Capturing Daily Life
|
Candidate Insider
A Weblog by
David Scully
I Worked For
The Ayatollah !
And His Girly-Man
Lieutenant !
May 20, 2004 (Thursday)
He was old.
And he was mean.
He appeared near death.
And he wanted the rest of us
to join in his misery.
His name was George Hoopes,
and he was our supervisor
at the Sacramento County
Assessor's Office,
on the watch of
Wally Engel,
Roger Fong and
Pete Louie.
It was 1979,
and our American countrymen
were still imprisoned
at the American Embassy in Iran,
under the Ayatollah Khomeini.
And so, too, were we,
probationary Real Property Appraiser I's,
imprisoned under a ruler
no less nasty, mean, and brutish
(and short, too).
I came to call him
The George-Atollah Hoopes-ameini.
Once a week or so
he would shuffle in
from his desk,
which was located
right outside the open doorway
from our workspace,
and stand in front of us
and sneer, and breathe loudly,
like a tired old, nasty
junkyard dog.
I remember the first time we met him.
We new hires had been training together
for about a month or two
before we were assigned to work
in a small rented space
in a strip mall in Carmichael, Ca.
I had already been putting up with
the boorish hostility
of the Saddam Hussein
look-alike and act-alike,
Ron Hammer, and I coped
by joking with the group
and making everyone laugh.
The morning we met the George-Atollah,
I had calculated the mileage
from my home in Davis
to work in Carmichael
and had challenged my co-workers
to see who could guess the closest.
This poor group must have had
rather sad and empty lives,
because they always perked up
like bored kids on a long road trip,
whenever I lightened things up
with a little diversion or entertainment.
With eagerness and excitement
they offered their estimates.
The George-Atollah heard the excitement
and shuffled in and sneered.
"What's going on ?"
I tried to include
this modern-day Scrooge
in on the fun
and challenged him to guess.
My wits were about me that morning
and, when he proffered his best guess,
I exclaimed with surprise and excitement,
"Exactly Right !"
My co-workers roared with
approving laughter
at this quick-witted
gesture of respect
to our commander.
We were all military,
and I was paying respect
and homage to that
time-honored tradition
that the commander
is always right.
It was light-hearted camaraderie,
and I was displaying
a little affectionate respect,
recognizing his position as boss.
Everybody got it.
The laugh they gave
was a release of tension -
an ice-breaking laugh.
Everybody got it -
except, that is,
the George-Atollah.
He sneered, and said he knew
when he was being made fun of,
and I knew it was going to be
a long, long year.
Girly-Man Gus More
Well, no need to
beat that George-Atollah horse to death,
because he probably is already.
Under the George-Atollah,
and also supervising us,
was Girly-Man Gus More.
Girly-Man Gus was kind of like
a very very effeminate John Kerry.
He truly, truly had girly-man arms.
His biceps were thinner than my wrists.
60 % Felix Unger of "The Odd Couple"
05 % Mike Brady of "The Brady Bunch",
05 % John Kerry, and
13 % Chadsborne Osworth Jr. III of "Dobie Gillis",
Girly-Man Gus didn't quite add up to a full man.
He always addressed us
as "fellows" -
not "fellas", or "guys",
or "men", but "fellows".
Real Men don't say "fellows".
The Saddam Hussein look-alike and
act-alike, Ron Hammer, was always
quick to look up the dirt on someone
and make a deriding comment,
but professional courtesy demands
that I credit him for accuracy
for the following comment.
After scouring the public records
for dirt on all his co-workers,
the Saddam Hussein look-alike
and act-alike, Ron Hammer,
discovered that title to
the Girly-Man Gus More residence
was in Girly-Man Gus's wife's name.
"Gus More is a kept man",
Saddam Ron Hammer announced to us
one sleepy morning.
One of us raised an eyebrow,
one of us turned a momentary ear,
one of us grunted,
one of us burped,
and we returned to drawing houses
on graph paper.
Gussie was a little bitch
and (s)he gave me one of those
stares of hate that fags do,
one morning when I volunteered her
to come in early every day the following week.
Well, it was her turn.
Girly-Man Gus was used to his priviliges,
that went beyond three- or four- hour
lunch brakes and never coming in early.
The George-Atollah told us that
it was common knowledge that
Girly-Man had painted his house
on work-time one summer.
Such was the lack of accountability
at the Sacramento County Assessor's Office
under Wally Engel, Roger Fong, and Pete Louie.
The most manly thing
I ever saw Girly-Man Gus More do
was when he showed up one day
at one of our two-hour lunch breaks
at the donut shop.
Gussy actually ate three whole pastries
right in a row
to prove he wasn't a sissy.
Wow, was I impressed ?
Actually, that WAS kind of special,
because it was one of the few times
we ever saw Girly-Man Gus.
When I ran my first marathon in 1980,
the route passed Gussie's wife's house
in Land Park. Gussie was out there
watching, and he let me
know the next Monday how stupid
I looked with that scarf on my head.
Well, mr. fastidious dresser,
it was there to block the sun,
and it was wet to keep me cool.
Oh, by the way, congratulations, Dave,
on running a marathon.
Oh, thanks, Girly-man !
Girly-man Gus More
dressed nicely and was discreet.
For example, He was very careful
about saying anything racist
or derogatory about blacks
or other races.
When he complained about
the blacks from Oak Park
and Sac City College
intruding into his neighborhood,
he was careful to look around
and make sure only white males
were present. Apparently,
Gussie is afraid of blacks
and felt intimidated by them
and wanted to share that with us.
Then there was the time a clown
from the adjacent room (Ron Burns)
brought in a porno magazine
with a doctored centerfold
photo of a black man
with an extremely long penis,
about 3 feet long. "Show it
to Scully, show it to Scully,"
Gus More snickered.
Whatever...I'd seen porn before.
It's all around us.
I recount the incident to describe
the very unprofessional behavior
by workers and supervisors there,
and their very patronizing
attitude toward me.
One final thing before I move on
to talk about more interesting people.
Much of our job as property appraisers
consisted of measuring houses
and then sketching them on graph paper
when we returned to the office.
We included the sketch when we finished
calculating the appraisal
and submitted the appraisal for that house.
One day the George-Atollah
came into our room huffing and puffing
and loudly scolded me,
showing me a half-done sketch
I had done that had been sent downtown
with the finished appraisals.
By this time, I knew that
the George-Atollah was a tyrant,
and the only way to handle him
was to scold him back,
which is what I did,
and he left
with his tail between his legs.
I told him that Gussie and he
were supposed to look at all our work
before it went downtown.
But, frankly, I was puzzled
and felt bad about it.
My garbage can was often full
of half-done sketches
that I just started over
on a fresh sheet.
But I had never before
submitted such an incomplete
piece of work as the one
the George-Atollah showed me.
Only much later did it occur
to me that, indeed,
it was Girly-Man Gus
who checked my work.
Did Girly-Man Gus More, in fact,
intentionally submit
the half-completed sketch?
Who knows ? But I wouldn't be surprised.
Well, I could continue in this vein,
but I'm such a nice person
that I'll move on to other topics.
It has been necessary to tell this story
so we can understand further developments.
You see, Sacramento's a small town,
and Sacramento County personnel even smaller.
So it is important to understand
these small-town bosses that people
were calling to get references on me.
Good Lord !
Posted by dscully at 07:77 PM Top of Page
|
David Scully
email
davidscully
@hotmail.com
 |