Friday, November 2, 2007

Halloween and Job

No, they're not the same thing, but along with that I have to tell this story now.

I have a co-worker who's a natural born clown. Despite some language barriers, he's managed to solidify himself as someone who can make anyone laugh. He'll make the younger guys at work laugh, and he'll make the 60 year old woman at work laugh. He kinda has a gift for it, even though he tends to be a little blue at times. But somehow he manages to come across as harmless for the most part. He's like 45 and has a family, but he likes to keep things light and laugh about life I suppose.

Anyway, on Halloween day he was joking about another co-worker, who sorta has some problem genetically or acquired through an accident. He's got a bit of a gait, and one of his eyes is cloudy, either stricken with glaucoma or blindness or something, but it causes it to be less open than the other. Anyway, the joker co-worker was saying that T doesn't need a disguise for Halloween, he just goes out and he is Halloween. And Joker asks me, "Hey, you know Halloween?" I said no, and he promised he'd show me later.

So later just when a team meeting was about to commence, Joker leaned over to me and told me, "Hey, I'm going to say hi to Halloween. You watch." Then he turned around and say, "Hi T. How are you." T waves and smiles. And I'm suppressing the freakin' laughter that's leaking out of me. It's not that T's funny looking and I'm childish, but Joker is so brazen and keen on pointing out T to me that it just cracked me up.

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Halloween was insane. We bought two hulking bags of candy from Costco and put the freaking bin out for the night while we went to the mall for some safe trick or treating. We chose another mall instead of the usual haunt because it was a colder mall, and the one we've been going to for the past two years is a outdoorsy type mall that's great in the summer, but generally quite sucky the rest of the year.

And boy, the mall was packed. With parents and costumed kids, with a lot of really interesting costumes. I cannot account for how many witch moms there were, including my wife. It seemed to be the standard Mom Halloween costume. The standard Dad costume was the I-Ain't-Participating costume, or sometimes, the "Goofy Hat" department. There were a lot of cute babies with their costumes who weren't even awake for the candy scavenging, and two notable families that really won the virtual prize in my head was the Incredibles family, whereby a family of five was dressed like the Pixar flick, and the personifications were perfect. Dad was a tall guy, there was a mom, a teen girl, a younger son, and a baby with a spiky tuff of hair in a stroller. It was quite perfect. Another family of four were dressed up as characters from The Wizard of Oz, with Mom and Dad as Dorothy and the Tin Man, and the two toddlers rounding the rest up.

Our kids were of course, pirates - a fairly popular theme at the mall as you might imagine. I myself don't care much for the theme, since pirating seems so far removed a crime from everyday life that people seem to forget that it's actually a real profession - but our kids do make for charming pirates. Alex had the whole getup, but Zoe was lacking a sword - which she compensated by bringing the knight sword that Alex had for his birthday. Well, not minutes after being in the mall, I was stuck shoving the sword in my belt. So, I was crazed Dad with sword.

Anyway, Halloween was just that. We went home and had a few more trick or treaters, and Alex was actually disappointed that we didn't have more. But they were just beat by the end of the day.

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Back to work. I interviewed last Monday for a position in Sales, and the interview went well, though it might have gone a little too well. It was the first interview I've ever done whereby I'd cracked up the whole room with my jokes, one of which was actually laughing so hard that she cried. I don't know if it spoke about my experience, but I guess I strive better in interviews when I'm more informed.

Either way though, either I'll get pick up in Sales or my current position's been offered to me as a full time employee, which is really great news. My betters thought well of me, which is quite a feat and (boast) a testament to my character, since I've only been working there for four months and my current two bosses didn't come on till mid-September, which means my impression on them has only been 2 months in. My supervisor is training me to release sales orders, even though she doesn't know if I'm staying. But the future's looking pretty secure for me, for which I'm glad. It's nice to know that you have an actual job as opposed to a contract position.

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