A story from my book..."Who is SEan"
Life of a Male Secretary by MDW
Life of a Male Secretary by MDW
How the hell did I get here? Maybe today will be the day I quit.
I hate my life. I hate my job. I considered briefly throwing my alarm clock out the window because it began to depress me. The sight of it sitting in a corner like a rabies-infected dog ready to devour me if I got too close threw off the Feng Shui in my apartment. It was never a welcoming sound, like police sirens when you had more than the drinking driving limit. The rude bitch was loud and uncouth. It agitated heartbeat. It made reality real. Every morning, just when the bed got comfortable, the blanket just right and I was having that dream where I’m a filthy rich Super-friend, the alarm would sound. Every morning I would try to ignore and refuse my eyes to open. I’d ball myself into the fetal position and rock back and forth begging for five more minutes. Finally, I would have to get up and journey barefoot across the cold wooden floor. I pressed the snooze, which meant in ten minutes I’d have to get up and press it again, and again, and so forth until I’m late for work. I never understood the alarm clock. Was it there just to annoy me? With alarm clocks, it’s always Monday, again, like some fucking cruel joke.
I am a male secretary and everyone looks at me like it’s my fault.
My day begins with a cold and raining Chicago February. Outside, the sky is a miserable sick looking gray and I hide behind dark sunglasses because it’s the perfect excuse to not make eye contact with strangers on the crowded Chicago "L". I hate public transportation. It just feels unnatural that so many people are awake and rushing towards jobs they would quit in a heartbeat if something slightly better came alone. To make things worse, on the "L," this baby starts screaming lucid shameless shrieks that claw at eardrums, refusing to be ignored. That damn baby, flings himself to the floor, tears at his clothes, bangs his head, spits and kicks everything in sight, including people. I tell myself if he kicks me, I’m going to kick it back. His disheveled mother, panicking, can’t help but feel the inches of anger directed at her. It’s eight o’clock on miserable Chicago Monday morning and nobody wants to deal with the demon child or hear his cries. Shit, we’re all crying on the inside. But the baby, doesn’t care or know silence, just raw emotion. I feel jealous. I, like the other sheep, pretend to be polite and understanding when I want to tear my Brooks Brothers uniform from my body and fling myself on the floor and scream. I want to be naked. I don’t want to go to work. I don’t want my life, but I’m too lazy and a coward to change anything. I envy the baby because I know I will never scream in public again.
I turn up the music on my MP3 player because I know I shouldn’t be thinking such thoughts. I feel nauseous, it’s the hangover, but like a good boy who eats his vegetables, I swallow the feeling of the chunky vile resentment rising to my throat. Maybe today will be the day I quit. I get to my job and it’s still there, mocking me and pretending to be indestructible. A naughty fantasy about dynamite and wrecking balls gets my dick hard, but when I push through the revolving door and walk towards the elevator, the thrill goes flaccid. I step on the elevator with the crowd and press the button for my floor. I close my eyes to savor those last few seconds of freedom before the metal doors to my hell open and I become a slave again. I don't even have to open my eyes to know that it’s my floor. I turn off my music and remove dark sunglasses. I pry my eyes open and just like a veteran Broadway star, I know the show must go on. I wait for the metal curtains to pull themselves back. Suddenly, I'm nervous and my mind goes blank. I panic in silence trying to remember my lines. I breathe in hard and out quickly. I violently pull my facial muscles to something that closely resembles a smile. I try to convince myself that if I'd just relax, don't fight it; it'll all be over with quickly. I can feel the resentment rise again and acid turn in my stomach. I put a mint in my mouth and try to awake that sparkle in my eyes. The metal doors open and I step off the cliff. I become somebody else. Everybody pretends.
I say "good morning" to the first person I see, which is the receptionist. We both don’t like our jobs, but we’re polite about it.
All the female secretaries, they don't trust me. They look at me like I walked into their immaculate, aromatic, ladies only bathroom naked and drunk, and started pissing on the floor. I'm the only male out of fifteen secretaries. They hardly make eye contact with me. They only speak with a head nod or awkward smile. It's like I make them nervous. They just can't seem to figure me out. Most of them are older and well medicated. They are grandmothers or mothers with children in high school. On their desks and computer monitors are pictures of graduations, weddings and births. They don’t seem to have a life. They are always trying to feed me sugary donuts or some bullshit they baked the night before. They’re conversation is redundant, something about a daughter in love with the wrong man or a flawless and prodigious grandson who’s coming to town. I listen with blank eyes and a rehearsed smile. The other secretaries are the silicon blondes. They wear designer short skirts and speak like sharp edges. Their fake breasts laugh at every Executive’s joke. The look in their eyes is always hungry. They want to be the wife, not the secretary. They frighten me. They remind me of National Geographic deadly predators who appear regal and refined but in a fraction of second their angry claws could rip through your flesh with intense pleasure.
My place of torment is a corporate Law firm with about 400 employees and only five of us are black: three black lawyers, one black male secretary and a part time black receptionist. It’s an observation that only minorities recognize. The day I interviewed I knew I wouldn’t get the job. I am a black male who doesn’t smile which is often mistaken as militancy. I don’t have a nurturing bone in my body and believe wholeheartily in color people’s time. I get there when I get there. I’m a rebel with no fucking cause. I was sure they would see through me. Everyone at the interview reeked of Mozart and Chopin while I was desperately trying to hide my love for gangster rap. The first thing they told me was that they were looking for someone polished. I was recovery from a two-day hangover. I couldn’t possibly believe that I would fit in. I pondered how I was going to hide my addiction for surfing for porn on the web or nightly binge drinking and strip clubs. Somehow among the frigid silicon blondes and mothering grandma’s, I fooled them. Thank god for altoids, Listerine, Visine and affirmative action.
At the office, there is always somebody’s birthday, anniversary, promotion or new pictures of somebody’s baby. The older secretaries go wild over such celebration. They reserve the conference room and order ice-cream. I hate the mandatory celebrations. We gather in the conference room and for thirty minutes I suffer through dry conversations about kids, hemorrhoids and mortgages. The agony teases me like a rusty knife and threatens to kill but instead it just annoys. Every other week, someone is passing around the picture of somebody’s toddler or selling their fucking kids cookies or some bullshit. Nobody believes in birth control anymore. I wonder how they would react if I passed around the results of my latest STD results.
My boss, I'm his first male secretary and I know he's not too comfortable with it. I try to smile and appear perky like the other grandma and blond silicon secretaries but it’s very difficult considering I’m a black male who doesn’t smile. I grew up in the ghetto with cockroaches and bullets and smiling would’ve got you bullet in the head. It just feels blasphemous.
My boss has this picture of himself on his desk in one of those silver family frames mostly used for graduations or weddings. Instead of the cliché, it is a picture of him holding a dead baby deer in a headlock while his right foot stomped down on the mother's head. There are no captions or subtitles with the picture, but I get the sickest feeling that he killed Bambi. My boss, he would never ask me to get his coffee. He rather ask one of the other female secretaries and it pisses me off. I feel jealous because I want to get that fat bastard his coffee. It’s my job. My boss is so fat he could sell shade. He also has crossed eyes. My boss sweats like a keg of beer and breathes like a diesel engine.
My boss is always asking me inappropriate questions like if I caught that basketball or football game last night. I don't know how to tell him that I don't watch sports, so I find myself studying the sports section before work or buying copies of Sports Illustrated to casually place on my desk just to keep the lie alive. My boss calls me names like "buddy" or "bud" with every sentence as if I'm his friend. I'm beginning to think that he thinks that's my name. My boss, Dan, is from Georgia where it's pronounced "jaw her!" My boss, when he calls out my name, I'm not a grown man anymore with my own apartment and drinking problem but a small child or adoring pet, all bright eyed and wagging my tail as I anxiously wait for my Master to give me a command so that I can get a treat. When I hear my name, I jump from my seat and race to his office knocking down anyone who gets in my way. I find myself giddy with nervous anticipation and I don't know why. My boss, when he's talks to me he doesn't look me in the eyes. It makes me feel as if he is embarrassed for me because I'm a man supposedly doing a woman's job. My boss tries to comfort my masculinity by hitting me in the arm or going into long rants about sports and cars or grabbing his nuts when he talks about the "hot" receptionist with the big knockers. I just nod helplessly. I'm always nodding helplessly. My boss and I, we always get to a point of complete uncomfortable silence. He’s nervous around me. I don’t know if it’s because I’m black, or a man. Maybe it’s both.
I hate my job. I hear the alarm clock going off. It’s Monday again. Everybody pretends.
I hate my life. I hate my job. I considered briefly throwing my alarm clock out the window because it began to depress me. The sight of it sitting in a corner like a rabies-infected dog ready to devour me if I got too close threw off the Feng Shui in my apartment. It was never a welcoming sound, like police sirens when you had more than the drinking driving limit. The rude bitch was loud and uncouth. It agitated heartbeat. It made reality real. Every morning, just when the bed got comfortable, the blanket just right and I was having that dream where I’m a filthy rich Super-friend, the alarm would sound. Every morning I would try to ignore and refuse my eyes to open. I’d ball myself into the fetal position and rock back and forth begging for five more minutes. Finally, I would have to get up and journey barefoot across the cold wooden floor. I pressed the snooze, which meant in ten minutes I’d have to get up and press it again, and again, and so forth until I’m late for work. I never understood the alarm clock. Was it there just to annoy me? With alarm clocks, it’s always Monday, again, like some fucking cruel joke.
I am a male secretary and everyone looks at me like it’s my fault.
My day begins with a cold and raining Chicago February. Outside, the sky is a miserable sick looking gray and I hide behind dark sunglasses because it’s the perfect excuse to not make eye contact with strangers on the crowded Chicago "L". I hate public transportation. It just feels unnatural that so many people are awake and rushing towards jobs they would quit in a heartbeat if something slightly better came alone. To make things worse, on the "L," this baby starts screaming lucid shameless shrieks that claw at eardrums, refusing to be ignored. That damn baby, flings himself to the floor, tears at his clothes, bangs his head, spits and kicks everything in sight, including people. I tell myself if he kicks me, I’m going to kick it back. His disheveled mother, panicking, can’t help but feel the inches of anger directed at her. It’s eight o’clock on miserable Chicago Monday morning and nobody wants to deal with the demon child or hear his cries. Shit, we’re all crying on the inside. But the baby, doesn’t care or know silence, just raw emotion. I feel jealous. I, like the other sheep, pretend to be polite and understanding when I want to tear my Brooks Brothers uniform from my body and fling myself on the floor and scream. I want to be naked. I don’t want to go to work. I don’t want my life, but I’m too lazy and a coward to change anything. I envy the baby because I know I will never scream in public again.
I turn up the music on my MP3 player because I know I shouldn’t be thinking such thoughts. I feel nauseous, it’s the hangover, but like a good boy who eats his vegetables, I swallow the feeling of the chunky vile resentment rising to my throat. Maybe today will be the day I quit. I get to my job and it’s still there, mocking me and pretending to be indestructible. A naughty fantasy about dynamite and wrecking balls gets my dick hard, but when I push through the revolving door and walk towards the elevator, the thrill goes flaccid. I step on the elevator with the crowd and press the button for my floor. I close my eyes to savor those last few seconds of freedom before the metal doors to my hell open and I become a slave again. I don't even have to open my eyes to know that it’s my floor. I turn off my music and remove dark sunglasses. I pry my eyes open and just like a veteran Broadway star, I know the show must go on. I wait for the metal curtains to pull themselves back. Suddenly, I'm nervous and my mind goes blank. I panic in silence trying to remember my lines. I breathe in hard and out quickly. I violently pull my facial muscles to something that closely resembles a smile. I try to convince myself that if I'd just relax, don't fight it; it'll all be over with quickly. I can feel the resentment rise again and acid turn in my stomach. I put a mint in my mouth and try to awake that sparkle in my eyes. The metal doors open and I step off the cliff. I become somebody else. Everybody pretends.
I say "good morning" to the first person I see, which is the receptionist. We both don’t like our jobs, but we’re polite about it.
All the female secretaries, they don't trust me. They look at me like I walked into their immaculate, aromatic, ladies only bathroom naked and drunk, and started pissing on the floor. I'm the only male out of fifteen secretaries. They hardly make eye contact with me. They only speak with a head nod or awkward smile. It's like I make them nervous. They just can't seem to figure me out. Most of them are older and well medicated. They are grandmothers or mothers with children in high school. On their desks and computer monitors are pictures of graduations, weddings and births. They don’t seem to have a life. They are always trying to feed me sugary donuts or some bullshit they baked the night before. They’re conversation is redundant, something about a daughter in love with the wrong man or a flawless and prodigious grandson who’s coming to town. I listen with blank eyes and a rehearsed smile. The other secretaries are the silicon blondes. They wear designer short skirts and speak like sharp edges. Their fake breasts laugh at every Executive’s joke. The look in their eyes is always hungry. They want to be the wife, not the secretary. They frighten me. They remind me of National Geographic deadly predators who appear regal and refined but in a fraction of second their angry claws could rip through your flesh with intense pleasure.
My place of torment is a corporate Law firm with about 400 employees and only five of us are black: three black lawyers, one black male secretary and a part time black receptionist. It’s an observation that only minorities recognize. The day I interviewed I knew I wouldn’t get the job. I am a black male who doesn’t smile which is often mistaken as militancy. I don’t have a nurturing bone in my body and believe wholeheartily in color people’s time. I get there when I get there. I’m a rebel with no fucking cause. I was sure they would see through me. Everyone at the interview reeked of Mozart and Chopin while I was desperately trying to hide my love for gangster rap. The first thing they told me was that they were looking for someone polished. I was recovery from a two-day hangover. I couldn’t possibly believe that I would fit in. I pondered how I was going to hide my addiction for surfing for porn on the web or nightly binge drinking and strip clubs. Somehow among the frigid silicon blondes and mothering grandma’s, I fooled them. Thank god for altoids, Listerine, Visine and affirmative action.
At the office, there is always somebody’s birthday, anniversary, promotion or new pictures of somebody’s baby. The older secretaries go wild over such celebration. They reserve the conference room and order ice-cream. I hate the mandatory celebrations. We gather in the conference room and for thirty minutes I suffer through dry conversations about kids, hemorrhoids and mortgages. The agony teases me like a rusty knife and threatens to kill but instead it just annoys. Every other week, someone is passing around the picture of somebody’s toddler or selling their fucking kids cookies or some bullshit. Nobody believes in birth control anymore. I wonder how they would react if I passed around the results of my latest STD results.
My boss, I'm his first male secretary and I know he's not too comfortable with it. I try to smile and appear perky like the other grandma and blond silicon secretaries but it’s very difficult considering I’m a black male who doesn’t smile. I grew up in the ghetto with cockroaches and bullets and smiling would’ve got you bullet in the head. It just feels blasphemous.
My boss has this picture of himself on his desk in one of those silver family frames mostly used for graduations or weddings. Instead of the cliché, it is a picture of him holding a dead baby deer in a headlock while his right foot stomped down on the mother's head. There are no captions or subtitles with the picture, but I get the sickest feeling that he killed Bambi. My boss, he would never ask me to get his coffee. He rather ask one of the other female secretaries and it pisses me off. I feel jealous because I want to get that fat bastard his coffee. It’s my job. My boss is so fat he could sell shade. He also has crossed eyes. My boss sweats like a keg of beer and breathes like a diesel engine.
My boss is always asking me inappropriate questions like if I caught that basketball or football game last night. I don't know how to tell him that I don't watch sports, so I find myself studying the sports section before work or buying copies of Sports Illustrated to casually place on my desk just to keep the lie alive. My boss calls me names like "buddy" or "bud" with every sentence as if I'm his friend. I'm beginning to think that he thinks that's my name. My boss, Dan, is from Georgia where it's pronounced "jaw her!" My boss, when he calls out my name, I'm not a grown man anymore with my own apartment and drinking problem but a small child or adoring pet, all bright eyed and wagging my tail as I anxiously wait for my Master to give me a command so that I can get a treat. When I hear my name, I jump from my seat and race to his office knocking down anyone who gets in my way. I find myself giddy with nervous anticipation and I don't know why. My boss, when he's talks to me he doesn't look me in the eyes. It makes me feel as if he is embarrassed for me because I'm a man supposedly doing a woman's job. My boss tries to comfort my masculinity by hitting me in the arm or going into long rants about sports and cars or grabbing his nuts when he talks about the "hot" receptionist with the big knockers. I just nod helplessly. I'm always nodding helplessly. My boss and I, we always get to a point of complete uncomfortable silence. He’s nervous around me. I don’t know if it’s because I’m black, or a man. Maybe it’s both.
I hate my job. I hear the alarm clock going off. It’s Monday again. Everybody pretends.
3 comments:
Oh my god...
You just summed up my work experience for the past seven years. That's why I'm back in school getting another degree.
Being a male secretary is hell...No it is lower than hell. It's hell's sewage system.
Anyway, I need to start writing my novel. Bleah I'm such a procrastinator.
i'm...just...speechless
not @ your resentment or unhappiness with your job but, your writing is so incredible. i found myself right there with you through the entire excerpt
i anticipate the book release
Wassup bro...
I am a 20 year-old hispanic boy from South America, a gangsta, rapper male secretary. But I do enjoy my job, fo' shizzle dizzle!
How can I maintain the contact with you to exchange experiences? I would like it very much. Feel free to send me an e-mail. It appears on my new blog.
Congratulations for your book and writings. You have a good talent. I am a good writer too, but in Spanish.
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