The Cleaner

"You know what they refer to me as..." He waited for
a response, As I looked at him I thought to myself a Jackass? he set
himself up for that one, what did he expect us to say? A short
stalemate of blank stares and glances away from his beady eyes, like
small marbles sunken into his chubby face. A brown goatee framed his
face, he had said earlier that he was a civil war re-enactor, I wanted
to ask him what side he fought for.
"They call me a cleaner" What
the hell kind of meeting is this I thought, gripping my pencil tighter,
just in case he tried to attack me, a cleaner? like Leon? Why would
they make a hit man our new supervisor. Witness relocation? Nah why
would he tell us he was going to kill us, professionals just do it
right? Anyways aren't the rules no women no children? I guess I don't
count as a child anymore, but the room only consisted of two women, one
other guy and me. Who was the target in this room, I became more
nervous envisioning my short quick stabs to fend off this corporate
predator. AHHH stab, stab, stab, weave, stab. How would he come at me?
what is his special weapon? jagged coffe pot parts, thrown with ninja
presicion, post it notes strategically placed as to cause suffocation,
maybe shoes with knife tips or a phone line for strangulation what the
hell is going on, who is this guy?
"They call me a cleaner
because...well i clean places up" Isn't that what a janitor does? wait
a minute are you our new boss or a maid? who the hell are you, I miss
silvia she never even had meetings, what have you done with her,
saddistic supervisor slaying janitor. "Not to say that your division
needs cleaning up but sometimes it is good to have a new set of eyes
come in and maybe provide new input and ideas about production." "Maybe
you guys have been doing something the same for so long that you don't
think about whether it is the best way to do said thing, you just do it
because that's the way you have been doing it." So your not a hit man
or a janitor? His hands moved in that very demonstrative and business
meeting type of way, points accentuated by a companion movement,
"rolling out more cases" followed by a rolling of the hands, like Tina
Turner, big wheels keep on turning, rolling, rolling....
He was
short, dimuniative, it looked like he wore minature ties. He pushed his
chest out extra far sucking up air and increasing his mass. I could
picture him glaring at someone 5 feet taller than him and then jumping
onto their chest flailing with fists, multiple blows in rapid
succession, not strength but persistance. Little man with the heart of
a medium sized crazy man. Rudy of the business world, except you could
tell that noone ever rooted for him. He was a fiery ball of management
and career aspirations, climb that ladder. Maybe he has been climbing
the ladder so long that he doesn't think about whether it is the best
thing to be climbing the ladder, maybe you are just climbing the ladder
because that is what you have been doing for so long.
"You know
why a dog growls at you?" because it doesn't like you i thought,
someone else actually answered him, "because it is scared?" "Well yes
that and because a dog growls to serve as a warning, it is saying I
don't want to bite you but I will if I have to." I liked how he
acknowledged the correct answer and then went straight to the answer he
wanted. "That is how I want you guys to be on the phones, you need to
show your teeth and be tenacious like a pitbull." "We don't want to
bite but we will, you guys understand what i am trying to say? You want
us to growl at customers and then threaten to bite them? Everyone
nodded, just play along the sooner we are out of here the better.
"Josh
how do you know if you are doing a good job?" Josh looked scared, his
teeth were not showing he was not a pitbull, more like a shitzu, "uhhh
well by the number of files I process?" Nice one Josh good answer,
maybe you shouldn't have phrased it as a question but it's cool I think
you made it. "Is that it, just by quantity? What about the quality of
your work Josh?" Uh oh this is it I thought quick sword slash, josh's
head rolling off the table, the women screaming, blood splattering and
then after the room clears me and him, pencil vs. sword, he might have
the advantage, so quick and low to the ground, steel vs. graphite,
confederate vs. the union. "Well I mean that goes into the quantity, I
mean the number of files I send out that are correctly filled out and
correct." Oh niice save Josh, you are spared from the kiss of steel
against your pasty neck, you have honor you will be spared. Go send out
an email for a potluck in your honor, it's a celebration everyone,
mexican themed sign up at Diana's desk "Ok good Josh, can you see any
ways that we can improve the quality and or quanity of our work, and
this is directed at everyone I don't want to just pick on Josh" "Well
the main thing we need to do is work on our backlog we have had...." I
sit in the room with them but i am somewhere else I shift in my seat
making akward eye contact every once in awhile. I nod in the places
that require nodding, sometimes when a nod is not required, sometimes
when a nod would not be appropriate, but no one seems to notice. Would
they notice if I threw up devil horns, tongue sticking out and screamed
YEEEEAAAH production models blllaaahhhhh tounge wagging back and forth
face cinched in rock and roll mode? Probably. I imagine the sky outside
singing, the sun raining down caressing the grass in a park somewhere
far from here. Instead the white board speaks of a new production flow,
increasing the output numbers for the fiscal year and assignments for
the new phone lines. The colors of life are turned down in here almost
muted, grey, gray, and glum, gloomy, gentrified and ghastly, goodness
gracious. Gotta get gone... Leaving work I dunno If this is done but I
think it might be i don't really like it