Unchain my Heart

Mr. Nutball has been in his office the whole morning and can’t see me, which is the way I like it. He’ll come back out here around 11:30 or so, and say, “Think I’ll go get a bite to eat. Remember, someone has to watch the phones.” He says the same thing every day, without fail, and what it basically means is you, meaning me, are not allowed to eat lunch like those of us with real jobs, so don’t even think about it. Which is fine with me, I bring my lunch anyway and on the measly salary they pay me here, I couldn’t afford lunch out if I could take it like a normal person.

But every time he says that it really irks me, because it’s as if he were standing there reminding me of my lowly position in life, and I have enough constant reminders as it is. My stale peanut butter sandwich for starters. Oh, and let’s not forget, my inability to make any decisions whatsoever in this office, even up to the kind of coffee that I have to buy for everyone. “Get the French Roast, Ms. Rosenthal,” they always tells me.

Burns my ass good.

I think about that flyer again and decide to call back and leave a message. “Hi, this is Sophie Mae Rosenthal and I want some information on the (lower voice) adoption issue. My number at work is 324-8809.”

Then I wait to hear from the doctor.

Usually there isn’t anything to do at work, just a lot of paper shuffling and stuffing and filing, but today, Mr. Nutball is actually going to try to get some new clients for us. He goes through stages all the time. I am always out of sync with any of these stages, of course. On the days he wants to work, I generally don’t want to. Not because I am lazy, not in the least, it is just that after not having to do anything for several weeks you get out of practice. You get used to taking care of your own personal business, and you grow dependent on the time to do your stuff. It’s is not a case of shirking work, there just usually isn’t any time to do his.

But Mr. Nutball can’t stand to see me doing any of my own work on his time. So he makes up stuff for me to do. He is the master inventor of busy work. Since he’s paying me though, I usually humor his whims. Like the day he had me completely retype all the file labels in all caps on every god blessed file folder in the drawer. He thought they would look neater that way. Can you imagine?

Today, probably cause he knows I don’t want to be bothered with any of his hare brain ideas, he brings me a whole bunch of crap that he wants me to retype (which is no problem really), so I start doing it.

He hands me a bunch of papers that someone else has already typed and asks me to put them on our computer. He is totally unaware of the fact that plagiarizing is a crime. I tried to tell him once, seeing how it was such an issue when I was in school, but he just looked at me as if I was crazy. Okay. I welcome the work, even if it is absurd and most probably illegal, cause it makes the time go by faster and gives me less time to think about my own big picture real life situation.

And I have noticed crime pays around here. This stuff will probably lead us to new business. We do need new business coming in the door or else. The situation got so bad a couple of months ago, with no work in here and with Mr. Nutball going through one of his stages-(I called this last one of his, his narcopepsy stage or whatever that disease is that makes you fall sleep without trying)-during that stage he would just come in everyday and sit in his office trying not to doze off. Well, it was so bad for so long a time, everyone started worrying that they were going to lose their jobs.

No one here likes their job per se, but naturally none of them want to lose it. I am never worried about those kinds of things, of course, because I am a secretary, and due to the ugly nature of what I do, there is always an opening somewhere out there for someone with my expertise.

It was about two months back that Mr. Nutball finally came out of his narcopepsy stage that he was going through and actually brought in a client to pay the rent for the next six weeks. Everyone soon got real busy, and the office hummed like it was meant to do.

But, then, after that, nothing. Back to worry.

Lately, I don’t dare bring up the subject of our lack of work with him. Truth to tell, Mr. Nutball gets rather schizoid when you ask him anything about going after new clients. One time, I asked him and he got so aggravated with me he screwed up his face, and I could tell the whole time that his asshole was stitching buttonholes as he thought about what I was saying.

And he said to me, “You stick to what you know Ms. Rosenthal, and I will take care of the big picture. You got that?”
Hoity toity, this guy. That day I threw out most of his mail.

Excerpted from Unchain My Heart by Rachel Dangermond
Copyright ©1998 by Rachel Dangermond

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