“Have You Seen Waldo?” By Rod Parker

Jul 20th, 2009 | By | Category: Prose

My name is Rod. I’m an Assistant Manager at a fast food restaurant, and worked there for nearly five years. I’m a natural study of human nature. Thus, I find this place interesting. Or rather, more accurately, I find the occasional parade of characters sometimes curious, disturbing, and amusing.

Curious: I have a regular who wets his bills at the soda station before handing them over to you. I don’t need to tell you that my first experience with him was mildly disconcerting. Once, I asked the purpose of his ritual; he turned away from me and refused to mumble as much as a word.

Disturbing: I have an occasional customer who resembles the devil. -It’s true_ He has been implanted with short horns; nubs really. He also had disks implanted below his lower lip and one on the back of each hand. His look is complete with tattoos, (of an obscure nature), randomly across his face, arms, and hands. He is a nice and polite young man; but sold out to the darker forces of the universe…

Amusing: And then there’s my Manager, Mel. He’s a good man. He’s constantly thinking of ways to improve morale amongst the staff and when an employee has a problem, he’ll do his best to help them solve it. However, he does have a hilarious side to him that keeps me in stitches.

For example, he likes to watch educational channels on cable t.v. such as the Learning Channel or the Discovery Channel. Every few weeks, he’ll start a project that’ll put what he learned to use. Always with disastrous results. And he will drop that project and move on to another.

I have watched him attempt to raise ants in his home; that is, until the holding tank shattered and his house was infested with thousands of ants. I have watched him grow exotic plants; until his son informed him that his “exotic plants” were, actually, marijuana. Once, he tried to build a fully-functional bi-plane in his basement. He got as far as assembling the fuselage until he realized that he couldn’t get the plane out of his basement. He learned about Feng-Shui and attempted to arrange the store’s dining room tables and chairs so that the energy “flowed” throughout the room. Unfortunately, this eliminated more than half of the seating. Thus, went the Feng-Shui project. The list goes on and on.

A recent project was to teach himself fluid Spanish. Given his track record, I pleaded with him to just take a course at the local community college. He wouldn’t hear of it. He purchased a Spanish dictionary and would go throughout the day, frequently referring to this book whenever an opportunity presented itself.

Just the other day a couple returned to the store to complain that we had forgotten to include a burger in their order. They spoke very little English, but enough for me to understand them. Seeing his opportunity Mel rushed over, practically pushing me to the side. He tore open his dictionary and proceeded to put together a sentence. After several moments, (and a clearly puzzled look on the couple’s face), he completed the sentence, closed the book and puffed out his chest, waiting for a response from the couple.

The husband looked over at me, confused; I shrugged my shoulders. He looked at Mel and repeated back to him what had been said. Mel responded with a proud “Ci_” Without warning, the husband leaned over the counter and popped Mel on the jaw. Mel went reeling back into the wall behind him. I rushed over to help him to his feet as the couple stormed out of the store in a huff.

“What just happened_ Why did he hit me?,” Mel asked as he rubbed the offended jaw.

“What did you say to him?,” I asked.

“I told him that we would be happy to replace the missing hamburger.”

Puzzled, I asked, “then why would that make him angry?”

Maria, one of our employees who is fluid in Spanish, rushed over to help me get Mel back to his feet. She asked what happened and I repeated the incident to her while Mel nursed his jaw, (which was now red and beginning to swell). Maria said “repeat to me exactly what you said to the couple.” Again, Mel whipped out his dictionary and, after much effort, he repeated what he had said to the couple.

Maria blinked, obviously confused. Suddenly she burst out laughing and walked to the back of the restaurant and started recounting the incident to the employees that understood Spanish. The entire back of the restaurant broke out in roaring laughter. I didn’t fully understand what was going on, but I started laughing because I knew that, once again, Mel had done something Mel-ish.

Maria came back over to where Mel and I were standing. I asked for specifics between fits of laughter. She said that the man had hit Mel because he had called the man’s wife a whore. I fell to my hands and knees, doubled over with laughter. Mel walked off in a huff, tossing the dictionary in a trash can as he passed by. –That was the end of his Spanish lessons.

His latest project is increasing his vocabulary by using one of those calendars that gives you a new word to use for each day. This project should keep him out of trouble. For a little while, at least.

As far as the crew is concerned, I’m working with a good team. Most of the crew have been working here for years and, for the most part, we all get along great. I’ve watched their kids grow and develop and I purposely take out the time to talk with each and every one of them whenever I can. I’ve come to think of most of them as family and know them well. That is except for one employee:

His name is Ralph. He’s a grill man that has worked, primarily, the graveyard shift for over eighteen years. During my years at the restaurant, I have worked with Ralph several times; too many times to count, in fact. However, I have never, actually–I know this is going to sound strange–but, I have never actually seen his face. I mean, I could not describe him to anyone_ It’s true_ Really_

You see, every time I go into his work area, either his back is to me; or he’s in another part of the restaurant; or my view of his face is obstructed by some piece of equipment. I have seen his arms and hands from the opposite side of the pass-through; but only his face and hands. (The pass-through is the rectangular opening where sandwiches are passed to the server after they are assembled. I thought it ridiculous that I hadn’t seen his face and decided I was going to get a good look at this man’s face.

Several times I have attempted to go into the grill area and get a good look at him. But something would always seem to get in the way. For example, once when I came into his area, his back was to me while he was facing the grill and cooking meat patties. I circled around to his left, but as if on que, he pivoted to his right to place the meat patties on the sandwich buns. Several times that night I attempted to get a good look at him but, with the same result.

This went on for several days until, finally out of frustration, I decided to walk straight up to him and look him directly in the face. It’s tight in the grill area with the equipment and all. I was forced to navigate around the equipment, working my way towards him. In my haste I pushed aside an employee who was assisting him in assembling the sandwiches. With perfect timing he turned away from me and walked to the back of the restaurant as I approached him from the right. I tried to follow him but now had an employee who was blocking my path, angrily chattering at me in Spanish because I had pushed her. (It took weeks to re-build a rapport with her).

Another instance, Mel wanted to improve the comradery in the store. He purchased a disposable camera and went around the restaurant taking pictures of employees when they were off guard. (We wound up with some funny and compromising photos of the employees). Mel actually took the pictures but placed me in charge of getting them developed and posted on our community bulletin board in the employees’ lounge.

Finally_ I saw this as my opportunity to get a good, square look at Ralph; that is until I saw his picture. Mel had caught Ralph by surprise, but not before he could place his hand in front of the camera. Basically we had a picture of Ralph’s right palm and part of his uniform. –The photo was useless_

I was so mad, I could spit. In fact I did. Unfortunately, an employee was walking by and well… you know what happened; and can you guess which employee it was? Now, Mel wouldn’t schedule me on the same shift as her and threatened to send me through the company’s anger management program. He said that my behavior was “utterly reprehensible.” (Remember, he’d been using one of those calendars to improve his vocabulary).

Okay, maybe I was getting desperate and maybe I was becoming a bit too obsessive. But I just had to see Ralph’s face. Finally, I came up with an idea that was fail-proof: I hired a police-sketch artist that was a friend of a friend. (He charge me five hundred dollars for his services; but at that point, I didn’t care). One by one I called the employees, that have worked with Ralph, into the employees’ lounge so that they could give a description of Ralph to the sketch artist and he could render a sketch of Ralph’s face. –Only problem was, I was always playing practical jokes on the crew and they thought that this was another one of them. When I would ask them for the description, they would just leave the lounge laughing, saying, “Rod, you’re crazy or, “Rod, you’re muy loco_” Five employees came and went out of that lounge before I finally had had enough. I grabbed and yanked on the wrist of the last employee that was trying to leave the lounge without giving a description. The employee was…you guessed it.

She filed a complaint with our HR department. Now I’m being transferred to another store as soon as they find my replacement. Further, I will not be allowed within five hundred feet of the store once I transfer. Oh, I forgot to mention that her complaint was substantiated by a sketch of the incident in the lounge in which I allegedly “assaulted” her. (Worse five hundred bucks I ever spent; although the artist did create a remarkable likeness of me; he is quite talented).

A lot of men spend their lives searching for the “Face of God.” I however, have spent the past few months of my life searching for the “face of Ralph.” Finally I had to admit to myself that I had become obsessed with getting a look at this man’s face. And the results of which was that my life was in shambles. My professional life was suffering and my personal life too: My wife almost left me because she was convinced that I was having an affair when she came across a five hundred and thirty-six dollar receipt from a lingerie store. Do you remember the sketch artist? In order to get the five hundred dollars to pay him, I ran out and got a cash advance off of my credit card. I used a small lingerie shop across the street from the restaurant; but couldn’t without first purchasing something from the store. I grabbed the item nearest me which was a nightie that cost thirty-six dollars.

After explaining the whole story to my wife, she believed me. She said, “no once could make up such a ridiculous story.” However, she did give me the ultimatum: “End your obsession, of our marriage is over.” I decided to cut my losses and gave up my obsession.

Now that I had given up my quest, things were starting to settle down in my life. I was no longer obsessed with seeing Ralph’s face and, in a few days, I was being transferred to another store where I could start to re-build my reputation with the company. My marriage was starting to improve again because, once again, I was focusing all of my attention and efforts on my family. Then two days before my replacement was to arrive, I received a call from one of our local banks…

A couple of weeks prior, Ralph had applied for a home loan. As part of the bank’s procedure, they contact the applicant’s place of employment and interview the employer. Usually, they interview Mel. But when he is not available, they interview me. I have been interviewed over a dozen times and am always happy to help our employees to share in a piece of the “American dream.”

Each bank has their own loan procedures, but their questions are usually just a slight variation of the same set of questions; and in the same order. Usually, I just pull up the information on the computer and answer any and all of their questions. The following are some sample questions:

“Please state the employee’s full name.”

“How long has the employee been working there?”

“What is the employee’s present wage?”

“When do you anticipate the employee’s next raise, if any?”

“When do you anticipate the amount of the raise to be, if any?”

“How would you rate the employee’s job performance?”

And so on, and so on…

As I said, answering the questions is simple and the interview usually takes five minutes or less. In the case of Ralph, the interview went like this:

“Please state the employee’s full name.”

“Ralph Waldo Pearson.”

“How long has the employee been working there?”

“Eighteen years and three months.”

“What is the employee’s present wage?”

“Eleven dollars and seventy-five cents.”

(I have completed so many of these interviews that I have learned to anticipate the questions and answer them before the interviewer barely has enough time to ask the questions. In the case of this interview, it was no different. In fact, after the second question, the interviewer thanked me for helping to move the interview along so quickly).

I anticipated the next question. “It’s going to be about his next raise,” I thought to myself.

The interviewer asked, “please provide a full description of Mr. Pearson, including height, weight, and general characteristics of his face. –For identification purposes.

Without really listening, I responded, “he will receive his next job review about three months from now.”

“What?,” the interviewer asked.

“What?,” I responded in confusion.

The interviewer became slightly annoyed and re-asked the question. (That’s right, I said re-asked). “Please provide a full description of Mr. Pearson, including height, weight, and general characteristics of his face.”

I hesitated; not sure what to do. The interviewer, now really annoyed, took on an impatient tone in her voice. “Mr. Parker,” (that’s me), and she repeated the question verbatim.

I responded, (stammering), “I-I’m not s-s-sure of his d-description. I-I-mean I-I know he is about six feet four and is a white male…”

“Go on,” the interviewer encouraged me to continue.

“B-but, I c-c-cannot give you a d-d-description of his f-f-f-face.”

Reassuringly, the interviewer said, “there is no need to be concerned, Mr. Parker.” We keep this information in the strictest of confidence. In fact, I am Mr. Pearson’s loan officer. I actually met him at the bank when he first came in to apply for the loan. But it is our procedure to verify his actual identity through his employer”.

I replied, “No, y-you don’t understand. I cannot give you a description of his face because I have never actually seen his face.”

Confused, the interviewer asked, “Mr. Parker, are you the assistant manager at the restaurant, or not?”

“Yes, I am.”

“And, you have been employed at the restaurant for the past four years?”

“Yes, actually going on five years.”

“Am I to be led to believe that during those four years…”

“Almost five years,” I interrupted.

“Five years_” (The interviewer was now screaming at me). “Now, as I was saying. Am I to be led to believe that during those five years, you have never seen Mr. Pearson’s face?”

“I know. It seems hard to believe myself. Trust me, I have spent a considerable amount of time and money trying to get a look at this guy’s face. By the way, what does he look like? –Please tell me_” (I was now screaming on the phone as the interviewer disconnected).

The loan was disapproved. The interviewer alleged that Ralph and I were partners in some sort of scheme to defraud the bank. Ralph, in turn, complained to HR and I was fired. They’d received too many complaints from too many employees and felt that I was unfit to manage.

Further, Ralph and I were arrested on “conspiracy to commit fraud” charges. They put us each in separate rooms and grilled us for hours. Ralph was soon released because they could not find evidence of any conspiracy. I, on the other hand, was transferred to a state psychiatric hospital where I am currently being treated for “Illusional Obsessive Disorder.” Apparently they say that I am illusional because I refuse to admit that I have actually seen Ralph’s face. I have been termed obsessive because of the time and money that I spent in trying to get a look at his face.

My wife left me and I am now unemployed, although I won’t have to worry about room and board for a while. On the bright side, this place has a reputation for having one of the finest arts and crafts program in the state. In fact, I joined their art class which is being taught by a very talented sketch artist that volunteers from the police department.

My doctor tells me that I will be able to get out of this place as soon as I admit that I have, actually, seen Ralph’s face and provide him with a detailed description. –Well, see you around.

————

Rod Parker isn’t a man, but a golem constructed by a rabbi in Prague. The above story was taken from the scroll rolling around in his kiln-fired head.

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