by Hazel Anna Rogers for this Carl Kruse Blog
David Lynch said he got fired from all the jobs he ever had.
It was different then because you didn’t have to have a long CV and you didn’t have to sign up on a special website and download an app for the company that you work for and watch all these training videos then do a silly test to prove you remember what you saw in the videos, and there weren’t all these words like ‘SEO’ and ‘Proficient in Photoshop’ and ‘Website Building Experience’.
Yes. It was different then.
But it wasn’t so different, I suppose, because I’ve been fired lots of times too.
I got fired from a barista job I had in Brighton that I’d been working at for 8 months because I got an injury so I couldn’t work, and then when I got better I went on holiday even though they said I wasn’t allowed to go. Ha. And then I came in to the cafe and we joked about it, me and the boss, because he was a funny guy, he really was, we’d laugh all day behind the counter together. I came in after my holiday and said ‘oh, yeah, I quit’ and he said ‘oh, really? I thought I fired you.’ And then we laughed and had a coffee.
I loved that job. It was good making coffee. I remember I went in and we sat together and chatted, me and the boss, and I didn’t have much experience but he liked me so he took me on, and it was dreamy, early mornings walking up the big long hill, sun barely alive, get all the bread off of the bread truck and stack it in the window, then make a foamy fluffy coffee all for me, first coffee of the day, like heaven it was, then all yummy mummies coming in and business professionals all stressed, and I took my time, I made good coffee for them, and I loved it. My boss’ name was Buster, but then a letter got delivered one time and I saw that his name was actually David, Buster was his middle name, and I called him David and he got all flustered and it made me laugh.
I had this other job too, as a prep chef for this French chef in Brighton. Sometimes before going there for a shift I’d smoke a big fat joint in my garden then go all mushy on the couch with a coffee, and my Italian housemate would come in and laugh at me, then I’d leave for work all dopey glass eyes. Ha.
I would do all the prep when me and the French chef were teaching an haute cuisine cooking class to a group of office workers who were doing some sort of teambuilding thing. He’d shout at me in French because none of them could understand. Ha.
Then this one time, I was shooting this short film in a forest with friends and I had to have all this makeup all over my eyes, and then I left and went to work teaching at this massive old private school up in the hills, sort of school where princesses and other rich children go, and then afterwards I got this big email where they said it was unnacceptable for me to go to work with a hangover and my makeup from the night before all over my face, and all that. I protested, but the woman I worked with up at the princess-private-school had a thing against me I reckon, can’t do anything about that, sometimes people just don’t like you even when you do all the smiling. Maybe even sometimes it’s because of that, because of the smiling. Who knows.
They sort of fired me after that.
Ha.
I had this job as a writer, ghostwriting memoirs for this American lady. Did it for almost four years I did, on and off. We used to call on the phone sometimes, talk for hours. She was a mad one. Mind all going wirey broken. Her mother died from early-onset dementia. Her voice was all bright and colourful and American. I loved talking with her. She paid me good, big cheques, kept me alive over the years she did. But then her head started going too wirey paranoid and she started saying all this stuff like I was cheating her or something and I swear I wasn’t, I swear I wasn’t. Then she sort of fired me. She fired me lots of times, then she’d take me back on a bit later, but it’d go all sour milk again after a few months. Those jobs are all crazy, the writing ones. They want you to know what they’re thinking behind the eyes and you’ve got to try to figure it out before they sack you. Ha.
I worked as a cleaner for a bit last year. I liked that. Felt like good honest work. All dirt under your nails and your skin, cleaning the stuff they never even thought to clean, all in the details, your eyes get all particular and exact and you can’t stop till it’s sparkling. Funny how you put all this effort cleaning some other place when your own house is like a trash can. Ha.
I remember I was cleaning this lady’s house, all wooden floor, quiet garden, big wood table, three floors, heaven it was. Her husband directed some Doctor Who episodes, and that was crazy, sometimes he’d be there and I felt like a mouse, nervy scuttling. But then I broke this bowl that she made and she sat there at the table with it in her hands all sad, and I felt real bad, I did, I tried to make it better but she never called me back, that was a shame, I liked that job.
Then I had this job as a bartender at this place I used to drink at on the regular. I started all anxious, little bar it was, no room for mistakes everyone can see them, then I got good and easy, easy it was, sweet too, pouring the drinks all exact, making the good tastes, making the people happy, look how they’re laughing, look how the drink sits beside them and makes the day fall away. Good people I worked with as well. Sometimes I’d laugh so hard with my boss that the stars went all sparky white in my eyes and I had to sit down. I loved that job, and I loved them, and they loved me too, you know. I know it because they said it.
I got fired because of silly things like how the boss is a flirt and how I didn’t want to lie about it to his girl.
Ha.
Hazel Anna Rogers
I’m not angry about it now, it’s just how the waters drift on by and you’re going along with them all smiling fat cat on your raft, then there’s some rapids and the raft goes all plink-plonk upturned, and you try to grab it but it runs away from you, and then you clamber out onto the riverbank and you just gotta sit and wait for another raft to drift over to you, or at least try to build one from the twigs beside you on the shore.
I’m in a bit of a pickle now. The city ain’t so friendly when your wallet’s coming all empty. I’ve thought about leaving. Pack it all in, countryside calling, where are the mountains, the hills, I’ve missed them, it’s all concrete here, even the bugs have run away.
But I don’t think I’m going to leave just yet. I’ve got to get fired a few more times first.
Semper fidelis ad David Lynch.
😉
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This Carl Kruse Blog homepage is at https://carlkruse.at
Contact: carl AT carlkruse DOT com
Other articles by Hazel include Go Read A Book, Trespassing, and Sleep and the Enduring Insomniac.
Carl Kruse maintains an older blog here.
