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?

1983

The favorite year.  Most people have one.  It usually occurs in one's late teens or early twenties, and involves some sort of coming-of-age event, like a first job, first love, first sexual encounter, first drug experimentation, first out-of-body experience, first murder, first space flight, first arrest and so on.  For some, it comes later, and centers around becoming a parent.  For a few, the favorite year comes late in life - retirement, grandchildren, enlightenment, transcendence.

I have a lot of favorite years, and I'd love to bore you with tales of 1978, 1988, 1996, and 2000 - but I won't.  Tonight, let's take a quick peek at 1983, because really, it was all downhill from there, in so many ways.

I was fifteen when the year began, and younger than my years, so my world was an amalgam of music, movies, video games, and a few TV shows... Oh, and my first job.

First, there was snow.  We don't get a lot of snow, in the DC area, but in February of '83, we got this:

Thirty Inches of White Sky-excrement

I know that by now, if you've read what I have to say about winter, you know that I am not a fan.  I hate snow - because I'm an adult, now.  In 1983, however, it was pure white fluffy frozen MAGIC.  Anyway...

Television.  I had outgrown "Little House On The Prairie," and "Automan" proved to be a giant lie - with trailers that deliberately made it look like "TRON," but a show that was beyond terrible.  I was too young to care about "Dynasty," and even at fifteen-going-on sixteen, I could not wait for "M*A*S*H" to just end, already.  Also, I really thought "Just Our Luck" and "Mr. Smith" had a chance, but they were dead on arrival.  But there were bright spots.  "Taxi" showed promise, "Cheers" was good, and "V" did not disappoint, but in early '83, we obtained our first VCR, and suddenly it was MOVIES that we wanted on our TV screen.

"Cujo" was, as almost all big-screen adaptations of Stephen King stories are, a gigantic disappointment, but "War Games," "Risky Business," "Flashdance," "Monty Python's The Meaning of Life," "The Outsiders," "Return of The Jedi," "Vacation," "Scarface," and -helLO- "A Christmas Story?"  It was not a bad year.  Not enough?  How about "Eddie and The Cruisers," "The House On Sorority Row," and "Krull?"  Yeah - top that, 1984.

Of course, at 15-16 years old, I couldn't help but be ruled by music.  Whether it was on the turntable of our first real component stereo system, on my first boom-box, or in the too-powerful headphones of my first-generation FM Walkman, it was one of the driving forces behind my adolescent psyche.

There's entirely too much music to even begin to attempt to think about doing justice to, here.  Rest assured, if Bowie said "Let's Dance," we danced.  If the Plimsouls were "A Million Miles Away," so were we.  When the Stray Cats were "Sexy and 17," and demanded that we "Rock This Town," we did.  Thomas Dolby couldn't find "One of Our Submarines," Kajagoogoo was "Too Shy," Peter Schilling hijacked "Major Tom," and Men At Work said it was all "Overkill," and we were all like, "I'll Tumble For Ya," it's just "The Politics of Dancing -" no, "Don't Change" "My Ever-changing Moods -" "Goodbye to You."

I'll be brief on the video games, too.  I mean, it's not like anyone remembers Congo Bongo, Tapper, Blaster, Mappy, or Gyruss, right?  Everyone's all about Pac Man, Ms. Pac Man, and Q*Bert, blah blah blah.  But does anyone want to join me in a rousing adventure in Mr. Do's Castle, or a round of Crossbow, or the Journey (as in, the band) video game travesty, disaster, and money-grab?  No.  You're all off playing Missile Command, or Centipede.  Harrumph.

Now, about that first job.  In the late summer of 1983, I graduated from delivering newspapers to making bad pizza, cleaning up after bad pizza-eaters, and entertaining bad pizza-eating children - at Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theatre, in Rockville, Maryland.  Yes, they actually spelled "theatre" that way.  Anyway - click on that link, read that story, and you'll get a feel for why 1983 was special.

That's about it, really - although I would appreciate a little credit from you sports-haters, for not mentioning the Redskins' Superbowl victory or the Orioles' World Series victory.  You're welcome.

Anyway.  This post-a-day thing is already dragging a bit, but bear with me.  There's much for which we will be THANKFUL, as well as the highly-anticipated by no one TWO-HUNDREDTH POST!  I know!  The all-caps should arouse some excitement.  No?  That's okay.  Just don't leave me.  Yet.  

Please?