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College Grad
First Month Out of College (2000): Most people see Europe after graduating- I broke my back while drinking, watched my buddy drive my car on to some one’s lawn and lost my job…. I always heard East Cleveland was prettier then Venice any way. I have finally concluded one of the more colorful careers in academia by graduating from John Carroll University with a degree in philosophy. As you all probably realize, my graduation was not accomplished through sacrifice and discipline, but was rather the almost accidental consequent of five years of drunken idiotism. Apparently, if you submit enough term papers, even if they are written on paper towels, you are eventually given a diploma. In typical fashion, I reached my destination via the steepest possible road: I signed up for the minimal number of credit hours needed for graduation, exercised my right to take at least one class via the pass/fail option (in US Economic History), and began my grand, D minus campaign. The pass/fail option was, in retrospect, a mistake. Most students, or at least the mature ones, who exercise a pass/fail option, still approach the class seriously and aim for a grade which will allow them to comfortably pass the class. Unfortunately, I approached the option differently: on my first day of classes (which was actually JCU’s eighth day), I spent the initial five minutes of US Economic History calculating the lowest possible D minus, and then planed my semester accordingly. At a purely mathematical level, my plan functioned fine. However, the application of my ‘plan’ was rather imprudent: after calculating how much work I could afford to miss, I then squandered the whole of that value in the first month. I treated the class like it was some game show where you had to spend all of your points by the first round- I even showed the artless wit of game show contestants: “Dr. Soper, I don’t believe my report on fiat currencies in Colonial America, is going to fiat into my schedule . How about we just give me a zero and hope that my second report is real good.” Squandering such a large value became burdensome since it put me in a position which required that I maintain an ‘A’ average on all subsequent work even though I lacked the text, was eight weeks behind in the reading and wasn’t even sure where the class met (the room had been changed- and, for the fourth time in my collegiant career, I sat through the wrong class for an entire period). Amazingly, I was able to maintain an ‘A’ average on all subsequent work and therefore finished the class with a ‘D-’. I should not have been allowed to participate in the typical graduation ceremony- my presence belittles the other students’ accomplishments. “I busted my ass to get this degree from John Carroll, and I’m in the same ceremony with the kid who turned in a project on toilet paper??!” Work is starting to improve- mainly because we were purchased by large corporation which plans to close our offices in October. I realize that such a short employment future is not typically considered to be a blessing, but –for me at least– this is the ideal work environment. The arrangement is great because it still fits my normal approach to a job (that is, I usually expect to be quickly terminated any ways), but now management is forced to engage in a similar approach. In short, management is tolerating me since they probably couldn’t hire a replacement willing to start a sixty day career and they probably don’t feel like sitting through an awkward situation (namely my termination) just so they can force me out of a job which will disappear in several weeks any way. Although I have always shown poor patience with customers, my current tolerance is remarkably bad- I hang up on customers for countless reasons: incompetence (’well young man, I’m not sure what you mean by an email address? Hello? Hello?’), poor pronunciation (’I've got an authentiKRATION tab, a security… hello? hello?’), and rudeness. I even hung up on one guy for saying that Travis Fryman had no range at third base. And I’ve treated Christmas toys with more professionalism then I show the interns: recently I have instructed them (we have two interns) to go break our petty cash into really odd denominations of change at the Chinese place where no one understands English, spend the whole day voting for Ted Williams as the greatest living hitter (at cbssportsline.com), and make unsolicited calls to customers so that they can be updated on the working hardware- yeah this is Peter from eNet, just calling to tell you that all routers are functioning fine uh, was their a problem before? no sir- I was just told to keep you in the loopAlong with the better atmosphere at work, I have been assigned a much better shift. I now work evenings between Sundays and Thursdays, which leaves the weekends available for road trips or reckless drinking. Although I do enjoy having Saturday and Friday as my days off, I will miss my old Saturday shift- a ’shift’ that was closer to some web-based happy hour, rather then work. Each Saturday I prepared for later bar hopping by consuming at least a six pack of good beer while answering technical questions about the Internet. I have never consumed more than eight beers, so I do not have any outrageous stories caused by drunkenness (”well, I’m not sure if we’re having any system problems, but I haven’t seen my pants in over two hours”), but I did have a unique evening when our NT server crashed after I had consumed eight beers- all of which were sitting on my desk when the server went down. Fortunately, I was performing some routine file maintenance on some of the network resources that were shared between our NT and UNIX server, so I immediately realized when the NT server froze and was able to prepare myself (and my desk) for the imminent arrival of my supervisors. First, I comprehensively troubleshot the problem, and then I dealt with the empty beer bottles in a way that probably offers everyone a clear insight into Sean Flannery’s maturity level at age 23: I threw all of the empty bottles into some duffel bag that my coworker was given as a Christmas gift from management, I then ran into the company bathroom and threw the bottles out, next –realizing that explanations would have to be provided since my coworker’s duffel bag suddenly stank of beer– I tossed the duffel bag into the garbage as well, ran back to my desk, drank two cups of coffee so that my breath would have more of an indistinguishable stench rather than a stench that was identifiably caused by beer, and, finally, spilled the remaining two pots of coffee all over the floor so that the room also had the same indistinguishable stench. So, that evening eNet basically paid me to drink beers while listening to MP3s, ruin and then throw-out a coworker’s Christmas gift, stain the carpet, and take two dozen urine breaks. When our system admin finally arrived, I was gasping for air, everything stank of coffee, and the carpet felt like a wet sponge. I think that a) my comprehensive trouble-shooting and b) the scope of the problem (hundred of sites hosted by us were down) forced his attention away from the most disquieting problem of the night: why was I gasping for air, how did two full pots of coffee get spilled all over the carpet, when the coffee is kept four doors down, and why was Sean Flannery, an employee who reminds other technicians that their check cashes the same ‘whether we solve the problem or not’, exceeding his responsibilities by trouble shooting an administrative problem? Of course, no employer would make presumptions that resemble the truth- ‘Bob, do you think that he may have been drinking while at work, and then, maybe, he tried to cover it up by spilling coffee all over the room and then throwing out Peter’s Christmas gift?’ I clearly did not learn from my mistake because several weeks later, on yet another Saturday night, I practically destroyed two separate rooms while drinking at work. The bottle opener which I was using for a key chain broke while trying to open my second beer, so I tried to force the beer cap off by hitting the cap’s edge against various objects in our break room. Unfortunately, I was not graceful- sculptors probably carve marble with less force: the table was practically turned into a collection of kindling wood on it’s one side from my hits, the one laser printer still can’t hold legal size paper and you can’t open the top drawers to most of our cabinets. I finally realized that no rational person would try to force open a beer by smacking it against stuff in his/her office, so I moved into the bathroom. After chipping away at the sinks, I saw a robust, promising ledge and struck my beer against it. However, the ledge was supporting a large mirror which immediately cracked. It was like the tremor scene in SuperMan- you saw the whole fault collapse in front of you. Plus, although you hate to ruin a perfectly good mirror, my beer was finally open and it began erupting all over the bathroom (here’s a quick, albeit bad, joke to tell your friends, ‘name someone stupider then the guy who tried to smack a beer bottle open at work? The one who tried to smack it open after shaking it up.’). Obviously, this sounds like a predicament, but –once again—I reacted with maturity and professionalism: I opened the bathroom window and threw my beer bottle on to the roof of the next building (the Cleveland Play House), removed the puddles of beer, quietly left the bathroom and, when I ‘learned’ about the crack in the bathroom mirror on Monday morning, I reacted with surprise and then began an office wide complaint against the janitorial services at the Bradely Building. The summer has progressed nicely for me. June was occupied almost entirely by weddings: first, by Ted’s wedding, and then by the wedding of John Delahey, an old JCU friend. Despite twenty years of Catholic schooling, I managed to cheapen the sacrament of marriage at both weddings by reducing the events into a shameful celebration of binge drinking. Well, perhaps my behavior at Ted’s wedding was fine, but my performance at the previous wedding was criminally inappropriate- I looked like one of those shirtless booze hounds from an episode of COPS. John had reservations about inviting me in the first place because a) his conservative family disapproves of drinking and b) despite their conservatism, the bar would be completely free- that is, he was troubled by the thoughts of Sean Flannery having access to a huge supply of free alcohol while being surrounded by three generations of the Delahey family. I assuaged none of his fears: I entered the reception in clothing which was obviously borrowed, presented John with a wedding gift whose tight wrapping allowed everyone to realize it was the same, large office phone which John threw out Sophomore year because three of the digits didn’t work, and went right to the bar. I had no dress clothes, so my wardrobe was a heterogeneous mixture of clothes belonging to Eric and my old room mate, and still a very large man, Dan Homza. Moreover, I spent the previous three hours napping in those same clothes, so my wardrobe was intensely wrinkled and my forehead probably still had the pink, impression of our couch on it (the Tribe game –and an intense hang-over– tired me during the gap between the ceremony and the reception). I then began to drink like a hero. During all of this, bad music was being played- really bad music. Of course, it was John’s special night and he therefore reserved the right to play whatever music he and his new wife wished to play, so –after each song– I just offered the DJ some friendly suggestions and returned back to the bar. However, by my tenth drink, I was becoming alarmed, even angered, by the bad music and I began to feel a sense of duty: I could not let John’s bad taste ruin his own wedding- even if he, the women he loves, and all of their friends and family seemed to enjoy the music selection. These people were ruining John’s special day by their own misguided taste in music, and –for reasons that I still can’t understand– I felt that, deep down, these people sensed this problem, and realized that I was the only one at this place with good taste and should therefore change the music. I immediately complied with this duty. The friendly suggestions soon became demands upon the DJ and, when the he told me that he had no Rolling Stones with a disgusted voice (as if I had asked for Jimmy Buffet or “anything that I can take my pants off to!”), I raised my gin and tonic, pointed it at the DJ’s platform and –-just when the current song started to conclude, thereby becoming soft enough for me to make a total jack ass out of myself– I yelled, “Well, you REALLY fucking suck, DON’T YOU?!!?” Everyone was shocked. I was a stranger to everyone at the wedding, save maybe five people- and yet I was spilling gin all over the dance floor while swearing at the DJ. Dan immediately recognized the severity of the situation: Sean –a horribly opinionated person with no sense of tact and a booming voice– is drunk; he’s surrounded by conservative people; and he’s probably going to hear “The Electric Slide” at least three to four more times during the evening. In short, it can only get worse. Dan began to lead me away from the center of the dance floor- I followed his lead, but was still visibly upset with the DJ’s reaction to the Rolling Stones: “No Stones??! That fucker just played ‘The Chicken Dance’! And he’s grimacing at the Stones!?!” When we got to the table, Dan pointed out that everyone seemed to enjoy the music hereto, and that nobody seemed to enjoy my rather animated suggestions. I scanned for disputing looks across the table, thinking that somebody at this table -the table reserved for John’s college buddies, for crying out loud-would disagree with Dan and applaud my stance against bad music. Everyone must have sensed that I was looking for confirmation, because, when I established eye-contact with each person, they motioned ‘no’ with their head, lips, and fingers. The table was completely silent since everyone was too embarrassed to speak with me. I scanned the table some more and interpreted everyone’s silence as fear rather then embarrassment- in other words, I believed that they really agreed with my thoughts on the music, but were too tactful to say it. I therefore broke the silence by asking some one to grab me a gin and tonic while I began to share my thoughts about the music with everyone. I was asked to leave 10 minutes later. I offered everyone a ride down to Mitch’s Lounge with me, but half of the people were appalled by the thought of spending four more hours with me and the other half were appalled by the thought of me driving… well, actually everyone was just appalled by the thought of hanging out with me- I anticipated some people having problems with me driving them to the bar, but that became a non-issue after it was revealed that no one –at least at that point in time– considered me pleasant. As of late, I have not been socializing very often because of some injuries which I suffered in late June. Specifically, three of my Lumbar vertebras were fractured, and I broke my heel in two places. For those of you who still haven’t heard the details, I was standing on the ledge of a concrete stair case, speaking with Eric, and slipped. I fell about 10 feet or so, on to a concrete walk way causing the fractures. After witnessing my careless self-destruction, Eric must have vowed to act even more recklessly: he insisted on driving me back to his place, and devastated my car in the process by running it over a very large curb at thirty miles an hour. The car, which lost two tires, had two rims bent, and was left with no functional alignment, was incapable of advancing, so Eric and I abandoned the vehicle and began the five block walk back to his place. When I initially fell, I believed that an action so patently stupid (e. g. stretching on a 10 foot high ledge after a night of modestly heavy drinking) could not result in any serious injuries- these type of incidents happen all the time in my life (note earlier events, such as my decision to rewire the dehumidifier while standing in a flooded basement), and they usually result in some quick, fleeting pain which is more comical then agonizing. However, I began to doubt this view while walking back to Eric’s place. We looked like incompetent soldiers who just finished storming a beach: I could barely walk and Eric was therefore supporting all of my weight via his less then stable body. I was beginning to think that Eric –who I had earlier considered to be perfectly sober when he offered to drive– was drunk and that maybe there was something wrong with my foot. Any parents which may have seen us stumbling away from our broken car with visible injuries, probably woke up their kids and used us as a scare tactic against drinking- “freddy, I want you remember what drinking looks like! You’ll make no friends as some pale, fat jack-ass who can’t even walk down the street without leaning on his drunk friend.” Luckily, no police officers were around the area- I don’t believe that we would have been capable of convincing them that we were indeed sober: ‘no, no. We haven’t been drinking. We only appear disorientated because I just fell off a porch, and then my friend here, in his rush to get us to Taco Bell, wrecked the car on perfectly strait road.’ To make a long story short, Eric left me behind so that he could reach his house quicker and then return with a car. Eventually we made it back to Eric’s place, where I watched some of “The WaterBoy” while laying down on a four foot long, horribly designed, couch with a broken back and fractured heel. I woke up the next morning and was surprised to discover that my back and heel were still not capable of properly supporting my weight. Eric drove me home and, at around 12:00 PM, almost half a day after the injury occurred, I went to seek medical treatment at Akron General Hospital. The consequences of the accident have not been too bad- I was more or less incapacitated for about two weeks, and then I began to move around with the assistance of crutches. I continued to use the crutches until late July. Since then I have been walking around with out crutches, but I still can’t support weight on my heel, so I have a bit of a limp. Three days after the injury, I was given a back brace which is basically constituted by two metal bars which wrap around the upper and lower parts of my torso. The two bars are connected at my back, thereby prohibiting me from bending my back forward (which could aggravate the injuries to my back). I will have to continue to wear this brace until October. The novelty of the brace has disappeared, and now it is, although still tolerable, an itchy inconvenience. However, the brace was almost fun at first: since I didn’t move well, I held some accouterments (the portable phone, remotes and so on) within the space between my torso and the metal bars- this convenient arrangement also created a utility belt effect which I used to impersonate various super heroes. I would quickly draw the VCR remote from the brace and then, while talking to the only member of the Flannery household who is still immature enough to play with me- our labrador Murphy, I would confidently state, “gas masks Robin, it’s going to get sloppy” or “Captain’s log, star date 20-40. I still seem to be paralyzed by Klingon’s ray”. The brace was also a great stimulus for Darth Vader references: “Sean, I can’t just put your pudding on top of your brace” “go ahead Eileen, that torso is more machine then human now”. All and all it wasn’t so bad. Plus I finally got around to reading the unabriged versions of Moby Dick and The Brothers Karmazov. You can also bookmark this on del.icio.us or check the cosmos RSS feed for comments on this post. | TrackBack URI Leave a Comment |
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