads our minds. He frowns and shakes his head.
“Don’t get excited,” he says. “We’ve got people working on it. If it’s not working by, say….six o’clock…then we’ll send you home.
Until then, ummm.. chat amongst yourselves.”
He hurries off.
Sara looks at the clock. It’s 5:35pm.
“I hope we get sent home,” she says. “It’s the season finale of The Biggest Loser tonight and I haven’t missed a single episode.”
“I can’t believe you watch that show,” says Vanessa, turning away in time to miss Sara’s withering stare.
“Would we still get paid?” someone wants to know.
“Not sure.”
“I think we get paid in 15 minute increments.”
“I think they should pay us for the whole shift.”
“Yeah, good luck. They didn’t pay for our parking tickets.”
“You really thought they were going to pay for the parking tickets?”
We are plunged into darkness.
“LIGHTS!” gets called from a ways off.
We wait and nothing can be heard for a while except for the munching of chips.
“Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to work tonight. I mean, I drove all the way here. This was a long way to drive, to not get paid.”
“I hope we stay. I need the money.”
“Well it’s not up to us anyways.”
The lights flick on and we blink in the brightness.
It’s 5:45pm. Sara keeps looking at the clock. I am not sure what time The Biggest Loser starts, but I’m sure she’s keeping track of what time she could get home and how much of the finale she would get to see as it’s broadcast.
“Aren’t you recording it?” I want to know.
“Yeah, but it’s not the same thing,” she says.
I look around the table.
“Someone’s not here. Who’s not here?”
“Lori quit,” Heidi says, covering her mobile phone with her free hand.
“Why?” I ask, remembering the mom who watched 24. And drank bourbon.
Heidi shrugged. “She was over it.”
“I’m going to be over it pretty soon,” she adds, laughing.
Someone starts tapping their foot on the floor. Heidi goes back to her phone conversation. Sara checks her watch.
I jump up.
“I’m going to see what’s going on out there. Be right back.”
I walk out to the main floor, mainly to get away from the others, but also because I really want to find Mike and hear him say how helpful I was for writing him that little note about the messed-up case. But his cube is empty and the computer is off. Darn. He’s not in tonight.
I look around for anyone else interesting. No Victor this evening either.
Julien has a little group of managers huddled around him and they’re looking at a computer screen and they don’t look happy.
I head back to the kitchen.
“Not much going on out there.”
“But it’s six o’clock!” Sara exclaims. “Do you think we can just leave?”
“No. We can’t just sneak out.”
“He should tell us what’s going on. Tell us how much longer till the system will be up.”
“He probably has no clue.”
“But how long do you think he’ll just leave us all sitting here?”
“What if he hasn’t noticed the time?”
“Yeah, what if he just forgets about us?”
“I’ve got better things to do than sit here.”
“Me too.”
“Okay…it is past six o’clock. It’s 6:01, actually. I’ll go ask him what the deal is.”
I stride out into the hallway, turn the corner, and head over to Julien. I wait pointedly until he has to stop what he’s saying and turn to me. He looks irritated. I decide to get right to the point.
“It’s past six o’clock,” I tell him.
He shakes his head.
“Goalposts have changed.”
I open my mouth to ask what the new deadline is, but he shoots me a look and then turns back to his little group and keeps talking.
I go back to the break room feeling deflated.
“He’s changed the time. And he wouldn’t say what it was.”
Sighs.
“I want to go.”
“He should let us go.”
“It would be, like, mean, for them to make us wait all this time, and then at the last second, tell us we have to work.”
More minutes pass.
“So, Justin,” Courtney turns to him casually. “You still gonna take that Disney cruise line job?”
“It’s there if I want it,” he replies, leaning back in his chair.
“You’re so full of s–t,” she laughs, shaking her head.
“It is,” he insists.
“I have the feeling I better get another job soon,” Maggie says. “I’m not doing well at this one.”
There’s an uncomfortable silence. It’s been hard not to notice that Julien and Amber keep putting Maggie on easier tasks.
Maggie smiles. “God you guys, don’t all jump in at once with how great I am.”
Heidi clicks her phone shut.
“Hey. None of us want to wind up here anyways.”
Jenny, the youngest one smiles.
“Yeah, I don’t even have an offer but I don’t want to wind up here. I’ve got to figure out what to do with my life.”
I think I remember her saying she was nineteen. “Are you taking any classes?”
“Here and there.”
“So, what have you studied so far?”
“Animal Science…and Japanese.”
Foreheads crease. I suddenly get very interested in my chips.
“Well if anyone wants a Japanese speaking vet –” Courtney finally starts, a gleam in her eyes.
“Yeah, I know.” Jenny waves her off.
Then she grows serious.
“I also wanted to take German,” she adds, as if this might make her choices sound more logical. “But there weren’t enough people who signed up for the class.”
“This is ridiculous.” Sara jabs at her watch. “It’s six-fifteen. I’m telling you guys, I am not going to sit here fore—“
The door opens. Julien.
“It’s working!” he says. “Come on. Let’s go.”
As a result of the whirring churn of the labour market since the good old days of a ‘job for life’, most Western cultures are vocationally barren. What do I mean by that phrase? My absolute belief is that each of us has a skill, an innate ability, a talent, a gift, and / or a competency, within us which we must exercise. We got to channel our individual abilities out! Fewer and fewer Western governments invest in effective systems that help their citizens exercise their inner capabilities. Therefore, as Jamie Oliver the famous chef talks about our schools providing “nutritionally barren” food, our education systems produce vocationally barren citizens devoid of career aspiration.