There is a certain co-worker whom I will call El Cholo (which is Spanish slang for "Mexican gangsta", in case you didn't know). He is 21 years old and super, super thin, so thin that it seems that everything on him is pointy--elbows, chin, nose, shoulders, even his eyes seem pointy.
The first time I spoke with El Cholo, it came up that I was only temporary help for the summer. At this point, he asked me if I was in college. I responded that I would be getting my master's this fall. Upon learning that I had been and will continue being a college student, El Cholo's immediate reaction was to ask "How many times did you get laid?"
To be honest, I'd seen El Cholo around in times past, but I had been ignoring him on purpose. I wasn't too impressed with him, and now I can chalk up another accurate first impression. Sure, El Cholo has tried to strike up conversations with me and be friendly, but all he wants to discuss are sexual escapades. He has never been to college and seems to think that college is nothing more than a perpetual hip-hop music video. You know the kind, the ones of wild parties with trashed dudes hooking up with girls who are even more trashed than they are.
Today, he sat down next to me in the break room and, once again, began interrogating me about my college sex life. "How many times did you get laid?" "What's your craziest story?" "You into fat chics?" "You have any kids?" "How can you not have any kids if you've been to college?" "What were the parties like?" "What kind of car do you drive? A Buick? You're never going to get laid in that."
I sidestepped most of his questions and curtly answered the ones that weren't completely trashy and/or ridiculous. Really, I just wanted him to go away, and being short with him was my subtle way of trying to get him to stop talking. I was not willing to answer most of his questions for a couple of reasons: 1) I wasn't wild in college by any stretch of the imagination. I had fun and was irresponsible on many occasions, but I focused more on grades than on being a complete douche bag, and I knew that if I told El Cholo this that his sex-warped mind wouldn't be able to process it, and 2) I didn't want to encourage him to continue talking to me.
Eventually, he started telling me stories about his own sexual conquests. He even pulled out his cellphone and showed me a couple of X-rated pictures taken while in the act. I really wanted to get up and leave, but I didn't want to make a scene or make things awkward when I encountered him at work in the future. And since I would be leaving the break room soon, I decided to stick it out. If he noticed my displeasure, he didn't show any sign whatsoever. He told me about how he was having sex with a girl in her house and how her mother walked in on them. But all this mother did was tell them to use protection and then left the room. Afterwards, he showered, ate food in their kitchen, said "what's up" to the girl's mother, and then never talked to the girl again.
At one point he told me I had wasted my time in college for not being wild. "What stories are you going to tell your kids. I studied hard and got good grades? Boring! That's not a story! You're supposed to travel the world, have kids all over the place and not even know about them until one day--AHH--there's your son's twin walking down the street." I responded that it was clear that he and I had very different priorities. What an understatement. I didn't say this, but I think our different priorities might be why I am going to graduate school in one of the United State's most-loved cities and he's working in a small town at an ice-cream factory with no plans of ever leaving. Look at me wasting my life.
I know that's harsh. I am not an elitist who thinks you have to go to college to be worth something. I'm not like that at all. But El Cholo is just a young, self-centered, conceited jerk who has no aspirations other than fulfilling his immediate desires. There may be more to him than that, but I'm not going to seek that out. I have better things to do with my time than to wade through his mindless jargon to try and find some semblance of a complex person.
I'm a jerk,. I know. But you would be too if you had to sit through ten minutes of El Cholo's narrow-minded, obsessive sex ranting.
Daily Ice-Cream Consumption
1 strawberry crunch bar, 3 ice-cream candy bars, 1 chocolate ice-cream waffle cone, 2 caramel ice-cream waffle cones
10 June 2011
08 June 2011
The Cup of The Bathroom
In the men's bathroom, there is a sign posted just outside of the two toliet stalls that reads "Please flush toliet paper in the toilet. Do not discard on the floor."
I do realize that this reminder probably results from the high number of central and south-Americans we have working at the ice-cream factory and how it may not have been the custom (and/or capability) to flush their toliet paper back in their native countries. So, really, it may be a legitimate reminder for some individuals. But what really caught my attention was not the content of this posting, but how "toliet" was translated into Spanish. Rather than "toliet" or "toileta" or even some random word I didn't recognize, "toilet" had been translated into "la taza del bano".
With my minimal Spanish skills, I recognized these words as "the cup of the bathroom". Cup? Of the bathroom? Really? I'm sorry, but a toilet does not look anything like a cup, and I don't think cups should be associated with anything you put into toliets.
I thought that maybe "la taza del bano" was a poor translation, but after asking one of my Spanish-speaking co-worker, I learned that it was, in fact, an accurate translation. Now, that's funny. I kept getting images of people squatting over delicate teacups in public restroom stalls. What a horrible mess that would be.
Deciding to look more into this "taza del bano", I Google searched it and found a silly little poem. And, of course, I have decided to share this with you.
Poesia a la Taza
(Dedicado a todos los inodoros del mundo! Gracias por soportarnos en esos momentos de tension!)
Oh taza blanca y majestuosa
Cuando tengo una emergencia para mi eres como una diosa
Cuando me siento en tu bizcocho siento que eres maravillosa
Le hablo de ti a mis amigos porque de ti estoy orgullosa
Tu taza, eres mi amiga incondicional
Porque contigo es con quien acudo cuando me hace dano el tamal
Oh taza hermosa, siempre has sido internacional
Aunque maltraten a tus hemanas en los banos publicos del tunal
Contigo voy cuando algo me hace dano
Se que siempre te puedo enctontrar en el bano
Pues todo mi malestar te llevas hasta el cano
Siempre estas conmigo los 360 dias del ano
Ah! Pobre de mi amiga cuando te tapas
Por favor no lo hagas pues del dolor me matas
Y si te botas me mojas las dos patas
Y de aquella agua salen una extranas natas
Pero gracias a Dios hoy estas bien
Porque tu gran servidora eres, ayudas sin importar a quien
Y aunque inodoro te dicen tambien
Para mi, taza adorada, suena super bien
(http://www.mundopoesia.com/foros/poesia-comica-sarcastica-sainetes-y-otros/21287-poesia-a-la-taza-del-bano.html)
I may not understand every word or phrase in this poem, but I do understand a lot of them. I also understand the overall humor of it. And I, too, have a great appreciation for my friend, The Cup of The Bathroom
Daily Ice-Cream Intake
2 Cookies N Cream ice cream waffle cones, 4 Orange sherbert push-up pops, 2 ice-cream candy bars, 2 Turtle ice-cream bars, 2 chocolate crunch bars
I do realize that this reminder probably results from the high number of central and south-Americans we have working at the ice-cream factory and how it may not have been the custom (and/or capability) to flush their toliet paper back in their native countries. So, really, it may be a legitimate reminder for some individuals. But what really caught my attention was not the content of this posting, but how "toliet" was translated into Spanish. Rather than "toliet" or "toileta" or even some random word I didn't recognize, "toilet" had been translated into "la taza del bano".
With my minimal Spanish skills, I recognized these words as "the cup of the bathroom". Cup? Of the bathroom? Really? I'm sorry, but a toilet does not look anything like a cup, and I don't think cups should be associated with anything you put into toliets.
I thought that maybe "la taza del bano" was a poor translation, but after asking one of my Spanish-speaking co-worker, I learned that it was, in fact, an accurate translation. Now, that's funny. I kept getting images of people squatting over delicate teacups in public restroom stalls. What a horrible mess that would be.
Deciding to look more into this "taza del bano", I Google searched it and found a silly little poem. And, of course, I have decided to share this with you.
Poesia a la Taza
(Dedicado a todos los inodoros del mundo! Gracias por soportarnos en esos momentos de tension!)
Oh taza blanca y majestuosa
Cuando tengo una emergencia para mi eres como una diosa
Cuando me siento en tu bizcocho siento que eres maravillosa
Le hablo de ti a mis amigos porque de ti estoy orgullosa
Tu taza, eres mi amiga incondicional
Porque contigo es con quien acudo cuando me hace dano el tamal
Oh taza hermosa, siempre has sido internacional
Aunque maltraten a tus hemanas en los banos publicos del tunal
Contigo voy cuando algo me hace dano
Se que siempre te puedo enctontrar en el bano
Pues todo mi malestar te llevas hasta el cano
Siempre estas conmigo los 360 dias del ano
Ah! Pobre de mi amiga cuando te tapas
Por favor no lo hagas pues del dolor me matas
Y si te botas me mojas las dos patas
Y de aquella agua salen una extranas natas
Pero gracias a Dios hoy estas bien
Porque tu gran servidora eres, ayudas sin importar a quien
Y aunque inodoro te dicen tambien
Para mi, taza adorada, suena super bien
(http://www.mundopoesia.com/foros/poesia-comica-sarcastica-sainetes-y-otros/21287-poesia-a-la-taza-del-bano.html)
I may not understand every word or phrase in this poem, but I do understand a lot of them. I also understand the overall humor of it. And I, too, have a great appreciation for my friend, The Cup of The Bathroom
Daily Ice-Cream Intake
2 Cookies N Cream ice cream waffle cones, 4 Orange sherbert push-up pops, 2 ice-cream candy bars, 2 Turtle ice-cream bars, 2 chocolate crunch bars
06 June 2011
Hiding
There are three sanitation crews, and my crew's lunch is scheduled from 11:30 to noon. Well, today noon came around, I clocked in, and I went to put on my safety equipment. And being the new guy that I am, and being unsure of what I was to do next, I waited for my crew-mates to return from lunch so I could follow their lead.
Well, I waited and waited . . . and waited . . . for 25 minutes. And nobody showed up.
The only reason I waited for so long was because 1) I knew they would have to return to that specific location to put on their saftey equipment and 2) because I was worried that if I left that location that they would return and then go off into the factory and I wouldn't be able to find them.
Eventually, I decided to go looking for my crew-mates, and was let in on a little secret.
My crew's lunch is over at noon, but we aren't technically scheduled to do anything else until 1:30 pm (when a specific production line shuts down and we clean up their mess). When I asked what we did for that hour and a half, I was told to "look busy." The funny thing was that no one could tell me exactly how to do that. So, I decided to follow a crew-mate around.
We sat in a back room and did nothing for about twenty minutes, then we moved to another part of the factory and sat in another place for about fifteen minutes. Then another co-worker told me to follow him. Thinking we were actually going to do some work, I asked where we were doing. He didn't bother looking at me but continued to lead the way and gruffly responded that we were "hiding."
I was lead to a part of the factory that was empty (the production line in that are was shut down for the day), and we sat down for an undisclosed amount of time.
And how did I feel about all of this?
Very uncomfortable. But that's probably only because I don't know what I'm doing. If I was more comfortable with the ins and outs of the job, I would have probably been more at ease with taking a little extra down time. But being new, and feeling somewhat overwhelmed with all of things I need to learn, I have this anxious part of me that wants to work and learn and work and learn some more. I also have a horribly guilty conscious that refused to let me take much pleasure in shirking responsibility, especially while at work.
Luckily, we were called to another part of the factory around 1:00 pm to help another crew to clean one of their assigned production lines. I think our managers are catching onto the habitual shameless slacking I just described. We'll see what happens the rest of the week.
Daily Ice-Cream Intake :
2 ice-cream candy bars, 3 strawberry crunch bars, 2 caramel ice-cream cones, 4 other ice-cream treats
Well, I waited and waited . . . and waited . . . for 25 minutes. And nobody showed up.
The only reason I waited for so long was because 1) I knew they would have to return to that specific location to put on their saftey equipment and 2) because I was worried that if I left that location that they would return and then go off into the factory and I wouldn't be able to find them.
Eventually, I decided to go looking for my crew-mates, and was let in on a little secret.
My crew's lunch is over at noon, but we aren't technically scheduled to do anything else until 1:30 pm (when a specific production line shuts down and we clean up their mess). When I asked what we did for that hour and a half, I was told to "look busy." The funny thing was that no one could tell me exactly how to do that. So, I decided to follow a crew-mate around.
We sat in a back room and did nothing for about twenty minutes, then we moved to another part of the factory and sat in another place for about fifteen minutes. Then another co-worker told me to follow him. Thinking we were actually going to do some work, I asked where we were doing. He didn't bother looking at me but continued to lead the way and gruffly responded that we were "hiding."
I was lead to a part of the factory that was empty (the production line in that are was shut down for the day), and we sat down for an undisclosed amount of time.
And how did I feel about all of this?
Very uncomfortable. But that's probably only because I don't know what I'm doing. If I was more comfortable with the ins and outs of the job, I would have probably been more at ease with taking a little extra down time. But being new, and feeling somewhat overwhelmed with all of things I need to learn, I have this anxious part of me that wants to work and learn and work and learn some more. I also have a horribly guilty conscious that refused to let me take much pleasure in shirking responsibility, especially while at work.
Luckily, we were called to another part of the factory around 1:00 pm to help another crew to clean one of their assigned production lines. I think our managers are catching onto the habitual shameless slacking I just described. We'll see what happens the rest of the week.
Daily Ice-Cream Intake :
2 ice-cream candy bars, 3 strawberry crunch bars, 2 caramel ice-cream cones, 4 other ice-cream treats
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