Chapter 19: 11 Hours of My Life

So I worked with TDH again last night. It had been about three weeks since I’ve done the Cashier class at work so I was a bit rusty. I taught the morning class and he showed up while I was still setting up. He came into the lab as I finished and he was saying, “now this is how it’s suppose to be, I come in and all the work is done.” Slacker. Since we only had two people in the morning class (it’s still the slow season) I asked if he thought he was teaching the morning class…because I was, and frankly since I’ve been cheated out of sitting back and relaxing during the afternoon class I wasn’t about to give it up. He said that he didn’t think so and I explained that I thought maybe he thought he was and that’s why he was there so early. I showed him a copy of the e-mail our manager sent out about what time the second trainer should show up according to different situations. A class of less then 12 (or 2 in this case) the second trainer doesn’t need to come until 4:30. He debated whether or not to leave because our manager had already seen him and he knew she would know that he had been an idiot if he didn’t stick around. I told him it was fine if he did, I didn’t mind. He decided to sit in the back and work on other things to cover up his mistake rather then admitting that he didn’t pay attention to any of the e-mails. So 11:30 rolled around and if he’s there he’s suppose to greet my trainee’s so I looked at him and said, “Greeter! Get to it!” I didn’t really make him do it because seriously, two people? One of which was 5 minutes late and the other one didn’t have the proper uniform pants on. The class went pretty well though, I think I’ve gotten better at slowing myself down, we didn’t take our break until about an hour and 15 minutes in, which is about normal. At the break TDH decided to go home and take a nap, but he told me not to tell our manager unless she asked because he was a little embarrassed. She asked so I had to tell. She asked more than once too, when she first noticed that he was gone and then when she noticed that an hour and a half later he still wasn’t back. I at first had told her that he had decided to go on a break, when she asked the second time I said it was a long break.
Before TDH left though we were talking to one of my trainee’s and she said something about having a good afternoon and we told her we were still going to be there that night. TDH told her that there’s an evening class and he was teaching that and then I told her that I had to stick around to make sure that he got to his car safely at night. Which, upon reflection, that’s exactly what happened…I walked him to his car and then went to my car. Why am I the guy and he’s the girl?
As for my trainees, we had the bright, gregarious woman from South Boston (which is apparently still in Virginia, but I was thinking…Boston, Boston). Then we had the recent high school graduate who may have gone undiagnosed with A.D.D. for pretty much his whole life. He couldn’t keep his hands off of the mock groceries; he couldn’t seem to stay focused until I started to make sure I was making eye contact with him more. Kind of a, “I’ll be watching” thing. He started to focus, but he still kept grabbing the fake produce and playing with it. Then when I cut them loose he couldn’t really remember where much of the stuff was, but he finally started to get the hang of it. I get to work with him today…yippee. Wo, speaking of A.D.D. I just tried to find a synonym for “yippee” and it gives me “nowadays”, “at the moment”. I thought it was an expression of excitement. There is so much I don’t know about the English language.
Anyway, A.D.D.’s spastic tendencies transferred over to the register he was working on and I had to make him move. The register just kept printing out ‘z’s on the register tape, over and over until I finally took out the receipt tape.
So when TDH finally came back he asked how things went without him. I told him that as soon as he left the class was shot. The registers broke down and there was absolute mayhem. He almost believed me too. Then he was telling me how there was a table that was uneven and that everyone in the building was blaming him because he likes to sit on the tables. I said, “Didn’t you get that memo? Everything that goes wrong or gets messed up is supposed to be blamed on you.” I told him that if he sat in the exact center of the table then there shouldn’t be a problem.
He asked me about the book I had been reading earlier and we talked a little bit about it. I just finished the book Anthem in pretty much two days, it’s a short book though. I told him it was the typical failed Utopia, but I didn’t like it as much as 1984 and Brave New World and I also said that I’ve decided it’s because it wasn’t depressing enough. He said that he really liked 1984 but he hasn’t read a book since college. I told him that he should because it might help his spelling (mostly in a teasing manner). He laughed and said it probably would except that he reads phonetically, (and he spells phonetically too). Which is funny because if you read and write phonetically, then you can’t really spell or read that word. If you know how to read “phone” you say the ‘ph’ with an ‘fo” instead of a “fe” so you read the word “phone-ti-cally”. Doesn’t sound a thing like phonetic. Anyway, it’s like why does the word ‘lisp’ have the ‘sp’ that makes it so hard for people with lisp to even say their condition.
We sat in the room for a good ten to fifteen minutes while he wrote up about one of his trainees. He asked me how to spell “bakery” and “opinion”, I helped him with “opinion” but I just looked at him and said, “bakery?” with a “are you serious?” attitude.
As usual TDH tried to type up some e-mails at the end of the night. I corrected a misspelled word or two and then I apologized but spell check would catch those and he told me it’s good to catch them, so right away I pointed out that he had spelled position “p-o-s-s-i-t-i-o-n”. Then I just kept pointing things out. Later he was trying to decide if what he wrote should say “Kitchen Deli” or “Kitchen/Deli” so he just kept saying it. It made me laugh and I told him that it sounded like he short circuited. At one point he was doing something (this is all the same e-mail and it took a good 20 minutes) I just leaned back in my chair and laughed and said that this was my favorite part of the day.
I mentioned something about my office, because I know he’s jealous and I told him how I have a magnet, and some pictures, and he says, “I know I saw the pictures”. To which I replied, ‘You’ve been in my office?!” He had training there the other day so he was in my office doing paperwork. I asked if he saw my turtle and I told him the story behind it (Crunchy gave me the two turtles because we were suppose to run a marathon together and we never did. And I told him when I got a desk job I would take the turtle that represented him and put it on my desk). So I told TDH that I made the goofiest turtle him and now it’s on my desk.
When we went to sign out (because we are there after hours) I asked him what time it was so I could write it down, he said 10 (I had been there since 10:30 that morning) so I wrote “10:00” and then said, “Thank you, TDH., without you I could have gone home at 9:20 and missed out on so much.” He just laughed, which is good because I don’t mean to hurt his feelings, I don’t mind getting paid while he writes e-mails and I proofread them. I wonder if he knows that he is pretty much my best friend.
I’ve decided to change the meaning of the “h” in TDH’s name, instead of ‘handsome’ I’m going with ‘hot’ because while he is extremely good looking, he is not rivaling with Harrison Ford in “Indiana Jones” but rather an Abercrombie and Fitch bag.