0:02 Hey, guys. A false start. We thought we were returning for ten minutes. There was just a priest. Just a prequel. Just wanted our voices up. Oh. So Latino. Oh, God. You know. Yeah. Yeah. So, today was just, interesting. We're trying to find a good place to record, and, we'll get our directions crossed up, and it's late in the week, so, I'll speak for myself a little a little tired.

0:30 Oh, God. Yes. I mean, I yawn during our pre-recording twice. That's. That's why I was just getting us warmed up. There was intentional. Yeah. So, we're talking about basically come back around here. We're talking about job performances and getting written up by employers, like this idea. And I was, talking about how, in my life, I was actually, never, never been fired from a job.

1:02 And I was talking about how in my life. Unfortunately, until I hit my stride with, Lowe's Home improvement and, duron and tech jobs, I was fired, I don't know, around 1929.

1:21 So, wait, what gets that far last night? Yeah. Holy crap. So, like, you know, the long history of being fired from jobs. Yeah, yeah. Holy shit. I didn't know that. But. But more when you were younger. Yeah. Yeah, when I was younger. Yeah. Gotcha. Okay, so I have to defer. Please explain these. The basic premise of these firings.

1:43 All right. I mean, how is it fair employee. Okay, well, that's a pretty big basic principle of these firings. I mean, like, you know, I'd come in there and, you know, hey, I was personable and, you know, got along with everybody, and I would do what you told me to do, but I was generally bad at most of it.

2:07 And, I mean, if it was customer service. Hey, I got you. If it was, if it was other things like, say, accurately cutting a button at Firehouse Subs or if it was, you know, showing up on time, much like the gentleman you were mentioning in our warm up. They couldn't show up to formation. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

2:37 Then I didn't always show up on time. Okay. So punctuality and, you know, generally taking a while to acquire skills. Gotcha, gotcha. And also, the heart wasn't in it. I don't know. I really enjoyed working at that at the pain department, and, it was I mean, I just kicked ass at it, and it was the first job where I really felt like I was supported, and I actually was good at it.

3:09 Oh, okay. So. So there was like, this kind of, turning point for. Yeah. Like where, where you hit the stride to, like, not only start doing a better job, but starting to, like, get into the spirit of working. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Before that, it was like, oh, it's the ultimate slog. And I was down on myself and didn't feel like I could do it and didn't feel like anybody thought I could do it either.

3:33 Gosh, it gotcha. And, you know, working three jobs. So it's this. So, so, you, I, I've worked all kinds of jobs, as I'm sure you have to. So like, what's, what's run down. Like we'll go back and forth quickly with some like, very jobs that we've done. So later, like, I worked at this place called Kent carved Signs.

3:54 Oh that's fun right? And I was responsible for polishing, the acrylic laminate that went on the exterior of the signs. Oh, yeah. So it was like sanding and buffing. Yeah. For a job. That was when I was. When I was young, that was wearing a chemical mask. And that mind numbing. Was that somewhat fun? I was by myself pretty much the whole day.

4:20 Wow. And, I had, a radio, and so I would just jam out to some radio and just just know it wasn't like my numbing. It was, wasn't necessarily mindless either. There was, like, a bit of an art to it. Yeah. Like getting the polish, you know, to to work well. Right. And, I mean, the guy trained me, right?

4:42 And still there are these nuances. There were these, you know, you had to. It was a skill. Yeah. And I wanted to, like, get to the point where I was actually doing the carving. But I had moved on after like six months or something. That's cool. And, so that was one job. All right. Go ahead. You talk about that one job, Burlington Coat Factory twice.

5:00 Okay. That's a clothing retailer, right? Clothing retailer, but low end. Factory second. Sort of. Oh, okay. Clothing retailer. So the label on wrong. And so the the sell it to them. Okay. And then. But their main deal was coats. Okay. Okay. And hence the name. Right. And they would also have a there. So I worked in the men's department and I

5:28 So leather coats and, I don't know, one anecdotal story. I guess there's a lady who came in, and she was looking for a leather jacket, and, her and I were talking, and she was, you know, she was being very careful about where she was, where she was taking off her jacket, where she was putting on her jacket and everything.

5:54 And it dawned on me that two minutes in, she's just had a mastectomy. Oh, wow. And, you know, she's. Because she kept big, very protective of that area. And I see, I see, you know, so. Well, I was really do my best to be kind to her, but not outer and just accommodate her. Do everything I could.

6:22 Yeah, yeah. And we found her a men's leather jacket because they apparently have more padding in the front. Okay. You know. Okay. That she felt better with because she had a double mastectomy and she wasn't getting any augmentation currently. I see. It was what she told me later. She told me. I ended up talking about it. Yeah, we ended up talking about it.

6:45 How did she bought it? She comes back like, half an hour later. She talk to my manager about how kind and, you know, how I didn't order or anything. Yeah. Yeah. And just to tell him about that, and then she takes me aside and she's like, hey, this is actually what was going on. Wow. And wow, that's a that's big on her.

7:10 Right. Yeah. That was really big on her. It was really cool. You know, another time I had been partying the night before and was still on the dregs of a some MDMA. And for me, usually the way that would work is I'd come into work the next day, and I had not had any sleep or very little, maybe an hour.

7:42 And but everybody would be like, wow, it looks like you got all kinds of sleep. Energetic. You're ready to go. You know, and I would just be diving into it and loving it, you know? And so, had no sleep the night before. And another quirk of me having done it before. You don't have much filter. Well, no filter the next day at all.

8:06 But, you know. Happy. Gotcha. So, basically, yes. So qualifying what MDMA is. Oh, sorry. Actually, see, might be a colloquial term for it. Okay. Okay. It basically messes with your serotonin reuptake. I see. And so you got all your happy juice floating around. Gotcha. And you're a it's a I don't know, I almost found found it like a therapeutic thing.

8:40 Like I could confront all the.

8:46 Feelings and bad situations that, you know, were hard to think about normally. Just be like, you know, just look at them at face value and talk about them. Gotcha. But, so this lady comes in and she's talking to me about a coat, and I kind of get the vibe. She's flirting with me, and I'm not really good at picking up on that stuff, so she had to be really putting it on.

9:11 Yeah. And, she's got these three jackets. She keeps going back and forth, just vacillating. And, she's in the women's coats, and I don't normally handle those, so I didn't know a lot about them. We're going back and forth, back and forth, like 15, 20 minutes. And she goes, she says clearly, well, which one should I get?

9:36 And I said, ma'am, that's a highly subjective question. What the hell do you want?

9:43 And pick the one you like. I'll pick the one that you like. I'll. I'll buy the other two for you with my employee discount. Right. And get your number right? Well, I mean, you know, the way I said that, though, it didn't go over very well.

10:04 Oh, I think she was definitely a little offended. We get awesome. So you asked for the number and she was offended? No, I didn't ask for a number. Oh, jeez. I didn't ask the number. No, she was just offended because I said, that's a highly subjective question. What the hell do y'all. I see, I see. So you weren't trying to say anything rude.

10:23 You were just saying I don't. You just didn't say it in the in the kid glove way or where. And so the ideal way, what you were trying to say is that, really? That's up to you. Yeah, exactly. It's like, hey, you, you were the one who should pick. And so we kept talking to explain that. Okay, I see it, but she was looking for something along the lines of, you look good in all three of them.

10:47 Yeah, probably. But if I were to choose the one. I believe that you look the best one. Yeah, that's that's what she was looking for. Probably some validation, you know, and I didn't provide it. So on the converse, that first lady talked to my manager and was happy. This lady talked to my manager for probably as long as her and I talked about how terrible I was.

11:09 Jesus Christ. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know which one is a highly subjective opinion. It's not like if you had your tits cut off by, like, some other lady I had. I dealt with you like.

11:22 Like no filter is craft as you can possibly be. Like Jack Nicholson isn't good as it gets. And remember that or that had that like kind of mental cognition issue. Right, right. It's like no filter at all. But I didn't you know, I didn't insult her. I was just like, hey, I don't know how to resolve this situation.

11:40 Picking one you want basically. Yeah, yeah yeah, yeah. And like the, the the the, words, the the proper words didn't fall out the mouth. Yeah, but there was no negative intention. No, no. And I talked to her about it after that and she ended up buying something. But like I said, oh boy, oh boy, oh, boy.

12:02 That would be like, nightmare to like, almost like a setup. You know, somebody comes in it, you totally get the vibe. They're flirting with you because they are. And then like, one little thing, like turns them off. And now they go to the manager and they make it out like you were the, you know, the aggressor. Yeah. Not the aggressor.

12:17 It's a little tough word, but, you know, you were the one pushing that, you know, to the point where she was uncomfortable. You made her uncomfortable because you rejected her. She's coming back at you talking about getting fired and or blacklisted. Who from me. From. From retail sales industry. Man, that would be awful. But yeah, so most of my jobs were customer service oriented.

12:43 But. So there's another one of your jobs. So Burlington Coat Factory. Yeah. Burlington Coat Factory twice. What was it? What were, what was your job? Worked at a gas station as a cashier. I've heard a little bit about this back when you had to, like, ring it up. Yeah, yeah, like no prices and. Yeah. And someone would hand you a bill and then you'd make change, you know, back saying, do the math in your head.

13:05 Yeah. And, this is like, people would pull up to the pump and instead of credit cards, they would, like push the push the lever up on the, on the, on the nozzle. Right. And now we send a signal inside to say the pump needs to be authorized or activated. Right. Yeah. And you press the button saying okay, activate that pump.

13:24 Yeah. And the protocol was you look out the window, kind of make eye contact with the person that was waiting on their pump to be authorized, because what would happen is someone would, like, flip the pump up, and the culture was like, kind of look in the window to make sure the person in the store realizes that you're trying to get the harbor out.

13:40 Exactly. I'm kind of remember. Okay. Kind of like eye contact. And then you'd authorize there. And, you know, it was it was more of an open thing. It was like, you know, you were expected. You're going to go in there and pay in a minute as soon as you get your gas. Right, right, right. And typically like kind of the culture to you make the eye contact.

13:58 And nine times out of ten you would know who the person is because they're all town. And then also by making eye contact, the person would say, oh, they know who I am now, I can't just fill my carpet, gas and drive off. Right. But so but invariably when it was really busy, there was this one back end pump that was like really difficult to see.

14:18 Right. And you get people that were short on cash. Right. Or probably inappropriately giving people the benefit of doubt here. Right. You know, people that would just want a free take. Yes. Take advantage of the situation, knowing how the system works. Right, right. Would get ten bucks in gas. The ten bucks in gas was something like back then.

14:37 Yeah. That was that was a good bit. Yeah. And would drive way. Or you could look in the, in your couch and find some change and get a couple of gallons of gas. Yeah. And and drive for a few days. Yeah. Yeah. So, anyway, what would happen was, there's all kinds of wrinkles and nuances of this job.

14:53 I could talk a whole cast about it, but, yeah, it was working as cashier, you know, basically. And, customer service oriented. Right. Would know a lot of people coming in. It was small, more or less small town. So it was like, but still dealing with kind of a hazardous material as it works. No, no, I never I never had to really touch her dealing gasoline.

15:12 That's good. Never had to hit the emergency stop for the pumps or anything. Actually. Not once. That's awesome. And, it didn't have, like, a garage built into it or anything. It was just steering. Gas station. Convenience store. Yeah. And, they'd have, like, these, onesies that do every day, like hot dogs and a drink for, you know, a dollar or something.

15:34 It's like cheapest meal in town, basically. Nice. So a lot of construction workers and types would come in and just grab their some neat. Yeah. Yeah. Dude. And, got pretty popular. It was like we'd do, like, 50 or so somewhere around there. I think that's probably really popular for lunch, but many is small for a small gas station.

15:52 Yeah, for the small venues. So basically we would fill this little rotating silver bar hot dog cooker thingy. Yeah, right. You put the little thing on there at like 11:00. You'd be like, you know, ready at 1115 or whatever it is. They take 15, 20 minutes. Yeah. To where? You know, you weren't poisoning somebody. Yeah. So you'd have the little, little flap on the top down with a little sign on it that says the dry erase kind of thing.

16:18 Okay. That would save the time. Yeah, actually, it was a little, it was a little like clock that you could change the time manually, like, ready at. And you'd just move the arms of the clock like you were teaching. A kid had no time. And so we get that was like down into a really huge detail from just like, what job did you have?

16:40 That's what this is about. It is it is well and story. It down story. So, I got really good at the, the, the draw at the end of the night would have to balance. Right. So all the stuff that you'd bring up would have to match the till. So you wouldn't want to have to, you wouldn't want to ring up $1,000 and stuff and have $900 in there.

16:57 Right. And be a problem. And in fact a fence even. Well just you know if it happened one time it would just might be, you know, something some weird thing happened. Yeah. If it happened frequently, it could definitely be a problem. Yeah. And, this was this was run by a small family, you know, owned the place, and.

17:20 Yeah. So, there was definitely, like, a trust situation happening, for sure. And, you know, I wasn't in there because just somebody to do it. I was trusted person, you know? Yeah. Right. And, Definitely trustworthy. I never steal money out of it or anything. Oh. Same here. Yeah. And, so that doesn't mean I wouldn't steal bag of chips or something from time to time.

17:42 But, I don't know if for some reason that didn't feel like it was bad. I, I guess I'm, I mean, I guess I'm a thief, just so I ever did was. Okay. We, at Walmart when I was briefly a cashier, we were allowed to be a quarter under.

18:04 $0.50, and I think twice I took a quarter to buy a Sam's Cola. Yeah, well, a 50 cent discrepancy is not fair, because what if it's, you know, it should be based on scale, like, not a, hey, you know, you get a 3000 in sales today. Yeah. Right. So, like, if it's up by $5, you know, that's tiny percentage.

18:26 Yeah. And you could totally see, like, counting back change, you know, grabbing a dime doing, you know. Oh yeah. Short changing somebody. But so anyway. Well it happens from time to time is that you'd have this, like, some jackass would come and do what they call drive off. Yeah. Oh, it's someone fill their tank with gas. You authorize the pump.

18:44 You did get a kind of a glimpse at them, but you didn't really like. You don't know exactly who it was. Like, you don't know it's John Wall Banger or whatever. Yeah. And so it's really busy, and all the pumps are trying to be authorized, like beeping. Right. Yeah. So you're just like clearing them out really quick, getting the customers 10,000 other things to do.

19:00 Right. And so like someone that kind of knows how the system works to definitely take advantage of that. Yeah. And so anyway, from time to time, someone would either make a mistake and we're going to give humanity benefit out and say that's what the case, or be an asshole and try to get free gas. Right. And so, anyway, so I would authorize the pump from time to time and somebody would drive off, and then I'd noticed, like, oh, shit, the person never came in.

19:25 So it was like a $15 gas sale. That's that's not cleared now. Right? So you have to clear the sale so that the next person can use that pump, right? Yeah. And then I got to the point where I got really good at it. So what I would do was, be able to keep a mental tally. Yeah.

19:43 Okay. Of the amount of money that was lost in drive offs. Okay. And make that up at the register by, basically charging people but not ringing it up. Like, someone would come with things and I know the exact price of. Yeah. So let's say it was $1.50. Right. I would just be like, charging dollar 50.

20:03 They'd give me a five, I'd make them change for, you know, give them 350. And then, you know, I knew now that I was $1.50 in that $10 recovered. Oh, okay. Right. So, like, Rob Paul to pay Peter in a way. Like. Yeah. Yeah. Mentally. Right. It's always make my jaw come out perfect. That's awesome. And then later on, later on, the the owners, like, wanted me to train others on how to do such a good job.

20:29 They didn't know that. Like, I was just. You were covering your ass was just making it, right? Yeah. In a in a way that no one, you know. Yeah. No one would really notice. Yeah. That's great. I mean, you gotta know the nuances of the system, and that's what. That's one thing that made you a good employee. You understood how all the pieces fit together and knew what the ultimate goal was, and you keep it.

20:51 So technically, the way I should have done it is say we had a $10 drive off, say, you know, $15 drive off and yeah, $15, $30 whatever. But but I didn't want to deal with that. I wouldn't have wanted to here. So it's easier just to do this little, especially in this little game in employers have to know this, that in a way, you know, whatever you're at the bottom of the totem pole, you're incentivized to do things like that.

21:19 Because you're trying to protect yourself. And you also don't want to deal with the bullshit because you already have to deal with a lot of bullshit, right? Yeah, you're on your feet for eight hours or whatever. You're working shift and you're headed to school afterwards. Yeah. And when you're working that shift, you're multitasking sometime in such a crazy way to maintain a place and make them money and keep the relationships and people coming in.

21:42 Yeah. And you're you're young and you have the energy for it. So, you know, it's all works. It works. It does. But I'm saying still it's it's, you know, an emotional and physical outlay and you're tired at the end of the day. Yeah. For sure. And, yeah. So, so cool stuff. Right. That was that was that job.

22:01 And there's there's a lot more to it. We talk at length about any of my jobs because I've always gotten like, quote unquote into it. Yeah. And so it was kind of had I'll give you all that. I'm a good dog.

22:20 I got you here.

22:26 So, Yeah, that was gosh, we're going to need more than one podcast. I have so many fucking jobs. If we go into this kind of detail and talking about hot dogs, I guess, I, I guess an analog to your job there. Really? Somewhat. I worked at the BJ's warehouse food court. Oh, okay. Okay. And, the hot dogs, we had the same, we had one of the a really small roller coaster for those.

22:57 And I'd have been, like, three rows, so gross. Yeah. It's like you think of that food right now, and it's like you're older, like, well, not you, but like, you know, I'm older. I think I am older as well. Yeah. No, I know that I think about like the cholesterol, like, oh hell yeah. Like, oh, God. I mean, I have a son, Russ.

23:14 What is that? I run high, I have to really kind of try to watch my diet. There's your triglyceride. Watch my diet. Yeah. Oh, but. So I became, Just wanted to finish that idea. I came a bit of a celebrity. I got recruited by two other gas stations that were bigger and, you know, had more going on to, to work.

23:34 And I was apparently a good face for a gas station, and then. That's awesome. And, Yeah. So the, like, kind of, pinnacle of the whole gas station thing was that I had gone to private school one of my senior year of high school. It was a pompous, prestigious, highbrow school. Yeah. And I was working there one day and I was going to community college full time and working part time.

23:59 Yeah. And, one of the teachers. Professors, whatever you call it, from from the school that was, you know, pompous prick PhD. The idea had went to Harvard from some shit comes in and says he comes in and I recognize and greet him one, of course, like, oh, hey. Oh, yeah. Right. How's it going? Right there? Like really nice.

24:23 I was genuinely happy to see him. Right. And, you know, I just want to let him know what I was doing in my life. I was like, oh, I guess what I'm doing right? Cause I don't tell him I'm, like, working and going to school and then make it on to UConn and graduate from there. It's my pleasure.

24:35 All these plans. Yeah. And when I asked him, you know. Oh, guess what I'm doing. He goes working at a gas station. Oh, yeah. Yeah, right. And I'm like you, you're a fucking car. And you're that guy's name was. Which, in retrospect, is so fucking beautiful. What? Mr. small, a very small minded. And it turns out, man, it turns out it just.

25:01 How so? Turns out that the gentleman was extremely small minded and never did anything else in his life besides work at that school and insult people. Well, yeah. And apparently insulting me. Yeah. Pointedly. But that had an impact, man. Like, like, not just like, make me feel that, but it had an impact of, like, it galvanized, you know, it's like.

25:26 Right. It was kind of like, what's the word? It was like, it didn't it didn't motivate me or didn't motivate me. It just gave me a bad taste in my mouth. Like, what a dick. Like, did it not make you want to do things to not necessarily prove him wrong, but make sure you stayed away from, like, his characterization of you?

25:47 I know I'm more than that sort of thing. In no way. No, none of that kind of effect on me. You just were like, this guy's a fucking cock. Yeah, basically. Yeah. You die. Well, no. Not that. No, no, I don't take that kind of road like you do typically. Well, I mean, look, I'm just typically I do say, hey, you know, if a and if you have any or upset me, I pretty much right you off.

26:17 And, you know, I obviously I mean let's look at my skill set and all the things I've talked about. I'm not I'm not a serial killer. So let's get that on tape. Look at those. These are empty words and. No, no. And there's like the whole colloquial version of that too, like, oh, you know, wish you'd die type thing, but you don't really wish the person would die.

26:40 There's like, there's like this, like a common I just want to erase them from here. From me. I'm going to kill you. You're not ready to kill a person. No, but you're trying to. You're trying to distance them from you. You want to be outside of their sphere of influence. You want to be far and away from whatever they're spewing.

26:59 Yeah, that is interesting, though. Like the kind of impact that it had on me was not beneficial in any way. It was just a it was just a moment in my life that, like, disgusted me at another person of like, where you were like just, repulsed by the whole thing. Yeah. And so. Yeah. Right. Because the whole thing is that, like, I always respected him just fine.

27:21 Never, never any kind of disrespectful or. Don't you like that? Yeah. And, you know, I, I would never give. I would never give power something like that. Right, right. And there's no way that you can try to intellectually spin that and be like, oh, that was him trying to motivate. No, that was him being a dick. There's no good.

27:39 And the thing is, in that situation, especially from a customer service standpoint, there's no good reply. There's no oh, there was a good reply. I told them what I was doing anyway. I was like, yeah, I'm working here, I'm working here full time and I'm going to school full time. Yeah. And working my way to want to go to university Connecticut, which I did, you know.

27:58 Right. And, I just happened to like that school and I didn't have the money to go to without a scholarship, and that's a whole other story. But anyway, next job. Next job. Okay. For you or me, you go, I'll go. Oh, I was gonna. You talked about a gas station. So the closest thing I got to that I did work at a gas station briefly at Sam's Club, but that wasn't exciting.

28:22 It was basically helping people scan their membership card, but, Yeah. Okay. The. We all need a hug. Her. She. Yeah. So ultimately, the, the place sustaining a along to the multitasking aspect in the food was probably a warehouse. I worked at the food court there, which is basically like a stand. So they had a little roller cooker there for hot dogs and sausages.

28:54 They had, we would make one that's proof dough every day for Pizza Hut personal canned pizzas, which we made in our little cast iron fans. Yeah. Remember those in an oven? Yeah. And then we had breadsticks. We had churros that I had to make. We. So we both worked at a point in our time over purveyors of disgusting, foul ass human health decline.

29:23 Shit. Oh hell yeah. Yeah. And of course, I was eating it because, you know, it's there, it's there. And, we had I mean, there was like a nearly endless group of food. I mean, we're talking about chips. And then I would also fry chips for people, like, I had to cut potatoes. Okay, okay. I had to, you know, and it was like you could get peppers and onions with your sausage, so, you know, I'd have a little cast iron skillet there that I'd make all that in.

29:56 Yeah, yeah. And, it it was great, but,

30:03 My buddy Gump got fired from there while I still worked there because he crawled up on us again.

30:15 He was a he was a little out of it that day, and he crawled up on he was at the remember cigarette counters. Yeah. All right. Well, he was at the cigarette counter and that was one of the biggest sellers. And like you were talking about, you were trusted. He was trusted to be over there. Because there was so much money flowing through there.

30:39 They wanted to make sure, you know, they had somebody who was going to be accurate. It was going to be fast, too. So yeah, in the middle of a Sunday rush, he crawls up on the conveyor belt, gets into the field position, shoves his finger in his mouth and just lay there. Oh, oh, he got the usual thing right, ma'am.

31:07 I was also working here at 911 when 911 happened. Oh, wow. Okay. But yeah, I thought it was like a movie or something that somebody was watching. You know, I could see the break room TV from where I was, and I was like, what is that? And I noticed later the same clip was playing again, and I was like, what's happening?

31:29 You know? And so that's weird. So like, it was kind of background noise. Well, I couldn't hear it. I could just oh, he's like background imaging. Yeah. So like something upstairs room. It was like diagonal to the front of this car. But everything in the store didn't shut down like no. Oh wow. Were you shut? No. Nothing. Shut down.

31:50 Wow. They didn't let us off early. They didn't. They didn't broadcast anything. Nobody told us anything. We didn't find out until we went on breaks or other employees came and talk to us. Wow. So my phone rang that morning, and it was. My phone was not right next to me. It was it was it was far. And so like, you know, where where you can hear your phone ringing in another room.

32:15 Yeah. And, I was asleep and I was just like, you know, voicemail. Right? Everything going on that day, particularly. So I knew it wasn't like, you know, it wasn't something arrogant. Well, it was, but, you know, in the moment, it didn't seem like it'd be something urgent. Then my phone rang and my phone rang, my phone rang and my phone rang, and I'm like, oh, someone's doing that thing.

32:37 They're like, ringing my phone, right? Yeah. Repeatedly. Well, no, it's like a dozen different people ringing my phone trying to talk to you. Yes. Yeah. About what happened. Okay. And, that was actually a really interesting point in my life because I at there, I, I, I came to understand that a lot of people want some type of connection to me when something they need, they need something bad happens.

33:01 Yeah. When they need to like some kind of rational support. Yeah. Like they need someone to put something they don't understand in context or something to frame it up and help them deal with it. Yeah, yeah, it was weird. It was weird. But at the same time, like at the end of that day, it was like, you know, pretty impactful for me.

33:18 Obviously I'm not going to the military as a result of that. But yeah, yeah. You know, not the best choice I ever made. But hey, it's the choice I'm making. You know, it was a choice I made. My intentions were good. So. And the thing is, I think it still emboldened you and puts you on a life of getting shit done.

33:38 Maybe we'll see how it all. We'll see. We'll see you with the final. I don't know. We'll see what the final writeup says. Everything. Everything that I've seen so far. You accomplish, you achieve, you push through and you don't back down. I've definitely lived in an enchanted life that has a bunch of interesting projects that have impacted positive, positive, positive impact on people's lives.

34:01 For sure. I can go and have done a hell of a lot more in my life than fucking Mr. Smalls ever did. Mr. Small ever did in his piss at life. There you go. There we go. We got a little bit of well placed rage and Mr. Small just resentment towards how someone could be such a dick. Right.

34:17 And none of that, by the way, was motivated or demotivated in any way by by anything that jackass said. No, no, just stood out as like a really bitter taste in my mouth. Dickhead moment. I mean, absolutely the guy so. Oh so horrible. Yeah. So so the so the psychology of that inevitably. Right. 100% no doubt about it, is that they're not happy with their live right.

34:41 The only reason you're ever going to be such and whatever the, the opposite of gracious is, you know, whatever the opposite word of that is, to somebody else is that you cannot possibly be happy with your life. Absolutely. People that are happy with your life are typically gracious to others. There was one guy that I made in their judgment, and I met him twice.

35:01 Okay. This guy, he had a he was he was very gracious. Okay. When I think of gracious and kind towards people who are working these jobs, that are grinds, that are just swabs, that, you know, they're not getting paid hardly anything, they're just getting by, probably working three jobs. Those kind of jobs are, he was just naturally gracious and kind.

35:31 I met him twice. He didn't recognize me the second time, but I recognized him. Oh, man. This guy, he comes up in, like, cufflinks, a custom monogrammed shirt. You know, it basically the height of business. You know, for probably very high up, maybe a business executives I see. And, I mean, just that, well, well groomed, you know, 1970s haircut.

36:05 Yeah, yeah. And shows up at, it's a visual. And he has that, he has glasses on, you know, silver rimmed ones. And he's like, just being just connecting with people on a personal level. He comes up to the counter at Fresh Market, another place that works, and I'm at the Meat and Fish department meeting seafood. And, for us, yeah, it was.

36:32 You go home smelling terrible. Oh, God. I cut the tip of my thumb off a couple times when I was trying to scale fish. Oh, yeah. So, it was it was awful. Well, he comes over there and he brings. He's bringing back some salmon. And, you know, I'm the one who definitely packed for him. I remembered him,

36:59 And it was a couple of days before. Yeah, a lot of times, if it was a couple of days before the party line that we were just about was a jury fault, basically. Gotcha. If you stored that improperly, you did this. Whatever. And, you know, of course I'm going to have compassion on the guy, but he's like, look, I was going to cook salmon for lunch today.

37:22 Could it? Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah. And he was just cool about it. He was describing, you know, what he was going to do and what was wrong with the sound. It was bad. Oh, gone bad or like Magnuson or some shit. No. No maggots in it. But it smelled so I had spoiled. Okay. Yeah. And, you know, hey, they said our fish was fresh, but of course it came in frozen.

37:41 Yeah, yeah. And, it would sit in the cold case. It's entirely possible it was bad when they gave it to them. Right, right, right. And even though fresh markets upscale. And they would never do that to anyone. Yeah. You can find something behind the couch, still in the bag. And the label fresh is still on it, you know?

38:02 Yeah, right. Been there for two years. Exactly. That's fresh. Whatever the label or or, you know, marketing that they push forward does not equal reality, right? So ultimately, I, he's just really cool to me. Normally people would just rip me a new one, especially people. My experience with people of Hit Station at that point, I was like 19.

38:28 Yeah, they would just rip me to Kingdom come because they could. Yeah. And enjoy it. And you know, he didn't do that. So of course I did everything I could for him. Hell, I ended up giving him twice the salmon, calling the manager over, telling him what I did and why, and making the manager feel good about it.

38:48 Nice. And, you know, the. And the guy was just, I mean, you know, some people that just exude this kind open, awesome energy. Yeah, it wasn't that he just wanted a salmon. Yeah, he just wanted to salmon. And he was. He was confident that I could provide him a solution. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and he was cool and kind and which then, that expectation then invokes that greatness.

39:16 Yeah. Yeah. And so I went out of my way and did everything I could if we could all just get on that mode. Right. If we could. Yeah. And I met him again, and I paint it. Lowe's home improvement. He was getting paid, you know, in several properties. I found out at this point. And you and you found out that all the paint that you made him somehow something was wrong and.

39:34 No, no, no, no no kidding. I'm kidding. Nothing was wrong with that paint. And then you put it together. He just wanted some more. This guy is serial complainer because he gets everything for free. He's just really good at this. Yeah, he's just excellent. He just plays everybody in every industry. And so he came and he had like a paint can that had been pretty well taken care of.

39:53 But it was from when I could read the label enough to tell that right at the time we used 30s of, of an ounce for, for drops, whatever you had, it drops to the paint for coloring. And this was in 60/4. Okay. Yeah. Cool. You know, I had to do some math and I was like, you know what?

40:17 I'm kind of bad at this. Going to take me a minute. So I would have pulled out a tape measure and said, you could use that as a as a tool. Yeah. Yeah, that would have been you, could you just there's tape measures that do, 30s and 64. But the one that has 30s is still the gaps between or 64, the invisible gap.

40:35 There we go. Because she showed you how to use that as a time limit and then just said two, two, two, two. Yeah. So, you know, I did it in a minute or two. You know, once I qualified that, hey, I'm going to be taking the time, right. And, you know, got it for him. And he's talking to me the whole time.

40:51 He's like my sister. She's really worried about me because I don't. I don't really have anybody in my life right now. But he goes, I'm fine. He's like, I own six properties. I do this, I do that. He's like, it's all going to be great. And he's talking to me about this and that. He then, he happens to see somebody that looks like they might be my manager come by just because of the attention they show me whenever they walk off.

41:18 Yeah, yeah. And so he stops them. Yeah. He's like this guy. He's done nothing but dedicate himself to further in this place while he's been here. He goes, I love this guy. And nice, nice. You know, he he goes off on the manager for that and then, you know, I get him some paint and a low behold, it actually ends up matching here.

41:45 God. Beautiful. And so everything was good. Writing down the sample and everything, and he ended up like, starting another LLC and kept coming back for paint. And basically, he was started an LLC to buy his supplies for his houses. Oh, that's clever. And he made it a I was talking to him about, like, professional service. Unless it's money laundering.

42:12 It's clever. Right. Well, money laundering is illegal. It's still probably clever. It's still class on. So regardless of, you know, only seeing best intentions, this gentleman like, regardless, it was clever. And, you know, he became like I was and all this other crazy crap. Of course. But the guy was just really cool. But I don't think really, like, formally met him twice.

42:34 I saw him a bunch and, just really, like you said, it was he. He projected that intention and empowerment to everybody and expected that. Of course they.

42:52 They'll.

42:55 Is almost like, oh, sure, he had the complaint, but he wasn't.

43:00 He knew it was going to get fixed. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was just the order of the universe. Awesome. Yeah, I love it. So I worked a job doing as a painter who will say, you know, you said paintings or. Yeah, I think about that. Oh, and I just basically I just wanted to be I want to cultivate that because I was blessed.

43:20 I don't want him to say, oh, the Coldplay. Yeah, yeah, for sure. I'm sorry, but that's all I wanted. So you were a patriot? Yeah. And, I was actually a personal painter for a wealthy guy. And he had me in his house up on a ladder, hand painting, all kinds of stuff up here. Tool. One thing I painted was the the crown molding throughout the house.

43:39 I remember this, and I went to the ladder from every, you know, few feet, moved the letter down and, painted a little piece of real gold into the gold, into the little groove that's so crazy around the whole house. After painting the trim, prepping and painting the trim around the whole house. Right. That's a pretty strong shoulder.

43:58 Is that summer? Yeah. Oh, yeah. And, went to. Wouldn't have to spend some time on a ladder for sure. Yeah. You know, also there was this, like various brush strokes and technique I would use in painting full walls. Yeah. Because there was a, you know, the semi gloss finish. We had to blend it. Yeah. Would show it would show the hand patterns in, in various lighting lights and that was prestigious.

44:25 And you had to figure out how to feather it in. And well, there was a pattern that I would that I was, you know, like asked to use. Oh cool. And would he basically had photos of, like, what he wanted. That's kind of and and then an example like in Interior Design magazine, right. Wow. And the wife was, the sister of Daryl Hall and Daryl Hall.

44:50 Yeah. You know, I probably shouldn't name these people specifically, but, we've already named them, I think, in our previous contest. Oh, okay. Well, anyway, that was, that was worked as a, you know, custom painter for two years to two summers. Two summers while I was off of college. Yeah. And, Yeah, that was you were telling me he was really nice and would bring you was 118 or something like that.

45:15 Beer here. That's what it was. Yeah. And I'll never forget. It's like shipyard beer of all beers. What the hell I'm offering now. And I remember distinctly this, this strange thing is this big front wooden door was filled with one of nails. And the idea was that back in, you know, it's a it's a throwback to, I guess, you know, colonial times or whatever.

45:40 Yeah. Where nails were like a premium. You know, anybody could cut down some logs and make wood. So wood was no big deal and wood would rot. Right. So you'd have to replace wood. Right. But, the nails were like, hard to come by. He's had the boards. Yeah. The forge, it had to be done. And so like what I was saying, there would be times where someone would move away and they'd burn the house down to recover the nails.

46:02 Wow. Because the nails were such a premium. Yeah. You having the nails was a big deal because then with nails, you could build anything, right? Got it. So it was like the limiting reagent. Okay. Yeah, for lack of a better term, I think. I mean, that puts it in great terms. And so what wealthy people would do is they would like, you know, very much display how many nails they have by filling their front doors needlessly with nails.

46:30 Wow. So like, you know, nails are nothing to me. Yeah, I could, I can, I can have a whole fucking door just filled with thousands of nails. Crazy. And so his front door was filled with thousands of nails and it looked really strange, but cool. That's new. And I'm guessing they would like whether in different patterns and or different types of nails.

46:49 I'm sure there's all kinds of. Yeah, yeah. And there were like the they're the long triangle shaped, style nails, not like the ones we have today with like a round head with a, with a smooth even. Yeah, right. It was these more like triangular, old fashioned nail. Yeah. Right. Well, it's like wedges. Mini wedges. Right? Yeah.

47:08 And I'm sure you did a fine job. You know, they worked, but from what I understand, the modern nails are better the bigger head. Yeah. And and like the, the the overall geometry of it is better. Hope better. Makes sense. Yeah. So anyway, just this weird detail that I remember is this front door, like, filled with freaking nail.

47:28 Crazy. And then I would mow his shields here like I do odd jobs to. I wouldn't just paint. I do odd jobs as well. And one of the things that that I did was I'd mow his huge field that he had, that was a farm at some point. Right? Right. And now it was just this big, huge open field.

47:47 And, you know, the grass would obviously grow high in it. So he had this, like, mower called the skag, okay. And it had two bars as, as, yeah. Maneuvering instead of a student. Right. Like a zero turn type of thing. Yeah. And it would haul ass. Yeah. And it would rip through some grass too. But it was a real deal.

48:05 I've only used one once. My neighbor, one of her, I was wearing a fresh market, actually. He, he had a long care residence, and he had one of those, and he let me use it to mow the backyard. Yeah, dude, I was, like, ripping shit up with that thing. Like I went forward to it. They'd have to wear face protection and your protection and.

48:25 Yeah, I was like, the real. It was just flying everywhere. Yeah. And it has a roll cage bar over your head. Oh. That's cool. And you had a seat in the damn thing. Wow. This one you would stand. Oh, yeah. Seen those too? But this one, you sit down. Okay, well, this thing would go like it pretty damn fast.

48:42 Like it could probably go 15 miles an hour without. Without sweat. Right? Like, probably full open on the sidewalk or something. Probably 20 miles an hour or something. That thing would move it. Shoes. Your grass is 15 miles an hour. No problem. Oh. That's fair. Oh, yes. Yeah. Right. And it was like pretty new. So it was like super powerful.

49:00 Hell yeah. Well, one day I hit this freaking stone, man. Oh, man, I was hauling ass. Oh, and he he's cool because, like, the guy was cool because he's like, you know, it. He wants me to get it done, you know? Right. Or he wants me to haul ass through the field, right, and get this stuff done.

49:19 Well, there was a field stone out there. Yeah, and I was moving right along, and it I don't I hit it, it stopped the thing dead. So it goes from like pretty much full, wide open to dead. That blade just gets stopped. No, it never made it to the blade. It hit the fence part of the mower. Right.

49:37 Okay. So it just stopped the whole entire thing. And, you know, if I wasn't wearing a seatbelt, most likely would have launched me. Well, hell yeah, but it was pretty jarring to me. Yeah. And basically, this guy's, like, brand new mower now has a freaking sizable bent. Yeah. Yeah, dude. And, so, you know, immediately I told him what happened, and, I was like, if you don't mind, you know, I could just go to the shop, and I think I can just get the ball peen hammer and a piece of wood and not back out.

50:08 He's like, you think he could do that? You know, he's, like, impressed, like surprise. Like, you think he could do that? Well, I grew up my whole life rigging things. Yeah, exactly. You know, fixing problems at hand. Not like going to a mechanic. Yeah. Not having extra resources, having to figure it out. I mean, at that point, I'd actually, like, redone a whole engine.

50:29 And, you know, at some point in my life, it was a Nissan Sentra. Hell yeah. I rebuilt the entire head on that. And, you know, that's cool. So like had to had to learn about the timing, right. Timing the timing belt and get a strobe light and get it to all this bullshit. Wow. And so like I've done a whole bunch of and, you know, we talked about this before.

50:49 Always taking apart. Oh, yeah. You know, so I had no problem with the idea of taking a small piece of two by four and a hammer and knocking using the two by four, you know, not the hammer directly on the chip on my but. And knocking it back out, you know, with a little piece of wood. Right. And, he was like, you could do that.

51:07 And I was like, yeah. And so I took it down and sure enough, you know, it was underneath there. And you know what? What today would like cost me two days of physical pain and saw from having taught your body that way. Right. Which was nothing for me when I was 19. Right. I was some down there under the same boom, boom, boom, boom, boom like Gumby at night.

51:26 King. Yeah. And I drove it back out and he comes out and looks at it and he's like, borrowing away. I got in a dent, like, almost brand new look like that's only a small little like shimmer wrinkle in the where? In the middle. Wow. Which before was this just ugly apt looking dent, right? Yeah. And so I went out and removed the stone out of the field and started hauling ass again on the field.

51:48 And then every time I did it after that, it was no problem. Was was no stone. Nice. And, Yeah, man, that was that was, a good all round experience because. Yeah. And then I ended up building this, oh. Is this married? That's that's a whole new story. I mean, moving out and moving on to other job can tell it if you want.

52:05 Go for it. So I worked this other job. I talk all day about jobs, right? Yeah. We're so many damn jobs. I worked as a summer student at, Kimberly-Clark Corporation in Milford, Connecticut. Okay. And I worked as a cleaner, quote unquote, cleaning tech. And that's not like, you know, wiping down computers with a rag and having a feather duster, and that's kind of cleaner.

52:28 But he's in these high power industrial hoses to clean small little pieces of paper particles off of machinery. Okay. Both both in the basement and then up above. We're all the machines are going full speed. So it was a very skilled job as far as, like, being careful and knowing what the hell you were doing. Okay? So like, you had to clean paper build up off of motors, but make sure it didn't fall into the into the live, you know, paper socks she's were going on or in use while you were doing cleaning.

52:57 Yeah. So distributed all throughout with these high pressure hoses for various things, for cleaning up for, you know, rinsing down things, washing things, you know, all kinds of purposes. Utility, probably different chemical feeds. And yeah, for this was just stranded water. But, there were these high powered houses that were all over the place, the kind of hoses that if you were to let them go, they would start flipping out of control and be dangerous.

53:20 Yeah, yeah. And so the control that you had to have with your wrist, so you'd hold the end of the hose and it wasn't like a fire hose. It didn't have a holder on or anything. Right. It was just, it was just a, almost like a rat tail looking hose. That actually tapered towards the end. Okay.

53:39 Right. And, when you turn it on, you'd feel the kickback from the water coming out like such high pressure, right? It actually had like, a force back. Like it had a it would have like a push back. Yeah. And no big deal. Like you can just overcome it and hold it with a good grip and start doing your job.

53:59 Right. Sure. It came out so fast, though, that you couldn't, like, put your thumb over the end of it. It would burn your thumb. Like, that's how much pressure was coming out. So it was a high pressure. Enough to where, like, this water stream would burn your. Yeah, right. You're not you're not directing it with your thumb like you can do sometimes.

54:15 Yeah, yeah. And it was spray 60ft. No problem. Right, right. And, it was a pretty directed beam, so, see, mostly like, you know, angle it down. And then once you started to pull the length of the hose out, there was no shutting it off. It was on or, you know, there was no valve at the, at the head.

54:31 Okay. The valve was really it was about managing this hose and the stream. Yeah. Yeah. Right. It's like having a leaf blower. That's that's one of those always on leaf blowers. Yeah. Like when you're walking around your leaf pile, you don't want to blow your leaf pile the wrong way. Right. So you learn to angle the hose like basically here.

54:50 Anyway, so I did that and my wrist was so sore like the first, first few days. First couple of weeks. Yeah. Because all day. Right. You know, holding back the pressure and, my wrists were like, not carpal tunnel or damaged or anything. Just so muscular. Sore from from gripping. Yeah. Right. From your hands and your wrist and your forearms and dude, after that summer, my grip was, like, crazy strong, like ridiculously strong, like grip.

55:23 Like nobody could break my grip. You have got kung fu grip. I had kung fu grip. There was no doubt that my grip was trained. And it was. It was so. It was so bad that, like, you couldn't use one hand all day you'd have to switch to. So it's like both hands had grip, like, hey, that's cool.

55:39 Yeah. One hand, we get tired, you have to switch hands. Right? And then like, you have to, like, carefully switch hands because, yeah, if you let that hose go at all, it's going to like whip you, which only happened a couple times, right? I learned if I learned my lesson well, you learn that thing would whip you like you would cleave.

55:55 And then the water coming out to you would totally douse you and hurt and your way in your way. Yeah. Holy ghost. Yeah, yeah. And then there's this guy named Rocky, and it was a dumbass guy. He's like, oh my God. He's like, totally. You're, the kind of guy that you, you, you think of, like, this dumb, ship worker.

56:19 Yeah. Kind of like, much like a much like a infantryman in the Army, right? Like, okay. Smart enough to get in. But, you know, they think when you shoot a camel, water comes out right in the right kind of idea. Yeah. And I told that story before in the podcast was never going to repeat it, but but, you know, this idea that there's people out there, you know, they think like that don't cartoon, right?

56:44 Yeah. Shoot a camel in the hump and, you know, like, watch the water would be hilarious. Wow. So. Right, like retarded in so many levels. Like, first of all, like it it's not it's it's made of fat and just blood is going to come out. Yeah, exactly. It's not like a it's not like a water. It's lipid. It.

57:03 Yeah. Stores. It's a store of calories. Right. And the, the, the camel has like evolved the special metabolic process that can extract water from that little lipids. Yeah. Then can convert it with oxygen in the air or, or some molecule in the air into water. But it's not free flowing water. Right, right. It's not free flowing water. Yeah.

57:22 But it's got blood vessels writing through it. So if you shoot the camel in the hump, it's going to run away. Entain bleeding and I might die from infection. Yeah. And so you're just gonna, cruelly kill a living creature for no reason? Right? Yeah, yeah. And anyway, so, this guy Rocky and I don't see his last name being pejorative, so, decided that he would initiate me, quote, unquote.

57:52 Wow. Right. And, they had this thing they would do as a joke called give it each other a wet ass. Okay. And this is back where, like, you know, factory work was what's more, machismo. And, you know, it was nothing but machismo. Yeah, it was like. It was like, I guess in a microcosm, to some degree, toxic masculinity.

58:12 Right? It probably be the very definition of toxic masculinity. So people try to avoid it. I would say, yeah, that's fair. Fair, you know, but but it had its degree of fun, right? Yeah. You had his degree of, like, I don't know, I don't know. Well, it was a lot of brotherhood. Yeah. It had those elements. It has that.

58:38 And also there's something to this skilled labor and you come to and feel it. You do. You do it definitely. And it definitely invades your personality and your imagination. It's part of part of your identity. Right. So anyway, this guy said he'd initiate me, like, as a as a newbie. Yeah. This classic fraternal style initiation. And I had never gone for such things.

59:05 Back in high school, when I was a freshman on the varsity soccer team, the seniors decided they would all get me and pants me or, like, basically atomic wedgie you and put you up on a hook in the shower. Damn. And, you know, like 4 or 5 of them got surrounding me and was like, letting me know what's about to happen.

59:24 I was like, well, you can try happening. You know, you guys end up having me on the hook. You one of your going to be her back. And I and broke that whole tradition at my school beautifully. It ain't happening. But you can try. You might get me but it's it's going to come at a cost. Right. And you having it.

59:43 Yeah. And I'm so I've never been one to haze anybody or to be able to be haze. She didn't happen. I was bullied enough having a four year old brother. Brother that was four years older than me, right? Right. And being that annoying little brother that was always trying to handle him in the big kids. Yeah, right.

1:00:00 I knew what taking a beating was. I can tell you that much. Yeah. Okay. And, And you knew how to defend from it? Hell yeah, I did. And, you know, these guys knew that there was no wavering in my in my, resolve. Yep. You know, they backed off. Yeah. I mean, you know, in school, as a kid, I got nothing goes.

1:00:22 It's like a lot of fight. Because, as we all know, just from listening to me on this, I have a big mouth. And I usually it wasn't me instigating it, but, you know, it would just escalate because I wasn't backing down, and I was going to tell you whatever the hell I thought. Yeah, yeah. And,

1:00:46 You know, there were, quite, I mean, I, I, and I also had been to my brother's, like you were talking about your older brother. I had two younger brothers, and they weren't as dumb as me, thankfully. Haha. And did get as many fights, but every one of the fights that they had set up to get into, I took on for them.

1:01:05 Oh gosh. It and you know, you ended up having to fight their fights. Well, I fought their fights because I knew how bad it was to get your ass, and I didn't want them to get their ass. Me, I see. Gotcha, gotcha. But yeah. Fair enough. Oh, this wet ass thing. Yeah, yeah, go for that. So, this guy Rocky decides that.

1:01:24 Oh, oh, initiate him, and I'll give him a what's called a wet ass. What the fuck? Which is? You find one of these in the upper decks. You find one of these fire hose station, basically. Yeah. And you pull it on full blast and you nail somebody, and then you shut it off and disappear, right? Yeah. Well, he.

1:01:39 He blasted me, and I happened to get a glimpse in who it was that did it to me. And then I go back into the break room and I'm fucking soaked from top to bottom, of course, looking like a drown rat like fool. And everyone in there claps for me like, oh, you've been initiated.

1:01:59 Right? And, okay, so let's put it this way. They had to call me into the, to the room and, and say, you win, it's time to stop because you just kept giving everybody severe weather. This guy got about ten wet assets a day. Guy that would ask me and I was on like, military freaking guard, full, full alertness .24 over seven when I was at the job with with the sole purpose of not getting wet.

1:02:24 Asked and the answer he gets a wet after right every chance. So I looked like I was going to the bathroom, and then I just divert and then peer somewhere in the upper decks and wet his ass and all kinds of other stuff. Yeah, I played so many games as a kid coming up like, you know, get one over on you games that I was a pro by nature and I gave him.

1:02:46 I wear his ass so many times that they had to ask me about what was that one game was popular for a while, like that stealthy get one over on you sort of fold the rest of the group among us or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, it was like the being god mode among us. There you go.

1:03:04 Yeah. Except for killing him. It was just giving a wet ass and, Oh, and so I ended up, like. So this this scenario reversed this bullying. It was like reverse bullying, right? It's like. It's like somebody slapped you in the face, and then you pummel them, right? Yeah. Continually. Yeah. Right. And then the next time you see them, you pummel them again because you never hit me in the face, you know, like psychotic pummel them every time you see them.

1:03:31 Right. And then, I mean, I gotta say it does it definitely borders on some obsessive, revenge. But I love it. Yeah, it's over the top, right? And my personality at the time was like, you're not going to win, right? I'm going to be at your bullshit game, right? It's like you initiated this bullshit game. I shall finish it.

1:03:50 Yeah. I'm like in my head. I'm familiar with myself as Rambo. Use your first blood.

1:03:57 Oh, yeah. So nice to kill the whole town, right? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It's like, look, you've earned this. Everyone's going to die. Feed your first blood, not me. And so I'm a while, like the first engine or motor that we're going to have on the recording today. Yeah. It's funny, it's a rarity or, you know, it's like we exclusively went out of our way to have no motors and some guy goes by with a golf cart thingy anyway.

1:04:23 But it was only it wasn't. Yeah, it was a singular one. It wasn't a garbage truck. Normally it's like 27 garbage trucks and seven city busses and three school busses. Yeah. So Rocky had a rocky next couple of weeks after after giving me a wet out a little bit. And, they didn't fire me or like, you know, threatening anything like that, like, hey, back off.

1:04:45 Yeah. Like they basically said you went, you know, like, so stop. You went. So they, they did not know what they had started. Right, right. And so anyway, it's like we respect this guy's tenacity. They had to write and, you know, this this isn't a typical human being. Like this something, something weird about this guy. And at that point in my life there, you know, there was a weird edge there.

1:05:09 Yeah. Hey, man, you know, I you I think it's I think that's just grit and tenacity that you have to have to get through life. So that's like 21 maybe around this time, right? Right. Whatever. You have that grit and tenacity and you're young. Sometimes it comes out in weird ways. But it served you well since then. Well, so this guy was like, you know, not the sharpest tool in the shed is a good way to say.

1:05:35 Yeah. And, so, you know, he basically had cow tailed to me to some extent because he, like, realized that he messed with firing, got burned. Right? Yeah. And so, Anyway. Morning. So, so not the way. This guy goes about for some reason, I don't know what, shaving his mustache. And I will tell you what. This guy went from looking like a dog idiot to looking like the dumbest person.

1:06:04 You look like his. So he didn't improve him? No. The mustache was hiding the dumbest looking mouth taste you've ever seen. Yeah, and he shaved the mustache. I don't think I still alive. I hope the guy here's this. Oh, because, like I told him to his face. Because I was the dominant one now, right? Like, like laughed at his face when he got his mustache.

1:06:27 When he gave his mustache out. Right. And, he had had indicated directly to him, like, you know how fucking stupid he looks. Yeah. Did you grow it back? Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah. And good thing, like like he was a handsome guy on face value. And then he'd opened his mouth and like, oh yeah. Okay. So he's a good looking, you know, dumb redneck.

1:06:50 Oh, totally. He's like, talk about getting ladies and doing cocaine and. Yeah, but, you know, it was probably all talk like, you know. Okay. You might have done, you know, some of that. And he hung out with this other guy named Robin. Like that was his name. That was a very common name in the 70s, early 80s.

1:07:11 And he was like, he was like the true epitome of that. He was like in the community like womanizer and, you know. Yeah, he was he was like he named Robin, who was the same thing. He was just he was just. But he was just naturally good at the Layton thing. Like you couldn't see him doing anything else, I think, like, that's.

1:07:29 That was him. Yeah. And, Yeah. So that was, that was the deal with that. And anyway, that's, that was another that was the summer job I did. And then on the, the next year I worked as what was called the sip pan, which is on the line, actually working on the machine. So I'd loaded what looked like these giant rolls of toilet paper from the a machine called a winder, which would wind up this huge role of paper.

1:07:51 Okay. And then put into the second machine called a rewind, which would take two roles in other to get like the two ply tissues and stuff. Okay. All right. So my job there was operating this like credibly heavy machinery. Yeah. Loading these incredibly massive spools of paper. Yeah. From one machine into another. Okay. And, that was that was a job.

1:08:13 I'll tell you what. I bet that has some dangerous stuff. I mean, everything is, like, marked off and has guards on it, and, you know, you got me out of GS, but there's, like, you don't want to mess with drugs or anything like that. Be around. You don't want to come in compromise at all. That never had it.

1:08:31 And they did a fine job. And that was, you know that, right. And of course it was a it was a temple position. Right? It was like you did it while you were working over the summer months while you're.

1:08:42 Yeah. Another job I had was, I was working as a carpenter's system. Yeah. And, they called me the mutt. The mutt? Yep. And, I bought a Jeep scrambler. Yeah, yeah, I know, I'm looking for our our exit part here, so I had this vehicle called the Jeep Scrambler. Okay, that I, I don't even remember how I acquired that one.

1:09:06 And, but it was basically like a Jeep with a small truck bent on it. Oh, yeah. Yeah. All right. And, you know, you have, like, Wrangler and all these other words, but this one was like a scrambler. I've never seen the scrambler I know. Right? Yeah. And, so I had my tools in the back and playing the playing the role of.

1:09:24 Yeah, well, I'm, like, hauling shingles up ladders and stuff and, you know, doing all the grunt work and, you know, occasionally I would go and be able to work side by side with these master carpenter they had on his team. And, when I got to do that, it was it was awesome. This guy had an old East Wing hammer that something was wrong with the hammer.

1:09:48 Okay. And every time he'd hit with the hammer, it would make this really interesting sound. It wasn't like, do do do do this. I mean, it was like. It's like it's like a dude, dude do kind of sound with a hammer, right? It was like something was wrong with the hammer. Okay? But something had been wrong with the hammer.

1:10:08 And he'd had this hammer for ever. Yeah. And so technically, there was nothing wrong with the hammer. It was just a way this hammer was. Well, anyway, this guy's name in the community, his name was Bing. Like the search engine, right? Yeah. And and he was called Bing because of that damn hammer. That's so funny. He was named after his hammer, right?

1:10:29 You must be named Thor, right? Wow. And so, because his hammer would go pee pee. That's so funny. So, like, you know, Park and Rec, they'd be playing, like, softball. Yeah. And this old timer would get up, and he talked out of the side of his mouth. He always had this talk on the side of his mouth was really weird.

1:10:45 It was like a stroke. No, no, no, it wasn't stroke. It was just spoke out of the side of his mouth. Yeah, it was a habitual thing. Right? Yeah. And so he talk on the side of his mouth. Kind of like that. Yeah. And, he, he had a twisted up spine to some extent. So he had his old timer, right?

1:10:58 Yeah. Yeah. So he had a little bit of a because he'd worked his whole life as a carpenter and so his body had paid the toll. Right. Well, he'd get up to bat at the softball park and rec game and. Yeah. All right, all right, let's go get ducks on the farm, blah, blah, blah. All that, all that chatter, you know, be up on the rooftop working with him and that fucking hammer.

1:11:22 That's very funny. So I work as a carpenter's assistant for two summers. And you? Crazy. His nickname was after his hand was spam. Yeah, dude. But, I see. Yeah. You're sure? Just keep going for every. Yes. I'm here. Same here. I think I'd probably talk to you about this one a little bit. Working at Boston Market.

1:11:48 And here I got, I guess I have several stories from there, but this one kind of stands out and it's terrible. All right. So there's this guy one there says older absolutely Mexican guy. I'm not being racist. He was from Mexico. And, you know, he spoke amazing English, had a great mannerisms and just very formal.

1:12:19 Right. And I was just curious about this guy. So, you know, I was around 20 couple like, you know, and, working there in like, two other jobs. You know, and so I didn't see him that often, but I saw him, you know, I just talked to him because I was like, why is this guy working here?

1:12:38 You know, he just obviously has skills far and beyond. Yeah, yeah yeah yeah, yeah. All right. So those people and, well, turns out he eventually told me that he had embezzled money in a bank that he worked at in Mexico, and he's hiding out in America. Nice. And he left his family in Mexico. He was staying with his older guy that also worked at Boston Market.

1:13:11 And, apparently they were doing, like, gay stuff. They were gay, okay. Because his wife wasn't here, so it was okay. Okay. Yeah. Was that, like, kind of prison? Yeah. That's kind of what the way he put it. And, ultimately, I guess he took this me listening and interest in who he was as I was interested in doing gay stuff, which I was not.

1:13:40 He devised a test along with our manager, who was much less refined than he was, to determine if I was gay. Their test was this. They had this girl, Olga, who had never met a Hispanic person named Olga before, but she was shaped like a fucking beach ball, literally. Oh, and mackerel, she was a fucking beach ball.

1:14:08 She was like, if a kid was to draw her, it would be a beach ball and another beach ball on top of her head. Okay. And that's she has the distinction of being the only Hispanic person I've met named over, and also the only person I've ever met that was literally brown. Wow. How how uniquely strange. Yeah. And so Olga is, like, hitting on me while we're on the line together, because I would work as a cashier and also serve food sometimes.

1:14:40 And, you know, she's like, oh, me. No. Oh, no. He's calling me her boyfriend. And like, touching my bus and stuff. And I'm just not interested in this beach ball with Sasha's fingers. Okay, well, you could have gone to the Christmas party as number ten with her. Ha ha ha. I wasn't skinny enough. Oh, okay. Okay.

1:15:01 Yeah. So. And, you know, that's the thing. It's not that. I mean, you and I both know that I couldn't go for the bigger ladies. This was extreme. I see, this was just nuts. I don't even know what was going on. So she's, like, hitting on me. Everything. And I just keep nice it kindly rebuffing her efforts. Just.

1:15:27 Hey. Yeah, yeah. You know. Laugh with her a little bit about it because you're like, yeah. You know, not your boyfriend or. Yeah. No, no thank you, but nice try. Yeah. So that was a clever advance. Yeah, yeah. And you know, just kind of deflect. Deflect and, you know, still talk to her. Be nice. Well, because I rejected the beach ball if I was gay.

1:15:51 I see yeah. And despite the fact that I hit on her other manager, Rebecca, all the time, and one saw this, well, you were just hitting her because you were looking for shit to get advance. Oh, that it is that it? I know I was hitting on her because she was hot.

1:16:12 Awesome. I didn't have any designs of advancement at a Boston market. I didn't think I could advance, nor did I want to advance. Yeah, I made it up to, like, head head chicken guy, right? And so it keeps going. So I'm built as gay. So one comes of the plank to to go ahead and nail me down I guess.

1:16:40 Said one wanted him a bear and I was I couldn't think of the name of bear and Spanish. Does it make a better joke? But yeah, I'll just go with bear. I can't. I don't know the name in Spanish either. I would help you out if I know that in a Chinese panda is Cat bear nice? That's pretty cool.

1:16:57 I liked it and I used to know the word, but I forgot that it's clever. They call it compare. That is pretty clever. So, I'm bringing one, and I are unloading the line and bringing rat items back from it to the locket cooler. Yep. And basically.

1:17:20 I just a car in and was unloading it. He comes in behind me and he positions his cart so I don't remember where he parked. I'm trying to find it. Me either. I'm sorry. I didn't mean interrupt your flow. Oh, no. No. So he brings in this car? Yeah. Hey. Braces his car. He positions is. So it's important to walk in cooler door.

1:17:40 Okay. And my alarm bells are kind of going off because he's got this, like, he's like Penny, and kind of. He's got this grin on his face. He's. He's basically cornering. Yes. He's cornering. I see he's got this grin on his face. One did not smile. One had a flat face dodge because it was probably killing his soul to have been some sort of high up in a bank and now be doing the show.

1:18:06 And now he. But he never did it. He. So he pins me in. He's got this like just this perverted breakfast plastered across his face. I'm going to rape you face. Yes, it's his right face. And I'm like, kind of freaking out a little bit. Because I'm like, oh God, what's gonna happen here? And he goes. He comes up and touches my shoulder and says something.

1:18:35 I can't even remember exactly what he said. But I do remember my reply, which was no. Then that that's clear in any language. Right? And I said no. And if you and he continues to advance, he goes when you say, it just makes me want to do it more. Goddamn. Then I was like, look, Wan, if you come any closer to me, I will literally bash your face in with this metal pad.

1:19:05 Oh my gosh, I know my ogre had the eating disorder. It happened to her ten years ago. Jesus, it might have. So, he. Then he gets his, then that all that perversion just falls away. It was like seeing, you know, in the Bible, they talk about, Saul, the scales falling from his eyes, and he could see it was like watching that.

1:19:24 It's just all fell from his face and he could see. But I know I did not want this, or he was okay with it. And he goes, oh, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. What the hell? He goes, I thought you were gay. And I was like, I'm sorry to have given you that impression is what I said exactly.

1:19:42 Yeah. Good lord. And I got out of it. Yeah, yeah, that's a fucking story. Yeah. But, years later, I saw him working at Taco Bell, and I read him, but wishes into tacos now, right? Yeah, he's where he blows. So he's in the tacos and Hot Pockets I kept. I kept working there because, you know, hell, I need the money, I worked there, I worked at big Sky bread at the same time, which I ended up with me and my buddies accidentally shutting down because we ate so much food from their off books.

1:20:24 And, and you got high on the supplier. Yeah. Yeah. Well, so they gave me a key because I was an opener and my friend was my best friend at the time, was a manager there. So when we would get hungry we would just walk over the hair, open the place up and make sandwiches, bake some bread, do whatever.

1:20:50 But they did a sturdy, they told us like four days before the place was going to close and it was closing. No can it isn't it closed in on April 14th tax day. Okay. That and so yeah. It was kind of funny though. The place was owned by this guy Art and his wife and Art. His wife basically just bought it for him, for him to have something to do.

1:21:18 Wow. He was like a kept man. Where her money come from? I don't know, but she had buku bucks and they had opened two locations. No shit. And, she, I guess she decided he was tired of it. This is the business that you and your buddy et out of business. Yeah, well, there are three of them. They hate it.

1:21:38 Hate it out of business. All three of us worked there.

1:21:44 That's funny. Me, Gump and Dan. That's funny. The idea that, like, three young guys, like, are just eating all the supplies and running a bit, like, literally damaging the business because we ate enough to shut down two locations. Good lord.

1:22:01 Holy oink. And he was mismanaging it so much he didn't even know we were doing that. Holy oink. Right? How how do you not pay attention enough? Okay, so is this the way or the way? Well, I thought that that trailhead right there was where we were parked, but I didn't see our stuff, so I can't remember if that was.

1:22:25 Well, if we have to, we'll just use GPS to like. And we probably should now because it's getting late. Yeah, we probably should, but, dude, we have to do like part two of the OBS. Yeah, and I'll end all in. Good. Yeah. Oh, in the on the yobs conversation with the yobs joke. Yeah. So this guy sits down for an interview and says, you guys looking at his at his like, really, really, really short resume.

1:22:49 And, he says, okay, he's been in the work for some time I see here, but that's okay. But I do notice on here, that you say, you know, you have some, experiencing corrections, right? He's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I do it. Do. It's actually, you know, I, I was, I went to Yale and, I guess like, wow, that's that's really incredible.

1:23:13 That's that's very prestigious. I'll tell you right now, you have the job. Oh, cool. And, like, like Yale, that is just, you know, if you've been to Yale, that's. That's all we need to hear. That's that's excellent. You got the job. And the guy says, oh, thank you. I really did need this job. I've been to jail.

1:23:32 Yeah. I took some time off because I was in Yale. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And thank you. Because I really need this. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

1:23:43 Woo! I told that one poorly, but I heard it, like, way long ago. And it wasn't fresh. It was just germane. I think that was funny. Don't think you told him totally. Now I think you're supposed to go something on the lines of yes I was, I was out of I was out of circulation for a while because I was like, because I was in Yale.

1:24:00 Oh, yeah. And then. Yeah. Oh, that's all you need to hear. You're hiring because. Thanks. I really need to be out here. Yeah. On that terrible note.