Lessons from the Road
Once upon a time when I was still feeling my way along my career path, I had a part time job to make ends meet. I wager that a lot of men have these jobs during their lifetime. It isn't a job you can build a career on, it is a job to pad your wallet with a few extra bucks. These are jobs that don't require a lot of brains or skill to perform. They are jobs that exist because science hasn't come up with a cost effective robot that can do it cheaper than a semi-intelligent human.
The last job that I had in this genre was at Budget Rent-A-Car of Arizona. It was back around 1995 and I was a 'driver' for Budget. When rich people rent cars, they don't always return them to the main distribution facility, or the company will move 'blocks' of cars to specific areas in a city to cover spikes in demand. In order to so this, they have employees that do nothing but drive their cars from one place to another.
This usually meant sitting around a picnic table in the early evening, until a supervisor came out and picked five of us from the group, and stated that drivers #1, #2, #3 and #4 need to drive four Nissan Sentras out to the Glendale facility. Driver #5 would be the 'van' driver. The van driver follows drivers 1 thru 4 to Glendale, and then gave them a ride back to the central staging area.
That is it. That is all you do, for 8 hours, between 6pm and 2am in the morning. Sit around, drive cars and ride in a van. In retrospect, it was probably the best job I ever had. You couldn't get any less stress, and all you had to do was drive around brand new cars, on someone else's dime, and listen to whatever radio station you wanted.
However, this isn't a story about the job, it is a story about a ride in the van back to the central staging area. Much like the sitcoms 'Taxi' or 'Mash', whenever you take four to six individuals and put them in a van over and over, strange conversations and fellowships develop. This is a story about one of those van rides.
Jobs such as this tend to attract some pretty eclectic individuals. Besides myself, there was an interesting cross section of drivers that I worked with at Budget Rent-A-Car. I don't recall any of their names, but I recall their personalities as though I have known them all my life.
There was the patriarch (we will call him Bill) who had been there longer than anyone else. He was in his 40s and had a dream of opening up his own junk-yard. He worked for the City Special Events Planning office by day and was an expert in Checker Taxis and Sedans (he owned several in various states of repair).
There was the young Afro-American going to college on a scholarship (we will call him Jerome). He was about 6' 5" tall, in his early 20s and spent most of his time in the back seat of the van sleeping.
There was the tall skinny guy in his mid-twenties looking for his first real job. He was high school educated with a pale complexion and long thinning curly hair. The rest of the crew nicknamed him 'Vampire', because he looked so frail and anemic. He had just started a day job as a studio sound engineer and wanted to get into the recording industry.
Then there was the guy who had the speech impediment. Something like a cleft pallet or a nervous stutter. He was likable and smart, but he had to overcome his handicap every time he opened his mouth. (Lets call him 'Stan' for Stuttering Stanley).
Finally, there was "Clutz". He was the youngest guy in the group, who had just turned 18 and we assumed his daddy in corporate had gotten him the job to start him off on the 'ground level'. We called him "Clutz" because of his inability to solve the most simple tasks, such as, "you have to put your foot on the break before you can move the shift lever", (duh, it is a safety feature on all cars!). Clutz was a good kid, but he was frustrating at times and had a lot to learn.
So one balmy summer night we are all assigned to drive cars to Sun City, which is a good two hour round trip to drop the cars off and make it back to the central facility. We all hopped in our trusty steads with the 'new car smell', tuned in our favorite radio station, cranked up the volume, and semi-raced each other to Sun City. Mind you, we never really raced, but it was sort of an insult to be the last one to arrive. It was more a matter of knowing the 'best' way to get there, than speeding to get there, since getting a ticket was a sure fire way to get canned.
The last of us trickled into Sun City around 7:30pm and we all piled into the van for the trip back. We all had dibs on our favorite positions in the van, Jerome was in the back seat laying down, Bill was driving, I was next to the driver in the passenger seat, Stan, Clutz and Vampire were somewhere in the middle.
As we headed back, we made small talk about various frustrations that all of us were experiencing in our 'day jobs'. These van rides were a sort of group therapy session, although we didn't realize it at the time. Eventually, the conversation turned to women as Vampire started to relate his prospects for a promising date that he had lined up the following weekend. I listened to the conversation from the co-pilot Captain's chair as my co-workers went back and forth about the issues they had with women and how they were so frustrating to figure out.
After a while it sounded as though the group was stuck in a sort of relationship vapor lock, so I thought I would chime in with my two cents.
"Guys, the trick to making women happy is to make them the center of attention.", I stated.
"...and how do you do that?", came Vampire's reply.
"Well, you can't pay attention to them 24/7, that would drive you nuts, so you have to find 'special ways' to make them feel important that linger for a long of time. In essence, you have to do things that they can brag to their girlfriends about. It will take them about two weeks to brag to all their girlfriends. After two weeks it will be time to come up with another 'special' surprise to placate them for another two weeks, etc., etc."
By the time I had finished this little explanation, I noticed that all the eyes in the van (even Bill's) were fixed on me.
"....and....", they collectively said.....
"...and what? Do special little things for them, and you can keep them happy, ergo, they will be less bitchy."
"Like what sort of special things?", Clutz asked.
"Yeah, g-g-g-give us some ex-x-x-xamples.", Stan added.
It sort of dawned on me that this van was populated with a bunch of emotional pygmies. They hadn't watched any romantic movies or put any real 'thought' into the motivations and desires of the female gender. So, I decided to give them some pointers from my experiences regarding intimate relations with the opposite sex.
"Well, first of all....FLOWERS. They cost you about a $5 at local grocery story and they translate to about 5 days of good will. As long as they are on the dining room table, and haven't wilted, they scream out to anyone in the room that your girlfriend is a special person."
"But they just die and end up being thrown away.", responded Clutz.
"Doesn't matter Clutz, it is the thought that counts, and not the physical value of the flowers. The flowers themselves have no meaning or value, it is the act of giving them that lingers in the woman's mind."
"W-w-w-what else.", Stan prodded me.
"I don't know, do something for them that shows a lot of thought went into it. If you do something for a woman that lasts 30 seconds, but she realizes that it took you three weeks to plan it out, it is good for three weeks and 30 seconds of good will as far as the woman is concerned."
"......l-l-l-like what?", he continued.
I thought for a second and recalled a special date I had planned for someone I used to work with. "OK, here is a good example:"
"I used to work with a girl that I really liked and I wanted to do something special for her birthday. So I took her on a date and made a treasure hunt out of it. I knew she really liked cheesecake, so I hand-made two of them, packed them in dry ice and hide them in the trunk of my car with a bunch of helium balloons tied to them. Then I went to Encanto Park in Central Phoenix, and hid an envelope under one of the foot bridges that span the canals there."
All the eyes in the van were transfixed on me and I could tell that they were all taking mental notes about everything I said.
"I picked my girlfriend up for our date and told her that she would have to 'fugure out' what her birthday present was. Her first 'clue' was in the glove-box of the car. She opened the glove box and pulled out an envelop. Inside it said that her first clue could be found where the 'Trolls Lived In Encanto Park". We drove to the park, rented a canoe and paddled around the lakes until she finally found the envelope under the bridge. Inside the envelop was a "challenge". She had to go to a knick-knack gift store in Phoenix called "Juttenhoops" and spend as close to $20 as possible without going over (inside the envelope was a $20 bill). The closer she got to the limit of $20 without going over, the better her birthday present would be."
At this point, I noticed that even Jerome had sat up in the back of the van and was paying attention to everything I said.
"Juttenhoops, was a huge store with literally thousands of little do-dads and knick-knacks to play with. We arrived there and my girlfriend had 20 minutes to buy as many things as she could with $20. She tore through the place like a kid in a candy store and in the end, spent $19.92 cents. We went back to the car and under the passenger seat, there was another envelope. Inside it was her winnings. If she spent under $18.00, she got dinner at McDonald's. If she spend between $18.00 and $19.50, she got to eat dinner at Applebees. If she spend over $19.50 she got to have dinner at The Phoenician, which is a 5 star resort here in Phoenix. There was little doubt what prize she would win."
"So we went to the Phoenician and had a wonderful dinner and drinks. After dinner, I took her home and as we got out of the car, I told her I had one more thing for her. I opened up the trunk and all the balloons came floating out still attached to the cheesecakes that were still frozen from the dry ice."
"Two months later we took a weekend trip to Vegas, where I scored big time....and I don't mean at the slot machines."
At this point, not only were all of my van buddies staring at me, but their mouths were all open in stunned silence.
"Freak'in Brilliant"....I heard Bill say.
"Ow, man, this is like hitting a gold-mine.", said Vampire, "...what else, give us some more examples."
"Geez, haven't you guys ever done anything thoughtful for a woman?", was my reply.
My co-workers starred back at me in silence.
"OK, here is another one. My wife had a real penchant for expensive things that I can't afford, which is one of the reasons I am riding around in this van. She really likes 'smelly stuff'.....which is to say, perfumes and toiletries. Instead of going into debt to buy her gallons of Chanel No. 5, I figured out an alternative. I went to a mall store called 'Lotions and Potions' and bought a bunch of pure scented oils in bulk. Then I went to an import store and got three hand blown perfume bottles from Egypt, pretty cheap at about $5 a piece. Then I bought a very elaborate Christmas Chest with to latches and packed it with straw."
"I took the oils and filled the perfume bottles with them. I place the bottles inside the chest and secured them so they would not leak. Then I closed the chest and locked it with two very small key locks I got at Ace Hardware. I took each key and placed it in a separate envelope with my wife's name on them. I wrapped the chest in a very elaborate velvet rope so that it looked like a sunken Christmas Chest and placed it under the Christmas tree a week before Christmas. The chest had no name on it, so no one knew who it was for. This drove my wife nuts, since she assumed it was for her, but didn't know what it was. Then on Christmas eve, I slipped the two envelopes with the keys into the branches of the tree."
"On Christmas day, we went through all the presents until we got to the chest. No one knew who it was for and I stated that someone must have gotten the keys in one of their presents and they just needed to look for them. Needless to say, it took my wife about 2 minutes to find the envelopes, open the chest and find her 'smelly stuff'. Total cost was under $100, total value in score points with the wife...about $3,000."
At this point, Jerome was actually writing all this down on a piece of paper in the back of the van.
"What else, what else, give us some more.", Jermone demanded.
Just then, Bill pulled the van back into the Budget Rent-A-Car central lot and stopped at the drivers table outside the supervisors office.
"That is all I have for now guys. You just need to be creative. Remember, it isn't things you buy, it is the things you do that makes the difference."
I don't know if my little life lessons made any difference in any of their lives. I like to think they did. In more ways than one, these sorts of jobs were the best jobs I ever had. When you got more from work than just a paycheck.
