| My first job was delivering the Washington Post every morning, I had the Oakton-Woodland-Rolling perimeter, included Tulip and Hutton north and east of Woodland |
| second job at Mario’s Pizza on Summit across from elementary school I went to first grade (and met Willy Dayne, who, out of courtesy to you, I don’t remind you of the running down the cat in his green dodge dart on Ten Mile Creek Road everytime we hike Ten Mile Creek Trail which we do at least once a month, it’s the best trail in Moco) |
| third job was Asbury Methodist Home, an old folks harvesting factory in Gaithersburg that since has grown twenty fold, four excellent and distinct eighteen-hole disc-golf courses could be built on the campus |
| I worked six weeks in the Sorry, you’re-soon-to-be-dead building as a janitor |
| Sarek is *not* in the Sorry, you’re-soon-to-be-dead building but the building freaks the fuck out of me, reminds me why I quit, it paid better than any pizza joint or landscaper would pay me and offered hours that gave me evening and weekends free and the people I worked with were more often than not lovely and the boss was fair and funny and nice |
| Of course the physical distress of the patients horribly disturbing at times and yes what you imagine a janitor in a Sorry, you’re-soon-to-be-dead building often mops up this janitor mopped up but what was worse were the looks on the face of those aware enough to know what happened, the mortification, the humiliation, the despair they couldn’t will themselves to death |
| I quit to take a job at Arnolds Diner on Redland Road across from where now sits the big red Teachers Credit Union for hours Thursday and Friday nights and Saturdays until six for two dollars less an hour and am who I am typing this poem tonight because I did |
| The means exist to yoink Sarek out as soon as can be discovered, navigated, then implemented both at a get out of now but what about next level |
| SeatSix showed up tonight with dinner and the front desk refused entry and would and/or could not say why, though the place is three pestilential floors of contaminated human aerosol projectiles |
| I work at a mid-sized university and watch undergraduates flount masking rules and never felt worry, full-vaxxed and boosted and properly masked me |
| 1/100th of the worry I get in that three-floored petrie dish |
| I have no idea if Sarek’s been swabbed, I assume he has but who knows |
| No one asked me for my vaxdox, my temp was 97.2 like it always is, I checked a box on the screen vouching for my vaxdox, I understand, help has enough with the dying without fighting the dyings’ un-vaxxed visits |
| I forget the order much less have a complete inventory in my head of jobs 4 through my current job, there were dozens, Roys Place of course on Diamond, we all worked there, a landscaping place that ran out of a room in the Holiday Hotel on Walnut Hill where now a storage facility squats, a place on Oakmont on the railroad tracks that made windows and door frames, that job in the short few weeks taught me enough about crackers to not been wrong about them since, Crown Books of course where I met Hamster and then Earthgirl, a photomat in a strip mall in Annapolis when Earthgirl and I lived in Deale |
| Willy Bayne got me a job at Highs, I made it to second key night manager, without that job I would not got the Crown job and Planet wouldn’t exist |
| Cookie Factory and Alpine Pantry in Lakeforest Mall |
| The only job I ever quit *not* because fuck this and fuck you the Sorry, you’re-soon-to-be-dead building job, I’ve felt guilty ever since |
2022 January 7
Published
pjoepf Of vriecyh 
through a combination of circumstances i never had a paid job untili went to college – there i worked in the libraries and on the dorm staff – sometimes at the desk, sometimes on the cleaning staff
the first summer i got a job at dahlgren va navy weapons lab with the crackers – they played whist at lunch – the next summer at natick army labs as a bio technician even though i had already changed my major by the end of the spring semester – biochemistry had defeated me – one of my main duties was killing white mice – a mouse is like a kleenex it can only be used once – i don’t feel guilt exactly it was their fate if it hadn’t been me it would have been someone else – still that was my last job in the war machine narrowly defined
and that’s just part of the story of the jobs in my life
as far as i know i’ll never get a paycheck again – who knows if it’s good or bad?
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