Crunch Time At Work - An Ode (Okay, "Ode" Is A Little Strong...)

[Maris] enjoying crunch time - Photo by Joe

This will be quick, because if I don't keep it short, I'll just end up whining, and NOBODY wants that. Throughout my working life, I have held job after job where there's a distinct busy season. I know this is not uncommon, but I seem to have invented a "career path" where the crunchiness of the crunch times has increased with each new job. 

It started with retail. Sweet Zombie Jeebus, the whole last quarter of each year was a nightmare of twelve-hour shifts, increasingly-stressed and obnoxious customers, and the flu. It's a rite of passage for a lot of young workers - or, it was, when malls were still a thing, but I'm here to tell you, the only reason we didn't all go postal every January was because we were too exhausted to bother.

My next job didn't have a busy season, and it was wonderful and I loved it until it went to hell and I got laid off. The job after that had monthly crunch times for those of us tasked with processing orders. Salespeople are terrible to begin with, but their customers are just as bad. Knowing that we were a public company that had to report its monthly numbers to the board - and to the shareholders - customers knew the best deals were to be had when salesdudes were desperate to make their quotas on the last day of the month. We'd be in the office until 11pm every month - and don't even get me started on that company's YEAR-END. Moving on...

Then there was the good ol' VORTEX OF DOOM. Same M.O. as the previous job, but fortunately, they managed to only go through that nonsense every quarter-end. It was still ridiculous, of course. Roughly 85 percent of each quarter's bookings came in over the course of a couple of days. It was grueling, but kinda cool, as I was the only person managing incoming orders, so A) I felt super-important, and B) the sales team started bribing/thanking me with bottles of expensive booze. 

Joe enjoying crunch time (my hair was longer then) - Photo by The Internet

For the fourteenth year, I'm embarking on my busy time at Beloved Employer. We're a large nonprofit, so a LOT of our donors only give (or give more) at the end of the year. I don't have the actual numbers, but our mail/gift volumes go sky high from about Thanksgiving to New Year's - with the processing of said gifts stretching through at least half of January. Behold...

"This is just from one day?" eBFFs tryin' to stay helpful - Photo by Joe

Last year, I took on the processing of the "major" gifts. It's cool - a lot of wealthy people get extremely generous at year-end. We handle their gifts carefully, and extra work is involved, blah blah blah, and the volume becomes insane - mainly because, thanks to COVID and the remote-izing of almost everyone, I'm once again THE ONLY PERSON doing this work - in a $200 million organization. So, yeah. My usual cherub-like demeanor goes into hibernation for about two months, and my family (and friends, if I had any) wonder why I zombie my way through the holidays like someone who just worked 12 hours and still has a huge pile of work on his desk just waiting for him, taunting him, belittling and insulting him. Pushing him down and taking his lunch money (which is fine, because who has time for lunch).

But here's the thing...

I kind of dig this nonsense. I get to feel essential for a hot minute. I get a bunch of overtime pay (this would be a VERY different story, if I were an exempt employee). I get a nice reminder that my org does work that people just GIVE US MONEY - Sometimes a LOT of money - to do, and year-end is like a couple of months of that concept on steroids. It's brutal, and it (almost) ruins the holidays for me, but there's an adrenaline rush to be had, and I'm all about rushes, right?

Trainwhistle Abejundio Can't Sit Still

N&W Class J #611. We hear and we obey.

1936. It was five-thirty on a chilly late-September afternoon in Cumberland, and the yard was filled with idle trains. The autumn sun had been weak to begin with, but now, through the haze of a dozen steam locomotives and scores of wood-burning stoves, it was downright feeble, failing to draw a shadow from Mexico Tower, at the south end of the yard. A double blast from a throaty steam whistle echoed through the valley, announcing the impending forward movement of a stopped train.

Trainwhistle Abejundio leapt to his feet and grabbed the ratty burlap sack containing all five of his worldly possessions. "That's my train! Gotta go..."

"Oh, for Pete's sake, Abejundio, please be still," Dee Snider groaned. "That was just the yard hump engine - or maybe a helper, headed back from Sand Patch."

"No, Deandra. It's that westbound freight we saw sitting in the yard," Abejundio insisted, "We gotta hop it, or we'll be here all weekend."

"Well, we'll never hop it from a mile away. Besides, what's the matter with a weekend in beautiful downtown Cumberland, Maryland," Dee said, with a dash of sarcasm. "Why can't you ever just stay put for a couple days? Ol' Barb might be coming through here..."

Trainwhistle Abejundio did not care to see Ol' Barb Stab-You-Quick, as he had met her once before, and it had not gone well. He also was less than fond of staying put - in Cumberland or anywhere else. "How long have you been a hobo?" he asked his grubby, spindly walking companion and frequent partner in petty larceny.

"Five years," she said flatly, "why?"

"Because 'can't stay put' kind of comes with the territory. It's right there in the name..."

"Abejundio? Oh - I get it. Can't sit still."

"No. In the name 'hobo,'" he said.

"Hobo is a title," she corrected, "Not a name."

"Whatever you say. I'm fixin' to hop that westbound and get to Grafton, tonight. By this time tomorrow, I'll be in Cincinnati, eating oysters and having a grand time..."

"Stop. Oysters? You think they have Oysters in Cincinnati?"

"Well, I don't know what they have in Cincy, Dee. Pierogi? Roast beef and cloudberries - whatever it is, I'll be enjoying it, while you're sitting here in overcooked squirrel town, or dirty waterville, or whatever they're calling it, this year..."

Dee Snider moved a half-pound of long, frizzy, blonde curls from her face, and stared at her friend. "What happened to you, Abejundio? You're so bitter."

He sighed heavily, shook his head at the caboose of the departing westbound freight, and dropped his stick and bindle. "I was born in El Paso, supposedly a half hour after my parents crossed the border. When I was twelve, my dad died while saving France in the Great War, and my Mom passed less than a year later, from fingernails..."

"From fingernails?" she repeated.

"Yes, fingernails. Anyway, I pretended not to understand English for a few years, and watched as the younger boys at the home all found gringo parents, and I heard the train whistles from the Union Pacific yard - as well as the nun's jokes about giving up and putting me on an eastbound train, because, they said, there were way more suckers on the east coast."

"Rude," Dee declared, supportively.

"Yes," Abejundio agreed, "very rude. So, I took matters into my own hands, and found an empty cattle car bound for who knew where, and I was gone."

Dee nodded thoughtfully. "Sounds like almost every hobo story I've heard. But it doesn't really explain your recent bitterness, does it?"

"It does not."

It did not.

"Well?"

He sighed the rattling, shallow sigh of a man who'd spent way too much time around coal and smoke. "It's really very simple. I'm losing the last good thing I have."

"What on earth are you talking about? You're a hobo. You have nothing."

"Not quite," he said. "I lost my folks, I lost my job, my home, my faith, my way - like we all have - but I still had my gift. I got my hobo moniker for it, and now I'm losing it."

"The 'Trainwhistle' part, or 'Abejundio?'" Dee asked.

He blinked several times at her. "Trainwhistle," he said. "Abejundio is my given name. I got to be known as Trainwhistle on account of my uncanny ability to emulate the specific whistle sound of any locomotive, from Maine to California - even the little short lines and logging railroads. Name a loco, and I could mimic its call, plain as day..."

Dee clasped her hands excitedly. "That's marvelous! How have I never heard you do this? Do one now. Let me hear a Pacific."

"I've actually done it around you plenty of times. I just made sure you weren't looking, and you always thought you heard a train."

Dee tilted her head at him. "Well, that's not very nice."

"I know. I'm sorry. Anyway, I haven't done it in six months. I can't, anymore. I've gone tone-deaf."

"Oh," she said, shaking her head at the ground. "That's sad. I'm sorry. Well - at least you had a gift, for a while. I got nothing."

"You have one," he said, "and it's the same one I have, now - so we're even. It's my last gift - and the first gift of every hobo. It's the reason I'm so hell-bent on living up to the meaning of Abejundio."

"Freedom," she said, not looking up.

"Freedom," he echoed. "Let's find a place to camp. Maybe I will stick around and say hello to Ol' Barb..."
 

Random Act: What Just Happened?

Last Thursday, I witnessed an act. 

I think it was one of those "random acts of kindness" that people try to tell me occasionally happen.  It seemed random, and I'm fairly certain it was kind.  I know it was over before it started, and I'm pretty sure no one else on the train saw it.

What I know:

• The Green Line train was extra-crowded.  There were Nationals fans (and some Phillies fans), in addition to the regular 5:30 crush of weary commuters.  This always makes for a somewhat uncomfortable mix of happy, excited riders and tired, annoyed ones.
• Across from me, there was a young black man, probably in his mid-20s, holding a sleeping 4-to-5-year old girl, presumably his daughter. He was 3/4-asleep, himself. Next to them, another daughter, approximately 7 years old, was also failing to stay awake, her book bag on the floor between her feet.
• At L'Enfant Plaza station, a young white man, probably also under 30, stooped briefly in front of the snoozing family, as if picking something up from the floor, handed it to the groggy dad, and quickly exited the train.
• The young father was reticent. And no, I do not mean "reluctant," because A) I know the difference between reticent and reluctant, and B) There was no time for reluctance. This guy just appeared, put a folded piece of yellow paper into the dad's hand, and was gone.  The young father, his hands literally full, was shy. He had been keeping entirely to himself and his small brood.  When the older girl had asked how many more stops, no one heard his reply but her. When the man handed him the note, which was folded around at least a few dollars in cash, the dad remained silent. He glanced up in surprise, but quickly closed his hand around the note and returned his focus to his sleeping children.
• At the next stop, after giving the older girl a couple of gentle pokes and a quiet "one more stop," he looked around briefly, then snuck a peek at the note and the cash. He smiled. It was an exhausted, but surprised and - I think - touched and grateful little smile. He tucked the gift into the only pocket he could reach - that of his sleeping little girl.

What I do not know:

What had just happened? Technically, I cannot completely rule out the possibility that the dad actually had dropped the item. Nor is it 100% impossible that he and the young white male know each other, and that the item handed off was expected. I do rule these out, though.  I just do.

So... My mind was off and running. How much money? Why? What did the note say? Was it even KIND?

What it probably said was, "God bless you," because that's what it probably said. 

It might have said "Next time you take the train, hand this to the person next to the door as you leave."

Or... "Pay it forward."

Or... "I found this $35 on the platform. I want you to have it."

Or maybe it was a large amount of money, and the note said, "You need a car," or "For college."

But maybe it wasn't at all as it appeared to be.  Perhaps the note said, "Get that kid some shampoo, loser!"

Or... "Don't spend this on booze/drugs/anything that says 'Frozen'/gummy bears."

Or... "I don't like seeing kids on the train - take a cab next time."

Or... "I have made a LOT of assumptions about you and your situation, so please take this and let me go home and feel good about myself."

Or... "Metro's too expensive."

Now, I can't pretend to know what the guy was thinking, when he handed the note and cash to a fellow Metro rider. It's possible that he was utterly misguided. The father and his two girls showed no outward signs of need; they weren't sitting there in rags, and their final stop turned out to be the Navy Yard/Nationals Park station - not exactly the projects. The altruist may have made any number of flawed assumptions, here. For that matter, I may be doing exactly the same thing, now, because really I simply do not know what it was that I witnessed. 

But here's the thing:  IT DOESN'T MATTER. It doesn't matter what the giver's motivation or intention was. It doesn't matter what the receiver's situation or level of need was. A gift was handed from stranger to stranger - a gift that may or may not have even been needed - and neither race, nor income, nor station in life nor anything else mattered in the moment that that gift went from the one hand to the other.

What matters is that someone appeared, did something for someone else, and moved on.  Whether it was a token gesture, or a life-changing event, what matters is the fact that it was done.


Once again, I am here (rather belatedly) prompted by my friends at Studio 30 Plus, who this week gave us "reticent" or "shy." 

The Silver Jacket Man's Gift

There were not many hoboes who could accurately be described as beloved.  Rarer still were the hoboes of African descent who were  beloved equally by both whites and blacks.  The Silver Jacket Man was such a hobo.  

His funeral in October of 1931 was attended by nearly a hundred of his fellow drifters, which was remarkable if for no other reason than the difficulty of getting the news out to that many solitary, widely-dispersed vagrants.  The hoboes had long used simple hieroglyphs, usually in chalk or charcoal, to leave each other messages, but The Silver Jacket Man's friends knew that that alone would not cut it.  Luckily, even the railroad cops, yardmasters and tower operators had come to know this man.  So his friends came up with a simple pictograph of an empty, horizontal jacket, a cross, a date and the letters "MX."  The tower operator at Viaduct Junction in Cumberland agreed to telegraph a description of the symbols to other towers.  The news spread, nearly coast-to-coast, overnight.  The operators scrawled the message on the outside walls of their towers.  Translated, it basically said "The Silver Jacket Man has died.  Funeral on Sunday behind the Mexico tower, Cumberland."

The Silver Jacket Man was widely-known and yes, he wore a silver jacket.  It was technically white, but he had meticulously sewn dozens of tiny rows of fish scales to it, resulting in a silvery shine.  He was one of the oldest known hoboes when he died, aged well into his seventies.  He was the only son of a freed slave.  He was a serene, peaceful man, and his good nature toward his fellow hobo knew no color.  In that, he was decades ahead of his time.  He was also quite gifted.

Rufus Caboose gave the eulogy.

"Friends, Brothers, we have gathered here in the shadow of Mexico tower on this cold autumn afternoon to bid a fond farewell to our dearest friend, The Silver Jacket Man.  It's a hard word, 'farewell.'  Sticks in your throat.  Don't want to say it.  But I say take heart, brethren, for today we celebrate.  Yes, we celebrate the life of this beautiful man.  We are here to thank him for the time he was with us, and for the gift he brought to us - surely from God Almighty His Own Self!  Yes, we are sad.  But so too should we be glad.

My apologies, brothers and sisters.  I am not here to preach at you.  I know that many of you are sure that God has long forgotten us, and some of you have darker thoughts still.  I have been without a home for so long now, I cannot even argue with you.  But surely The Silver Jacket Man was proof that there is still some good in this world, and maybe a few drips of that goodness trickled here - through him - from the next world. 


How else can you explain a colored hobo who had nothing but love for all men?  Looking out at all of your faces, I got to say I had no idea there were so many colored hoboes.  I kind of always thought The Silver Jacket Man and I were the only ones.  I bet it makes him real happy today to see his white friends mixing with his friends of color.  I know it might be hard to tell which is which, under all the grime, but he knows.


I think we all know that his father spent the best years of his life as a slave on a Georgia farm.  Most of us probably know that his father could not let go of his bitterness, even years after being freed.  What The Silver Jacket Man didn't like to talk about was how he fought every day to forgive his father's anger, and how he wished and prayed and worked to make his own way, free of hate.  He believed that no one could hate him without cause, and that the darkness of his skin was not such cause.  He wasn't always right, but he always told me he was right more often than not.


I never heard a man say 'peace' - and mean it - more than The Silver Jacket Man.  And we all know he'd give a stranger his last scoop of beans without even thinking about it.  But that ain't his greatest gift.  I know some of you young folks out there never got to see it, but I bet you've heard about it.  


The Silver Jacket Man was our only barber.  No one else could cut a hobo's rough and terrible hair like he could.  Didn't matter who you were - colored, white, whatever - he knew how to cut through the dirt and the twigs and tangles and years, and make you feel human again.  I don't know how he did it.  No one knows how he did it.  They say he just picked up some old rusty shears one day and taught himself.  He probably saved some of us from deadly infections from the scalp crabs and whatnot.  It was his gift, and he gave it freely, never asking nothing in return.


I know it gave him great joy to be able to give something of value, something unique, to his wandering brothers.  These last few years, his fingers betrayed him, went stiff and sore on him, but he just kept cutting.  Fought through the pain, he did.  He told me once that a good haircut was all he really had to offer, and he swore he'd keep doin' it til his last day on earth.  I think he did that, but I respectfully disagree with him on one thing.


I don't believe cutting our nasty hair was his only gift.  I believe that everything about this man was a gift.  And we who knew him in life are surely blessed.  I will miss him.  I know I'll really miss him, come time for my next haircut.  Farewell, my brother.  I hope I see you again someday."