Ma Bell: The Big Lie

Running late?

We returned to the classroom to find that Jim was still there, and there was no meat missing from his bobo.  But he knew that we knew that we had to be at our best, no not our best, our most excellent behavior for the rest of the day.  We walked back into the classroom with halos and wings in place.  We liked Jim; we were going to make him proud.   And we did.

We took our seats silently.  We dared not even look at each other.  Normally we were all sprawled all over the seats looking backward towards Jim, waiting on him to call the shots.  Not now, we dared not look at him, at anybody, we just kept our eyes glued to the front of the room or on the floor.  You could have heard a feather drop in the room.  The silence was overwhelming.

We finished our role-playing and critique session.  It was hard to recognize ourselves as the same people that came into the same room every day acting the same, as fools.  We were acting like responsible young adults.  And it wasn't much fun.  When was she leaving?  At 4 pm, she picked up her things and left.  And just like that, all of the tension and nervousness left the room with her.

After she left, we all had a controlled laugh session over what had transpired.  Even Jim.  It was one of those situations where you just went. "sfewww" and wiped your brow.  "That was a close one."  Yes,  it was Lenny for all of us.  We, all, except Ching because she really wasn't guilty, she was the object of the laughter,  and we swore we would never get like that again.  And Lenny laughingly apologized to Ching and tried to smooth it over with her in a good-spirited way.  And we somehow made it through the day, all of us keeping our current jobs.  At 5 pm, we were out of there like bats out of hell.  We flew up the stairs and out the front door and got in our cars and drove away, leaving it all behind us.

I had seen and talked to both Daniel and France since I had been back from San Antonio.  I decided that France would be a "need" boyfriend.  I would see him when I needed to go someplace nice, or have drinks and go dancing somewhere.  And if there was anything else I needed, he could be found for that.  I know that sounds bad, but guys have been excelling in that behavior for years.  I was just reversing the action.  And Officer Daniel was becoming just a friend, someone to talk to with a kind ear and a cute face.  Having a cop for a friend was a perfect arrangement; they were handy.  Want to find out who drives a certain car?  Call your cop friend.  Somebody threatens you?  Call your cop friend.  Ticket?  Call your cop friend.  He was the second most useful man I have ever known.  He would still check on me and leave me notes on my car even though I lived outside of Dallas now.  He was just a nice guy.

I was pretty much devoting myself to my training and my kids.  Pretty soon, the pools would be closed, and that would leave a void in their activities.  We would have to find other things to do, go to the movies, eat out, big whoop, at McDonald's or Burger King.  They liked that. They didn't really have any friends where we lived.  I think because Jeff was so mean that he scared other kids away.  He was a pistol, mean as he could be.  And Glen was the opposite.  They didn't even get along as brothers.  Jeff was always torturing Glen in some way.  He did it to everyone; he didn't discriminate.  He didn't have many toys to play with because he tore everything up.  If it had moving parts, he dismantled it; if it didn't, he obliterated it.  He was one destructive little boy.  I don't know where he got that from, most likely his dad.  On the other hand, Glen took care of all of his possessions as if they were made of priceless materials.  And that's what the fights were about, Jeff destroying Glen's toys.  It made me furious.  Jeff needed a dad or a strong male role model around him to make him behave.  I didn't have anyone in mind.  In fact, it was the last thing on my mind.  It would be a big sacrifice for me to get that involved with someone right now, and I just wasn't going to do it.  France was always talking about my "children" and how much he liked them and what he could do for them.  I wasn't ready for that; France would just have to make his own "children" to satisfy those needs.  Not me, nope, nope.  He was barking up the wrong tree.

Meanwhile, back in the class, we were sailing right along except for instances where people would have to take their final chapter test of mastery.  If they failed it, they had to continue to take it until they passed it.  Now that was a problem for me.  I passed every single test the first time around throughout my entire training.  Because of that, I would be sent upstairs to work in the business office as a "do this for me" person.  I had to file everyone's equipment records and bills and, well, everything.  Everything was on paper then, and there was a lot of it.  The good part was that I was learning how to do other things and listen to one-sided conversations of reps handling crazy customers.  And that was useful to me.  I would be upstairs sometimes for days waiting on folks to pass their tests.  When everyone was finally through, Jim would come after me to take me back to class.  I'm not conceited.  Jim told me that I was the only person trained for that job to pass the exams the first time, every time.  Did I get a medal for it, did I get a raise for it, did I get recognition for it?  No, no, and no.  Just a "keep up the good work."  That was Ma Bell for ya.

There was never any cross or vicious or mean things said to me about my classmates' test passing.  Sometimes they would kid me about being gone for so long, and I would tell them that it was their fault.  None of us enjoyed the mountains of filing we had to do while waiting for someone to pass a test.  It was almost like punishment in a way.  And kind of degrading but everyone sitting at a desk as a rep had done the same thing.  It was all part of the process.

Every time one of the supervisors came down to listen to "their" person, it was nerve-racking.  It wasn't like they just listened to them; they stayed and listened to all of us.  Of course, we knew that they collectively as management people knew about all of our capabilities.  There were no secrets.  We were not graced by their presence too many times until we delved into the training's complicated parts.  In between our learning, we still had craziness.

One Friday on payday, Lenny asked Jan and me if we would like to go with him to his bank and then pick up some food.  We asked him where it was, and it was pretty far traffic-wise.  We didn't see how he could do all of that in an hour to get back on time.  He said he did it all of the time and pretty much begged us to go.  So we went.  It was Friday, lunchtime, and traffic was hell.  It took forever to get to his bank, and we still had to grab a bite to eat.  We were young and starving.  The entire time Jan and I were sweating it out, we kept telling him we were going to be late, and that was something that was just not tolerated.  Hurry, hurry, get out of the way.  Poor Lenny, having to listen to not one but 2 anxious women.  Oh, hell.  We were half an hour late.  Jan and I were very upset with Lenny.  We walked into the classroom, and Jim and Ching were just sitting there.  When we walked in, they both looked up at the clock with a great amount of disapproval on their faces.  Jim asked quietly why we were late.  Jan and I started to answer, but Lenny jumped in and said it was his fault.  He made up a huge lie about us being in an accident.  Jan and I just looked at each other; we were not happy about Lenny lying to Jim. And Jim being the nice guy that he was, was very concerned that we were sure we were okay.  Jan and I just could not speak and add to the lies.  Lenny just kept on and on.  We sat down at our desks.  Jim was trying to make sure that we were all okay.  Finally, it was too much for Lenny.  He had told the lie of the century to a very nice and caring person.  He turned all red and nervously half laughed and told Jim he was lying and apologized to him.  Instead of Jim getting mad, he smiled and asked what really happened, and he was fine with the truth.  He just asked us not to do it again.  Jan and I looked at each other and said, "no way, don't worry about us going with him again."  We gave Lenny a dirty look, and then the class picked up where we had left off.

I must explain that Southwestern Bell did not tolerate tardiness of any kind, and they did not have sick leave in place because they just did not believe in it.  Come to work dead and be on time.  That was it; now I can understand the tardiness thing, but not the sickness.  We are human; we get sick.  Sometimes when we go to work sick, we pass it on to our co-workers, and it happened all of the time.  I can't tell you how many times I went to work deathly ill.

I had perfect attendance for seven years. The only reason why is because you did not get paid for being sick from your first day off until you had been there 7 years.  I couldn't afford to miss 2 days of pay; most people couldn't.  I went to work with the flu every year.  And guess where I caught it?  From my co-workers.  It was one of their most ridiculous rules.  Now, if you were management, need I say more?  I didn't think so.

Lenny felt that he had to regain Jim's trust after the big lie.  But I don't believe that I ever thought about it again.  It was just guilt getting to Lenny.  He couldn't help it.  He had come from working in an environment well known for having iron-fisted management, where they treated everyone like little kids.  He wasn't used to being treated like an adult.  It was the same way where I had come from.  Thank you, Jim, for being a human and a good guy.  You are the reason that we all succeeded in our training.

Just when things were getting back to normal, Lenny and Jim came up with an idea about bowling during our lunch hour.  There was an alley just about 2 blocks away from the office.  We could grab a bite from the snack bar and bowl a couple of games.  Jan and I both looked at each other with that look.  We told them we would have to think about it.  We were suspicious.  Could we get back on time?  We didn't think so.

We were going to let them give it a trial run before we committed ourselves to it.  Bowling on your lunch hour?  They must be out of their minds. We would soon see.


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