The concept of “Team Leaders” at my Office job is a little ridiculous. Everyone works individually. We have an assigned beat, and when we’re done with that, we’re done. TLs provide a filter between us and management, checking our work for anything obvious and embarrassing before we submit for QA. For the most part, I’ve had no problems with my TL.

And then we got assigned, as a group, a presentation. Which is kind of silly, because this has never been a company big on doing presentations. In any case, we had a two week lead time, with the snow storm and virtual shutting down of the Office two weeks ago extending us another week. You think we’d be in good shape, but no. I’m pretty certain Monday is going to be a clusterfuck, because our TL? Nice guy? Not so good at actually providing any direction, so we’ve been kind of floating around not sure what the other was doing.

This is a total change of pace from what I’m used to. Which would be: “MOTHERFUCKER! GET THIS DELIVERY OUT THE FUCKING DOOR!”

That, of course, would be my old boss Gary, at my old place of employment, the Pizza Connection, up in Hunt Valley. Gary was a take-charge kind of leader, largely because if he wasn’t, the whole damn store would fall apart around his ears.

I last saw him back in May, I think. He threw a spring party, and after working all Saturday at Borders, I drove home (I was still commuting from Timonium) and stopped by. It was dark by the time I’d gotten there, and Gary was piss fucking drunk. He gave me a big hug, which is really out of character for him (then again, he was drunk). His wife put him to bed not long after that, and I hit the road.

He called me recently, needing my address so he could mail me my W2. We spoke for about ten minutes. After he sold the pizza place — I was so surprised when he told us, he showed up late Saturday night with beers, told us to close up, handed out the alcohol, and we had a final toast, he’d owned the place for nearly twenty years — he went into refrigeration/electronics repair. He talked about the fryer he had to chisel free from a Friendly’s (grease), or the mouse droppings falling on him when he was working at a chain restaurant. “We never eat out anymore,” he told me.

At the same time I was working at Pizza Connection, I was also working for a Domino’s franchise. Greg, the owner, and I, never really seemed to get along. Oh, we could bullshit about stuff, but I was always aggressive about taking runs (and making tips), and I don’t think he really ever understood that. It was a very slow store — not much business during the day, not much more at night. It was enough to get by, but many days I could get through most of a book without so much as a single delivery. When I got the job at the Office, I gave him a week’s notice and then departed.

He too called me for my new address. He has also sold his franchise, shortly after I left, and is now a delivery driver for UPS. I’m actually a bit envious of him: they pay well, and the drivers are largely left alone. We spoke for nearly half an hour, him telling me about his new job and his family, me telling him about living in DC and some of the crazy people who come into the Bookstore, about the election. He voted McCain. That’s not a shock, although I wonder how Old Man Frank feels about a black guy in the White House.