##########HERE IS A STORY#########
A Scents of Pride
…They woke him up at 10:15— “HELLO, IS THIS ED?” “Yes” “Just a reminder that your interview starts at 12 so be here by 11:45 with a notebook and pen AND DRESS SHARP, ok? Did I wake you up?” “No”…
But Ed Washington didn’t get out of bed when they called. He rolled over to his side and looked through a dusty window out to the intersection below. Movers and shakers were, respectively, moving and shaking through the intersection without putting much thought into it. On the popular KSOL they were playing “It’s Your Thing” by the Isley Brothers, KFOG was playing an acoustic version of “Mrs. Potter’s Lullaby”, KCSM was devoting the morning to Fats Waller, KLRD was playing “Hallelujah, I’m Ready to Go”, KCBS just got word of a car crash. It was a momentous moment in the usually predictable radio world.
Ed got out of bed with a slow stretch 10 minutes later. He fried an egg, put some water in the teapot and set it. He ran his fingers past his cheek, thinking he should shave. He would not. Zombies shave everyday. He fucking shaved yesterday; the cuts hadn’t even healed.
He was to appear at 11:45 in South San Francisco at a place called “Universal Wholesale, Inc.” Broke, he answered an ad three days ago that read:
CUST SVC/ASST/MGMT.
CRAZY!!!
Must be a little crazy!
Enjoy $$$, Music & Fun.
No exp. Req. 650-616-1908
Ed enjoyed all 3 things the ad mentioned and indeed was a little crazy.
When he called, he asked the receptionist what the job entailed. “Entail?” she answered. “Yeah, what would I be doing?” “Oh, well, it’s really complicated to explain on the phone but we are wholesalers and nation-wide. See you tomorrow at 10.”
When he had arrived at Universal Wholesale that morning at 10, he was greeted by the sounds of loud, cheap techno coming from a Sharp boombox. Specifically that song that goes “What is love? Baby don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me, no more.” Repeat. He walked in and shook hands with the receptionist, tried to exchange crippled words over the music. There were 3 other people there, two girls, one boy. All about Ed’s age. After filling out a questionnaire, the receptionist got out of her chair to reveal, over the pulsing radio, that she was also the interviewer.
“AWESOME YOU GUYS CAME OUT TODAY, WE’RE REALLY EXCITED TO SEE YOU. AS YOU CAN SEE WE HAVE A PRETTY LOOSE ENVIRONMENT HERE BUT WE GET A LOT OF WORK DONE. WE MANAGE TO HAVE A LOT OF FUN TOO. I’M GONNA TALK TO THE GIRLS FIRST, SO YOU TWO SIT TIGHT. COME WITH ME LADIES.”
The three went into an office. Ed scooted over to talk with the other of his own kind. “What is this place?” “I don’t know, I just saw the ad in the Mercury.” Faintly, a crowd burst into laughter in the background of the offices. “What the hell was that?” asked Ed. “I don’t know, I’ve been hearing it on and off though.” The two didn’t know whether to be in competition or to build an alliance. Before they could decide another man walked in and address them.
“WHATS UP GENTLEMAN? GOOD TO SEE YOU CAME OUT TODAY. WHAT’S YOUR NAME BUDDY?” to the other one. “JEREMY” he yelled. “AND YOU?” “ED” “COOL, WELL I’M RICHARD THE BRANCH MANAGER, THAT’S MY HUMMER OUTSIDE. GOOD LUCK WITH THE INTERVIEW, FELLAS.”
He left, bobbing his head. Techno and Silence. Another woman walked through the front door. She wore a leather vest with a blue shirt underneath, blue jeans and heels. Ed greeted her and told her where the questionnaires were. “Thanks, I’ve gotta go to the bathroom” and she whizzed off.
In mambos Richard again, before the males had the chance to say anything else to each other. “GUYS SO GOOD TO SEE YOU. IT’S ROUGH OUT THERE, THERE’S JUST NO JOBS ANYWHERE” “YEAH, ESPECIALLY BEING A NEW DAD” from Jeremy. “OH, YOU’RE A NEW DAD, YEAH WELL WE PAY PRETTY GOOD IF YOU THE RIGHT MAN. OH HELLO” to the newly emptied bladder and woman attached. “HAVE YOU FILLED OUT A QUESTIONNAIRE?” “no” “WHAT” “NO” “OH HERE…. YOU WEAR JEANS TO AN INTERVIEW?” The woman didn’t even look at him, she just walked right back out the door after hearing that.
Ed was supposed to call Universal Wholesale at 4:05 later that day to see if he had made it to the next round of interview. And he did, and he had. He had said nothing of importance during the interview and neither did Jeremy. But he had made it. And here he was, readying himself to report back for the second interview.
Wouldn’t you think Ed Washington would be suspicious about the whole idea and not want to go back? He was and didn’t but he went anyway. He had gone to an interview had three phone conversations and still did not know what this job was. But people will go to amazing lengths for money. If you don’t believe that, watch Fear Factor on the TV sometime. Fucking Fear Factor is in syndication now; it’s on 5 days a week!
He sopped up egg yolk with a piece of toast and then took a shower. He didn’t like being woken up by somebody else’s orders but, stepping into the hot shower he thought, in a primitive morning way, ‘well I like this, if this is part of the job I might be interested, this is nice.” He fell asleep in the shower for 23 seconds.
Ed got into his car and started it. Predictably, he was on E. Not the drug. He was out of gas. But Ed had internalized an amazing method of driving which used only scant amounts of gas. Soon to be a three-volume bestseller called We’ll Get There, the method carefully maps out his original and impressive uses of the neutral gear. Through complex calculations only a poor man could understand, he reasoned on that morning that he could drive 1.1 more times without a worry of running out of gas and .7 times with but a scrunched brow. But after that, it was time to get some gas.
Ed arrived at Universal Wholesale and pulled into the spot where the Hummer had been the day before. The front area was silent, absolutely no techno. He approached the receptionist. “Have you filled out a questionnaire?” “I did that yesterday, I got called back.” “Oh great. Right through that door and don’t be alarmed by the amount of people in there. We are looking for a lot of new employees.” “Ok, thanks.”
The Great Mystery of the Missing Techno was solved the minute he opened the door he was told to. He found himself one of 18 people in a room with 46 chairs. There was a lady at the front of the room fiddling with a remote control. She was the same lady who interviewed him yesterday, “HELLO…..ED” she barely remembered. It felt good to be barely remembered. A majority of the 17 others’ heads turned and watched him, thinking he might be important and that it might be good to suck up to him. Other people filed in but the lady didn’t call them by name.
Everyone else in the room must have been thought to be terribly understimulated by the management. In addition to the techno beating behind the group, the lady in front had overcome the remote and put on the beginning of Austin Powers: Goldmember and was yelling to the group that she wanted a jaguar like the one that the Tom Cruise Austin drives. “I USED TO LIVE IN BRITIAN FOR A WHILE AND THEN I MOVED TO WASHINGTON DC BUT MY FRIENDS STILL CALL ME BRITISH BEAUTY SO WHEN I GET MY JAGUAR I’M GONNA GET THE BRITISH FLAG PAINTED ON IT AND HAVE MY LISCENSE PLATE SAY ‘BRTSBTY’.” The sum of the movie, the techno, the unmentioned “BIG Z’S” posted on the wall, and her story kept everyone zonked.
She was really from Salt Lake City, Utah, the group would soon learn. Everyone in the group was behaving like a person in a group; they were avoiding their own personal consciousness for that of the group. They were all congenial and hopeful and trying their best not to expect the scam. 97% of the group had been told by assorted family and friends not to go to the second interview.
“HAS ANYONE EVER BEEN TO NEW YORK?” turn off the fucking techno for christ’s sake. “WE WENT THERE THIS SUMMER, EVERYONE’S ALL HOO HOO HUM AND NO ONE LOOKS AT ANYONE BECAUSE THEY ALL ARE TOO BUSY FOR ANYONE ELSE. I SAW THIS ONE BLONDE GIRL AND SHE HAD HER POODLE and wait no one told you to turn that off!” A black man had walked back to the stereo and lowered the volume significantly. “Sorry, I just couldn’t hear you too well, boss.” “Well take your seat.” The lady instantly became frazzled by the loss of the needed padding which her techno afforded her. “Anybody heard any blonde jokes?” she blurted.
A Mexican kid of about 22 years named Raphael raised his hands—“Ok, a blonde girl and her mom were driving down a road and they see this other blonde in a canoe rowing in a field. And so the blond girl says to her mother ‘you know its blondes like her who give blondes a bad name, if I had a life jacket I’d swim out there and give her a piece of my mind.” The group laughed. Raphael was already awake when the company called him that morning. He had set his alarm extra early so he could masturbate. He masturbated to the love of internet porn every morning before he did everything else. He would usually spend 2 hours masturbating because, in his opinion, ‘he had that stamina you know and could go all night.’
“Do you know any Mexican jokes?” asked the lady at the front, without figuring this might be an insult. There are lots of Latin people in the group but they all kept mum. Someone raised their hand and began to tell a joke when another lady came up to the front. She joined the first and announces her name to be Kayla. Kayla expected the crowd to recognize her but the cloud was happily zonked by jokes and the TV and the big, unmentioned, pictures of rhinoceroses also posted on the walls. The other one, British Beauty, is named Kathleen. “But you can call me Kat.” They are both blonde, Kayla’s face is scarred from the universal bout of subconsciously forcing oneself to be someone that one is not.
Kayla was a nervous girl, also from Salt Lake City. She had been raised a Mormon (“and I still am, the ‘Moremen’ the better” she would joke with new friends) and was the ninth of ten kids. It has been said that overpopulation of the earth would not exist if it weren’t for the Mormons and their sick obligations to God and breeding. Kayla once had a dream that she still, to this day, remembers. She was driving her car and when she pulled up to a stoplight she noticed that the car in front of her, a Honda Civic, was called the Honda Normal. She looked over to her side and found the car next to her, a Dodge Durango, to be named an Dodge Big. Nervously, she looked to her other side and found the Ford Mustang up ahead was actually a Ford Cool. She continued driving amongst Toyota Normals, Scion Weirds, Cadillac Nices, Chevy TooBigs, and Mini Coopers. When she reached her destination, which was her mom’s house but for some reason the house her friend Sara lived in, she got out and ran to look at the back of her car. She can’t remember it, thankfully, but the car she drove was a Saturn Useless.
Kayla was the more formal of the two blondes. Her posture against the podium at the front of the room demanded attention. Her first measure of duty was to shut off Austin Powers, then she hit the group with 3 things which they were to write down in their notebooks. #1 Do you smile? #2 Do you participate? #3 Write down notes. She was good at this, whatever it was. “All your answers will be answered today” no one called her on the flub because her tone was so assuring. Yes, she was good at this but formal, the bitch of the two. “Save all your questions until the end.” …when you’ve forgotten them, Ed added in his thoughts.
“Now let’s get down to business” began Kayla. Kathleen had left her. “I know a lot of you are wondering why you are here. Let me assure you that this company is not a scheme and you don’t have to pay to work here. We are growing with or without you.” Mussolini. “We’re looking to add more branches in this region. We have a lot of fun here— our branch manager just gave us a bottle of champagne last week and took us to Vegas too. He’s got that cool Hummer outside, did you see it?” Kayla had been taught to divulge information about the company in little teaspoons to prespective employees to defend against a mutiny. She also had learned that telling people things out of order kept them interested. “We’re new to the Bay Area, we’re from Salt Lake City, everyone is white there and wears Lucky jeans and Express sweaters. I’m gonna just take a quick role.”
Kayla began role, pausing between every two names to give us a little bait. “San Francisco is unique. The cream of the crap out here. Hank?” She meant to say crop, said crap and just went with it. Her diet did not consist of enough fiber and she pooed only about once every two days. She giggled the loudest when she was with friends and someone mentioned poo. “Jonathon? Do you go by Jon? No? Ok. We have a 60-90 turning period before you’ll get paid. Ishmael?… Roberto?” “Here” “Roberto do you go by any nicknames?” “Well, some people call me Berto. I’m not sure why.” “Ok Berto. Good to see you. Juan?” “here” “Juan like Juan 2 3?” a laugh from the crowd. “Do you know Spanish—I know Como estas, quiero cervaza and tequila. I guess that’s all you need.” Another laugh from the crowd. Ed perplexed—how come no one’s getting angry at this? “You know in Utah all we had was Taco Bell and Del Taco. All the Mexicans worked at McDonalds. Ernie?” “Here” “Your last name is Chavez too, are you and Berto cousins?” “No.”
Ed looked around and noticed that, among the rhinoceroses and Big Z’s all over the walls, their were also posters of fragrances along the wall. Looking around was not an easy thing. It demanded skill. He did not want to attract attention. He looked behind him quickly and saw a life-sized cardboard Michael Jordan. “Ed?” “Here” “Ed told us yesterday that he was going to work for Cutco until they wanted him to buy knives. You don’t have to buy anything to work here. Haha. Totally folks, we’re just looking to expand in this area, that’s why there are so many of you. We have so many opportunities. We’ll get to everything today; everything will be the truth. (her tone escalates) We’re going to grow regardless; we don’t need you. Feel free to leave. Elizabeth?” “here” “And don’t worry about the negative stuff you read on the internet. The guy who wrote into the New York Times, Mark, I won’t say his last name, Barnes, anyway haha he turned out to be a wife beater. Francis?” “here” “And the other two people who wrote in were sluts and the lawsuit you may have heard about was for sexual harassment and we won that anyway. Kelly?” “here”
Ed hadn’t been paying much attention to what the Kayla was saying. He had to pee and wondered if he should raise his hand. He decided that if he just confidently walked out no one would say anything. It worked. Outside he passed Kathleen. “Bye” she said in a tone that sounded like ‘I’m glad you’re leaving—this company is growing with or without you anyway.’
As he returned, Kayla was saying “C—O—M” to the class. It was the fourth time she had said the company’s website name to the group. Ed noticed that in the front row were three beautiful women. He returned to his seat and noted visually where they were. They seemed to fan out in the front row according to their beauty. The most beautiful was, of course, at the end and the most obstructed. The first, Naomi, was a single mom who told the other two about the job. She had long wavy hair and green eyes. She had been impregnated at the age of 17 by a 34-year-old married man on a business trip from Managua, Nicaragua. The man was a smooth talker. Naomi never found out his name. She named her baby, who would later grow up to be a US Senator, Marcos because her mother had once told that that was her father’s name.
Next to her was Ashley, a 20-year-old Mexican with reddish brown hair. She had pale olive skin and pouty natural lips. She had never read a newspaper or watched the news. She did not need too; her beauty assured her a safe retreat from any dangerous situation for the rest of her life. From reading bumper stickers, she thought that the President was running against a man named Kerry Edwards in the upcoming election.
The most beautiful, Aubry, was half Mexican, one quarter Korean, and one quarter good-old-grade-A American. This ethnic stew gave her an almost fragile complexion, which seemed to change in different lights. Genetics had blessed her with her American grandfather’s height, her Korean grandmother’s face and thin physique, and her Mexican mother’s incredibly round and soft breasts. Her father had inherited stocks in IBM and he had chanced upon a job with Google when they were just a teeny shmoogle. He was worth over $6 million. Since American capitalism had been so great to him, he found absolutely no fault in it. He had a bumper sticker that read “W ’04” on his 2004 Mercedes SLK. He taped the bumper sticker to the back window so it would not mess up his paint. He didn’t know Aubry was at Universal Wholesale because Aubry had been convinced by the other two to go that day. She had not had a first interview but, upon gracing Universal Wholesale with her holy presence and merely looking Kayla directly in the eyes, was seen as fit to sign in anyway.
Things had happened while Ed Washington was watching these three lovely ladies blink and run their hands through their hair. They were:
- Everyone was informed that Universal Wholesale has a no drug or alcohol policy. (“Prozac’s alright”)
- A lady in a drab green and black dress had her hand raised for several minutes but was not called on. Kayla finally called on her, saying “I thought I told you to save your questions. Plus it’s hard to see you when your dress matches the design on the chairs. I’ll take this one question only.”
- Everyone was informed that Doug Zerbiel was their boss. He would only be in the office about two days a month. He was to be referred to as ‘Big Z.’
- Everyone was informed that Big Z had a $2 million home in San Diego with a view of the ocean from his pool and fake rocks that had stereo speakers in them. This made everyone drunk on thoughts of riches.
- Kayla said that once, while she in Utah was doing a group interview such as this one, a Mormon man burst out of the building upon hearing this joke—What do you see when the Pillsbury Dough Boy bends over? Doughnuts.
- Everyone was informed that they were part of a team and that team was called the Rhinoceroses.
- The three young ladies did a primitive dance and fight with each other. The shifting of weight, the sighs, the hair, even the blinks was both an unconscious battle for power in the ladies’ world and also a tango of love. The ladies enjoyed it.
- Everyone was informed that all employees were given, free-of-charge, a company monthly newsletter which was called “A Scents of Pride.”
- One of the members of the group, a young Latin man, got a call on his cell phone. He slowly and quietly got up to take the call. As he did, Kayla spat “What are you doing? You are not allowed use your phone during this interview!” at him. “But it’s my Dad, I’ve got to take it.” said the young man, very soft-spoken. “Oh well, if you take it you can’t come back.” The young man took the call. As he left, Kayla said “we don’t need him, our company is going to grow regardless.” The lady in the dress that matched her chair said aloud “He should know to shut his phone off”
10. Everyone was informed that they would be selling knock-off perfume.
A short exposέ on perfumes is in order. There always has been and always will be a demand for perfumes. It is a consumable, which means, unlike luggage or pots and pans, buyers will need to re-buy perfume when it runs out. This makes perfume extremely capitalistic. Annual revenue of perfume in the United States is $65 billion dollars. It is among a select group of consumables (which include such heavyweights as alcohol and jewelry) that come from natural sources. The scent in perfume is made from oils from carefully selected flowers and herbs. Consumables from natural resources more often than not carry huge mark-ups. The average price for a 1.7 ounce bottle of perfume is $65. Broken down, $20 of the profits goes to the designer, $20 to the distributors, $10 to packaging, $10 to advertising, and $5 covers the juice.
However, oil makes up a very small amount of fragrances. Body sprays, the cheapest form of fragrance, contain 0-3% oil, cologne contains 4-6% oil, eu de toilette contains 6-8% oil, and eu de parfum, the most expensive, only contain 12-15% oil. More than 50% of a fragrance is water. The rest of the bottle is filled with alcohol and aerosol. Their job is to propel the fragrance out of spray bottles.
The Middle East is the only place you will be able to find actual perfume. Manufacturers in the United States are not allowed to call their products perfume. An actual perfume contains above 24% oil. They go for about $1000.
Because this is an incredible, mysterious world, you cannot patent a perfume. Man, ignorant and apathetic beast that he is, has invented such a thing as a gasbectrometer, which can tell you, as if the swauvest Frenchman in an intimate tête-à-tête, exactly how you smell when you put on a perfume. The gasbectrometer makes duplicating that smell a cinch. And, due to mysterious and incredible human characteristics such as skin type, perfume cannot be patented because it does not smell the same on any two people. Ask Ed Washington. He does not like the scent of cologne on him at all. He cringed while extending his wrists for Kayla to douse as she made her rounds with bottles of her company’s knock-off fragrances. Kayla loved this part of the group interview. She felt, somewhere deep inside, like she was marking her territory among the group in a way that subtle belittling would not allow. She was dancing happily among the group now to the sounds of techno, spraying everyone with a $28 fragrance; ones close enough to Cool Water, Burberry, J. LO, and Chanel. With a crescendo of bass drum thuds, she informed the group that they had all made it to the next round of interviews. The crowd responded with a cheer that resembles an old car trying to start on a snowy day. “BE HERE WITH YOUR NOTEBOOKS AT 9AM SHARP ON MONDAY!.” She danced on. The group dispersed like perfume sprayed into the light of a dusty window and slowly regained their individual thoughts. On his way home, Ed Washington ran out of gas on Highway 101. He would have to take the bus Monday.