Talking Visors in the Beaulangerie
—-she had taken a job arranging sliced muffins on very nice platters. That was it. That’s what she did now. She used to do something more “important”, in Corporate Merica.
“Well, don’t you miss your co-workers?” I asked her. “Or those nice end of year bonus checks?”
Not one bit, she told me. And I believed her, for the tranquility I could see now in her eyes.
Didn’t you get to drive up to those fancy buildings, walk around on those glassy campuses, schmooze with the movers and shakers?
They was always shaking something she hummed back.
You seem almost angry, I told her.
“Fit to be tied, I was, at one point.”
What was your biggest beef, I asked her?
“Ain’t nobody governing nobody up there in them places. Just a bunch of highschoolers playing who’s who in their sillycon yearbooks.”
You didn’t like the bosses?
Hell no! There weren’t any bosses! People with titles? Sho, there were fancy titles. But all I ever saw was people with titles strolling around while the rest of us worked, telling jokes, planning television show watching parties, deciding who’s sports teams were going to beat whose sports teams.
But you worked there for like 7 years?
“People do what they think they gotta do.”
You know, there had to be some bosses getting something done or your company wouldn’t be climbing still in business.
“Now that’s where you’re wrong—”
she flung some frosting at me.
“—plenty of enterprises be going on in this world with no business or explanation for how it is that this should be true.”
How does that happen?
“Because, nobody be “Vising” any more”
Vising?
“You know, Vising. Like you got your normal vising. . .
(at this point she got her peep-focals out, the kind where you make binoculars out of your fingers)
. . . and then you got, like you’re Super Vising, that’s where you do the Vising real good, or you stand up higher and Vise over everyone else in your department.”
I reached over and pulled her tray of cupcakes away from her.
Level with me for a second, what is it you are really trying to say? Because I really wanna know why you’re working in a bakery when you used to light it up, heading towards a 6-figure job.
“Alright, I’ll say it straight and slow for you, so you don’t miss the pudding in the muffins. It’s like this:
People need bosses. Even though they say they don’t. Not everybody can just see the big picture all the time. That’s what a boss is supposed to do.
People need managers, even though they’d like to run the show themselves, because you need someone outside the process, off the frontline, to make the decisions you can’t make when you’re in the fray.
People need supervisors so that someone is making sure the whole deal’s fair, that one person ain’t working harder than the next, and one girls not cheating to meet her quota.
You can’t do all that yourself and get the core job done in the process.”
So you’re a fan of bosses?
Sometimes.
And you’re angry that you didn’t have one?
“Semi-Precisely!”
Semi?
“I’m angry that I was working harder than my bosses. I’m angry that they were playing when they should have been watching. I’m angry that social politics at the job was the only thing that really got measured. I’m angry that they managed us based on metrics and random high-tower measurements without really ever getting to know the real folk.”
You’re bitter?
(licking some frosting off her finger) Not any more, now I’m sweet.
How did it all happen?
How did what happen?
The bosses gone awol.
“Oh, that. I’ve got a few thoughts on that one. But first you have to try my rhubarb tarts.
(I sampled them, a small bit of heaven thickening my arteries)
Lawsuits is my first thought.”
Lawsuits?
“Yeah. Measure people by ambiguous metrics and invisible guidelines and you can still hire, fire and promote whomever you like, and all you have to do is pull out a metric whenever it’s needed to support your case.”
But what does that buy for you?
You don’t have to ride people. You don’t have to keep having heated meetings. Nobody’s your tough boss who fires you; it’s just the numbers that do it to you. How you gonna rage into your office and beat up some numbers. You just take your mathematical licking and you go home and nurse your wounds.
And where was this place again?
Corporate Merica.
Corporate Merica.
Is there any hope for her?
Who?
Corporate Merica.
“Sure, she’s just got to remember what’s what and whose who.”
Oh, I see. But I didn’t really.
(I looked around for a glass of milk; the store she worked in made me cow-thirsty)
Is there anything they could change to get you back?
(She got sort of misty eyed for a moment)
“Yeah, they could work to make things a more loving environment. No more campaigns to do things that look charitable, look compassionate, all happening where the corporate newsletters are snapping their photographs. But real good old fashioned honest talk and touch you on the shoulder to see how you’re doing. How you’re really doing.”
Sounds nice.
(I set my empty glass of milk down on the counter)
So how do you know how you’re doing now? You know, at this job? Are there any killer metrics?
“I gotta boss. And he tells me when I’m getting it done right and when I’m slacking. But they the bosses out there.”
Out where?
“You see those people,” she said, as she pointed to the ones eating soups and sandwiches out in her waiting area, with lemons in their water and newspapers they were reading.
“If they keep smiling at me and knowing my name each time they come to the counter. If they request a different day a treat I gave them last month, well, that’s how I know”.
That’s how you know?
“That’s it.”
Well, thanks for your time. You didn’t have to spare it.
“Yes, I did.”
Why’s that.
“Cuz I was vising you. And you’s good people. I can tell it from your eyes. There’s kindness and honesty there. And that’s the kind of place I want to bake good muffins for and give my very best to.”
I tipped my hat to the smart lady, and put my notebook back into my semi-corporate striped slacks. It was back to the office. Back to the grind.
Would I return from lunch changed at all?
