Lodo Grdzak's Long Intermission:

My Old Boss's Office:



My Old Boss looked like Former NBA Legend Darryl "Chocolate Thunder" Dawkins:

Somewhere off either Wheeler or Elder Avenue in Bronx, NY* (*Double-click on Image for Full-View):


I don’t know where you live reader, but this past summer in NYC was as hot and wet as a high-school slut’s panties. One day I almost blacked-out and fell from the subway platform at Union Square, and one night I became so dehydrated that I actually stopped sweating. At some point near the end of July; half-crazed from the heat and stung by a humiliation perpetrated by my boss, I quit my job.

Course the reality was somewhat deeper than that, but those were the immediate reasons that came to mind at the time. Which is not to say that they weren’t valid or true. Just incomplete as an explanation.

The day I quit my job was the fourth straight day of the week over 95 degrees. We had a unit meeting that afternoon, but I’d been up in the Bronx all morning. On the 5th floor of a shit-hole tenement on Elder Avenue with no A/C.

I spent close to two hours in that apartment with a toothless Dominican woman who didn’t even find it necessary to turn the small window fan to HIGH. Within minutes I’d unbuttoned my shirt and even stripped down to my white T-shirt with the yellow sweat-stains under the arms. “What’s the matter?” she asked me, “You warm?”

Just a bit.

There was some bad mojo in that apartment. I left with soaked socks that blistered my feet and an odd, drained sense of soullessness that never left me.

But I was on time for that unit meeting, everyone agrees on that.

As it happened, I was the last to literally enter my boss’s office; but somebody has to be last lest you have the old gag where the two idiots get jammed in the doorway.

So yeah, I was the last to enter--on time; and when I did I realized that there were five of us in my unit and only four chairs (the configuration of my boss’s office can be seen at the top of this post). Sure, its a bit crude; but note how there are four chairs that face my boss; whereas he’d sit behind his desk and address the unit.

But by July there were five of us in my unit, and now only four chairs.

Being I was the last to enter, I spun round on my heels to fetch a chair from my cubicle when my boss suddenly snapped his huge fingers at me.

“Where are you going?” he asked with what I assumed to be a mock incredulousness.

“I’m going to get a chair so I can sit down.”

“You’re not going anywhere,” he said as though genuinely offended, “you’re on my time. There’s a chair right here.”

At which time he gestured towards a small, low chair immediately adjacent to his desk that faced the wall behind him. A new chair I hadn’t even noticed since it appeared to be better suited for the placement of files than for an adult to sit.

But whatever. I knew had the highest score of our unit’s performance audit, so this was all just downtime for me. Downtime in the A/C, which after my morning sounded damn good no matter where I sat.

So I reached for the chair and proceeded to pull it back from his desk when again my boss snapped his fingers at me and this time raised his baritone voice within the confines of the small office.

“What the hell are you doing Grdzak?!”

Keep in mind reader, my old boss was 6’ 6’’ tall. He wasn’t more than 2’ from me and the door behind us was closed. More to the point, I’d been completely on time for this meeting.

But I was still calm, mainly because I didn’t have any juice left. I was spent from the morning and had no reason for concern based on my performance scores. So I calmly replied.

“I’m pulling the chair back so I can look at you and sit with everybody.”

But his response was immediate and curt.

“You don’t move anything in my office. Everything stays exactly where it is. Sit down in that chair and be quiet so we can start.

Which sounds simple enough reader, I’ll admit. Only, take a look at the position of that chair next to his desk. Note how it faces the wall behind my boss. I mean to sit in that chair--in that position; I’d have been three feet from the wall, with my back to my peers, as I stared at the naked commercial drywall.

So I hesitated.

“You’re telling me you’re not going to let me move that chair?” I asked him.

“No, I’m not. Maybe next time you’ll be first one here instead of last. If you don’t lik..”

“I was totally on time for this meeting. I came with t..."

“Lodo, I suggest you sit your ass down right now.”

So I sat down. Immediately next to my boss. In the low chair that wasn’t even fit for an adult. Facing the wall with my back to my peers. All I needed was the freaking DUNCE cap and the look would be complete.

But still I didn’t lose it. Not yet. I still assumed that any moment he’d let out a laugh or comment on my audit score; or maybe even let me leave. That’s certainly what I’d have done.

Five minutes. Ten minutes. Twenty minutes and still I was left to stare at the wall like a butt-fuck idiot. Christ people, I’m a 44 year-old man. I got the highest score of the audit. I never once handed in a late report and they’d never received one complaint about me (a very difficult accomplishment for an investigator).

So I sat and I stewed.

Then one of my co-workers made a comment. I can’t recall the issue and it doesn’t matter anyway; though you can bet it was some moronically inane topic. My boss requested a response from me. As I did so my co-worker (the kind of dumbass who’d actually make a comment at a meeting) suddenly interjected.

“What’s that Lodo? I can’t hear you?”

Of course he couldn’t hear me reader, I was talking to the wall! I’d have to be like that demon bitch from The Exorcist to address the guy from where I sat. So just on instinct I began to push the chair back from my boss’s desk; but again it resulted in a stern rebuke.

“What’d I say about moving that chair Lodo?!” he snapped.

My boss and I locked eyes for a strange amount of time.

“...How can I answer him when he’s behind me?”

“You can answer him,” my boss said with a laugh, “just speak up. Now go ahead.”

And that’s when I quit. I’ll leave it to you reader to decide if I over-reacted. Almost all the women who’ve heard the story seem to think so; though most of the men immediately understand the psychology of what went down. Course not everybody’s free to leave their jobs like me; with no wife, no house, no kids, no car payment.

But I am.

I was allowed ten minutes to leave my equipment and gather my personal items. The only thing that mattered to me was my collection of panel truck photos that hung in my cubicle. My boss had let me hang about a dozen pics on my walls until he saw how many I had. Then he'd made me stop. It was a nice collection, people would stop by my cubicle to look at them.

As I removed the push-pins and placed the pictures in my backpack, my co-worker Cindy approached.

“What’d you make of what happened in there?” I asked her. “Was I wrong to get upset?”

“..Tell you the truth,” she said hesitantly, “it was weird.”

“It was weird, wasn’t it?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she answered, “definitely. ...But was it bad enough where I’d have quit?”

“Really? I asked with genuine surprise. You don’t think I should’ve been offended?”

“I didn’t say that Lodo,” she said again as her eyes dropped toward one of the pictures in my hand. “Its just...what’re you gonna do now?”

A question I hadn’t begun to contemplate.

“I don’t know,” I finally answered as I observed our floor’s security guy approach. I handed Cindy the pic in my hand and grabbed my scooter from off the floor.

“Guess I’m between acts now.”



With my Xootr at the Old Office: