Many moons ago, I was in my fifth year as a desk monkey for one of the textile mills that had a near-monopoly on local employment. I had been recently promoted to sales analyst, which basically meant I had new responsibilities as well as all my old ones. I liked being a numbers guy, not like those crones in customer service, nearly shaking after every call because assholes like to scream at the first person who picks up the phone. Microsoft Excel was my bitch and I was a veritable maestro of composing functions. I was able to integrate each one I developed into all my reports and use the free time i got to develop more powerful tools. Reports were given at the time I used to hand them in on week one, not when they were actually being done. So, on Monday’s, a simple push of F9 and bam, three days of work was done and I could fuck the dog until well into hump day. Easey peasey.
On the flip-side, I dealt with a mass of idiots who by default ranked higher than me. There’s this part in the movie Office Space where the main character tells the two evaluators that he has seven bosses and I took count and realized I also had seven. They were easy to satiate, since most of their ‘urgent’ problems revolved around their computer not working right or some other ‘incapable-but-somehow-rich-guy’ bullshit. They treated everyone who acted like they cared about, or depended on being there, like peasants. I stated openly if I was ever let go I’d go right back to lumber yards and didn’t care one bit, hence my progressive climb up the ranks. But that is a lot of sedentary life and as a gamer, I wasn’t doing much at home to help balance the lifestyle. I weighed 308 lbs, lost all my muscle mass and got winded on every flight with five or more steps. I was getting a lot of headaches and felt like shit, between the clashing egos and crumbling mental states, some days I’d just barf in the parking lot on site of the building. I wanted out.
In December 2004 the administration were called into the president’s office and we were told the place was closing, as were all the other plants in town. People started crying, eyes were low but it took everything I had not to send my fat ass into a backflip out of pure, uncut joy. Not only could I take my time finding something I really wanted to do, half the town I hated living in lost their jobs and were ruined. The golden age of going to high school until grade 9 and getting a job at the mills was over. Because I’m big and good with numbers, I was one of the few hired for an extra few months to gore the place from the inside and hand the slices to the asset-vultures, who’s semi trailers circled the cadaver until there was nothing left to take. Truly, I was on a high and thanked the cosmos for giving me exactly what I never realized I wanted. It was literally one of those ‘belief in a higher power’ moments, as I knew my feeble, mortal wetware CPU couldn’t fathom such delectable circumstances.
I decide to take some time off and the plan is to start looking for work a month or so into my unemployment. I wasn’t worried – I was 25, and able to do both physical labour as well as office work. That’s when she brought it to me. My mom, with an ad in our local paper, a job post that began in April. I’d already declared that I didn’t want to sit at a desk ever again, but would if I had to, and this was not that. The ad was from a monument shop and the job was for a tombstone engraver. I grew up near a cemetery and spent lots of time in imaginationland there, and even in my shittiest years as a human being (teenager), I never fucked with the dead or the elderly. I had to apply, and did, along with the plethora of other mill rats looking for gainful employment. I can’t remember exactly how the interview with the owner and his daughter went but I know my high school diploma and 6’4” frame were enough to have them give me a shot.
Since training in this field is… kinda few and far between, I was to be trained by the outgoing engraver. In my head, I nicknamed him Yoda, because he was small, hunched over, and decades of smoking contraband cigarettes gave his skin this almost greenish tone. Just like in the movie. I learned from the ‘master’ that he also starts when he was twenty-five and had done the job forty years, and after he was done with training me, he was going full sprint into his retirement. After two months, he was gone but thankfully, between my new boss and his brother, there was over a century’s worth of experience to tap into. Suddenly, my work no longer revolved around reports that would be seen once before being put to the shredder, but permanent fixtures on hallowed ground that would stand long after the rest of us would not. Instead of frayed nerves of burnt out desk-jockeys, I was engaged in sick locker room talk with cemetery caretakers who had seen it all. To this day, if I’m on site at an installation and the breeze blows just right, I DO take a moment to drink in the gifts fate just keeps handing me, never not once taking them for granted.
This week, I began my thirteenth season at the shop and by season I mean it’s seasonal work. Work I love, but still get a three month break from during the worst months of Canadian winter to just wake up when I want and game till I don’t, to digest that Netflix ‘My List’ and make the rounds to see friends. I’ve lost eighty pounds since then, just by having a job that’s more physical labour than not, and I feel great. What’s the point of this post? Well, it’s another insight as to where my perspective is being aimed from, and that now it’s me that’s seeing things from a slot in a community I never thought I’d find a place in until I wandered into it. I’ve made monuments for people who’ve gone every way imaginable, from old age to suicide, car accident, drug overdose, serial killer victim, and that motherfucker cancer. It’s why I can relate better than anyone to this #yolo shit, because the morons touting that are ironically exploiting the message to justify things they’ll have no choice but to face on their deathbed.
It feels so good to be back and share my fate with anyone willing to read about it! If I’m savvy enough, I’ll leave a link to my Instagram account below, so you can see my first stone of the year, minus the long sandblasting sections and a few trade secrets I prefer to keep to myself! Have a great day!
This Earth: A Fantasy World 