after my fifth week working on bay street, i have had the same ugly experience twice. i will recount yesterday's fact-finding mission as further evidence that the world of the working man is a sad and tragic affair:
i had to pop by a store on queen street after work and so i decided to explore the other side of the massive tunnel system (p.a.t.h. for those not in the know - toronto's massive mall system - aka - 'mole city' because you never see the sun when you go to work). i have a section that i have generally been exploring during lunch, but this other section is an entirely new beast. different architecture, open and airy, natural light. attention was paid.
so anyway, i'm walking along, i've got a heavy bag on my shoulder because it has my cordless drill in it (long story - drilled a hole in my desk at work. yes, it was odd, yes, people thought i was breaking protocol, no i don't care that much, i'm hoping to go to teacher's college anyway, so go ahead, fire me), and a tshirt i was returning to a store, and two books i'm reading, and a pharmacy (antacids of multiple varieties, lip stuff, hand cream, anti-germ stuff, etc).
so i'm moving at a clip. i generally walk very fast going to and from work, a subconscious desire to get it started and over with as fast as possible. so i'm motoring.
i'm in a 14 foot wide, long and straight corridor.
three big beefy business guys in suits are walking ahead of me and to my right.
i'm about to overtake them.
i'm about 2 feet to the right of the invisible 'middle-line'.
ahead of me, an oncoming business man. he's about my height, but chubbier (he must have quit smoking a few months before me - at one point we were probably the same size).
he's basically barrelling down the middle of the empty corridor.
he looks grumpy.
actually, they all look grumpy in mole city.
the only non-grumpy looking people are the young ones who aren't in suits.
as i'm in the overtake lane with a big bag and a big winter jacket on, motoring, i see and prepare to move.
it is custom for both people to slightly move their shoulders away so as not to hit each other. as i cannot move to my right because the 3 business men are there, i have nowhere to go.
grumpy non-smoking business man in the middle has 6-7 feet of empty space to his right (my left). and he knows it.
CAMERA CHURNS TO SLOW MOTION:
we're approaching each other, it's anyone's game. will F make it past the businessmen and into the slow lane unscathed?
grumpy business man is storming through. pedal to the medal. grumpy face on full blast.
2 feet and closing. this guy isn't looking at me, he's staring straight ahead pretending not to see. this is serious.
1 feet and closing. okay, i'll just turn sideways at the last second, cutting my girth in two.
zero. walking around bay street is now full contact.
as i turn my body at the last minute cutting my girth in half, grumpy businessman COMPLETELY turns his shoulder RIGHT INTO MY BODY.
i am watching, in slow motion, as i'm trying to avoid the contact, and he forces his shoulder THROUGH the area where contact should have occurred. fortunately, my puffy jacket threw him off about how big i was, and made him mis-time his strike; the blow was only glancing. i had survived.
so shocked was i about what had just transpired that i broke out laughing. shocked, stupendous, terrific laughter. it was preposterous that what i had just seen really happened.
i turned back to look at the little grumpy guy...
and he gave me the finger.
full joy, at this point, for me. people are crazy, and i love them!
he wasn't about to hide the fact that he had tried to randomly pop a stranger in a hallway after work on a friday afternoon in the middle of toronto. no. he was out to get someone. and that someone was, lucky for him, me.
HOW FUCKING STRANGE ARE PEOPLE!?
this is the second time this has happened.
i've only been there for 5 weeks.
my theory is that people at work feel so disenfranchised and so disempowered, they have to take so much bullshit at work every day that there is no way they're giving up what little they have left of their pride/independence/autonomy/power. that chunk of real estate, that pathway he was walking on is HIS, goddamnit, and there's no way, after all the shit he takes at work, that he's giving it up to some smiley-happy-ipod-wearing jerk off who's younger (and skinnier and handsomer... can i say that?) than him. no. not only that, but how dare that little smiley-happy-ipod-wearing-jerk-off step into my line of vision!!! i'll fucking show him!!! i'll show the world!!!!
and so it is.
the beat goes on.
in other news: i miss education. pretending to be an intellectual is so preferrable to most things.
the best thing about jobs is the way they make you realize how lucky you are/were. the cravings have returned for me - i remember art, and literature, and writing, and creativity, and passion, and drama, and freedom, and love and learning, and inhaling, and sunshine, and people, and faces, and movies, and popcorn and the perpetual dream of our lives being summer, summer, summer.
2 comments:
Is that a cigarette I see in your hand in that photo? Thank goodness there is no snow on the ground, we would know then that you had not quit you were only pretending. A close call.
People are weird but that's what makes this such an interesting place, and to give you the finger. I bet you have since come up with "what I should have done" scenes eh.
You're absolutely right on all accounts.
Some of these Bay Street guys, who aren't stark raving jack-offs, actually get off on self-flagellation so much that they are rubber ball sucking, diaper wearing gimps come market close. No lie. I have met them.
Once again, I find myself thanking God for all things Ferg.
xo!
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