my life with bob, part 1
I have one of the strangest, most unbelievable jobs the whole world. It’s so unbelievable that I wouldn’t expect anyone to believe it without them witnessing it for themselves. Nevertheless, I will try to make you believe.
My alarm goes off at 7:30am. More than likely I have a pretty bad hangover and have only had a couple hours sleep. But lack of sleep and hangovers don’t matter, it’s time to get to work.
The first thing I do is call Bob. Bob is my boss, and a very important part of my job is waking him up every morning. I dial his cell phone and after a few rings he picks up.
“Hello,” he says very, very groggy.
“What’s up?” I say.
If I’m hungover, then a new word has to be invented for what Bob is. Bob drinks between noon and four in the morning every day. He drinks more than any one I have ever known that is not dead. And if I’ve slept for four hours, then Bob has slept two, or one, or none. Sometimes he’s still drunk when I call him.
“I had a pretty big night,” Bob will say. “Why don’t you call me back in thirty minutes.”
“Okay, I’ll say,”
We go through this every morning. I call him at 7:30 thinking it will give us a little more time to sell. But he always wants the extra half an hour to sleep which gives us very little time.
I call Bob again at eight.
“Got any leads?” he says.
“Yeah, I got some,” I say. Bob knows I have leads. My only job is to get leads, and to get checks.
“Okay, I’ll see you in about an hour,” Bob says.
For the next thirty minutes I shower and shave and get dressed. If I have five minutes to spare I will drink a cup of coffee and read the paper. These days I have to feed my ex’s cat and then my iguanas before I go out the door.
About twenty minutes later, I arrive at our meeting spot. It’s always the parking lot of some shopping center. Joe is always there before me, sitting in his Ford ranger and listening to our local Howard Stern rip-off, Bubba the Love Sponge.
And even though Joe is my closest co-worker, and I park right next to him, we never say good morning or acknowledge each other. We just sit there in our separate cars listening to Bubba the Love Sponge and waiting for Bob.
I know Bob is here when I see Joe get out of his truck and start walking toward my Durango. Then I look up and I see Bob. He pulls into our meeting spot in his pewter Hummer. It has those spinning chrome rims, and they spin for a good thirty seconds after Bob has parked his Hummer. Bob said it was really hard to find those kind of rims for a Hummer because of the wheel size, but he’s relentless when he wants something. He said he paid about $10,000 dollars for them.
Joe jumps in the back seat of my Durango and Bob jumps in the front passenger side. One time Joe sat in Bob’s seat while he was up talking to a customer.
“Get the fuck out of my seat,” Bob said to Joe when he came back.
I sit in the driver’s seat. Part of my job is to drive Bob around, which is kind of strange since I’m not that great of a driver. I got my Durango this spring and I’ve already been in two accidents. Not to mention 12 points worth of tickets, a careless driving and a reckless driving which would have been a DUI if I hadn’t used Bob’s lawyer.
Bob’s been arrested for DUI five times but he’s never been convicted.
“’Sup fellas,” Bob will say as he takes off his gold. He takes his solid gold neck chain and bracelet and puts them in my ashtray. He leaves his Rolex on.
Otherwise Bob is dressed pretty much like me. Jeans and a short sleeve Tommy Hillfiger. Joe dresses a little different. He’s very partial to checkered shirts which look like table cloths.
“Take me to the biggest one first,” Bob says.
“Okay,” I’ll say.
Usually by now Bob has already farted more than once. He is one of those people that is always subjecting you to their farts. Often he will lift himself up out of his seat and strain until the fart comes out. I just roll down the windows. That’s one thing that’s nice about the Durango, power windows.
I used to think that Bob farted so much just to be obnoxious. That’s part of it, but it also has something to do with expelling all the toxins from his body. And it also has something to with being a completely uninhibited person.
I, on the other hand will never fart around people. I try to hide my farts at all costs. I was married for five years and I don’t think my wife ever heard me fart.
Bob’s also one of those people that is always talking about his bowel movements. He’ll tell you a story about a shit that he took that morning or the day before. He’ll tell you what kind of shit will come from the sandwich you are eating while you are in mid bite. He always has to shit when he meets us in the morning. One of his favorite things to say is,
“I have to shit so bad I can taste it.”
Anyway, by now its about 9:07am. Some of the workers have already started showing up. We have about 12-15 workers on a given day, cutters and climbers. We have a payroll of about $1500 just to pay them every day (and we pay them every day). Then there’s about $300 dollars in operating expenses. Of course, Joe and I have to get our commissions which ads four or five more hundred. And finally there is Chris and Bob’s Money. (Chris is the guy that runs the crew and deals with all the equipment). Bob likes to make at least what he calls their “one and five.” That means that Chris makes $500 and Bob makes $1000. Sometimes Bob makes a lot more than that, but that’s his minimum.
That means that we need to sell at least $3000 dollars worth of tree work, just pay the workers and meet our minimum. At 9:07, we have no jobs scheduled or sold. We have no work whatsoever. We just have a few leads from a few people who said they might be interested in getting an estimate. With the workers scheduled to start at 9:30, Bob has just 23 minutes to come up with the three thousand dollars.
5:40:30 PM 
|
The Bob story is becoming a huge tiresome project that is straining my limited attention span. So maybe I'll see if anyone really wants to hear more about such a vile human being.