12
By May Nineteen Eighty-Four, I was finally called in by the owner of
the software start-up company as they were starting to look into what
packaging they would use for my game when sending it to the
distributor. When I arrived, I noticed a new guy in military uniform
working at the office. He, too, shared an interest in science
fiction, music and writing along with software and he would soon
become one of my regular friends for the next eight years, 'Pat'. It
turned out, after losing me, the start-up couldn't afford to hire a
replacement and offered the military a chance to have 'one of their
guys' working on the code along side Al, on the military's dime.
It was a clever way to keep the contract going while not paying for
the help and gave me my first insight as to why my paycheck had been
shorted. Perhaps they where simply running low on money as their
educational software project was awaiting publication and
distribution. Needless to say, the start-up still wasn't paying
my out-standing two hundred and fifty dollars and with the passage of
April, they owed a final payment of two hundred and fifty to own
my game and have the rights to distribute it. But they assured me
that they would pay me in full when the time came to market the game.
With the medical bills eating away the temporary boost in my income
from my months at the start-up, it was time to find a new job.
Trawling for job openings in the want ads I discovered I could
only look toward small mom & pop sized computer companies as they
would be less likely to ask for a physical examination as part of
getting a job with them. But I would also need to 'dress-up' as part
of the job interviewing process. While I had the suit, shirts and
tie my father had insisted on buying me for my high school
graduation, I found wearing them a problem. It was one thing to put
them on as a costume for a social event, but to wear them as if they
were appropriate daily clothing left me feeling like a cross dresser.
As I would find out in the years to come, wearing tees and jeans
left me feeling appropriately dressed, but when wearing something
more formal there was an issue. All formal clothing is sex
specific and since, given my 'situation' I didn't fit either
specification, that formal clothing left me feeling like a fraud,
presenting myself as something I knew I wasn't.
When I would go to the handful of job interviews dressed-up like
this, I also found two other problems. Due to my stuttering, I
couldn't say my last name without the stammer and that would be the
very first impression I'd end up giving the interviewer... That is
if they hadn't first picked-up on me looking strange in the formal
clothing. The other problem was my job history. With the computer
start-up as my only software company credit, all others
simply being people who had walked off the street in New England to
ask for my help and
a long distance call away, these interviewers would call the
start-up to ask about me and, given Al's temperament issues, I
heard that he trashed me as being a clueless idiot that had never
written a line of code in my life. There were two jobs that I
directly lost from this, that I know of, and for both I offered to
write a small program right in front of them to prove I knew how to
code. But really, who would you believe, the guy at
the last company without the stammer? Or the one sitting in front of
you who couldn't say their own name, looked funny in a suit for some
reason, and with a bead or two of sweat running down their forehead
from the heat of wearing the suit on top of the secret ACE bandage
wrap?
By Summer I asked Jeff if I could put his phone number down as the
point of contact for my time working at the software start-up
company. At first he was surprised but when I explained to him the
issues with Al being the point of contact, he seemed to understand
and agreed. As Jeff, himself, had a hand in the start-up
company, he legitimately had a reason to be a valid point of contact
for them. But mom & pop computer job opportunities were few and
far between.
Soon mother was pointing out job openings in other fields and one of
them was for a new grocery store chain. As my whole point in moving
out to Colorado was to get out of the grocery store business and into
computer jobs, the last thing I wanted to do was apply for a grocery
store job. Still, I went to the interview, which was more of a
cattle call with a long line of people waiting for a two minute Q & A
with one of the management group. Given that I really didn't want a
job with them, I kept to my jeans and tee and, of course, didn't even
stutter when they asked me why I thought I could do the job and I
explained that I had been employed at a family owned grocery store
chain for over eight years working in all areas of the business. I
wasn't surprised when I didn't hear back from them.
Finally my mother pointed out a temp agency I should apply at as they
supplied temps to work at the big name computer firm in town and
perhaps I could get a temp job there, then work my way into a
permanent position. I couldn't argue with her logic and applied,
providing my work history and detailing my computer programming
skills. They then turned around and offered me temp jobs in anything
BUT the big name computer firm. When I asked why, they said they
simply couldn't believe I had the computer skills I claimed to have
given my age and lack of degree. I assured them I did and
offered to write a working program right in front of their eyes, but
they wouldn't take me up on that offer. No one ever did.
Needing food and gas money, I decided to accept one of their other
jobs. This was when I discovered I had become intolerant of
the Sun. Since Spring of that year I had found I had become a little
wobbly when walking from the house to the car, or from the car to
stores, etc. But once I was in the car, I was fine. It was strange
but I didn't make much of it until my first job with the temp agency
was to help with some landscaping. When I arrived, I started working
the patch of dirt they had pointed to but was soon seeing spots
before my eyes and felt the world spinning around me, I dropped the
shovel and went straight for the shaded side of the house where I
collapsed to the ground, but started feeling better right away. The
other guy on site was wondering what was going on and so was I;
it wasn't a heat stroke sort of thing for once I was in the shade I
was quickly feeling fine again despite the fact that it was the same
temperature outside. After a couple minutes to recover, I worked in
the shaded area for a bit, then got back into the Sun and was again
ready to drop and quickly returned to the shaded side of the house.
Given that I wasn't going to get anything meaningfully done, I
excused myself and got back into the car and went home, notifying the
agency that I wasn't going to be able to do the job that day.
Why was being in the car okay, but being in the direct sunlight
not okay? Was I reacting to the ultraviolet
rays and the car's windshield filtered those out or something? These
questions raced through my head as I was trying to come to grips with
this new problem. Had it something to do with my bout of walking
pneumonia? Had having it triggered a sunlight intolerance?
These were great questions for a doctor, but as I was already
tapped-out paying my remaining bills from the emergency room visit
and ear specialist follow-up, paying a doctor for a silly seeming
problem as a sunlight intolerance wasn't going to happen any time
soon.
When the temp agency would call me with other day job
opportunities I would have to ask if they were inside or outside
jobs. If outside, I'd look out the window and see if it was cloudy
out. If it was, I'd try the outside job.
My next one was a two day job of 'construction clean-up' for a
Residence Inn being built nearby. Each room was being built
like a stand alone apartment and they started me out digging some
holes they needed for piping. Once that was done, they then had me
work with another temp to carry hot water heaters into the various
rooms, specifically the second and third floor rooms as, being under
construction, they didn't have any railing on the stairs yet and the
regular crew didn't feel it was safe for them to do it. But
apparently temps were expendable and the other guy took the top end
of the water heater, while I took the bottom. Sure enough, when he
reached the top, he lost his balance and, not having any railing to
steady him, he tossed his end of a hot water heater into the air and
waved his arms to regain his balance. Meanwhile, I was stuck at the
bottom of a hot water heater as the other end was pushed over my head
and I had to struggle to hold its full weight straight up in the air
while not losing my own balance on the steps at the same time.
Through shear will, I finally got the movement of the heater under
control and drifting back to my partner who was now able to retake
the other end and guide it into the door opening of the room. We got
in the last of them and my back was aching like hell and I felt like
I wanted to throw-up. After working half a day, I left for home
again and called into the temp agency saying I hurt my back and
couldn't finish the day. The next day my back was feeling better and
it was still cloudy so I returned to the work site. The other temp
was surprised to see me, but since the agency hadn't replaced me I
was still needed. This day was truly construction clean-up where we
picked up the scraps left scattered around the site by the work crew
and dropped them into one of the dumpsters. By the afternoon, they
needed help drilling some access holes for the PVC plastic plumbing
to go through and asked if I knew how to use a power drill. Self
taught at the age of seven, the answer was 'Yes' and I was soon given
a drill with the hole cutting bit already in place and told to find
the marks in the framing of the rooms and drill them out. This took
up the rest of my day and was my favorite part as I could see the
piping being slipped through the holes I was making and glued
together to form the hot and cold water leads to the bathroom and
kitchen areas to be completed on some later day. But as the temp job
was only for two days, I didn't get to help complete them.
The temp agency seemed to have gotten the hint that outdoors work
wasn't the best choice for me and offered me a week long job at a
downtown bank's rooftop cafeteria. I accepted it and was soon
helping to pull-out the cooking utensils and pans while the cook
started to prepare the hot items. I was then to prepare the salad
bar items by soaking the cut veggies in water mixed with MSG. The
MSG was to keep the salad bits looking and tasting fresh during the
hours the cafeteria would be open for lunch. Once in place, we then
finished with a rush of making the sandwiches. Afterwards, it was
time to bus the tables and clean the dishes and pans then select
items for the following day's meals. I liked the job well enough,
though the downtown parking lot cost more than I made the first day
and I made sure to park at my friend Jeff's house near downtown for
the subsequent four days and walk to the bank. As I'd enter through
the back way I'd pass all these rooms full of computers, but they
weren't why I was there. I debated maybe getting a job at the
cafeteria full-time and then I'd be better able to work my way into a
computer related job from within.
Then on the fourth day, once all the food was prepared and we were
serving the employees as they made their way through the cafeteria
line, one of them asked me if there was any MSG in the salad, as I
opened my mouth to answer, the head cook burst out from the end of
the line, ''No! Definitely, not!'' and with her assurance, the guy
helped himself to the salad fixings and I was torn and disturbed. I
didn't say anything and finished my duties for that day and then
returned for the last day of my temp period. At the end of that day,
the head cook offered to hire me on full-time and I turned it down.
I didn't want to face a possible day when they told a customer there
was no MSG and they found out there was the hard way by
consuming the MSG mixed-in by my own hands.
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