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Welcome to the Real World.
An Englishman abroad. Ready for the first day at the office, smart but caz the letter said.Ah work, I'd almost forgotten, the 'real' reason I'm out here. The month off since leaving Cheshire County Council allied to my six month sabbatical the previous year had left me struggling to remember what working for a living was really all about but 'D-Day' had finally arrived and my new career as a Senior Consultant with British company Faithful and Gould was about to begin. I wasn't so sure about either part of my new title. 'Senior'. Was it a reference to my wealth of knowledge of all things consultancy or just an indication of my rapidly increasing onset of years? I somehow doubt if it was the former but I certainly wasn't going to argue. And Consultant, Consultant in what ? This part had caused me endless hours of concern in the days and weeks preceding my arrival to the point where I'd asked Phil if he was sure about what he was doing offering me the job. He'd assured me everything would be okay so I had no choice but to believe him. A career spent in Local Government is surely not the perfect preparation for entering the 'real' world and I was
Welcome to the Real World
With Rainer, my Namibian mucker. certain there were going to be some culture shocks along the way. Boy was I right.
Sunday night had been a restless one to say the least. They say moving house let alone country, starting new employment and getting married are the three most stressful things in life and a mind racing with concerns about my new home and new job combined with a back that was so blistered and tender from the previous days frollicking on the beach that it felt as though it had had a blow torch applied for the past week meant that sleep was unfortunately kept to the absolute minimum. With Phil due a visit to the doctors following another fall the previous day when he'd stubbed his good foot on a door jamb and consequently transferred all his weight to his bad leg and my borrowed car having been returned to the intern's the previous day I was collected at 07:50 sharp (shock number 1) by Dan in his Corvette Stingray on the morning of Monday 2nd of June for the ten minute drive to F & G's Seal Beach offices. I'd been slightly surprised on previous visits by the morgue like atmosphere
Welcome to the Real World
Outside Target with some household goods including 37" HD TV. Wow. that prevailed within and wondered if this was just chance that coincided with my visits but after half an hour realised this was how it is all the time. You could hear a pin drop.
Fortunately for me there was another new starter, Nick, a fifty year old pleasant enough ex-pat to share the pressure with and we spent the morning chatting, filling in forms and being briefed on various company policies and procedures by the delightful Megan, the office receptionist before having the pressure eased by being taken for the traditional new starter Sushi lunch by Phil, Dan and another senior staff member Luis, a friendly, forever smiling Venezuean whom I'd met previously at Xmas in San Francisco. Sushi is popular in California and I'd dined out on raw fish and rice with Phil a couple of nights earlier and taken quite a shine to it. This is not the sort of tasteless pre packed stuff that can be bought in M & S for a small fortune but made to order choices which the chef prepare's like he is practising an ancient art form before your very eyes.
At 2.30 Luis sat down to guide us
Welcome to the Real World
Monster Truck. Friday night out celebrating end of my first week. through his part of the initiating process. It is a well known fact that food slows the metabolism down but a second helping of uncooked seafood along with the stifled office atmosphere and unfamiliar subject matter meant that after fifteen minutes I was struggling to keep my eyes open. I felt like the proverbial nodding dog, as though I was in one of those scenes in the movies where someone has slipped something in my drink. At times like these you tend to silently tell yourself to pull yourself together, to sit up straight and concentrate on staying awake, all the while attempting to stretch your face into something resembling normality but it was all to no avail. I was fading fast. Thankfully, after an hour the chat finished, I had successfully managed to avoid dropping off my chair to the floor and was pleased later when Nick told me he'd felt the same. Why does guilt feel less of a burden when It's shared ? Whatever, just after five Dan appeared at the door with his car keys in hand ready for the off and I don't think I've ever been so pleased to see someone in my life. I was in bed for 10:30pm, the earlest night I can remember.
The rest of the week followed a similar pattern, long days spent in front of my new company laptop screen in an atmosphere of almost total silence returning home more fatigued than if I'd just been subjected to eight hours hard labour on a chain gang. It's amazing how spending a whole day looking at a tiny computer screen can sap the life out of you. I spent my time trawling through the company portal learning all about my new employer's, taking advantage of the phone and internet availability to sort out personal matters such as my now opened bank account, electricity and gas supply to my new home and my up coming US driving test and studying at F & G University, the portal based tutorial in which you choose the online courses you wish to study. Phil was spending the week in Pheonix and Seattle so evenings were spent doing a bit of retail therapy in preparation for my move in and alone at his place doing exactly as I pleased although after a trip to the gym or a cycle along the beach I was usually fit to drop.
I was, by the end of the week thankfully beginning to feel comfortable although that was not down to any particular effort by the majority of the staff who had been recruited from all over the globe, India, UK, Japan, South Africa, Vietnam, Venezuela, USA and more. Whenever a newcomer started at Cheshire County I would go out of my way to attempt to make them feel comfortable something I'm sure they would silently be grateful for but that didn't appear to be the way it worked here. Of course there were exceptions. The immediate allies were obviously Lisa who shares an office with Van Wynn, a smiling, friendly girl of Vietnamese extraction who'd come to the States as a nine year old original boat child and their shared office was the one place I felt really comfortable and relaxed and where I'd regularily call in for a chat. Then there was Jivan from Bombay, a divorcee in his fifties who I'd met at Christmas and immediately got on with, Megan the receptionist, Carin, a South African girl of my age who is co vice president of the western region, joint boss with Phil and Rainer, the Namibian intern who had become my closest mucker. Only twenty three he appeared to be the one I had most in common with. Maybe me old boss was right calling me Peter Pan ? And Luis and of course Dan and Phil.
I met others gradually throughout the week. Ian, an ex-pat who's spent the last thirty years in the States, Stephen, another friendly guy recently arrived in the States from Mexico who originated from Macclesfield, James one of only two yanks, a bit eccentric but inoffensive enough who works in the IT section and who wears his pony tailed hair down to his waist and Van Lee, his tiny IT colleague. The rest were generally just a smile and a nod or less as we passed but no doubt I'd become familiar with them in the weeks to come. Lack of available seating meant that I had spent the week sitting in Carin's office as she was out of town on business, just one day in and I was finding out what it is like to sit in the chair of the vice president of an international concern. Not bad for a first week.
There had been one other hinderance to successfully negotiating my first week. Ears. Unfortunately, my seven years or so as a Metal Pigger have meant that since my arrival over here my ears have been playing up again. I've already gone through a bottle of cleaning fluid without much success but it is proving so very frustrating to spend my time in a cocoon of semi deafness, in particular within the muted four walls of the F & G office where I have to strain and concentrate hard to take in what the unfamiliar accents are saying. One morning I engaged in conversation with Van Wynn and Lisa who responded by pulling a face of horror and by putting her finger to her mouth in a gesture that said "Christ almighty Matt, turn it down a bit" as my initial sentence was probably heard all over Seal Beach. The advanced technology available over here but as yet unavailable at Cheshire CC has also caused problems, on more than one occasion I'd approached Van Lee to resolve an IT problem I was having totally unaware that she was engaged in a conference call blurting out my question before she stopped me in my tracks by pointing to the tiny attachment in her ear.
I hired a car on Wednesday afternoon and was pleased to be upgraded to of all things a Nissan Suntra, a long distance relative of my faithfull friend Gordon the Primera and I remembered him with fondness. At 4pm on Friday afternoon I left the office for the short drive to Long Beach Airport to pick Phil up on his return from Seattle, my first week safely negotiated. His flight was due to arrive at 5.15pm so I figured if I made good time I could get to Ikea in Carson, order my sofa ensuring next day delivery and get back to the airport in time to meet him. As I wove through the freeway traffic en route I recalled him telling me how bad rush hour traffic becomes and noticed the opposite south bound lanes crawling at times at barely walking place. I rushed around the store knowing exactly what was required and where to find it, ordered the sofa and even stopped in the self serve area to pick up a few pieces of flat pack furniture before heading for the checkouts. This time my American Express went through okay and I made my way to order delivery. There were three tall book cases that wouldn't fit in the car that would have to wait for another day and it wasn't until I was handing my address over that it occured to me to purchase them now, get them delivered tommorow along with the sofa and save myself another visit. By this time it was about a quarter to five.
"Hold on" I told the young lad when he asked if there was anything else, "I'll be back" and with that jogged back through the check outs, into the self serve and sought out what I wanted. The full size Billy book cases were heavy, so heavy that the sweat was already starting to flow down my brow and there were no signs of any open ended trolleys anywhere. I searched to no avail then noticed at the opposite end of the aisle an unattended trolley laden with furniture. Someone must have had a change of plan I thought. One by one I lifted the cumbersome boxes off the trolley and stacked them in the aisle and then motored across and started lugging my own goods onto them. Just as I finished loading and was preparing to roll a bemused looking Mexican came around the corner.
"Excuse me sir" he said "have you just taken all that off that trolley?" and pointed to the stack of cardboard boxes half blocking the concourse. His gentle almost apologetic manner had taken me slightly by surprise, he had the look of a man who would just as soon have manoevred me swiftly into a headlock and held a switch blade to my throat and that along with my onrushing panic of being late to the airport to pick up peg leg meant that in an instant I decided to take a chance. Looking as though I had not the foggiest idea what he was on about I replied shaking my head "huh, no" and at the same time moved rapidly off steering the trolley around him. I was out of sight and back at delivery before he'd had chance to blink. Unfortunately, that was just the beginning of my nightmare. When I eventually managed to get the original goods out to the sun soaked car I reached into my shorts pockets for the key and they were nowhere to be found. Oh no !. I checked again to no avail and remembered as I'd passed through the bedroom displays I'd lain on a couple of mattresses testing them for comfort, I would have to buy a bed before moving in after all and the only thing I could think of was that the key must have fallen out then. I couldn't leave the trolley by the car, someone would probably do with my goods as I had just done with the Mexican's trolley so I struggled it back to the store as fast as possible, explained to the girl on checkout what had happened and told her to watch my stuff. By this time I was drenched in sweat. As I made my way to the escalator to the third floor I decided to first check the nearby delivery desk and couldn't believe my luck when there they sat by the till, shining brightly like the Jewel of the Nile.
Traffic on the freeway was thick and slow moving but I sped through it ducking and weaving like a pursued fellon on one of those police chases seen on TV. It was five thirty when I approached the traffic signals at the airport having broken every speed restriction in southern LA and as I sat waiting for the lights to change my phone rang. It was Phil.
"Where are you" he asked.
"Be with you in one minute" was my calm reply !
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Ahh yes...the flag of St.George adding that vital jingoistic touch to the decor! I think you should call your ears Emile and Heskey - big but ultimately useless. if you want a quick giggle - go to my page on YouTube and look for the video 'When Tony was Tracey'. I'm going to work on the Straw Hat one next.