Should anyone give you the third degree on your return to work, don’t hesitate to become indignant and stomp out of the room. Crying is also extremely effective. Especially if you are a man.
All right. Got my excuse, got my handkerchief, and am heading for the door. Wait…I think I forgot something…
You can’t love every job you have.
The summer I was sixteen, I applied for a job at the new Six Flags Over Georgia. I wanted to work the Great American Scream Machine, or even the Log Ride. Instead, after a test and interview, they said, “We’ve given your talents a lot of thought and we’ve decided that you’ll be sewing names on hats.”
Makes you want to go right out and buy some mouse ears, doesn’t it? Oh gosh, was that a bad job. I had to wear black double-knit pants, a black-and-white smock, and black loafers. These were the kind of clothes that if you offered someone the shirt off your back, they wouldn’t take it. Still, it was a better job than the kind for which you don’t need a shirt at all. (Tar. Five dollars an hour. Don’t forget.) However, since the primary reason for having an amusement park job when you’re sixteen is to buy gas for your car so you’re able to date, and, if you’re smart and lucky, to meet those dates at the park, I knew right away I would be my own worst enemy. I just couldn’t imagine girls leaving Six Flags with stars in their eyes, going, “Did you see the guy in the smock in the hat booth? Oh my God!”
Sewing names was embarrassing, but at $1.65 an hour the pay was good. Besides, there were even more humiliating jobs. One was working the Flying Jenny, which was just some damn mule walking around in a circle for the kids who were scared of everything else. The boredom factor must have been out of this world, unless, of course, you made friends with Jenny. Then, a little hay, a little conversation, and who knows what could happen?
Sewing was also difficult. The machine was a table with a long handle on a swivel underneath. We had to practice for a month before the park opened. They gave us big black pieces of cloth and pink thread—which did not help the insecurities that went with the sewing machine—and a chart with the one hundred “Most Common Names.” John, David, and Mary might seem simpler than Brandon, Jordan, Emmett, and Brittany, but they were all tough to stitch.
When the park finally opened for Sneak-a-Peek Weekend, there I was with my clean smock and double-knit black pants. I had my hundred names down so cold that you could do them in your sleep. My first customer was a guy and his wife and their daughter. He bought a sailor hat for the little girl. I said, “Would you like her name on it, sir?”
“Yes.”
“Her name is?”
He said, “Cajava.”
I had not practiced Cajava. C-a-j-a-v-a: the first name I sewed on a hat. Cajava. Where is she now? I hope she still has the hat.
Oh, I hated that job. I hated that job. But I loved the money. My first paycheck was $24.32, after taxes. I took it, walked to my car, and thought, “How the hell am I gonna spend this much money in one week?” And the next week there would be twenty-four more big ones coming in. Whoo!!!
Years later I discovered that my wife, Gregg, had also worked at Six Flags Over Georgia that summer. (I don’t recall meeting. Trust me, I would have remembered.) Her job was even more de-meaning than mine. Gregg had to roll around the park on skates, with a broom and a dustpan, cleaning up. Most of the time it was just trash, but occasionally it was a Code Thirteen. Vomit.
Eventually, Gregg and her sister and her cousin (who also worked there) got jobs in the Crystal Pistol, which was the song-and-dance review show. The only reason you went inside was to escape the stifling Georgia August heat. Gregg’s ex-husband sang in the show, which I’ve always considered the only less-masculine job there than mine. I’ve only seen three pictures of the guy, and in every one he’s got one hand on the piano and the other one lifted in the air. His mouth is open. Any time Gregg gives me grief about what I do, I just go, “Now here’s a salute to those great American railroads! Let me get my hat!”
By the way, Twilley also worked at Six Flags. They put him in the candy shop. It was hardly a prestigious position but, of course, Twilley managed to have sex with a coworker. Seems he had to give her a ride home, and they wound up naked on her pool table.
I quit Six Flags before summer ended. Working at Six Flags was a lot like going to the state fair: You could see lots of body hair and always spot a family that made you feel very good about your own. Still, I’m sometimes nostalgic about my time there. Or maybe it’s because somehow the words to the park-closing announcement are indelibly etched into my brain cells and I’m mistaking that for sentimentality.
“Ladies and gentlemen, the hour for closing has now arrived and we must say goodnight. Our hosts and hostesses hope you’ve enjoyed your stay and will come back to visit us soon. The park will reopen tomorrow morning at 10 A.M., but for now a pleasant goodnight.”
Slam!—went the door on the hat booth, and I was gone.
Some jobs require you to work alone, but I’ve always been a people person. Besides, you don’t get tips when you work by yourself.
After Six Flags, I took a job as a bellhop at the Sheraton Emory Hotel, right by Emory University and Emory Hospital. We were also across the street from the Centers for Disease Control, which always made me nervous. Part of my job was to change the letters on the sign out front—WELCOME LIONS CLUB—and I’d always hold my breath because I knew some strange things were going on at the CDC.
I learned fascinating bellhop tricks on the job that you might watch for the next time you check in. As I picked up someone’s bag, I’d sneak a peek at their name tag to see where they came from. Then as I walked them to their room, I said, “And where did y’all come in from? Seattle? Oh God, I love Seattle. My brother lives in Seattle and he just says it’s the best place in the whole world.”
The bellhop’s life was great preparation for a life of making a fool of myself onstage, though now it’s for a lot more money. But back then, I knew that if I could get a hotel guest talking to me, I’d get tipped. Sometimes I could hear the hand in the pocket go from rolling change to grabbing actual folding money.
I also quit that job—surprised?—but soon returned to the hotel as a maintenance man. It wasn’t such hard work, since the place was falling apart and there was no stopping it. The hotel also didn’t have enough heat in the winter or near enough air-conditioning in the summer.
I worked for Craig Todd. He was funny and decent and he taught me the joyous art of screwing off at work. Once, just for fun, we cut the heads off three thousand books of hotel matches, and stuffed them in a copper tube that we’d crimped one end of in the workroom vise. Then we crimped the other end almost shut, got a coat hanger, made a launching pad, and trailed a fuse of match heads across the back parking lot. While Craig and I sat there arguing about whether or not our little rocket would work, we noticed guests curiously looking on, wondering if we were some sort of free entertainment. They’re probably still complaining that there was no champagne buffet.
We lit the fuse and hid behind somebody’s car. That thing took off and I swear it has not yet come down. Somewhere a projectile crashed through someone’s roof and they’re still wondering if was part of a secret government rocket, or if miniature extraterrestrials had invaded their home. In the South it could be either, you know.
As a public service, there’s another hotel secret I feel I should reveal, if only to redeem myself for playing with match heads and probably causing three weeks of alien invader headlines in the National Enquirer.
In the summer guests would constantly call to complain that their air-conditioning wasn’t strong enough. Frankly, there was nothing at all we could do about it. The central unit was old and the hotel owner wasn’t going to put any more money into it. So Craig taught me a work-around. He said to always carry a small screwdriver with a pocket-clip on it. Then, when I got an air-conditioning complaint, to walk into the room and say, “Whoo, boy, this isn’t right.” Next, remove the thermos
tat cover, stick the screwdriver in, twist it back and forth, and pretend to adjust it. As I did that, I should put my hand in front of the vent, tweak, test, tweak, test. Then motion to the guest. “Come over here. Does that feel better? Tell me when it gets good.” They’ll put their hand up and finally go, “Right there, right there.”
It always worked. I’d leave with a nice tip, they’d be smiling, and I hadn’t done a damn thing except perfect the art of bull-shitting.
When my friend Jim Kumpe quit his job at Kroger’s deli he recommended me for the position based on the fine work I’d done for the Sheraton Emory. He went to Europe and left me to slice ham and bologna. That job drew down $7.00 an hour and I thought I was rich.
Say what you want about slicing bologna, the grocery store is still a great, great place to meet women. The aisles were always well stocked and many young ladies who passed through regularly were either single or not happily married. Slice their bologna right and anything could happen. I was so shameless in my pursuit that more than once the managers pulled me into the office for a lecture about “fishing off Kroger’s dock.” And to think of all that time I wasted fishing with Burns and Chastain.
Kroger turned out to be about more than meeting women. That’s where I first learned how to handle a microphone and discovered that I liked it. One day the boss asked if anyone was interested in doing the sales announcements for the store. I said, “Yeah, I’ll do it!” I had to read them into a tape recorder. They’d play every fifteen or twenty minutes all day long, over the public address system.
Soon, the whole town could hear me saying, “Attention, Kroger shoppers. In our deli today we feature Virginia baked ham. Regularly three-eighty-nine a pound, this week only two-nineteen. Also, try some delicious mustard potato salad. Regularly a dollar-nine, this week only seventy-nine-cents a pint.”
Slowly, I learned to work the grocery store crowd and make them excited about being out shopping. I was good at it. Soon, any time the store had a spot announcement, I was the guy.
These announcements made me a celebrity, especially to my family. They shopped at Kroger and they’d hang around just to hear me say things like, “Attention Kroger shoppers. Visit the meat counter and find out about our boneless ham shank special.” My family would find me in the store and say, “Just heard you doing the thing about the ham. Nice work.”
You know, it just doesn’t get any better.
Not only did I work for a living, I also went to school at Georgia Tech. I won’t go on about it except to say that after three years they asked me not to return. I wasn’t a discipline problem. I’d committed no crimes. Burns and I hadn’t flashed BAs anywhere on campus. I simply felt out of place and my grades reflected it. Though I’d done very well in high school, college was a tough adjustment. I’d gone from a small town and a small school where I was one of the two top dogs to being a face in the crowd. I wasn’t involved in any campus social life. Nobody knew me. I didn’t fit in. I didn’t study because I took courses that didn’t interest me. My major was industrial management. You can imagine me in a suit and tie, behind a desk, right? The only reason I went to Tech was that it was the closest school to home. I suppose I planned to prepare for a life doing what my dad had done. But I couldn’t work up any enthusiasm for the allure of corporate life.
Those were my lost years. However, I’ve since been acknowledged as a Distinguished Alumni by my alma mater.
Thank you very much.
After I left Georgia Tech (and Kroger), I hung out a lot at my father’s farm. I grew a full beard and my hair went past my shoulders. I drew and painted and worked lights for a friend’s rock and roll band. In other words, I was going broke in a hurry. Through some back channels my dad finally had some friends call and tell me there were a few job openings at IBM, and maybe I ought to apply.
I decided to take the plunge. When I went down there, every guy waiting for an interview looked like a Harvard graduate. I looked like I’d just swept up the office. When it was my turn, the man in personnel said, “If we hired you, would you get rid of all of this hair?”
“Yeah, if you hire me,” I said. “But I’m not getting rid of it for the interview.”
He said, “Tell me good stuff about you.” So I talked and talked and talked. Then he said, “Tell me something bad about you.”
I said, “Man, I’m trying to sell you a product. I’m not going to tell you what’s wrong with it.” He laughed and I got the job. I was nineteen or twenty. I worked in the Atlanta office, in dispatch. My first assignment was to take calls from customers who had broken machines.
“IBM dispatch. May I have your area code and phone number please? What machine are you having a problem with? And the nature of your problem? All right, sir, I’ll have a representative get it touch with you as soon as possible.”
Like all other IBM employees, I had to conform to the dress code. I think even the janitors had to wear suits and ties. So I went right out and got a couple of $40 suits and some awful shirts. Then I went into my dad’s attic and pulled out his old wingtips—we wear the same size—and polished them to look like new. Then I fit right in. Just like Joe Luckie.
Joe Luckie—isn’t that the greatest name of all time?—worked right across the hall in parts. Joe came from New York. For his first two years Joe wore only two suits. He only owned two suits: one blue and one brown. He’d wear the blue one Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, the brown one Tuesday and Thursday. The following week he’d alternate it, just to mix it up. Finally, after a couple of years, his parents sent him a gray suit for Christmas.
IBM’s office occupied the fourteenth floor of a high-rise in Atlanta’s Colony Square. One morning before work, Joe and I bought coffee and doughnuts in the central shopping area downstairs. Afterward, we got on the elevator for the ride up to the office. We stopped on the sixth floor and a guy got on that neither of us had ever seen before. He was just another of the thousands who worked in the high-rise.
When the door closed the guy looked right at Joe and did a double take. Then he said, “Hey, you got a new suit!”
That’s when Joe suddenly realized that everyone in the building knew he only had two suits. I tried to keep from falling down, laughing. Joe worked to contain his embarrassment.
Isn’t it nice that there’s always someone around to make you feel better about yourself?
The ideal job is one in which you like what you do. The next best thing is one in which you can have fun. The great thing about IBM was that even before I considered doing stand-up, I got to hone my comedic skills and have more fun than shooting fish in a barrel.
After I’d been at the company a while, they promoted me at dispatch. Now I worked in a “quad” with Dwight Stanton, Jesse Frank, and Cynthia Sloane. We no longer took customer calls. We assigned work to servicemen instead. We did really well, always scoring at the top of the performance charts and getting tons of work done. Even so, we were so terribly bored that the only way to avoid devolving right on the spot was to play practical jokes. For instance, each of the servicemen had his own radio number. They’d all call in every day with the same routine. For example:
“Hello, this is Lester Nobby, 509.” Lester had a distinctive voice that reflected his religious and straightforward nature. He was always pleasant but always all business.
We quickly learned to imitate the servicemen. Then we would pretend to go to the bathroom, run around the corner, call our quad, and try to fool the other guys. One day Dwight Stanton announced that nature had called. He turned the corner and, sure enough, three seconds later the phone rang. Jesse and I looked at each other with the same thought: “Dwight’s trying to get us.”
Jesse picked up and heard, “This is Lester Nobby, 509.” He motioned to me and I grabbed an extension.
Jesse said, “Lester, you ole sonofabitch, what the hell are you up to?”
Nobby was aghast. “What the…?” he said.
>
“The hell you say, Lester,” Jesse added.
Suddenly Dwight walked around the corner. Our mouths dropped open and we did the mature thing and hung up. Then Lester called back.
“What the heck’s going on up there?” Lester demanded hotly.
“What are you talking about, Lester?” I said.
“Well, I just called up there and got cussed out.”
“You didn’t call here, Lester. We’ve been sitting here all day.” (If you’re reading this, Lester, sorry.)
Another stunt we pulled to relieve our boredom was to send guys on temporary assignments. That meant they had to take a different job or territory for a few days. My favorite victim was a guy named Clay Felton. Felton was a legend because he was only twenty-seven and three times divorced. He also played softball fanatically. This one weekend we knew he had a statewide-level game scheduled. So on the Thursday before the game we decided to send Felton on temporary assignment.
First we left him a message to call “Jerry Duncan” at headquarters.
“What the hell’s that all about?” said Felton, when he checked in with me.
“I don’t know,” I said.
Since the servicemen always called in from phone booths, I offered to connect him to Duncan.
“Yeah, if you don’t mind.”
“Sure, no problem.” I put him on hold and then said to my quadmates, “I’ve got Felton on the line. Cynthia, you’re Jerry Duncan’s secretary.” Then, back to Felton, “Okay, hold on, Clay. Talk to you later, buddy.” Then Cynthia picked up the phone.
“Jerry Duncan’s office.”
“Yes, this is Clay Felton returning Jerry’s call.”
“He’s on another line, could you hold one minute please?” A minute later, I came on as Duncan.
No Shirt, No Shoes...No Problem! Page 9