Slacker
As I sat there, staring out the car window into the trees and the dirty dark nothing of the falling night and the slow steady snowfall, speck by speck the world is turned from mud brown and pavement black to white. Pure, unadulterated, porcelain white. I wait, watching the snow fall. Waiting for the clock to change one more minute. Then one more minute. Then one more. Closer to the time I can tell myself I have to. I have to move. Remember the falling snow. It's beautiful. I need to remember it. Porcelain white. Pure. Clean. I have to go.
Shit brown has hints of yellow in it. I know. I scrub shit off of the toilets. Speck by nasty speck, turning mud brown to porcelain white. Sometimes you have to scrape at it with your fingernails. Think of the snow falling gracefully outside. In time. In time I will be done. In time it turnes the dark world so white that it is too bright to look at. But not tonight, the night is still dark.
It is frustruating to carry another's weight on my shoulders. I told myself I refused to work for another without getting paid for it. Tonight, again, like every other night, I do another's work for them without remuneration. I really need to go to the boss about this. I scrub more shit. I mop more floors. I scrape ketchup and mustard, shit yellow, off tables until the rag I use is blood red. Touches of dust turns it brownish gray. The smell of chemicals. I glance at my co-workers. He's working. He's working. He's confused, but that one's ok, he's new. And she... is no-where to be found. I'll ask later and she'll tell me she had to go get someone an extention cord. Or take care of some ten minute job she's already spent a half-hour on, or she's dawdling somehow. She's an expert at it. Looking busy, accomplishing nothing. I'm bitter now. Scrubbing. Brown to porcelain. Chemical burns. Bitter.
I have to remember the snowfall. And hurry through the work that she should be doing. If we want to get out of here before the roads are too dangerous to travel. The snowfall. Even that beauty she turns to a bitterness and a threat. And she looks busy. Her bad judgement could have killed a co-worker the other night. Slid to a ditch. I didn't get us out fast enough. I couldn't do the work, both mine and hers, fast enough. Rather than necessary work she deems "useless work" (the shit that wastes time) to be the only proper course of action. And we end up running behind. It pisses off the supervisor too. But he isn't mad at her. I get blamed. Third night in a row I got blamed. For what? Picking up her slack?
Shit brown has hints of yellow in it. I know. I scrub shit off of the toilets. Speck by nasty speck, turning mud brown to porcelain white. Sometimes you have to scrape at it with your fingernails. Think of the snow falling gracefully outside. In time. In time I will be done. In time it turnes the dark world so white that it is too bright to look at. But not tonight, the night is still dark.
It is frustruating to carry another's weight on my shoulders. I told myself I refused to work for another without getting paid for it. Tonight, again, like every other night, I do another's work for them without remuneration. I really need to go to the boss about this. I scrub more shit. I mop more floors. I scrape ketchup and mustard, shit yellow, off tables until the rag I use is blood red. Touches of dust turns it brownish gray. The smell of chemicals. I glance at my co-workers. He's working. He's working. He's confused, but that one's ok, he's new. And she... is no-where to be found. I'll ask later and she'll tell me she had to go get someone an extention cord. Or take care of some ten minute job she's already spent a half-hour on, or she's dawdling somehow. She's an expert at it. Looking busy, accomplishing nothing. I'm bitter now. Scrubbing. Brown to porcelain. Chemical burns. Bitter.
I have to remember the snowfall. And hurry through the work that she should be doing. If we want to get out of here before the roads are too dangerous to travel. The snowfall. Even that beauty she turns to a bitterness and a threat. And she looks busy. Her bad judgement could have killed a co-worker the other night. Slid to a ditch. I didn't get us out fast enough. I couldn't do the work, both mine and hers, fast enough. Rather than necessary work she deems "useless work" (the shit that wastes time) to be the only proper course of action. And we end up running behind. It pisses off the supervisor too. But he isn't mad at her. I get blamed. Third night in a row I got blamed. For what? Picking up her slack?
posted by Shannon Hollender @ 6:28 AM
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