This idea came back in about 1997, when I worked for Happy Movers in Huntington Beach, California. Every morning, some customer would ask, "Are you guys happy?" We'd reply, "no ma'a,m we're movers, it's an oxymoron." I worked as a furniture mover, which is a just plain brutal job that sucked on may levels. I'd spend an hour in a old truck driving to some stranger's house, with a co-worker or two. Then we'd move all of that person's crap into our truck, drive the truck to another house, and unload it all. It was physically brutal. Customers were often streesed out or just lame. Nearly every Friday and Saturday, we'd move two full sized houses, or three apartments, each day. Really. Miles and miles of walking every day, lifting heavy things, and not all that much money.
One of the guys I worked with was also named Steve. I forget his last name. But he was about 5' 4", and had long, curly, brown hair you'd expect on an 80's glam rock musician. Steve also had these crazy huge forearms and calves, like Popeye, and a kind of a dopey looking face. We always joked that he was at least half Neanderthal. He was strong as an ox, worked hard, but was annoying as hell, and yelled at everybody when driving the truck on the freeway. Nobody wanted to work with Steve. So I kept getting stuck with him for a while. Steve did have a sense of humor... sometimes.
So one day we were kind of arguing in the truck, then we rolled up to our first job. It was a big, four bedroom house in Fountain Valley, a quiet, subdivision town, inland of Huntington Beach. The woman of the house was an attractive blond in her 30's, and walked out to the truck as we pulled up. Steve had her sign the paperwork, and he asked her the details of the job. She had a sense of humor, which was always good. Steve made some wisecrack about me, saying he'd work hard, and if she was lucky, I might be able to keep up with him. Something like that.
That's when a line popped in my head. I looked at the woman and said, "Yeah, you may recognize my co-worker Steve here from his modeling career..." Both of them looked at me, neither sure where I was going with it. Steve was known for actually punching people, HARD, randomly, all day when they pissed him off. He gave that look like I was about to unleash his wrath. I continued, "on the evolution chart, Steve's the third guy form the left." Our customer started laughing hard, then looked Steve up and down, and came back with, "I knew I'd seen him before."
I held my breath, waiting for Steve to just haul off and punch me in the arm or something. His surprised look turned into a smile. "Shit, that really is funny, man, I'm going to have to remember that one." Steve and I got along great that day, and our customer joked around with us all day long, which made things much better than most days.
So this line has been in my head for over 20 years. Making memes over the weekend, I remembered it. For all of you that have lame bosses out there, here's your Monday morning laugh. Print it out if you want, and put it on the cubicle wall, or tape it up in a bathroom stall of your boss is too crazy for you to put it on your own wall.
No comments:
Post a Comment