Book of Failures

by Amy Lyle

  I loved working at the Cinema and Draft House in Atlanta. I was a waitress for the movie complex/restaurant and worked with twenty other college students. When the manager invited me to go to a concert, I thought it was a company event and said yes. (I was eighteen.)

  When he picked me up, it was just him—he thought it was a date, complete with strawberries and champagne. Awkwardly, I pecked him on the cheek when he dropped me off after the concert.

  On my next shift, a fellow waitress asked me about my weekend. I told her how embarrassed I was, thinking it was a company event but the manager thought it was a date. She paused for a second and then said, “He’s my husband.” When I went to check the schedule, my name was crossed off.

  The same summer I worked another great job, driving a beverage cart at a swanky Country Club. The club had a great little library, stocked with classic books, so in between course loops or while waiting for someone to play through, I could read.

  That job ended when I cut across the green at exactly the wrong time, taking a golf ball to my head and denying Mr. Lupinbocker what he swore would have been a hole-in-one. The club was more concerned with my interruption of Mr. Lupinbocker’s shot than the goose egg developing near my brain. I could’ve been suffering an intracerebral hematoma, as I was experiencing a lot of dizziness, nonetheless, I was informed that the summer position had ended.

  ALMOST FIRED

  When I managed a staffing firm, we had to collect two forms of identification from every potential employee. The most common documents provided were driver’s licenses and Social Security cards. The copier was in the break room and my employees and I had an ongoing contest of finding the worst driver’s license photos and then taping them on the wall. An employee reported us to our regional manager who read us the riot act … but I saw her smiling as she took them down.

  FIRED FROM BABYSITTING JOB

  I worked for about a year for a woman in Dublin, Ohio, that had four small children. Her kids were good, but there were four of them and they required constant nose and bottom wiping, snacks and refilling sippy cups, cleaning up messes and breaking up scrabbles. The mom told me proudly, as she was headed out the door to run errands, “We’re having another baby!”

  Her husband worked at least seventy hours a week, traveled extensively and was taking Paxil and several other prescriptions that were labeled “Not to be taken by mouth, insert into rectum.” (I stumbled across them while looking for the maraschino cherries for my giant bowl of ice cream I consumed once I put the kids to bed.)

  My face must have curled up into a look of disdain/disgust/confusion as I asked, “Why?”

  “We love children!” she snapped at me.

  Even though I tried to backpedal with, “That’s wonderful!” she must have felt my contempt. I was never invited back.

  WAS NEVER HIRED

  When I graduated from college, I applied to work at a local paper in Columbus, Ohio. A very attractive gentleman sat me in his office but was interrupted by a coworker. He excused himself, telling me to make myself comfortable.

  While he was out, I reapplied my lipstick and noticed a tiny scab on my temple, which I couldn’t resist scraping off. I’m a popper/squeezer and will operate on any foreign bumps or lumps that I can reach on my body.

  When he returned, his demeanor had totally changed. He asked me, “Are you alright?”

  I looked down to see drops of blood all over my resume. In a panic, I flung the bloody papers and started wiping my face with my hands.

  It’s tough to interview when you’re hemorrhaging and saying sorry a thousand times.

  I was not called back for a second interview.

  FIGHTING THE MAN GOT ME FIRED

  Within the staffing industry, I was promoted to a corporate role of training and development. It was the best job in the world. My coworker and I got to travel around the U.S. conducting sales and new-hire training. The only downside was the firm we worked for had a reputation of being “big and cheap.”

  The national-accounts division would offer clients huge discounts if they gave us an exclusive, which eroded our margins—more work, less commission. When the economy was doing well, they started acquiring boutique firms, which had amazing margins because they gave their contractors fantastic benefits and placed them at the best companies in the market. They treated their clients to all sorts of appreciation parties and vacations. If you have the best candidates, you can place them in the best companies and vice versa. It creates a wonderful, positive cycle or what is known in the industry as “referrals and residuals.”

  Unfortunately, once the super-big-and-cheap staffing firm acquired the boutique firms, they immediately shoved rules and regulations down their throats. Corporate would strip the boutiques of their great benefits, force them to staff the large, low-margin accounts and then wonder why, within six months, their newly acquired gems had tremendous turnover of management and recruiters, lost their best contractors and started having crappy margins, just like their other 1,000 offices.

  When the company took a recently acquired IT firm and made them move into cubicles from their cool office with basketball hoops and pinball tables and stripped them of all their benefits, people started to complain. Since the head of human resources (everyone called him The Rat because he was notorious for trying to cheat employees, and coincidentally, he had a rat-like face) happened to be in the Atlanta office, I questioned him.

  Rat: I don’t like your tone. I’m the head of HR and have visibility into situations that you would never understand.

  Me: You bought XYZ firm for their high margins?

  Rat: Acquisitions are very complex, but yes, that is always a factor.

  Me: But you made them move from their cool office space, will not allow them to take their top clients on trips and stripped the contractors of all their benefits?

  Rat: They will have the same benefits we all have here at We are super-big-and-cheap staffing firm.{47}

  Me: And you never wonder why everyone quits and the margins fall to s*** within six months?

  Rat: Who. Is. Your. Boss?

  At the time, I was a single mom.

  I AM AN ACTRESS

  I auditioned to land a recurring role at the mega church I attend in Atlanta. When I completed my audition, they gave me the “We’ll call you, don’t call us” answer. Two weeks went by with still no news, so I followed up with a phone call. I got, “We are still auditioning,” followed by, “If we are interested, we’ll let you know.” About a month later I did get a call: “When can you start?”

  I found out that they were TRYING to get people to audition and no one showed up, so I got the part by default. The role of the “Host” is to warm up the audience with games before the more serious Bible Storyteller comes out. Forty Sundays a year, I get to go on stage in front of 200-300 second and third graders and get them fired up for Jesus. It’s my favorite part of the week.

  Although we are all volunteers and Christians, we are also actors and what we want most is to be center stage. The more the ridiculous the costumes, the better the skit. Last month the Bible Story called for the Host to be “Grapes.” The grape suit is hilarious, purple and wiggly.

  The Bible Storyteller informed me, the morning of the show, that she had selected one of the worship singers to be the “Grapes,” and that I could lead the children on stage as we acted out the Moses-sending-spies story.

  “Why am I not the Grapes?” I asked.

  She replied, “It doesn’t matter who’s the grapes.”

  When I finished rehearsal, I walked out to get a bottle of water and ran into Stephen, the “Host” for the earlier service. “Hey, Grapes,” he said. I asked if he got to be the Grapes at the nine o’clock service and he said, “Of course!”

  I saw the director out of the corner of my eye and took the case to her.

  “May I please be the Grapes?”

  The director went into my room and told the production manager, “Amy is the Grapes,
” and then left.

  “You took this to management?” the Bible Storyteller asked.

  “Yes,” I replied. “I am the Grapes.”{48}

  THINGS THAT AGGRAVATE ME

  1. Horror movies. Why in the world would I want to be scared to death in a dark room with strangers?

  2. Annoying noises. People that chomp, slurp, tap their fingernails or hit the end of a pen seven hundred times drive me crazy. Misophonia is a newly recognized condition defined as the dislike of sound that worsens over time and causes a combination of rage, panic, fear, terror and anger when triggered, and I have it. As of today, there is no effective treatment. I self-medicate by telling people, “Stop that right now or I may kill you—I have a condition.” That seems to be working.

  3. People that call waiters by their names. It doesn’t rattle me as much if you are asking the server’s opinion, such as, “Karen, do you like the lobster bisque?” But when people complain using the waiter’s name, it sounds like a personal attack. “Uhhh, Jenny! Hey, Jenny, this eggplant parmesan is cold as ice in the middle.”

  4. Smoking. I’m a libertarian so I don’t care if you want to spend your money on something that poisons your body and makes your breath stink. My issues are when smokers throw their cigarettes out the window or dump their ashtrays in parking lots. Kill yourself slowly but don’t f****** litter.

  5. Dragging one’s feet. What type of ambition, goals or dreams can you have if you can’t even muster the energy to pick up your own feet?

  6. Reply all. No one needs to know why you can’t attend the baby shower/dinner party. If you must share that you are getting a root canal, reply ONLY to the originator of the email.

  7. People whose babies are crying in public places and do nothing about it. One time I actually said to the parents “Hey, your baby is crying. Maybe you could pick them up.”

  8. Reality shows—because they do not employ WRITERS.

  9. People that stop one inch from your bumper at a stop sign. Studies show that Americans prefer a social distance of 4 feet or more,{49} so I would prefer that the complete stranger in the 5,000 pound Silverado 3500 not ride my ass.

  10. My children, when they still try to order crab legs in a restaurant as if it’s their wedding anniversary although they have heard 1000 times “When you pay for your own meal, you can order whatever you want, but for now you’re getting the chicken fingers from the kid’s menu.”

  ONE SAD STORY

  Traci and Caroline

  I had an older sister, Traci. Even though we looked almost identical, we were complete opposites. Her lifelong dream was to be married and have a lot of children. She wasn’t interested in a career or material things, avoided the spotlight, rarely drank alcohol, and volunteered in her kids’ schools, at church and at a Hope Crisis Center that helped new moms. I … well, I already admitted we were opposites.

  In August of 2013, Traci and her youngest daughter, Caroline, who was eleven, had spent the morning decorating Caroline’s locker in preparation for her first year of middle school. After they finished putting chandeliers and Justin Bieber wallpaper in Caroline’s locker, they were headed to the bowling alley to meet a group of friends and had just reached the car when it started to downpour.

  Within three blocks of the middle school, Traci hydroplaned, ran into oncoming traffic and was killed instantly. Caroline spent three days in the ICU before the state of Georgia declared her brain-dead and turned off life support. Seven of her organs were used to save other children’s lives, including her heart, which was implanted into a young girl in Georgia.

  I wasn’t worried about my sister’s soul, as she was a devout Christian woman, but I was obsessed with her last moments of life. Did she know she was going to die? Did she think she was going to kill all the other passengers in the other car that she hit?{50} Did Caroline witness her own mother’s death? I would go to sleep praying that she had not suffered and wake up only to start obsessing again. I could not move past— “Did she suffer?”

  A few months after the accident, while attending a book club at my friend Rachel’s house, I was reintroduced to Rachel’s younger sister, Cristy. Rachel had told me many times that her sister was clairvoyant: Christy would wake up in the middle of the night from having a vision regarding a family member. Once she saw her grandfather, who had escaped from an assisted- living home and was wearing a striped shirt, trying to get into a closed Walmart.{51}

  Cristy had recently moved into our neighborhood and joined our book club. She told me, “Your sister has been pestering me.” I said nothing as we moved from the kitchen into the dining room. She continued, “Your sister. She has been pestering me to tell you some things. Would it be alright if I told you?” I nodded.

  “Your sister wanted me to tell you that she loves you and that she has always loved you and that she is happy.” I stared at her, not knowing what to say. “She also said that Caroline wanted Anna (my daughter) to have her sock-puppet animal.” I told her I would look for it in Caroline’s things. She hugged me for a long time and we started to head back to the kitchen. “Oh,” she said, “and she wanted me to tell you that she saw a lot of trees and then it was over.”

  I have never had another experience like this in my life and I’m not sure what to make of it. I absolutely believe Cristy. I’m glad she told me, but I would have thought it would have been more comforting than it was.

  This is a book of failures, so I will share where I failed my sister. Beginning in her forties, Traci suffered from MS. There were times when she couldn’t sign her name because her hands felt as if they were asleep and were so tingly they hurt. Her ex- husband was on a rampage to get custody of their youngest daughter and had exhausted my sister emotionally and our family financially. Traci’s middle daughter had run off to California to get married two days after graduating from high school and had returned divorced and expecting a new baby. My sister had so much stress and needed me, but I was so caught up in my own life, I wasn’t there for her the way I should have been.

  I also failed her horribly at the funeral. I walked up the steps of the stage, straightened out my notes on the podium and looked up to see the faces of little girls—Caroline’s friends from school, gymnastics, soccer and church. They sat next to their mothers, all of them wiping their tears. My heart was so broken. Inside, I was screaming, Why? How could this happen to my family? Look at my parents’ faces. God, look at these little girls—look what you have done to them. For some reason, standing there behind the podium, I didn’t shed a tear. I started babbling about how my sister and I would fight as kids, trying to be funny, as if I could lighten the mood of a funeral. It was a disaster. Thank goodness, my sister’s grown girls gave eloquent, appropriate speeches.

  As I replay that morning in my head, I wish I would have said that I admired the way she kept her faith and sense of humor even in her darkest moments. A year before she died, Traci and her new husband had been thrown in jail for a ridiculous situation that was no fault of hers or her husband’s. The police lied to them and our family, saying they were just going to ask them a few questions and release them. Instead, they retained them for four days—holding them over a holiday weekend.

  Traci knew she was innocent and that this too would pass. After the trying weekend, she was released from jail and exonerated of all charges.

  Within minutes of being sprung, she was hilariously recounting the trials and tribulations of spending the weekend in the county jail. She would re-enact the very poor room service being provided in the clink. “Excuse me, excuse me, sir, may I get a little blanket?” She would make a grouchy guard face and scream “NO!”

  She would say nicely, “I’m sorry for asking. I was just a little cold, there’s no blanket and it looks as if I’m sleeping over ...”

  I must have asked her to tell the jail story a hundred times because it was so funny the way she imitated the guards and the other inmates. But looking back, it’s something bigger to me now. It was my big sister sho
wing me that humor and grace can carry you through life’s biggest shit sandwiches.

  I think she would love that I’m sharing a tiny piece of her story.

  STEPMOMMYING IS SUPER F******* TOUGH

  Together, we have four kids: Savannah, Maddison, PJ and Anna. They’re all teenagers, and this was our Christmas card a few years ago.

  I tried to get a different pose, thirty seconds after the first, but Maddy slapped Anna because she wanted to sit in the front.

  Even if you have the best kids in the whole world, they are still very difficult to live with. They lie a lot and are not concerned about personal hygiene or tidiness. We’re trying to raise kind, responsible adults that will move out one day and get jobs. We give them a few, reasonable chores so they won’t grow up to be entitled a**holes.