But then last night I watched an episode of “Top Gear” and learned that some people’s jobs involve being able to successfully pass the (auto) “industry standard” Escaping From Army Snipers test.

All things considered, I think I’ll stick with grammar.

So there’s nothing at all to stop the general public from coming up to you and asking for your astrological sign so that they can then tell you whether or not you and they are sexually compatible, changing their baby’s poopy diaper in the middle of the children’s section, stealing girlie magazines to use to pleasure themselves in the men’s bathroom, or calling the police in the middle of a transaction in an attempt to have you and your fellow booksellers arrested because they didn’t like your answer to their question. Needless to say I will never again work with the general public, because the general public is HATEFUL AND DISGUSTING. Although they did provide me with some great stories.

The other thing my job had was a person I’ll call “Brianne”. The whole time I was working there “Brianne” was in the process of surgically transforming themselves from a man into a woman. Because I am woefully naive I had no idea this was going on, until the day that “Brianne” showed up at the store as a six foot tall man with painted fingernails, dressed in a strappy, blue-flowered print sun dress and sandals, clutching a stylish handbag. I was unprepared for this particular revelation, especially since the night before I had attended a bachelorette party for one of my friends. I don’t drink, and I didn’t have a bachelorette party myself, so I was completely unprepared for the fact that it’s apparently common practice for brides-to-be to hit the dance floor of a club clutching a life-sized, anatomically correct penis shaped water bottle filled with their beverage of choice. I don’t know that there’s ever a good time to see something like that, but it sure as hell is not when you are stone-cold sober, I’ll tell ya that.

So it was a little odd, the working with Brianne, but my work stories always kicked other stories’ ass. No one else had anything close to a transsexual at their job.

But now that I work for myself as a high school Spanish tutor, I don’t have quite the killer stories that I used to. This was driven home to me the other day when I was talking with a friend of mine who is a new police recruit. Here’s how that conversation went.

My friend: So today this guy walked into our building with a live grenade.

Me: Yeah, I’ve got nothin’.

But you know what? I’ll take it. I’ll take tub poo and barf on the rug (Important Side Note: these are courtesy of my 3 cats, with whom I spend my days, not my students) and second-tier stories, because in exchange for all of these things never again will I have to assist a customer who has just informed me that she is looking for a book, and the author’s first name is John, and, what do you mean you can’t look up books by the author’s first name?

And if someone does say something totally idiotic, not only am I allowed to point it out to them, but I’m also allowed to give a smart-ass response designed to highlight their stupidity, as in, “It’s a computer, ma’am, it’s not a f*&%$#@ crystal ball!”

I love my life.

“Jenny, I had to fight 30 levels of men in diapers wearing bowls of curry on their head to get here.”

Me (looking up at the television): Yeah, I heard you say that when I was out in the other room, and I was r-e-a-l-l-y hoping that I heard you wrong. But apparently, I did not.

-This “What?!” moment is brought to you by the game Shadow Hearts 2, the game that will make you constantly question your sanity and turn to the people around you to ask, “No, seriously. Am I on drugs?”

********

One of our friends has just been hired as a police recruit. The following story comes courtesy of her first day on the job.

Police Corporal: Hey, do you have a pair of really nasty jeans in your car?

Our Friend: Um, no.

Police Corporal: Well, you need to get a pair of really nasty jeans, a long-sleeved shirt, and a pair of shoes that you don’t mind getting really gross and keep them in your trunk.

Our Friend: OK, why?

Police Corporal: Because we might need to send you out into the woods to look for corpses.

“You would get arrested for doing that these days,” replied my husband.

“You can get arrested for delivering papers naked,” said our friend. “Ask my dad how he knows about that.”

(Important Side Note: Apparently, her dad is in charge of hiring people to deliver the newspaper.)

This particular friend has worked A Lot of retail jobs, and occasionally she pulls out a retail story to entertain us. The story she told us this weekend involved a friend of hers who was working in an electronics store one day when an elderly gentleman approached her and said, “Can I tell you something?”

“Um, does it have anything to do with this cell phone, sir?”

“No. I need to tell you that I’m a demon from hell. I see that you have red hair, so you must be a witch. You should come back to hell with me, and we could make it.”

“Uh, what about your wife?” (who was standing right there)

“She’s not one of us.”

Also funny are her reports of the customers’ reaction to finding out what is wrong with their machine: “Whaddda ya mean ‘it’s full of soda’? That’s impossible! I don’t have access to any soda! I don’t even have running water!”

Or the technicians having to explain the situation to the customer: “I’m sorry sir, but your service plan doesn’t cover damage due to sitting on the computer and causing the lid to cave in.”

She’s also friends with technicians in other areas, such as the Department Of Finding People’s Wedding Rings Stuck In DVD Players, and the Department Of Discovering That Your Printer Isn’t Working Because You Apparently Jammed It Full Of Painkillers And All Your Spare Cash. (Apparently if these people are ever robbed, they want the thieves to get all of their valuables, not just their electronics.)

So one day she was talking to a technician from China who had been working on some speakers.

He said, “Yeah, when I open them up, I find joint.”

“You mean, like a finger joint?”

“No, JOINT.”

“Oh, you mean you found weed?”

“Yeah. Also live ammunition.”

My response: “WHAT?!”

Her response: “Well, damn! The next time I play Resident Evil 4 and I need some ammo, I’ll know exactly where to look!”

This is actually really good advice, and it is the reason that now I am able to get along with just about anyone I meet. But at the time my brother and I reacted to this parental guidance as if we were being asked to swallow broken shards of jagged glass, washed down with a chaser of smoking sulfuric acid. (Incidentally, this is exactly the same reaction my mom would get whenever she said, “I think somebody needs an ‘n-a-p’.” “I do NOT need a nap, and I am NOT CRANKY!” we would roar, as flames erupted from our skulls and incinerated half of the kitchen.)

So I have to admit that a small part of me was secretly pleased when she called me the other day and said, “Well, they’re telling me that I’m going to have to be really flexible at work these days.” This is not a new thing for her, as this is the same company that sent out a profile of its ideal employee as one who was “not fearful of acting with a minimum of planning,” and who, “makes tough decisions in a timely manner, sometimes with incomplete information,” among other things. (This is also the same company who causes her to frequently remark on how she now finds herself living inside of a Dilbert cartoon.)

Apparently she is being assigned to a new project, one where “you cannot write down the instructions.” My first thought was that she was getting to work on something cool and classified, and so you weren’t allowed to write anything down. But no, you can’t write anything down because “every step is an exception”. So she is working on a project that is composed entirely of The Opposite Of Instructions.

This got me to thinking about my own job history, and about how my mom is a MUCH better employee than I ever was, which is why I now work for myself. If there is craziness in my company, I have only myself to blame. But I also have the power to fix it.

That was not the case when I was teaching at a small, private, religious school a few years ago. I was responsible for Spanish, music, and being the librarian for all 120 students from PK3 to the 8th grade. One day I was told to teach all the kids a specific song for a school festival. That was fine, since I was the music teacher. What wasn’t fine was the fact that I was only given the words. I never received the music to this song, music without which there could be no singing.

One day the principal of the school cornered me in the hallway and demanded to know why none of the children knew yet how to sing this song. I explained to her that it was due to the fact that I, the MUSIC teacher, had never received the MUSIC that accompanied the words to the song.

“But [your supervisor] gave you the words to that song a long time ago,” she replied, staring at me like an evil Svengali, trying with all the power of her not inconsiderable might to bend me to the force of her will.

“But. I. Don’t. Have. The. Music.” I replied. “I can’t teach them how to sing the song if I don’t know the melody.”

So we stood there staring at each other, locked in an epic battle of wills until the bell rang and saved us from having to settle this matter once and for all by wrestling each other to the death in the middle of the parking lot.

Then there was the time that a bunch of us faculty and staff were standing around in the office discussing The Pantyhose Rule (you had to wear them if you were a woman). As was the norm, there were a number of pregnant woman there participating in this conversation.

“But what about if you’re pregnant?” I asked. “Do you still have to wear pantyhose then?”

“Well, yes,” they all replied, stunned that it would even occur to me to ask such a question.

Now, normally I was MUCH better at keeping these kinds of comments to myself. But for some reason on that day my inner shit kicker rose up, leaped out of my mouth, and before I could stop her, said, “Well, clearly a man made up that rule.”

And there was silence. Not just any silence, but the kind of silence that would’ve been appropriate had I just said, “You know, in my free time, I kill kittens. Just Because I Can.”

(And these people were S-U-R-P-R-I-S-E-D when I told them I was not coming back to teach there the following year.)

And don’t even get me started on the time I worked for a bookstore and one of my co-workers began the process of changing his gender, and even though I’d known this person for an entire year as a man, the management FORCED US to begin calling him by a girl’s name and referring to him as “her”, and allowing him to use the girl’s bathroom with us.

Not that I am bitter. Or cranky. But it is clearly not by chance that I now work alone in my home all day long, surrounded by no one but cats.

From my work as a tutor…

Student: Will you take me to get my belly button pierced?
Me: No.
Student: Why not? I really thought you would.
Me: What?! Why?!
Me (silently): frantically reviewing every interaction I’d previously had with this student, wondering how I’d possibly given out the message that I was someone who would accompany teenagers as they voluntarily allowed others to drive very sharp needles through various parts of their body.

From my work as a bookseller…

9:00 am: the store opens
9:01 am: an outrageously incensed gentleman approaches the info desk, where I, of course, am on duty.
Customer: Last night I was reading a book, and I left it on that table over there. Now it’s gone. What happened to it?!
Me: Um, at night after we close we put all the books back on the shelves.
Me (silently): looking slowly around the store to convey the subtle message that we, in fact, keep all our books on shelves and not in piles on the furniture.

December, in the middle of the holiday shopping madness
A customer corners me in the back of the store where I am unsuccessfully trying to blend into the romance section.
Customer: Where is your luggage?
Me: (stunned into silence)
Me: Excuse me?
Customer: Your luggage. My son was just up at your other store, and he told me all about the great luggage he saw there.
Me: (struggling so hard to keep a straight face that I’m sure my eyeballs are going to pop right out of my head and drop onto the floor).
Me: (searching desperately for a tone that does not at all suggest that I am in any way mocking the customer).
Me: We don’t have any luggage.

And to close, I leave you with this statement which I was told actually formed part of a company’s Visions and Values. They wanted employees with, “the ability to make quick decisions in the absence of facts and information.”

Under the category of, “Words You Don’t Want To Hear”…

From my chiropractor, the first time she was examining me on the table:
The Doctor: “I’m sure that both of your legs probably are the same length.”
Me: (To myself) Nothing good can follow that sentence.

From our bug guy, who came to de-wasp our porch:
The Bug Guy: “I’ve never seen anything like this before!”

The Bug Guy, on his second visit to clear the porch: “If I’d done this all at once I would’ve taken this box in to show everyone at work.”
Me: “Oh, great! So we could become famous as, ‘Those Wasp People’.”
The Bug Guy: “Oh, I already tell people about you.”

From my massage therapist last Friday as she was working on my shoulder:
The Massage Therapist: “Hm.” Then silence.
Me: (To myself). I think that in this situation, ignorance really is bliss.

And to anyone whose job requires them to work either with the general public or with young people, I offer these two anecdotes gleaned from my own personal work experience.

This actual conversation took place when I was working a shift at the information desk at a bookstore:
Me: “Hi, how may I help you?”
The Customer: “I’m looking for a book on war. The cover is red and the letters in the title are white.”
Me: “Um, there’s no search field in our data base for colors.”

This actual conversation took place the year I started my own tutoring business.
The Student: “My teacher hates me.”
Me: “Why do you think that?”
The Student: “Well, I was just sitting there in class, and then suddenly my jacket was on fire.”
Me: (Silently) Yeah, she probably does.