UNCLE BOB ... THE VOICE OF REASON

It is rare that I have a good impression of someone after meeting them for the first time ... only for it to turn into a bad impression later on. I pride myself on being a somewhat decent judge of character and can usually tell right away if I'll like somebody or if I'll want to slit their throat in a dark alley after baiting them in there with promises of free oral sex.

That was confession number one.

Confession number two is ... no matter what I wrote here yesterday ... I actually liked my Piss Boy replacement Martin.

You know ... the missing Roxbury link.

The kid cracked me up numerous times with his motormouth and love for all things kitschy.

So yesterday ... on our second day of training ... I can't really pinpoint where it went sour.

I guess ... he's loud. That's a good place to start.

We're dealing with doctor's offices that are full of patients who are sitting there, worrying if they have cancer or AIDS or rheumatoid arthritis.

And he sashays into these places, sing-songing "GOOD MORRRRRRRNIIIIIIIIING!!!" near the top of his lungs.

The first stop that we made yesterday went something like this:

MARTIN: "Do you have any specimens to be picked up today?"

NURSE: "Not today."

MARTIN: "Nothing??"

NURSE: "Not yet."

MARTIN: "Are you SUUUUUURE??"

NURSE: "Yes I'm SUUUUUURE. We have NOOOOO SPECIMEEEEEEEENS."

MARTIN: "Should I check??"

At this point, I put my hand on his shoulder and quietly said "Let's go."

We got in the car and I explained to him that we don't have time to dilly-dally on this route. You ask if they have a specimen. If they don't, you tell them you'll see them later and KEEP MOVING.

The second stop he did just that. He asked if they had a specimen, they didn't and he walked away without offering anything else like a thank you or "see you later".

It came off kinda rude.

Dare I say .... snippy?

We got back in the car.

"That bitch better not try that shit again," he snipped.

I was lost.

"What?" I asked.

"She wouldn't even LOOK at me when she said they didn't have anything," he bitched. "She better rec-og-nize!"

Okay.

The kid's gay. That doesn't bother me.

What bothers me is he's a melodramatic gay who acts like he's got permanent PMS when we're in the car. EVERYTHING is a crisis with him.

Basically, he's a drama queen.

"I can TELL I'm not gonna get along with that bitch," he adds.

I try to explain to him that we are representatives of the organization and that, for the most part, we are the only people that our customers see from the company and that we need to be polite with every customer whether we like them or not.

"Well that bitch is getting on my NERVES!" he snips at me.

I tell myself that the kid's not my problem. I didn't hire him and when the shit hits the fan with him, I won't be anywhere associated with the business anymore.

The morning continues and the kid has something nasty to say about every single one of the people that we deal with.

He bitched about one woman's hairstyle and said she needed a makeover badly.

He bitched that one girl was doing her schoolwork when he walked in and didn't have his stuff ready for him when he got there and you woulda thought she called his mama a three-dollar whore judging by the venom he was spewing in the car.

He talked on and on about how he had recently bought his own home and how he was a gospel singer and owned his own Greyhound bus and how at the age of 20, he had bought and sold six cars already in his life including a BMW and ...

And ...

And ...

"And you're a Piss Boy now," I wanted to interupt. "So none of that shit matters."

And I would have said it if the kid would have let me have a word in edgewise.

Halfway through the route, he took a breath and I seized the opportunity to ask him a question.

"Is the route becoming familiar with you?" I asked.

"Oh no!" he said. "I have no idea where we're at right now."

We were on the bypass which is the main thoroughfare that snakes through the city.

"We're on the bypass," I confirmed.

"We are?!?" he said.

"Yes," I answered.

"Well ... I don't recognize a thing," he snipped while he focused on applying hand lotion to his cuticles.

I snapped.

Which, for me, is honestly a rare thing.

"You need to be paying attention to where we're going," I said. "Your job is a courier's position and you need to know how to get from one place to another. You need to start concentrating."

"Alright! Alright!" he snapped as he shoved the lotion back in his coat pocket. "I just know on my first day by myself I'm going to be calling the office and saying 'Help! I'm lost!' and the boss is going to have to come get me."

Uhhhhhh ... no. The boss will just tell him to find his way home and not come back.

Today is his third day of training ... basically an unprecedented feat in this field ... most people pick up on the route the first day.

He's driving it himself today with me riding along.

I can't say I'm looking forward to it.

But at least I have earplugs.

But the boss REALLY wanted me to give them one more week until Martin had finished out his notice.

However, the newspaper REALLY wants me to come there and start writing and everything.

So Piss Boss had me call the Drunk Assed Boss at the newspaper to see if I could delay my employment there by a week.

I talked to Drunk Assed Jamie and told him to ask his Dad if I could start a week later.

DAJ called me back and said Dad said that I could start next Wednesday, thus splitting the week between the two companies with the newspaper getting an extra day because they were my new boss which is fair.

Piss Boss thought it was fair as well and thanked me because with me not there, Piss Boss is going to have to do my job and doing it three days is better than doing it for five days.

Not that the job's bad ... it's just that he has a business to run and can't afford to be out of the office that much.

So my last day is next Tuesday.

Four more days with Captain Chatterbox.

That is ... if I don't strangle him and leave him in a dumpster before then.