Day 195
First day at new job.
Unsure as to when work officially starts, I arrive roughly 90 minutes early. As
you can see, I am about as confident as a rape victim in a whorehouse. It
occurs to me as I’m waiting for others to show up that this is the first “real”
job I’ve ever held in my life. At 29, I’m not sure if this is a good thing or a
bad thing.
I had barely
settled in when Mickey appeared. “Noah,” he asked in a guttural, no-nonsense
tone, “do you like to drink?”
Mickey was
either unaware or unconcerned with putting me on the spot. In an American company, alcoholic tendencies
are often suppressed, denied, or at least hidden under the auspices of happy
hour. Indeed, being “the party guy” in
the office is seldom the way to advance one’s career. Looking at Mickey though, my gut told me that
somehow Mickey didn’t give a shit what corporate America thought. Looking into Mickey’s unblinking countenance,
I made a judgment call.
“Yes I do,”
I answered.
Mickey’s
eyes narrowed slightly. “I drink… every
day,” he proclaimed, punctuating the statement with a thump of his chest.
I had
answered the sphinx’s riddle. I was in the club.
Day 202
Rose emails me. They miss
my calming presence, she says. Her new tenants are boring, she says; they don’t
speak much English. She thinks they’re Korean. I try to imagine being from
another country, alone in America, listening to Jan and Rose battle constantly.
And what would the Koreans think of Jason?
Day 203
Day two at
work. New boss Mickey does the following in a two minute span: measures his
foot against mine by pressing his shoe sole against mine, asks me if I play
sports and – upon learning I enjoy soccer – informs me I will be playing indoor
soccer with the Astellas team. Starting tonight. Playing soccer was not much of
a priority for me at that moment; I had been out of work for a long time and I
was poor. Nevertheless, I lacked the balls to tell my
boss at this early stage that I very literally was not a team player. If you want to create a mental image of
Mickey, imagine an enforcer for the Yakuza: heavily muscled, thin mustache, and
an aura that says ‘we’ll be doing things my way.’ In real life, Mickey was a hard-hitting rugby
player who’d played at a high level.
So I caved. I
used my credit card to buy a pair of soccer shoes and forked over my last ten
dollars to the team captain. Mickey
showed up to play goalie, decked out in a karate-esque headband. After
warm-ups, he pulled me aside.
“Noah, you
will score a goal,” he announced in his usual gravelly voice. I detected no hint of this being a
question. I turned towards goal and
Mickey slapped my ass. At this moment, I
was truly concerned that my job security rested on my rusty soccer skills.
Mercifully,
sixty seconds into the game, I poked the ball into the opponent’s net. It was my only goal that season.
I soon
learned that Mickey was a sportsman and a competitor by nature, and he made
good-natured but firm demands that his employees stay in shape. Katsu, Mickey’s aide-de-camp, relayed one
such of story of his own arrival. After
a multi-day travel itinerary from Japan, Katsu arrived in Chicago on a red-eye
flight, exhausted and on his last legs.
He was met at the airport by Mickey who, instead of taking him to his
new apartment for a nap, took him to work for introductions, and then to the
gym, where he strong-armed Katsu into joining.
Four hours after landing in America, Katsu found himself in borrowed
workout gear, bench-pressing more weight than was advisable, all the while
being spotted by his new boss.
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