Cynicism and the Stinky Coworker
How Bill Burr Got Me Through
Do you ever talk to someone and gag?
It’s happened to me. And the weird part was that I felt embarrassed about it.
My gagging was involuntary. The guy was so gross I couldn’t help it. Yet I’m the one who apologized. Going through this many times can lead to a bleak outlook on your social environment.
Swivels here, and today I want to talk to you about cynicism and how Bill Burr helped me through it.
Cynicism
Cynicism is easy.
It might be the easiest attitude to have.
I’ve been around a lot of cynical people. When I was younger and much less experienced than today, I appreciated that cynicism. I looked for it. I rooted it out.
But cynicism isn’t all that cool.
I fight hard not to be a cynic.
I have moments of triumph. I have days and weeks and months of triumph, where I bog myself down with being productive instead of being cynical.
Because cynicism isn’t helpful.
I’ve tried various things in life, and those various things have sometimes exploded in my face. That’s part of risk.
Cynicism should not win. I don’t want it to win. But it can be hard sometimes.
Tommy the Tummy Holder
I’m working in a factory. I’m in the hall, taking off my personal protective equipment (PPE), getting ready to use the restroom, when the door at the end of the hall opens and Tommy walks in.
There are a couple pretty ladies minding their own business when Tommy looks at me and says, in front of the pretty ladies, “I gotta shit.”
I say, “Uh, okay?” Never talked to the guy before.
“I gotta shit bad,” he says.
I tell him, “This is not the kind of small talk I want to have.”
“I shit all the time,” he tells me, beginning to take off his own PPE. “Can’t stop. Everything I eat, doesn’t matter what it is, I’ll be in the bathroom shitting it out within 45 minutes. I’m losing weight because of it and the doctors can’t tell me what’s wrong.”
I wish him the best of luck and then go to take care of my business.
He’s Back
After that I see him more frequently. We work in the same department, so he becomes hard to avoid after our first meeting.
I see him on our short break. I see him at our pre-shift meeting. I see him at lunch. He plops down next to me and quickly details a myriad of problems.
I like visiting, but look. I gotta eat. Life can be hard enough without someone bitching the entire time you chew.
He has a plate full of steaming carbs and packaged sugar. “Doctor says I’m not allowed to eat this stuff,” he says with a mouthful, “but my blood sugar is already spiked. Even when I don’t eat this stuff my blood sugar won’t go down. So fuck it.”
This happens day after day, six days a week.
If he isn’t carrying food, he’s holding his tummy. That’s what I call him: Tommy the Tummy Holder.
One day I try to talk him through it. Give him some dietary suggestions. Like instead cinnamon rolls and spaghetti, try rice and pineapples.
“Pineapples?” he says. “I ain’t gay.”
“Of course not.”
He Goes On
And on and on and on about how he doesn’t like his life. He’s sad, he’s in pain, he wakes up in the middle of the night shitting his guts out, he has to leave the production line for 20–30 minutes to shit his guts out, he’s tired and weak and grumpy from shitting his guts out.
But he slurps down the soda.
“You ever try the water?” I ask him. “It’s filtered right there in the soda fountain, and it’s free.”
“Water?” he asks between gulps of a sweet blue drink. “I ain’t gay.”
I clear my throat and wish I was eating by myself. “No,” I say to my container of chicken. “No, of course not.”
Weeks of This
There are weeks of this. Months.
Why did he have to talk to me in the first place? Now he won’t shut up.
He tells me about how he tries and tries but he can’t get a date.
“I got nobody,” he says. “My parents are gone. I don’t have any family. All I do is work here. And I can’t stop shitting. I think that’s why I don’t have anybody. I shit out all my good vibes.”
Finally I ask him, “What exactly do you eat?”
He answers fervently, “Anything and everything.”
“Maybe that’s the problem,” I say. “Try limiting what you eat. Reduce your sodium and simple carbs.”
“You sound like my doctors,” he says, “and what do they know? They can’t figure this out.”
I sigh.
I say, “How long have you tried to change what you eat? Like, what’s the longest you’ve gone trying to stick to a specific diet?”
“A day,” he answers, scooping chorizo into his mouth.
“One day,” I repeat. “And yet your stomach is in turmoil every day.” He moves his head up and down, chewing. “Have you ever tried the BRAT diet?” BRAT stands for Bananas, Rice, Applesauce, and Toast.
Tommy the Tummy Holder shakes his head.
“Won’t work,” he decides.
And goes back to shoveling in the chorizo.
For the Record
I love chorizo.
Moving RAPIDLY Along
Actually it’s not rapid at all.
It goes on day after day.
Pure negative dribble spewing from Tommy the Tummy Holder.
“Went to the hospital last night,” he says one day. “I had three plates of nachos for dinner and ended up shitting for an hour straight.”
Facepalm.
“Not to sound rude,” I say, “but have you considered NOT eating nachos with your stomach condition?”
“Condition?! I don’t have a condition. I ain’t gay.”
I slump over my food, feeling sad and lonely. “Right,” I mumble. “Of course not.”
It Gets Worse
At lunch I sit in different places but Tommy the Tummy Holder always finds me.
And it gets worse.
There’s a new guy, goes by the name Cecil. Cecil’s somebody else who comes up and says wild things without introduction or warning.
Cecil overhears me telling Tommy about how good chicken is for you and he says, “Chicken! I love me some chickenheads.”
I cock an eyebrow. “I don’t think you’re supposed to eat the head,” I say. But maybe people do. I know beef tongue is a thing.
“You know what chickenheads are, dontcha?”
Suddenly this feels awkward.
“Um, I’m going to guess it’s the head of a chicken, but you have crazy eyes right now, so that’s probably wrong.”
“It is wrong,” Cecil says. “Chickenheads are prostitutes.” He gets loud so everyone can hear: “And I love me some chickenheads!”
I pick up my lunchbox. “Yeah, I’m gonna stick with the breast.” And then I head outside for a smoke.
Cecil and Tommy Make Me Wanna Say ‘Mommy’
Cecil and Tommy make me wanna say Mommy. Or uncle. Or, more accurately, “Please God, get me away from these creeps.”
But they both work in my department. They both leave their stations and come up to talk to me like I want to hear from them. And every time Tommy has to leave the line to go poop, he waves and waves until he gets my attention, pats his tummy so I know exactly what’s going on, and then he darts away.
Boy I’d like to get outta this fuckin place.
After listening to hours and hours of self-improvement talk, an idea I hear from all sorts of people goes like this: You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.
Well, shit. I’m here 6 days a week.
I don’t wanna be like these yoohoos.
“Yoohoo?” Tommy asks. “You brought Yoohoo? Can I buy one off ya?”
Trapped
I feel trapped.
I sit with Haitians and Peruvians so I don’t have to understand anything that’s being said. We say hi, we eat. It’s better this way.
But Tommy and Cecil always weasel their way in. What have I done to attract these people?
One day before lunch Cecil comes up to me while I’m crouched in a compromising work space.
He starts talking about something but I never know what it is. My goal is always to laugh, agree, and get the hell away from him.
It’s not so easy today.
Cecil says somethin and then something else hits me.
It’s not a physical impact as much as it is an aromatic impact.
Cecil gets in my face to make sure I can hear him — super thankful for that — and while he’s talking he gets these long strings of spit hanging from his mouth.
His teeth are filmy and look like they haven’t been brushed in a long time.
He’s telling a detailed story about some poor girl he wants to bang.
I go for my usual tactic — laugh, agree, laugh, agree, laugh — but it’s not working. Cecil keeps on talking.
The spit strings get longer and longer in his mouth. Whenever I move away to keep working he follows me, launching more details I never wanted to know. Thinking of him having sex is bad enough.
But that’s not the worst part.
Here’s the worst part. His hot breath smells like old roast beef sandwiches that he had days ago.
I gag.
I wretch.
My cheeks puff out, I double over, and I fight the automatic reaction to lose my lunch.
How the FUCK do you go throughout the day when your mouth smells like that?
All About That Spective
Ah, but it’s all about perspective. Compared to Shit-Mouth Cecil, Tommy’s company is delightful.
I don’t look forward to it. But now, whenever Cecil approaches the table, I submerge myself into the conversation about Tommy’s bowels.
I scooch in real close and I say, “Oh really?”
I say, “For the hour you spent on the toilette, what’s your squeeze-to-sit ratio? Would you say you have 40 minutes of active squeezing, or is it more of a passive release, like you’re a vessel for all the shit tunneling through your digestive tract brought down by the unstoppable force of Earth’s gravitational pull?”
Yep. Fuckin delightful.
How Did I Deal with It?
Folks, I wish I was exaggerating.
But I’m not.
It’s just the way things go.
How did I deal with it back then? Honestly, I don’t know.
There’s the 10 hours at work, plus the 90 minutes commute time, plus school.
I screamed on the inside. A lot.
One day the line lead walks up and says, “Swivels, you look sad.”
I turn and face her. “I am sad.”
In the mornings I ran a mile and sometimes I thought about throwing myself into the river. But the water level was low and I don’t think I’d wash away so easily.
Cynicism is easy.
I had made a lot of mistakes at that point, and I didn’t have much of a buffer to deal with an increasingly bleak work situation. I didn’t do drugs. I didn’t have an emotional support animal. But I had God.
And I had Bill Burr.
And I shit you not, that got me through months of bad-smelling people, awful work, and dismal conversations.
Yes, cynicism is easy.
But when Bill Burr gets on his Monday Morning Podcast, I know it’s gonna be okay.
I know somebody understands what it’s like to live among a carnival of fucknuggets — and still smile.
Swivles in, Swivels out.
