GETTING HIGH ON LIFE (AND INDUSTRIAL CLEANERS)

Everyone remembers their first job. Sometimes it’s McDonalds, or Burger King; mine was Harkins Theatres. Movie theaters will hire anyone, and pay them terribly. Just above minimum wage, for a job that a janitor in an office building gets a five-digit income for.

The job was broken into three parts: first, Usher. Ushers had to “clean” the theaters between shows. Second: Concession. Concession workers were in charge of pumping our clientele full of fake butter and overpriced Red Vines. Third: Box. In the Box Office (it was more of a rectangle, really…A big rectangle with an open top and one side made into a counter) we sold tickets to shows, and dealt with crazy people wearing no pants, and the like.

I

I had just got home from school, and it was time to go to work. The 5:00 to close shift on a Friday; hot damn.

I arrived half and hour early, as was my wont, and strolled past the Box Office. Tonight, I was in Concession. I thought about how awesome Box was. You got to stand around behind glass, wearing a cool headset, like some sort of wax-museum Star Trek display.

I walked through the lobby, throwing and almost-rude hand gesture to the Ticket Taker. He returned it, and I stopped to talk for a minute.

“Workin’ hard or hardly workin’?”

“You always say that, Tom.”
“And you always say that,” and I was right. This conversation was a carbon-copy of yesterdays.

“What are you working tonight?”

“Concession; closing again,” I muttered.

“That blows.”

“Yeah,” and I resumed my journey to the break room. The door from the lobby into the back (employees only) had one of those James Bond style door locks, with a keypad and everything. 1-2-3-4-5 (you didn’t read that) and I was inside, face to face with my TL (Team Leader, one promotion above me).

“Tom, we’re a little short, could you clock on early?”

“Maybe, or I could drag this conversation out so long that I’ll actually clock on late,” this was definitely the wrong time to smile. In recognition of his disapproving glare, I added “they don’t pay me enough to have a good attitude.”

“May be, but get your ass on the clock.”

The time clock was another James Bond contraption. You put in your number, and then slide in your hand, and it would beep. This accomplished, I walked out the other side of the break room, to the area behind Concession. This is where the ice machines, freezer, and refrigerator were.

“Tom,” it was my TL again, “register three.”

“Can’t I have one or eighteen?” One and Eighteen were right against the wall, so a lot of customers didn’t know they were registers…and on long shifts, it was nice to lean against the wall.

“No.”

“Okay.” I spent ten minutes counting on to my register (making sure it had exactly $150 in it) and then announced the world at large: “I can help the next customer in line.”

Apparently my language skills weren’t as good as I thought, because I obviously had said: “would every customer in the general vicinity please charge my newly opened register, and I would especially love it if you don’t speak English, and like to order things we don’t sell.”

That pretty much describes the next five hours. After a few incidents involving cynical signs ( “no English, no service”, “No, we don’t sell any freaking m&m’s”, “I don’t speak English” etc.) posted to my register, I was in charge of refilling the ice bins, and dragging a few (six) bags of popcorn seed (75 lbs. each) in and refilling the poppers.

In the midst of this Herculean Labor, one of the guys from box sauntered up to me.

“Joey P,” I exclaimed, “how’s Box tonight?”

“Pretty boring; they sent me back here to get more ‘water.’” In Box, they often passed Sprite, Mountain Dew, and Sierra Mist off as water…jerks. In Concession, we had to hide behind the drink ‘fridge to grab a paper cone full of tap water.

After this inspiring conversation, it was time to drag three more bags of seed in, and then close.

Closing meant cleaning everything in the general area for two hours; even hosing down the trash compactor. I watched the Box Office workers leave. Half an hour after that, I watched the Ushers leave. I envied them. To close Box, all you did was close up the little hole in the glass, and announce your intention to leave. To close Usher, you took out the trash; bastards.

At 11:30, while cleaning a popper, I got “Metalshine” right in the eyes, because a new hire was too stupid to take into account the elementary physics of propellants.

At 11:45, I finally went home.

II

As I had requested a week prior, on Saturday, I was scheduled to work Usher. I arrived to open at 8:30am (way to early). None of the theaters got out until almost 11:30, so I just had to look busy for three hours. This wasn’t easy, because seven other Ushers were also roaming the halls in search of specks of dust to clean, or spilled drinks, or, in my case, and unlocked supply closet to sleep in. That’s why they made me carry the walkie-talkie.

Finally, 11:30 rolled around, and the big theater, number 18, let out. We all went in, and, in almost perfect unison, chanted “expletive-deleted-ing kids movies.”

Children and their parents, we were convinced, had no concept of “trash-can,” and we all got yelled at by a manager for letting a small child who wandered in looking for her mommy hear us swearing rather loudly and imaginatively about the mess. At least I wasn’t in Concession. Those poor bastards had to clean everything when they opened, too. But at least they didn’t get assignments like “Tom, find out where that smell is coming from.”

The whole day went pretty much like that. The monotony was broken every now and then by a rat hunt (I was the only one who actively hunted the rats; everyone else relied on the traps that did nothing), cleaning graffiti (the wall cleaner was very strong...if you weren’t careful, you got a pretty good buzz) or a backed up toilet; glorious. The hardest bit of plumbing in the world to plunge is a urinal, bar none. I got into trouble again for signs like “The urinal is not a trash can” and “the toilet is not a toy.”

After a buttery-goodness meets nasty-carpet incident (which occurred right after I crashed from my wall-cleaner-buzz), it was 6:00pm. Time for me to go home, after “one more thing,” as my TL called it. Take out all the trash in both Usher closets.

This involved two large trash cans referred to only as “trash trucks,” because they are about ten feet long and four high, and filled to overflowing with bulbous trash backs that invariably leak a concoction I christened “trash juice.”

This wouldn’t have been so bad, had it not been the day before the trash compactor was due to be emptied, so I had to cycle the thing after every two or three bags. A cycle takes three minutes, and I had twenty bags.

Almost half and hour later, after clocking off, I stalked past the Box Office on my way home. Joey P once again accosted me.

“Tom, what is that unique odor that surrounds you? And you must tell me what you used to get such…earthy tones in your shirt,” he joked.

“Trash juice,” I growled, in between several unintelligibly-mumbled expletives, and went home.

III

On Sunday, I finally got my wish, and was scheduled to work Box (5:00 to close). Oh, it would be glorious, amazing, and stupendous. But I didn’t use words like that.

Upon arriving, I clocked on early, and almost skipped to the Box.

“I have arrived,” I announced, “Which register is mine?”

“Sweep out Box, Tom.” Damn. Tyler, the TL that didn’t like me.

“Okay.” This wasn’t as glorious as I had thought. But it was a small room, so it wasn’t that bad.

I swept, then repeated my question.

“You can have that one,” and Tyler pointed at the one smack in the middle, guaranteed to get the most maniacs and crazy people.

“Okay,” it was Box, how bad could it be?

Four hours later I had my answer. After about thirteen people that spoke no English, a guy that yelled at me for handing him a fountain pen that made him look stupid

because it covered his hand and credit card slip in blue ink, and a few people who thought the clothing restrictions and stipulations did not apply to them, I had my answer.

That was the day I put in my two-week notice. My bubble had burst, and the grass on the other side of the fence was brown and prickly.