The "Trick Back" Addendum (Or: Why I Retired at 40) Parody. My Sitcom.
Updated: Sep 13
The Introduction: Corporate Survival
"I’ve had a wonderful career path full of incredible opportunities, privileged to work in places of a higher premium on executive polish, clear operational standards, and collaborative leadership."
Before I even begin, let me tell you something: I can't tell you the names of the places I used to work, because I don't want to get sued—or hunted down by an HR death squad. But I will tell you this: three separate times, corporate America mistook my resume for a recruitment flyer for the Navvy SEALss. They saw me and thought, 'Ah, a specialist in urban combat.'
I’m here to tell you a true story about corporate survival. I've had to change the names of the businesses to protect the guilty. But let's just say, looking back at my career, I am convinced that across this country, corporate executives have a secret, high-priced bounty out on my lumbar spine.
I truly give new meaning to the term
"Trick Photography"
AI assisted me in writing some stand up comedy humorous scenarios loosely based on my real life experiences. Creatively embellished for artistic purposes. No 'real' bosses or coworkers could have possibly been these fictitious characters.
If you are reading this, it’s probably because I politely declined to lift something, looked like a glitching robot while trying to drop into a chair, or mentioned my retirement.
Yes, I retired at the age of 40, and no, it wasn't because I struck it rich. It is because I had a terrible slip and fall accident on stairs so, I live with a lifelong disability courtesy of a spine that operates on a pure, unpredictable complex nexus of chaos, bad decisions, and structural instability. To save myself from explaining the whole darn thing every time it comes up, here is a quick, handy guide to what my reality actually looks like:
My back tantrums don't stop me,
but they seem to stop others who have strict rules about appearances.
Listen I always get the job done.
Do not harass me about standing too long.
What, do you get paid by the minute to watch my posture?
I may bend funny, alright? But I always accomplish tasks.
The Comedy of the Absurd Demands
"Three times! It’s like these employers look at my medical history and say, 'You know who would be great for heavy lifting and excessive travel? The girl who spent all day kneeling on her swivel chair because she couldn't bend her waist.
Let me..summmit up for you. Let’s make her our lead Sherpa.'
Why should she everrest?
Why is the toxic corporate office like a bad equilibrium?
Because it never sleeps. Everyone stays late until midnight just because they are terrified that if they leave first, they'll look lazy to the boss.
I’m convinced, I swear to you on my mother's Italian Kitchen, if I ever get a job as a remote data entry clerk working completely from home, within six months my boss will call me and say,
"Great news! We’re promoting you to the deep-sea rescue diving division. Pack your bags, your flight leaves in an hour.'"
They make me an offer I can't refuse, right? Unbelievable.
Improvisational Theatre
Why I became Self Employed
Employers didn't like my slapstick antics.***
Take a simple nose tickle. For a normal person, a sneeze is a minor annoyance. For me?
Treating a simple nose tickle is like a bomb disposal unit trying to diffuse an active explosive in public.
You’re in a quiet business office. You feel a sneeze coming. Suddenly, your inner monologue turns into an action movie. “Drop the keys! Stabilize the pelvis! Engage core! Log-roll up against door jam!” Download complete! You look like you're executing a high-level matrix style martial arts drunken boxing stance just to survive a sneeze, leaving everyone around you utterly terrified and confused and searching for cover.
I have an equilibrium problem.The thrashing onset of an impromptu native dance people do when they lose their balance, trying to look normal while struggling for basic biological viability infuriates employers and coworkers. A lot of legendary physical comedy was based on a chaotic loss of equilibrium. Buster Keaton made millions doing it! But when I did it in front of a filing cabinet,
no one thought I was funny.
Physical Therapy on the job
The Perfect Alibi: "I'm not slacking off on the clock," she told her supervisor while aggressively latch-hooking a rug under her desk. "This is a medically prescribed, therapeutic hand-dexterity exercise. If I happen to finish a beautiful living room centerpiece by 5:00 PM, that's just a win for workplace wellness."
If I don't keep moving I'll totally freeze up.My doctor told me I need to keep my hands moving to manage my arthritis stiffness, so I started sewing & crocheting at my desk.
The Daily Reality Check
The High-Stakes Hard-Boiled Egg Incident: My back doesn't care about heavy lifting. It chooses violence during the most mundane innocent moments. I have literally thrown my entire back out merely putting ice into hard-boiled eggs. Think about the physics! The eggs survived the trauma. I did not. I still made the egg salad, mind you, but I did it rather stiffly. I looked like a Victorian butler serving potato salad under duress.
Both Matrix-style martial arts (which uses a lot of dramatic, gravity-defying back-bends) and Drunken Boxing (Zui Quan, which is all about looking completely off-balance, stumbling, and flailing to trick the opponent) are looking hilariously familiar to me.
I’ve basically been practicing the civilian version of these arts every time I try to ice hard-boiled eggs or avoid a sneeze!
"I tried doing a portrait session the other day, but every time I bent low to get the perfect artistic angle, I accidentally executed a flawless ballerina arabesque. The client thought I was being deeply creative, but I was just trying not to drop my camera."
"You know your back is an absolute diva when you can survive a multi-car traffic jam, but you get totally taken out by an aggressive hard-boiled egg."
High-stakes physical theater.
Interesting Angles
If an object falls on the floor, you think it belongs to the tile now? Normal people would leave it. Not me. The physical tax on retrieving it is high, but I'll bend funny, angle my hips like a crane, and get it somehow. The 8-second rule is completely moot. It's not edible now anyway, it's covered in floor dust, but by God, I retrieved it! Where there's a will, there's a way.
Where there's a will there's a way.
But you have to sleep perfectly.One millimeter off my specific pillow fold and I wake up shaped like a croissant. I never quit. A croissant shaped human has value. I'm sweet too! Getting all warm and melty straightens me out. Fortunately I live in Florida where the humidity acts like a full-body heating pad.
You wake up and don't move. You just lie perfectly still, testing the waters. “Is it mad today? Did I sleep on the wrong pillow and offend it? ” You realize your back has its own independent personality, and it prefers to make all its major life decisions at 3:00 AM Time to make the donuts.
But every morning is a tactical, military-grade extraction mission just to get away from a mattress.
Phase 1: The Systems Check
You wake up and immediately freeze. Your eyes open, but you don't dare move an inch. You lie perfectly still, mentally cataloging every point of pain from your neck down to your lower hips, calculating exactly how hostile your spine is going to be today.
Phase 2: The Gravity Pivot
Turning over like a normal person is completely out of the question. Twisting means disaster. Instead, you have to shuffle your entire torso as one solid, rigid block, attempting to shift toward the edge of the mattress without disturbing the fragile peace in your lumbar.
Phase 3: The Slow Spill
Once you successfully reach the edge, the real challenge begins. You slowly let your legs slide off the side of the bed, hoping the weight of your feet drifting toward the carpet will gently pull your upper body along behind them without snapping your posture.
Phase 4: Upper-Body Leverage
As soon as your hands can reach a stable surface, you plant them firmly. Bypassing your lower back muscles entirely, you use pure arm and chest strength to shove your torso upright until you are finally balancing on two feet. By the time you are finally standing, you haven't used a single back muscle, your arms are completely exhausted, and you look like a hostage who just escaped through a basement window. All before 7:00 AM.
The Words "Snap Crackle Pop" are not appetizing, not my favorite sound:
A snafued framework means I live stiff as a statue for the next three days. I do what I need to do anyway, but stiffly. And I eat raisin bran and honey nut o's with lactaid milk and peaches. Why? Because they are more quiet! My spine is making enough noise; I don't need my cereal competing with it.
The Sneeze Hazard: Sometimes. A high-stakes bomb-defusal matrix. That visual is absolute poetry—and the struggle is entirely real. A "sneeze hazard" that powerful usually means your body is throwing its entire physical weight into a violent reflex, and if you don't anchor yourself, the recoil is genuinely disruptive.
The Stiff-Legged Lean
The absurd visual of the "Golfer's Lift" (leaning forward on one leg while the other leg swings straight back into the air) to pick up lightweight things.
To pick it up safely without throwing your back out, you accidentally execute a flawless, aggressive prima ballerina arabesque. The person behind you thinks you are either trying to aggressively flash them or audition for Swan Lake, when in reality, you're just trying to grab it.
If I ask you to pass me a roll of tape like it holds museum grade reverence, or if I look like a majestic, stiff-legged crane impression trying to pick up a dropped fork I am fully validated —now you know why. It’s not you, it’s my L4 vertebra throwing a tantrum.
When that nerve root gets irritated, simple everyday movements turn into
Broadway theater.
"People come to Florida to retire and play golf. I came to Florida to do the 'Golfer’s Lift' just to grab my dropped car keys off the driveway."
Ouch. In everyday speech, a "trick back" describes a back that is prone to sudden pain, spasms, locking up, or "giving out" without much warning.
When the L4 vertebra throws a tantrum, it usually means the lumbar nerve roots are compressed or irritated, transforming simple, everyday movements into high-stakes physical theater.
***Forced to identify as Disabled.
My humorous " trick back " repertoire no longer allowed me to skate through life undiscovered.
1988. "At twenty-six and a half, I had an accident resulting in a lifelong disability which threatened to sideline me. The orthopedic surgeon said I could possibly never walk again having endured an Achilles strain, critical hamstring tear which left me with crippling sciatica and a trick back. On top of that,I also have rheumatoid arthritis, diagnosed at age 14. But guess what? I still walk now. Menz’ammenz’* (Pause for dramatic effect) Refusing to give up, I found an industry that prized my mental focus over my physical limitations, allowing me to build a career for the next fourteen years. But by age 40, the cumulative toll of my condition caught up with me. It culminated with an exasperated employer, the one who got so tired of asking "what's wrong with your feet, why do walk funny?" that he gave me new sneakers for Christmas, flatly stating what I had been trying to outrun: 'Forget it, you're too disabled to work anywhere.' Accepting that reality, I moved to Florida, where a team of doctors confirmed the diagnosis. At 40, my working chapters closed, and I was officially, legally retired." I couldn't turn the pages of a book in bed without throwing out my trick back. Little by little, drawing and painting lead to picking up a camera again which helped me rehab.
Looking forward to the sunset everyday became a literal God send.
Then God filled my yard with birds.
Today we have a backyard lake and a bench just a few feet from the door.
I truly love bird watching.
"I tell people I specialize in 'trick photography.'
That doesn't mean I use special effects; it means if I twist my waist to track a flying bird, my spine makes a noise like an afternoon of skeet shooting."
"The people who really know me won't even let me track a panoramic shot. I start panning the camera to the left and my friends immediately scream, 'PULL! No, don't twist! Don't twist!' before my vertebrae can launch a clay target."
Seriously folks, a person with a trick back cannot shoot a gun.
"I went to the shooting range with my friends to try target practice. The instructor told me to brace for the recoil of the weapon, but he didn't realize the most dangerous recoil was just me squeezing my index finger and throwing my own back out."
"Going to a gun range with a trick back is an entirely different sport. I don't even have to fire a bullet—I just lean forward into the stance, my spine lets out a loud CRACK, and the guy in the next lane looks over to see who fired a rogue .45 caliber."
"My close friends know exactly how my photography business works. They don't help me adjust the exposure or change the lenses—they just stand behind me and scream, 'LOOK! No no, don't twist! Don't twist!' while holding my camera bag."
But before the retirement, let me tell you about the parody of my past employment. It’s a joke! But it was a "blessing in disguise."
High-stakes physical theater.
more parody....it's a joke!
"blessing in disguise" Exorcism
The Ultimate Body-Destroying Job
"Most people leave a bad job because of low pay. I left my worst job because it was actively trying to dismantle my skeleton. I was working in the office , and it turned out I was violently allergic to bulk chemical products. I’m talking about industrial-grade, non-stop, five-hour sneezing attacks.
Now, normally a sneeze is just a minor annoyance. But I already had a 'trick back' from an accident. A trick back means my spine is basically a Jenga tower held together by wishful thinking.
So every time I sneezed, it wasn't a normal noise. It was a high-velocity, whipped-spine demolition. My body was playing a game of Russian Roulette where a tickle in my nose meant my lower lumbar was about to snap like a dry breadstick."
The Turning Point: The Sopranos Confrontation
"It got so bad that the office manager finally had enough. She kicked me out of her office. She sent me straight up to the big boss.
Let me tell you about this: It was a straight-up Sopranos episode. I walk into the Vice President's office to talk about my health, who immediately chastises the manager who kicked me out.
Every other word out of their mouth is the F-word dropping F-bombs like their auditioning for Scorsese. I'm standing there, trying to hold my spine together, totally overwhelmed. Finally, I crack. Just to go along with the flow, I drop one single, solitary F-bomb back at them about the manager. Just one."
Enter the Minister
"And wouldn't you know it? Out from the shadows steps the company relative... who happens to be a literal ordained Christian Minister.
He didn't hear the vice president spewing thirty F-bombs about the manager who kicked me out. He just heard my one lonely curse word. He looks at me like I just vandalized a church, points a finger, and fires me on the spot for 'foul language.'
But here’s the best part: the second he said 'You're fired,' I felt a sneeze coming on. I had to choose between fighting for my job or bracing my core so my spine didn't shoot out of my shoes. No no, don't twist! Don't twist!'
I just clamped my hands behind my back, squeezed my stomach, and walked out the door.
That minister thought he was cleansing the workplace of sin, but he actually performed a medical miracle casting me into a cathedral-like purgatory. The moment I got fired, my sneezing completely stopped, my back stabilized, and I realized: He didn't save my career, but accidentally saved my life transforming me to the hub of faith outside of normal time and space, traversing the bridge between real and surreal unknown vast worlds like an isle of safe oasis that encompasses distinct, separate worlds, levels of allied dimensions devoid of enemies, rich with healing forces.
The gabagool* vs. the fun ghoul*
Makes you wonder how evil those sneezes were.I think it was a literal exorcism.
Think about it. I had been having violent, hours-long, body-shaking sneezing attacks for weeks. That’s not a pollen allergy—that is a level-five sinus possession. I had a chemical demon, a highly specific cocktail of airborne irritants living in my nose, like a hub connecting different dimensions using my 'trick back' like a personal trampoline.
The minister didn't hear a curse word; he heard the demon speaking through me. When he shouted 'You are cast out of this office!' he wasn't terminating my employment, he was casting out the spirit of chemicals. He banished the chemical demons right out of my respiratory tract destroying their original refuge.
And it worked! He grounded me from the wild and chaotic dimensions returning me to the hub bringing me back to a core objective.The second I crossed the property line, the sneezing completely stopped. My back snapped back into place. I didn't need an allergist or a chiropractor—I just needed a holy man to fire me into salvation. He didn't ruin my career; he saved my soul and eased my lumbar spine in one swoop." Sharing an enclosed HVAC air system with concentrated, bulk quantities of products heavily formulated around concentrated proteins, lipids, and polymers when stored or handled at scale, can cause micro-particles to easily travel through the building's ventilation system. Persulfates are notorious "respiratory sensitizers" known in occupational medicine to trigger sudden, uncontrollable, and violent sneezing or asthma attacks in warehouse and office.
The Doorbell Stand-off joke
"I’m standing outside the glass door, aggressively pressing the buzzer. Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.
My coworkers look over the banister from the top of the stairs, see me standing outside, and just yell, 'It's open!'
I yell back through the glass, 'I know it's open! But my back tricked out in the parking lot!
I can push, but I can't pull! If I pull this door handle right now, my spine is going to fold in half like a cheap lawn chair!'
Do they come down? No. Stugots!* They just lean further over the railing and keep shouting, 'Just pull ! '
I’m standing on the welcome mat sweating, paralyzed, ringing the doorbell like a crazy person trying to get into my own job. I was twenty minutes late for work not because of traffic, but because my coworkers refused to walk down eight steps to save my life from a heavy door."
The "One-Knee" Desk Pose
"When someone finally walks out and accidentally rescues me, the real comedy begins. I get to my desk, but I physically cannot sit down. Sitting requires a 90-degree fold that my lower lumbar has completely banned.
So, I have to improvise. For the next eight hours,excuse me, seven hours and 40 minutes, I spent the entire workday kneeling with one knee on my swivel desk chair, with my other leg locked completely straight out behind me like a kickstand.
Every time I needed to roll over to the filing cabinet, I had to awkwardly scoot-hop on one knee while my back leg trailed behind me like a broken tail. I looked like a pirate captain steering a ship through a hurricane.
People would walk into the office, see me perched on my chair like a gargoyle, and just slowly back out of the room. But honestly? It was the most productive day of my life. Nobody comes to bother you with extra work when you look like you’re practicing advanced gymnastics at a desk."
I Didn't "Fit In" to the Jerry Springer circus
Sheer ridiculousness of management "logic" Maron!*
"So the boss shuts off the AC one day, it hits 93 degrees inside the office, it was just the two of us, everyone else was out. I am visibly melting. I look like a puddle of mozzarella on a hot sidewalk. I go to the boss to complain, and you know what this genius says to me? He looks me dead in the eye and says, 'Well, if you're hot, why don't you just take more clothes off?'
I was appropriately dressed in a lightweight terry top and jeans.
Can you believe the nerve of this guy? Who do you think you're dealing with?!
But listen, to understand the environment, you gotta understand the rest of the staff. This office was a circus. One of these girls wore the absolute least amount of clothes allowable by law. I’m talking mini-skirts so short that when they bent over, they were giving a free front-row screening of their thongs. It was an all-day buffet for the men in the office to look down their shirts. These girls were wearing so little fabric that they actually had to run electric space heaters under their desks just to survive the draft!
And the conversations? Forgettaboutit.* Gavones talking openly about their romantic business, their dating life, who is doing what to who. It was like a trashy reality TV show.
And then they fire me on the spot because I don't 'fit in.'
I wonder why! I didn't fit in because my skeleton requires a functional air conditioner and more than one plumbing option, one toilet! And let’s be honest—us 'cripples' with a trick back don’t exactly look appropriate dressed scantily like that. What was I gonna do, wear a sequined back-brace and do a diaper reveal? I don't think so! And I didn't have any wild romantic business to brag about at the water cooler!
I used to look back at that place and feel bad, but then I realized: I wasn't the disabled one in that room. The boss was the one who was truly disabled. The stunod had to be completely deaf, dumb, and blind! Boombotz!
I guess I didn't "fit in" because us cripples with a trick back don't exactly look very good dressed like a stripper.Capeesh?
Besides, my idea of fun is completely different from those clowns in that office anyway. For me it means turkey dinner at 3pm, in bed at 4:30 for a tryptophan nap ,remembering to blast the AC and ceiling fan, ibuprofen, tylenol, getting a few bottled waters in case I can't get up, because moving a fraction of an inch is the double edged sword between feeling no pain and the death grip pain, watching reruns for 6 hours with a big hot bowl of Bruce's yams smothered in marshmallows...I'm Addicted To Sweet Potatoes...
"It's-My-Yammy-VICE."(@2026 v.mirandi jr all rights reserved joke written for @lauramarie pepsin)
Trying a new position means shifting the pillow an eighth of an inch, incredibly adventurous until you realize that new position is just sitting perfectly upright with an ergonomic lumbar support pillow, pressure adjustment on the sciatica.
And the ambiance? the asphyxiating aroma is a cloud of Icy Hot, eucalyptus, Capsaicin, Lysol , Oxy Clean, Comet, Air Wick, there is gas, and Mylanta, Tums, toothpaste, chewing gum and Tic Tacs to buffer the pukey acid reflux breath, and for a real treat cinnamon BOGO Mentos.
"My back is like an old smartphone. It takes fifteen hours to charge at night, and by 2pm the battery is at 4% and the system completely freezes."
"But hey, look on the bright side: being fired from a sweatshop means my career didn't just end, it was legally upgraded to a rescue mission."
...Funnily enough, a very beloved childhood friend of mine actually grew up to be the stage manager for the real Jerry Springer Show—so I say this with the utmost respect for the professionals who handle actual daytime television: some office environments were a total circus. The only difference was that television sets have professional crew members running the stage, while the mamaluke was running a corporate department with absolutely zero sophistication. He couldn't separate a quiet executive office environment from his own messy Sunday dinner family gossip.
True. AI Overview no joking.
Historically, people actually used to believe that sneezing was your soul trying to escape or a demon trying to enter your body—which is why people started saying "Bless you!" in the first place.
Sneezing when your back is "tricked out" can be incredibly painful because it forces a sudden spike in core pressure and rapid muscle contractions. When you sneeze, your abdominal and chest muscles seize up instantly to force air out at high speeds. This violent, involuntary movement creates intense intradiscal pressure that can irritate already compromised nerves, discs, or strained muscles.
Why Sneezing Harms a Vulnerable Back
Rapid Spikes in Pressure: The internal pressure created by a sneeze pushes outward against the spinal column. If you have a bulging disc or nerve irritation, this pressure can forcefully aggravate the area.
Violent Reflexive Contractions: Your core and back muscles instantly tense up to stabilize your posture. If a muscle is already strained or vulnerable, this sudden movement can cause a severe, painful muscle spasm.
Poorer Postural Angles: Most people naturally bend forward or twist slightly when they sneeze, which places the lumbar spine at its weakest, most vulnerable angle.
The Bait - and - Switch Jobs Curse
Listen to me. You think you’ve seen bad jobs? Forgettaboutit.* Most people, they leave a job because the pay is no good. Me? I had to leave my worst jobs because these characters were actively trying to dismantle my skeleton. They wanted me to do 'excessive traveling.' Travel! Travel is a complete nightmare when your spine is a ticking time bomb.
What, am I made of stone?
I have a very specific curse: three separate times in my life, I apply for a nice, quiet, boring, sedentary office sales desk job. A position where the most dangerous task you gotta do is refill the stapler. That’s it! I specifically pick these jobs because I have a "trick back" from a workplace accident. My spine, let me tell you, it’s basically a Jenga tower held together by scotch tape, wishful thinking, and a prayer.
And three separate times, these companies—they completely change their minds a few weeks in. They call me into the office, they look at me, and they say, “Hey, we know we hired you for phone sales, but we’ve restructured the department. Now we need you to do heavy lifting and excessive traveling.”
And they always phrase it like they're doing you a favor! “It's a great opportunity!” What, are you kidding me? Who do you think you’re talking to?
Bada-bing! (The four-finger salute)
I am living proof that employers NEVER EVER EVER do a background check!
"Employers love to threaten you with a rigorous, deep-dive background check. I am living proof that they are completely lying. If any of those managers had actually done their homework, my permanent record would have flagged me as a maximum-security liability for anyone owning a swivel chair or a chain-link fence."
They talk so tough about "vetting candidates," but they couldn't even vet the fact that they were hiring a secret agent who was about to turn their office into a sitcom!
"They tell you they run a comprehensive background check to see if you 'fit the corporate culture.' Clearly, they didn't check. Because if they did, the report would have said: 'Warning: Do not hire. Subject is an active stealth agent who will drop an F-bomb on your relative, pitch lawn care at a funeral, and require a state-certified medical extraction just to open the front door.'"
"I used to sweat during the hiring process when they said, 'We are conducting a background check.' Now I realize it’s a total bluff. They don't check anything! They just look at a girl with a Jenga-tower spine and say, 'Yep, her resume looks great, send her to the heavy lifting and cross-country trucking division immediately.'"
"A real background check would have saved us all a lot of time. The report would have just been a sticky note that read: 'Do not expose to bulk chemicals, keep at a strict 72 degrees, and under no circumstances ask her to do a thong reveal in a 93-degree room.'"
The 1600-Mile Trade Show Roadie
I took a quiet sales desk job to just stay seated and handle paperwork. A few months in, the boss calls me in and says, 'Great news! We’re restructuring. We need you to leave your desk and start traveling to trade shows.'
They didn't just want me to attend the trade shows. They wanted me to be the manual labor! My new job description involved carrying heavy boxes of merchandise, setting up massive display booths, tearing them down, and driving 1,600 miles! And then I had to step out of the car and immediately start lifting forty-pound boxes and building a booth!
I applied to be a sales desk person, and they threatened to turn me into an interstate roadie. My trick back looked at me and said, 'If you lift one box of brochures, we are log-rolling into oncoming traffic.' Ironic since my boss had previously suggested that I "go play in traffic."
I had to walk away.
"Driving 1,600 miles with a trick back doesn't make you a sales rep; it turns you into a human accordion."
It’s like these employers looked at a girl who has to log-roll out of bed every morning and thought, “Perfect. There’s our new action hero.”
The "Office Worker turned Covert Operative"
The Fence-Jumping Land Spy Joke
You’d think I’d learn my lesson, right? No. So for the next job, I say to myself, “Alright, strictly phone sales. Sit down, talk on the phone, keep it low impact.” Nice, quiet.
Two weeks in, the bait-and-switch happens again. Madonna mia! They tell me, “We’re taking you off the phones. We need you out in the field doing property surveys, and your quota is sixty leads a day.” But wait, it gets better. There was a psychological catch to the sixty-lead quota. They didn't just want me out in the field; they invented a daily timeline that violates the Geneva Convention! They told me I had to be out on the pavement hunting people down starting at 7:00 AM. Then, I gotta report back to the office at 3:30 PM. But am I going home? Forget about it! No, I then had to sit at my desk and work straight through until 9:30 at night.
Sixty leads a day! An eight-hour workday is 480 minutes. To hit sixty, I had to hunt down a brand-new stranger every eight minutes. To make it work, my daily schedule was a 14.5-hour death march. Sixty leads a day?! In the field?! That is not a sales quota, that is an impossible dragnet operation. Not even James Bond could handle this secret agent assignment. That is not a sales job—that is a Victorian labor camp!
And the strategy they taught me? It wasn’t professional—it was criminal espionage! My job instructions literally involved sneaking onto private property, jumping over fences, filling out the survey, ringing the resident's doorbell, and then sprinting away as fast as I can before they open the door, just so I could call them later from the office!
They weaponized my trick back for a corporate game of Ding-Dong-Ditch! Think about the physics of this! I have a back that locks up if I turn my car ignition too fast, and my boss wants me to vault a chain-link fence at 7:30 in the morning and hit a dead sprint down a stranger's driveway? If my back passed out mid-fence-jump, I’d just be hanging upside down by my belt loops like a broken umbrella, waiting for the cops! So I’m out there dodging early morning lawn sprinklers, trying to jump fences, completely terrifying the neighborhood.
Then, after eight hours of running away from doorbells, I gotta drag my broken, exhausted trick back into the office and dial phones for another six hours in the dark. By 9:00 PM, I wouldn't even be making sales pitches anymore. I'd just be calling random numbers, weeping into the phone, and asking the person on the other end if they knew how to safely log-roll a human body into a parked car.
By 8:00 PM, I’m back in the office on hour thirteen, dialing numbers with my one good leg propped up just to keep my spine straight. I call this one number, hear somber organ music, and the guy says, 'I'm literally at a funeral.' Now, a normal human being says, “Ohh, I am so sorry for your loss,” and hangs up. But I am an exhausted corporate hostage who still needs leads! So I ditch the script which instructs me to tell them they're un-American—because they have a mandatory, strict sales script you are required to read word-for-word, and by hour thirteen of my shift, I actually started believing that I was out there looking for acts of treason! I dropped their corporate brainwashing tagline and I say: 'Hey... I get it. But that is all the more reason you need to hire someone right now. You clearly do not have the time.'
It was absolute genius. I threw the corporate script out the window and pivoted to a level of shameless, hard-nosed salesmanship that would make Wall Street brokers blush.
I applied for a sales desk job not to audition for Mission: Impossible or get chased by a guard dog because my lower lumbar went on strike in a stranger's yard. The boss said he really tried to convince corporate to keep me on as inside sales. Ohh. I got fired.
"I once had a boss who was so paranoid about foreigners that the official company policy was
not only "English only" but to immediately hang up on anyone with an accent."
"It made answering the phone impossible. Someone would call like, '’Allo, I would like to buy—' [Slam phone down] 'Not on my watch, Jacques!' We lost a percent of our revenue, but man, did we keep the homeland safe from corporate inquiries."
"The worst part was trying to decipher accents. I once hung up on a guy from Boston because he asked for 'khakis' and I thought it was a sleeper agent code word."
"We were instructed to never talk to foreigners. Which was a really bold business model for a company that was literally a nexus for manufactured international products.
Imagine sitting in the office grading customer accents like a snobby wine critic. ("Ah, a crisp mid-Atlantic vowel. Drop the line, quick! Bring me someone who sounds like a tractor!")
You slam the phone down on a guy from Boston just because he said "pahk the cah."
Imagine trying to coach your regular clients to sound as aggressively American as possible before transferring them. "Listen, Pierre, when my boss picks up, you can't say 'al-ju-min-ium' or 'bonjour.' Just scream 'CHUCK-EEEE-CHEEESE' and talk about baseball, or he's going to click on you!"
Imagine the exhausting mental gymnastics of acting as a live "accent filter." You are desperately repeating everything your client says to your boss in the most exaggerated local accent possible just to keep the deal alive. Imagine being a salesperson watching your hard-earned commission disappear into thin air because someone used an extra vowel, watching thousands of dollars vanish because my client said 'schedule' with a 'sh' sound."
The Disney Seminar & The No-AC Sweatshop
So I take another inside sales job. They tell me, “Don't worry, you can do all your training right here in the office. No travel.” Perfect, right?
Forgettaboutit.* They lock me in a hot conference room for a couple of months, and then they turn around and tell me I gotta travel for training because other branches of the company have trainees who want the Disney trip as a training seminar. What, I gotta pay for their vacation? Then they informed me that I had to pay for all of my travel expenses entirely upfront out of my own pocket and wait for them to reimburse me. Eh! Who has that kind of money lying around?
Ohh and they hadda book me in a hotel nearby walking distance from their hotel. Walking distance in Florida. There are not enough jokes to justify the audacity. You arrive looking like you swam through a swamp.
"Walking in Florida with a trick back is high stakes. If I trip over an iguana and throw my lumbar out, I can’t even run away when the alligator shows up."
And then came the summer announcement: there would be absolutely no air conditioning in the building for the entire summer because they were remodeling. No AC! In the summer!
Apparently, I didn't sweat enthusiastically enough for them, because a week later, they called me into the office and fired me on the spot. Do you know what reason they gave me?
They looked me dead in the eye and said,
'We're letting you go because you just don't fit in here.'
I wonder why! I didn't fit in because my skeleton requires a functional air conditioner and more than one plumbing option! "They wanted a Disney trip, but working in a 90-degree room with one toilet felt less like Magic Kingdom and more like a survival reality show." "I didn't fit in because everyone else in that office was apparently a cold-blooded lizard immune to agita who didn't require plumbing, air conditioning or a workspace that complied with OSHA standards."
Fuhgettaboudit
Funny thing is that the paisans* who really know me? The ones who actually know me? They don't care about corporate fit. Whenever I’m out with them and I go to move, they instantly freeze, point a finger, and shout: 'LOOK! No no don't twist! Don't twist!' They treat my spine like fine china. And bless their hearts, they'll even carry my purse for me whenever my nail polish is wet!
Yeah My friends are great. They don't ask how my day is going; they just look at me walk into the room and immediately shout, Ashbett’ *'Drop the purse, don't twist!'"
I didn't fit into their sweltering, 14-hour corporate circus, but I walked out of there with my integrity, a gorgeous set of wet nails, and a crew of real goombahs* who make sure my back stays perfectly intact. Thank you very much! (Bow and wave)
*New Jersey Italian slang. menz' ammenz menza menz, mezza mezza, or menz' e menz'
-half and half, so-so, neither good nor bad
The gabagool vs. the fun ghoul the hot ham vs. the fun evil spirit
also refers to the minister fighting the evil f-bombs Ffangool (fun ghoul)
stugotz bull-s--t, screw you, a jerk, fool, or stubborn idiot, absolutely nothing, as I got paid stugotz for the job
maron good grief, what a pain
fuhgettaboudit forgettaboutit forget about it, that's out of the question.
stunod a stupid, foolish, or dull-witted person
boombotz the crazy one or an idiot/fool
capeesh do you understand? or got it?
bada bing bam
the four finger salute thumbing the nose
madonna mia good grief
paisans friends buddies
ashbett wait
goombahs close friends, companions, or protectors,
