"Erika, um, I think there's a guy in the store with no pants," is what I hear just minutes into my long-anticipated and well-deserved dinner break at the coffee shop.
Since I'm the boss the majority of the time I'm at the coffee shop, that means that I was going to have to deal with whatever didn't have pants on in public. That's when I knew it was going to be yet another "fun" day at my job - like pretty much all of them have been lately.
When I haven't been arguing with my colleagues - even the ones whom I consider friends and hang out with outside of work - or dealing with one or more of them who is in a pissy mood, it's my boss riding my ass, customers complaining or being rude, or, apparently, guys coming into the store in - hopefully - just their underwear.
Regardless of what it is, it's all pretty much been crappy lately. My time at my job has definitely run its course, crossed the finish line, and kept right on going for some reason.
But because I'm still there, I'm the one who has to get up from what was supposed to be MY 30 minute break (my colleagues know only to talk to me to tell me that the store's on fire) to go out in the lobby and confront the guy supposedly exposing himself.
Turns out that, luckily, that he was indeed wearing pants - or shorts, to be more accurate - but they were essentially cut-off scrubs that would have made Daisy Duke blush. But when I approached him, he told me it was OK to be wearing them because he was waiting for some CAT scan results to come in from across the street at the hospital and we shouldn't worry that he won't get his pants back because he has a receipt to pick them up whenever he wants to from the lost and found box over there.
Had I the energy to attempt a rational conversation with this old man with white hippie hair jamming to an old-school CD player who in all liklihood was in dire need of said CAT scan, I might have asked him why "right now" wasn't a good time to take his receipt to the lost and found and get his pants back. But I did my job - I confirmed that he was wearing some semblance of clothing around his groin, and that was good enough for me.
I was just steps away from getting back to my dinner break when I then had to deal with drunk guy. Had I not been able to plainly ascertain that he was slurring his speech with his eyes darting wildly around as if he was expecting a wild animal to attack him at any minute, I would have smelled the alcohol on him a block away. Here's a little snippet of our conversation:
"Hey, I'm trying to get to East 60th Street," drunk guy asks me while clutching a very brightly-colored bouquet of daisies with a plastic "Get Well Soon" sign sticking out of it.
"You're almost there - 60th Street is right around the corner, but we're on the west side, so you just have to turn right onto east 60th Street to get to the east side," I explain.
"Oh, OK, because I'm trying to get to NYU," he says.
"Wait a minute," I interrupt. "NYU isn't on 60th Street. It's downtown, and you can get there if you just head downtown on the 1 train."
"Oh, OK, so I should just go downtown to get to 60 East 9th," he slurs.
"Wait, now you want to go to 9th Street?" I ask. "That's even further downtown, but if you have the address, my advice is to just get in a cab and tell the driver the address and he'll get you there safely. Just get in a cab, OK?"
"Yeah, OK... Look at these flowers. I think someone just gave me these flowers. Weird, huh? You want them?" he asks me while holding them out to me.
"Um, no thank you," I say. (Uncertain of exactly what to say next to get drunk guy away from me, I say,) "You should keep them and give them to someone who needs to get better soon."
"Oh, OK, so how do I get to 60 East 9th again?" he asks.
"Just get in a cab. Seriously, they'll take you to where you need to go," I say, impatient now and ready to be done with this ridiculous conversation.
"Oh, OK, so I'll just go around the corner to 60th Street then. Thanks," he says while clomping out of the store.
The plan had been to deal with these people, and then enjoy a sandwich while reading a magazine, but my already-too-short dinner break had pretty much already ticked away. Oh well. After seeing way too much of no-pants guy and smelling drunk guy, I had pretty much lost my appetite anyway. Sigh.
1 comment:
You are really going to learn to deal with all kinds of people aren't you???Mom
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