If I were a strip of Scotch tape,
I would glue my bangs
to my forehead
and pretend I had straight hair.

If I had straight hair,
I would grow it long,
let it sway like a braless hippie
or sweep it up in an elegant chignon.

If I had a chignon,
I would wear a sleek evening gown
with plunging neckline
and a rope of dazzling diamonds.

If I were a rope,
I’d tie it to a horse
and ride giddy-up
all over town.

If I were a town,
I’d invite you to a block party
and serve you a meal
at my table.

If I were a table,
I would be surrounded by women,
curly and straight,
who wear blue jeans and cotton
instead of diamonds and gowns

who write and laugh
and share and love –
who don’t need a strip of
Scotch tape to bond.

–  Jane, WG

“Morning, Bim,” I greet my helper as I attach my BankBig name badge.

“Morning.”

“Be my mirror?” I ask, turning to face him.

He says, “It’s a little – crooked.”

I adjust the little plastic shield. He nods.

He puts on his name badge and looks at me.

“Perfect,” I tell him.

We swap big thumbs up and happy grins,

and say at the same time, “Mirrors.”

March 2013

“I like meaty spaghetti sauce,” I hear
you say, and I, your vegetarian friend,
happily brown two pounds
of ground round.

I’ll do anything
for my friend’s stay,
even if your visit
is only in my mind.

Tom appears at death’s door on Monday.

“Miss Jan,” he tells me, “I did not want to come to work today.”

“I understand, Tom,” I say.

Tuesday arrives with his long face. “Miss Jan, I did not want to get out of bed today.”

“I understand, Tom.”

A winter storm ushers in Wednesday with Tom’s greeting, “Jan – Jan, I might have to leave early today if the weather gets bad.” His voice is filled with hope.

With Thursday I see the first spark of positive energy on Tom’s cherubic face, though he still laments, “Miss Jan, I don’t think I can make it another day.”

“Give it a try, Tom,” I encourage him. “Give it a try.”

“Good morning, Sunshine!” Tom greets me as he bounds onto the floor, heralding Friday and the pending weekend as though Monday never existed nor will ever come again, continuing a thing reliable: “I did not want to come to work today.”

I arrive well after many of my coworkers and leave long ahead of them, though my average workday starts at 7:30 in the morning and ends around 6 or 7 p.m. I don’t have time for lunch.

Yesterday my boss told me that as an hourly employee I must take a break at least once a day. I said, “It’s hard for me to get everything done because of all there is to do.”

“Like what?” he asked.

Like his pulling me into his hour-long morning meeting to take minutes, when I could have just copied the hand-out he’d received at his boss’s meeting – but I didn’t mention that.

Like the 20 minutes I spent in the Ladies’ Room discussing the cause behind the many leaks. Miguel flushed a toilet and yelled over the rushing water, “See? No water. ¿Sí?” He pointed at the dry floor.

“No!” I yelled back as he flushed again – and again. I pointed at the water trickling from the pipe running into the wall.

Tom, Miguel’s cohort, said, “We could change out the washers, I guess.”

Miguel flushed again.

“Okay,” I agreed loudly.

Miguel offered, “The women. They stand on the plunger. Or the big ones – they lean. They break the pipe.” He shrugged.

“Not the pipe,” Tom explained. “They break the seals.”

“Seals. Sí. ¿No?” Miguel flushed again.

I’ve never spent so much time in a public restroom in my life, much less with two men.

None of this did I share with my boss as to why my day is not my own.

I did tell him our phones were down – no outbound calls. I’d spent the last hour talking on my personal cell phone (which under normal circumstances would earn me a Non-Performance Violation) to Harshit in I/T, trying to explain a) what was wrong with the phone system and b) why I couldn’t call him back from a landline.

My boss had been so busy he hadn’t even know the phones were down.

In the 42 seconds he gave himself for a break, he went to the building cafeteria, returning 20 seconds later to tell me, “It closed early. Go get me something. Chick-fil-A.”

“Is this your way of making me take a break?” I asked.

“Yes. You can stay late.”

I said, “I already do.”

“You can stay late.” Not a question. Not even a suggestion.

“Sure,” I said, remembering what he only ever wants to hear: No conversation. No humor. Just “Yes.”

Upon my return with a spicy chicken sandwich for him – and a large lemonade for me; I let him treat – I received a PING (because a phone call or email is no longer immediate enough in this work world, and I haven’t allowed the tech guys to implant a phone node in my head yet for TRUE instant messaging) – a PING from my boss’s boss’s admin. You know: God.

She typed: Is Tenika W there?

Me: I don’t know her. She’s not on our employee list.

She: Embassy Suites bus waiting for her.

Me: Visitor? Sitting with?

She: Don’t kno. Find her.

I locked down my desk and went in search of our floors for this mystery woman. Sixth floor, fifth floor, fourth floor, third…lobby, where I found no Tenika, and saw no Embassy Suites shuttle. Nor had the security guard. Back to my desk I hurried.

I pinged the admin: No Tenika.

She: Bus waiting.

Me: No bus here.

She: Oh wait. – Long pause. – She: Never mind.

As she had neither the time nor the manners to apologize for sending me on a wild Tenika chase, I was left to assume the shuttle was waiting for her at some other BankBig location. Poughkeepsie, perhaps. God doesn’t have to explain herself.

The greatest amount of my time this week has been spent training my new co-admin, Jen. She’s a nice young woman. Bright. A perfectionist. Just my boss’s kind of gal. In the midst of my teaching her systems and reports – and spending time in the leaky bathroom and on the phone with Harshit, Jen shared that she has a five-year-old son whom she adores and an ex-husband who has anger issues, one of many reasons she left Arizona and moved to Maryland for a fresh start.

Jen said, “I guess I should have figured out a long time ago my ex wasn’t going to get better.”

I said, “Women, especially perfectionists, often marry the wrong man. We think we can fix them.”

“I tried,” she admitted. “I guess – well, I guess I had to learn my lesson the hard way.” She sounded so hard on herself.

I stared keenly at her and said, “We all learn the lesson the hard way.”

She looked up and met my eyes.

That connection alone was worth staying late.

A thankless task
never to be seen in the light of day
strapped to the Sisyphean effort
of shouldering boulders

Only function is required
— the pink flower appliqué small
and delicate as a teenage girl’s
earlobe notwithstanding —

The Herculean Labor of the unmentionable
standing against gravity, against time
supporting, suppressing, expressing
rounded, uplifted, banded and wired

Shaping my body, my view of the world
— my bra.

(Author’s Note: Best read twice!)

I’ve made it: One month at BankBig.

Most of the day my eyes blur and my head spins as my new boss tromps out of his office – not mad, usually, just heavy-footed – and rapid fires another report he wants me to run: “EC3 EC5 OCL LQC HV TL.”

I scribble madly, managing to ask, “Where do I find the data?” before he stomps off to the next lucky soul’s desk, throwing over his shoulder, “SharePoint.” Like that narrows the field of a 1,000 reports.

He loves numbers. Here’s one: I’m his third admin in five months. I learned that fact yesterday.

Tom, the youngest of the special needs employees who reports to me, wants to be a part of whatever is going on, so launches out of his seat and lurches over to my desk.

“JAN.”

“Yes, Tom?”

“I NEED TO TELL YOU SOMETHING, JAN.” He never uses his indoor voice…or gets my name right.

“Okay. What?”

“SOMEONE CAME LOOKING FOR YOU.”

“Who?”

“SOMEONE.”

“Do you know their name?”

“IT WAS A MAN.”

“Okay. When you remember who you come back and tell me.”

“OKAY, JAN.”

He lurches back to his desk.

He’s had a head cold and a sinus infection for a week. He sits at his desk, hawing into a tissue. “YES!” he cheers, thrilled at the results. He hacks and hawks and spits. “YES! GOOD ONE!”

He’s left a tub of cookies on my desk that he made while he was off sick. He’s asked if I like them.

“Absolutely. They’re delicious,” I lie.

“DO YOU WANT ANOTHER ONE?” he asks, handing one to me.

“Oh no. No thank you.” I’m worried I’ve hurt his feelings, but he’s happy to have another cookie to pop in his chubby face.

Our manager – the stomper – has left early today, and Leeza, Ms. Bossy Boots, comes to me on a wave of sour milk smell. I hold my breath while we converse.

She says, “Should I close his door?”

“No need.”

“He should have closed his door,” she insists.

“There’s nothing out on his desk,” I explain, wasting breath I can’t spare.

“When people leave for the day they need to close their doors.”
“Then close his door, Leeza.”

“He should have closed his door,” she says, the stench of dairy sweat lifting as she leaves to slam the door with authority.

Smells are a general theme of my day. I receive an email informing me that the bathroom stinks, stating, “Not regular stink, but sewer pipe gas stink. They have a plumbing problem and you need to report it.”

I head to the bathroom – because I want a refreshing break from the latest report – to sniff. Shallowly. It is sewer gas, but nothing extreme. The ground is cold and the pipes are old and – well – sh*t happens.

Still, I will be questioned what I did with the request, so I submit the issue to Will, our maintenance man. I discover the next day that Will has fixed the problem. We now have three vanilla-scented Airwicks on the bathroom counter. The sewer smell is masked. Not so the sour dairy sweat.

At 6:45 p.m., after an 11-hour workday, I climb into my car, visions of home dancing in my head, drive five minutes, and come to a hard stop. There has been a three-car accident between where I am and where I want to be.

After idling for 20 minutes, my brain prods ancient memories of driving back roads on summer days – though now I’m seeking landmarks in the early dark of December.

As I drive, tentatively at first, then faster, with more confidence at the sight of familiar street names like Deer Park and Nicodemus, I take in the gaudy lights of Christmas, the air-filled plastic shapes of a Ravens football player riding a motorcycle and Santa in a Hawaiian shirt under a palm tree…and a small holly tree strung with white twinkling lights that is so simple and pretty I want to cry.

Nearing home, brake lights to headlights with the other commuters who have found another way, I turn on the radio in search of music or companionship, and learn that a woman died in the crash, not a mile from her house.

Two hours to get home from work.

Still, I do get home.

That’s me – always seeing the sunny side of midnight.

– JAN

      I, on the ripe side of middle-age with all the attending wrinkles and sags, met the woman I was to replace, Joanie, young, thin, beloved, irreplaceable. She isn’t, in fact, leaving the company, but merely moving upstairs, so I’ll enjoy being compared to how she’s done this job for many months to come.
     I met the three special needs employees – correction, associates – I will manage: Tom, who is eager and loud and kind of lazy; Ryan, who writes down my instructions and has no short-term memory and forgets that he’s written everything down and writes them down again; and Leeza, who is bossy and a know-it-all and a tattletale. It is from her that I learn I’m not allowed to have my cell phone on my desk. It is, in fact, a violation, and if security auditors should show up unannounced I would be hit with a non-performance penalty and could potentially be fired. I have to check messages in the bathroom.
     I could also be fired for leaving my training notebook on my desk or not locking my computer – not just at the end of the day, but whenever I leave my seat, a frequent occurrence for an administrative assistant for sure – even when I walk ten feet away to draw a glass of water from the cooler.
     I was handed a master key which is chained to my wrist that will open every lock to every desk, drawer, and door in the place, all of which must remain closed and locked every second of the day, except when an employee – excuse me – when an associate is removing or returning an item for immediate use. I don’t understand the need for these extreme safety measures, as I am surrounded by coworkers who also underwent the thorough pre-hire proctology exam, but you bet if the item isn’t returned and locked up before leaving the work area I’ll risk being tattled on by Leeza or hauled off by the Security Police.
     Not everything is about protecting information. No. When I tried to throw away a gum wrapper from my purse I was informed, “We don’t have trash cans.”
     “No trash cans,” I repeated, the look of stunned stupidity peaking my eyebrows.
     “We had a problem with vermin, so we stopped letting associates have trash cans at their desks.”
     “But they’re allowed to eat at their desks?” I was picturing the three-course meal that would feed a family of 20 that I’d seen at one woman’s two-foot by three-foot cubicle.
     “Oh yes,” Joanie assured me. “They’re allowed food. Most of them eat during lunch. And dinner. And on Saturdays.” Her answer spoke volumes, including the fact BankBig wasn’t going to pay to have a cleaning service pick up 598 bags of trash every night.
     I asked, “Is there a break room where I can throw something away?”
     “No. Just the bathroom.”
     Good, I thought. I’ll do that while I’m washing a cup, checking my cell phone, and peeing, but only after I’ve locked my desk.
     Rest assured that while BankBig is not wasting the money from its outrageous fee structure on coffee and forks and other such break room accoutrements, or on trash cans, its employees – Excuse me! – associates are not neglected.
     On my first day I learned that I will lead the Associate Engagement Team (AET), elsewhere known as Employee Appreciation, as I helped distribute 598 individually wrapped, Cheryl’s frosted sugar cookies and took photos of associates smiling with their snack, which I sent to Corporate’s AET VP to prove our happy participation. I did not sneak back to take pictures of the mice happily snacking on the cookie crumbs. Later I ordered 200 sandwiches from Chick-fil-A for the people working overtime on Saturday.
     I don’t know where all those greasy wrappers will go to dissuade the vermin from treating their extended family to a right tasty treat.
     Perhaps I’ll hire the man who drank beer and strutted about with his gun and ran me off to play frisky with his wife. I can have him teach my coworkers to shoot the varmints. We can make it an Associate Engagement activity! Like chicken wings, we’ll fry them up and serve them barbecued.
     I’ll send pictures to Corporate.