10 Jack App

Despite a work interest level so low it's negative, I'm minding my own business in Starbucks in Joshua Tree, when my fingers go on automatic pilot and bring up DICE.com. I blame Microsoft for their shortcuts.

Wham!

Suddenly, as if the gods orchestrated it, the screen in front of me is filled with a fulltime position available for Jack Henry in San Diego.

San Diego? California? Sun-drenched paradise on the coast? Closest thing the mainland has to Hawaii? Good god. I’ll be there in a couple of weeks anyway. Is this coincidence – or something spooky connected to omens and the like?

No matter how tempting, anything connected with a return to work should not be rushed, so I sit back with another Americano, this time laced with an extra triple shot.

Hmm, let’s see… skillset requirements:

PL/I – check.

COBOL – check.

DB2 – check.

Desire to transition to Visual Basic and learn SQL server database design over the next few years – check, check, check oh yes indeedy, check, check.

Desire to learn? Training? Wow, oh fucking wow!

It says ‘fulltime’. Although technically meaning 40 hours per week and therefore applying equally to permanent, salaried, or any form of contract position, it’s qualified with ‘permanent’.

Permanent doesn’t have to mean forever. It’s all a matter of perspective. After thirty years of contracting, a few years of permanence with training could seem like a holiday. What’s the worst that could happen?

So I decide to apply.

I’m at edge of the client’s site, redirected automatically by DICE, but going any further requires a Jack Henry membership with User ID and password. This is increasingly common in everything, not just job applications. How many people get discouraged at this point?

Happily, the site has no issue with my chosen membership details. I’m required to agree that I’ve seen their policy of non-bias and equal opportunity, then come some ‘pre-registration’ questions. Where do I live? (ha ha ha). Will I relocate?

The first stumbling block is education, which has to be selected from a drop-down list. None of the entries apply to someone coming from England – or anywhere else – and there’s no space to enter anything different. Despite the pretext of equal opportunity, it’s evidently necessary to have an American education – or at least pretend to.

I give myself High School Graduate which is, of course, a blatant lie but it’s slightly better than K-Force in Seattle, who believe I have degrees from both Oxford and Cambridge universities.

The system now requires a complete work history. Even the prospect of training isn’t enough to make me sit here all day and manually enter thirty years of contracts, but an allowable alternative is to upload a resume and let the system generate one. Ah hah!

So I do – with the results you might expect. It calculates that I have a total of nine years’ experience beginning in 2004. The period from 1975 has been expunged and about half of the positions shown began on the ever-so-familiar January 1st 1900 and never ended. Don’t you just love computers? Technology is so wonderful.

A checkbox appears for indicating the correctness of what it's generated, but the list is uneditable. Continuing without confirming its correctness does not work, so I am again forced to lie.

Now there's what seems to be a pointless question: What salary do I require. Doesn’t a job come with a specific range, dependent upon relevant experience? I could say anything, but that would be silly. Anyway, it’s a drop-down list of ranges, so I pick the highest. This is like bartering for a gourd in some Middle East street market.

There has as yet been nowhere to enter my age or date of birth, so that generated section, with its significantly truncated  length of experience, seems to have lopped three decades off my life. I am renewed. I don’t mind, of course, but the gray hair might come as a shock should this ever get to an interview.

I’m waiting for the ability to enter some explanation of my real-life experience or supply a cover letter but it never comes.

The final screen is a warning message indicating that – due to high volume of applications – the company will not contact applicants.

It is up to individuals to log on to check their application status – but the web address is not given. Since I was re-directed here, I have no idea of what it is.

Wonderful.

Well, that was thirty-two minutes of life I’ll not get back.

09 Toe

My left big toe hurts.

Actually, it’s not the toe – it’s the knuckle that joins the big toe to the foot. There’s no sign of injury – no bruise, no swelling – nothing.

It feels like I got run over by a truck that I now don’t remember. When I touch it, the sensation is like a needle being pushed through my eyeball – in the foot.

I keep taking the sock off and squeezing it to see if it’s magically gone away. People in restaurants probably think I’m strange. It’s like having a loose tooth when you’re a kid and you feel all the way around it with your tongue, poking to see if the hurt has gone. Then the tooth falls out.

I hope that doesn’t happen to my toe. How could I count past nineteen?

This is supposed to be a hiking vacation. Hobbling and using the left heel for stability is all I can do. How can I hike on one foot? I’m a mess; a wreck. Self-pity is easy this week.

Sympathy would be nice. So would knowledge – what is it?

If it was broken, it would be black.

If it was dislocated, it wouldn’t move at all.

So WTF?

Do I have gout?

Is my body rejecting me?

Am I the first victim of an alien task force of nano-beings that take over civilizations by invading their extremities?

I hope it’s the last one. That or something innocuous that will cure itself after a few days of inactivity, then I wouldn’t have to face the horrors of the American medical system again.

Two years ago I had a knee issue – ironically, also in Palm Springs. The immense difficulty acquiring attention for what was a minor issue, followed by a billing and insurance fiasco lasting more than a year, left me in doubt about whether even I’d survive a serious problem.

After two x-ray sessions, an MRI and four ‘extended’ specialist visits, I cured it myself with ice and Ibuprofen. That’s what I’m self-prescribing this time.

I don’t think my toe will kill me.

But let’s wait and see….

08 Coastal Betrayal

The Townhouse Motel experience made me feel like I'd just had a clumsy enema. Driving the coast wasn’t the same afterwards. Is this how prison newbies feel after their first male bonding experience?

I didn’t stop much. How many pictures of crashing waves can you take? Towns blended into a continuous memory, each with a biker bar, two gas stations and the obligatory McDonalds.

Stops for gas and restrooms became something to look forward to. San Francisco beckoned.

But then the sky turned to the color of cardboard and stayed that way. Was Seattle chasing me? By the time the odor of dead skunk started to smell good, something had to be done.

Over a few brews in another anonymous bar with good burgers and customers sporting creative facial hair, the decision made itself. San Francisco could wait – it was time to head for the desert. There’s been too much driving, sitting, eating and drinking. My boots were made for walking.

Abandoning the ocean at Navarro River next day felt like betrayal.

Compared to the glacial speed of Rt 1, traffic on Rt 128 flew. Scenery soon changed to fall colors and then vineyards – and blue sky.

Lunch in St Helena was a shot in the arm. Why did I stay so long hugging the coast? Betrayal, as an emotion, is overrated.

A day later, after an interesting Mexican meal where the waitress didn’t speak English and a surprising night in a Motel 6 that could easily pass for a Sheraton, I reached the Coachella Valley.

It was slightly after sunrise and the turbines standing on red-gold mountains spun their arms in welcome.

Time from leaving work to reaching Palm Springs: twelve days. Time from check-in to first steps on a hiking trail: 43 minutes.

These boots were made for walking…

07 Horror Motel

The Oregon coast is lovely. So is a really good IPA but it loses something after the seventh pint. Waves crash, surf rolls. Rinse and repeat; and repeat; and repeat.

Signs tempting bored snowbirds to hand over cash for gawking at something proclaimed to be of interest litter Rt 101. I drive by.

Seal-shaped rocks don’t interest me. Giant redwoods with holes cut out for cars to drive through? Nah. Rugged coastline – yep. Lightning storms – yep. Sunsets or sunrises – yep. You can keep the other stuff. No one ever accused me of being a good tourist.

Oregon gives way to California. Rinse and repeat etc. Then comes Crescent City.

All I need is a clean room at a low price that’s safe for the electronics and the bikes – and Crescent City has a lot of options. The Townhouse Motel looks promising and there’s a bar within walking distance.

A bell sits on the office counter next to a giant box of donuts. Above it, a marker-written sign screams, “No Refunds – No Exceptions.” Danger signals.

The voice inside my head is yelling, “Run away,” when someone behind me says, “Need a room?” A man in a black Iron Maiden tee-shirt has followed me into the office so silently he could be a cat-burglar – except he doesn’t have the physique.

He hasn’t shaved for a while and I can smell that his attention to personal hygiene is somewhat cavalier. Although I don’t make a habit of staring at a man’s tongue, each time he opens his mouth to speak, I can’t help noticing his is the color of a fresh dog turd.

I’m trying to say “No,” but he starts talking about England and his friends that go there regularly and how the rate is only $40 – then he offers a chocolate donut. I don’t accept but, in the verbal confusion, I manage to hand over a credit card and get the key to room 23.

Regret waves through me instantly but it’s too late. What the fuck? It’s the same kind of self-loathing misery that comes when a potential new girlfriend is about to stay the night but I say the wrong thing and she goes home instead.

So I drive across the courtyard and open the door. First impressions count and that’s bleach, followed by the mold it’s trying to obscure.

A dented white microwave sits on the table and the curtain droops from a piece of wire nailed to the ceiling. The mismatched furniture looks like it’s done the rounds of various Goodwill stores and simply looking at the bed makes me feel dirty.

I go outside to see an audience. Folks from across the parking lot are standing outside their doors, watching. These people don’t look like usual motel guests – they look like the kind of folk who live here permanently but not on their own budget. Some of the cars appear to have seen better days too - and they're the best ones.

I can’t stay here. This is the kind of place horror movies are made of. I could wake up tomorrow morning dead – or worse. Fuck the refund sign.

I go back to the office but the manager bozo is nowhere to be seen. Hitting the bell a million times does nothing. Where is he? He knows, doesn’t he. Only down-and-outs stay in this shit-hole, or people who accidentally wandered in off the highway and got stuck. Bastard. Fucker. The asshole shitface is hiding.

Whatever. I have no clothes left so it’s laundry time and there’s a laundromat a mile back into town. This mess can wait.

The 90-minute laundry cycle gives time to reconsider my situation, ably assisted by two 16 oz cans of Colt-45. A sense of unease grows and festers as the washer does its business. There’s no way it’s safe to leave two bikes and a computer at the Townhouse and I feel physically sick at the prospect of walking into that room again.

The solution becomes obvious as I’m filling the drier. There’s no need to confront the bozo. Just walk away. That’s what credit cards are for. Dump the key on the office counter, get the hell out of there and call Visa. Brilliant! Sometimes I think I’m a god.

The sense of release is tangible. I could almost pick it out of the air like a fluff of cotton.

Intent on getting the escape plan in motion immediately, I push all the laundry into the 20 cent Safeway bag and drive far too enthusiastically back to the Townhouse.


The bozo is standing outside the office. “You’re not staying,” he says. It’s a statement. Not even a hint of question.

He doesn’t ask why and I offer no explanation. Perhaps this happens frequently.

Despite the warning sign above the bell, he initiates a refund. The three minutes it takes to go through is the longest one hundred and eighty seconds in the history of the universe.

Then I’m gone.

He didn’t even offer a donut.

06 SADness

Sunshine.

Blue sky.

What a difference it makes – to everything.

I must suffer from S.A.D.S or whatever acronym describes those of us whose mood droops when everything up there is gray.

Seattle’s a good city but it needs to move. Is that possible? Like moving a house?

It’s not the rain, not even the drizzle. Real weather of any kind doesn’t impart the same sense of nothingness. It’s the constant sense of BLAH when the sky’s the color of cardboard that draws the life out of you.

Escape is short-lived. Bright lively coffee shops and bars provide a temporary uplift, but the effort required to get enthusiastic about anything doubles, triples and quadruples. You stay in bed more, sleep more, make more excuses and do less. Life moves slower; sometimes it grinds to a halt.

It feels like your legs are bungeed together, like those dreams where you’re running but don’t get anywhere. Apathy is so overwhelming you’re even subconsciously hoping for rain, so you have an excuse for not putting out the monumental amount of effort it would take to arrange something.

There’s an overriding desire for company and you depend so much more on relationships and the presence of friends, but meeting people in the first place is hard. Anyone who rejects the notion of the Seattle freeze is either a native or living in denial. Or both.

You try everything – vitamin D tablets, fake sun lamps, trips away.  Eventually, you get used to the yearly routine of minimal summers and make excuses for how shitty the rest of the year is but then you’re wishing your life away in the process.

The effect is cumulative. In the beginning it’s only an irritation like an itchy rash you can ignore or scratch, but then it starts to affect your mood and, before long, every day is spent in a semi-depressed state from which the only reprieve comes in a glass. That’s when it’s time to go.

But now I’m in the land of blue skies and sunsets, traveling down the Oregon coast towards the promise of perpetual sun in California.

In another week of this I might be a real person again…

It’s all a bit SAD.

05 Last Wash

The guest laundry opens at seven, so it’s a surprise to get there as the motel manager unlocks the door and see that I’ve been beaten to it. An Out Of Order sign sits on one washer and the other is full of clothes.

The manager is apologetic. “Probably left from last night,” she says. “It closes at ten but some guests ignore the sign on the door and get locked out.”

She empties the machine into a basket, then my own clothes go in and I return to my room to begin packing for leaving town. After half an hour I go back and switch everything to the drier but nothing happens when I push in the money slide.

The second machine works but now I have to go back to the front desk for a refund. “Not your day is it?” the manager jokes as she hands over $1.25. “I thought that broken drier got reported already.”

When I go back to collect the dry clothes, I find her in the middle of a spirited argument with a very angry and very large woman wearing a coat so long it touches the floor. Two small children cling to her legs with their heads protruding as if sprouting from her knees and the trio looks like the Ghost of Christmas Present.

It was her washing in the machine overnight and she’s very unhappy. She seems not to care who witnesses her outburst, so I fold my clothes slowly, listening to see what happens. Ellensburg’s not the entertainment capital of the world, so this is as good as it gets.

She'd started a wash just before ten, then decided to do a second load. She moved the Out Of Order sign from the drier to the other washer so that “No one could take my machine” then went to her room to get the rest of the laundry, but the door was locked when she got back. “Had to deal with my babies,” she said, looking down at the urchins glued to her legs.

The night clerk told her the previous guy had locked up and taken the key with him, but she didn't believe it. “That desk boy lied to me,” she yelled, shooting flecks of spit towards the manager. “He abused my rights.”

I can only imagine what discourse occurred. He's probably in a padded room now, wearing a long-sleeved white jacket. The kind that buttons up at the back.

Their argument escalates, although it’s really more of a tantrum. The manager rarely squeezes out any more than a hurried “but…” as the woman gets more agitated, gesticulating and hollering about her “touching her privates” and how badly she was treated last night.

No doubt it would continue until she ran out of spit or the manager fled, shrieking. A small part of me wants to see the end, but the plot of this story was thinning and it didn’t really matter.

You can only have so much of a good thing and I believe I’ve exhausted the Ellensburg limit.

04 Sunrise

The cold is what wakes me. It’s still dark and there's nothing I can do to get warm except run naked across the room and turn on the heater. I'd use it through the night, but it's so loud it puts a road drill to shame.

There's no point even thinking about more sleep with this noise and I can feel the pull of pancakes, so I pull on a sweatshirt and jeans, grab the car keys and head out to the IHOP by the interstate exit.

The sun starts to rise on the way and it's not often that I'm up to see it, so I pull over and stare at a spectacular red sky dotted by low-hanging, silver-edged clouds. Mist rising from a nearby lake takes on an eerie pink glow and the scene is framed by imposing silhouettes of bare trees. This must be what the vampires see as they scurry back to their coffins.

MUST TAKE PICTURES!!

I'm suddenly in a flurry of crazed activity. Forgetting about my minimalist clothing, I open the car door to encounter the temperature of deep space. My first surprised, "Fuuuuuck!!" shoots out and hangs in the air like a snow cloud.

Despite the crap covering the back seat there's no jacket or gloves lurking there so it's now a race to find the tripod, mount the camera and take some pictures of this wondrous sky before I die of frostbite. But where is it?

Tomorrow I'll be more organized but today - it is what it is. It's not in the passenger seat well and not in the storage tubs behind the front seats. Everything in the back has to come out, so I pile the hiking tub, the cycling tub, the snow gear and the hand-truck onto the frosty ground, hoping the tripod is wedged somewhere between. It's not.

I look in each tub, pulling out boots, poles, bike shoes, helmet, snow shoes, ski gloves, camelbacks, boxes of nutrition bars - nothing.

My fingers feel like they're turning to ice by the time I find it, squeezed beside the spare wheel, under the floor with the jack and tools. How fucking sensible. Isn't that where every photographer would store his tripod? I'm going to write this down as a NEVER DO note to self.

How long does it take to get for skin and human tissue to die at this temperature?

A police car prowls by as my numb fingers are struggling to release the tripod's leg clasps and stand it up. Is he going to stop? Does it look like I’m planning to blow something up?

There's no sign that says I can't take pictures - but then there's none that says I can, either. Maybe this lake's private - but the road's not. I pay my taxes.

All that's left is to mount the camera. Fortunately the quick-release is always attached to the bottom so it’ll slide in with no fuss. Let’s hope there's enough feeling in my hands to set up a long exposure and work the shutter button.

That’s when my hasty and ill-prepared mission hits a snag.

There is no camera.

It's on the table back at the motel. Sunrise won’t last long enough to go back and collect it, so I just have to sit and watch.

I feel cheated. My shutter finger is redundant. It’s like having too much to drink with a new girlfriend and there’s no Viagra.

Luckily there’s still IHOP.

…and pancakes.

03 Bad Neighbors

Ellensburg’s attractive during the daytime, in a historic country town kind of way, but the bars close late at the weekend and it’s a drunk fest that gives the police something to do.

I’m asleep when it starts; the revving engine, full headlights raking across the motel window, slamming and re-slamming of truck doors, yelling voices. Then there's a “Wooooo” at the throat-catching volume normally used in sports bars and the obligatory TV. It drags me back to reality with all the subtlety of a mallet to the head.

For fifteen minutes I’m listening to commercials, sports commentary and channel-surfed segments of Hollywood blockbusters with plenty of explosions, only slightly muffled by their passage through the wall. After a while I try a polite knock, which has no effect, then a louder thump. Suddenly, such a pounding comes from the other side that I recoil in shock. Did my heart just stop?

What now? Physical confrontation? I’m not three hundred pounds of muscle and I'm no Chuck Norris, so I think not.

I call the front desk and the clerk asks whether I have spoken to them. He's quite mad, of course, but then he says he’ll deal with it and, within moments, the phone rings next door.

How diplomatic will he be? Can he deal with people who are toasted and wanting to party? What happens if he says the neighbor in 129 complained? I doubt that Motel 6 put their desk clerks through diplomacy classes.

What will my neighbors do when they hear they're being asked to forgo their own pleasure in the interests of everyone? Will they turn off the TV and quieten down for the good of all or will they come around to beat on my door, kick ass and take names?

I guess it depends on whether they’re Democrats or Republicans.

A part of me remembers a time when I might have been one of them.

It’s a memory that sets me drifting back towards dreamland because…

Suddenly…

All is quiet.

02 Final day

An easy last day would've been nice, but it doesn't happen, so I work like a maniac all morning, fixing things, reassuring the boss and telling people stuff they only now realize they need to know.

Once today is over, work is off the agenda for three months, so it’s with mixed feelings that I take a call from Cameron in Tek Systems’ Baltimore office.

He needs an IBM Assembler consultant and I’m the only one in their entire database with that skill. He’s so excited it’s almost cruel to disappoint him.

I tell him about the walkabout but he says the contract would take four weeks to arrange, so that could be my time off. It's all telecommuting with no on site requirement except for a one-week training course for which they’ll cover all transportation, accommodation and meal costs. The rate’s too low, but he says they can be flexible – “for the right person.”

I’ve been wanting to get back with Tek Systems for a while, so I email him my latest resume and suddenly he's like a kitten chasing a ball of wool.

My experience is more than a 100% match, he says. It would be too geeky to point out the mathematical impossibility of this, so I let it go. He’s certain that he’ll have a positive answer by the end of the day and they’ll want to speak to me tomorrow.

Talking it through over lunch, I realize that it’s too late to think about a new job, whatever Cameron says. Pissing off an agent is always a bad thing, so he has to believe it’s his decision. The problem is how to do that?

Ping!

My phone has a 202 area code, so he thinks I live in Washington DC, not Seattle. He’s not offering an air ticket from the west coast – he thinks it would be a half-hour AMTRAK ride. That's also why he said nothing about how the three-hour time difference - because he doesn't know there would be one.

He calls back sooner than expected. His manager noticed that my three most recent contracts were in Seattle and wants to confirm that I’ll be coming ‘home’. Being right starts a glow of smugness like a candle in  my tummy.

“No,” I tell him, “Not for a while. Heading south to San Diego.” Then I mention how much I look forward to working in sun-drenched public parks, or from my car, using the cellphone as a wi-fi hotspot.

Most bars have free internet so I could do a whole lot of work during the evening to leave the afternoon free for the beach and I could start early in the morning from Starbucks to make up time and overcome any communication problems caused by the 3-hour time difference with Baltimore.

He’s a lot less enthusiastic now, but I've only just got started. There’s a definite pause when I ask whether Seattle airport cab fares are included with the transportation offer. He needs to talk to his manager, he says, and he’ll get back to me.

But he never does…

01 Introduction

Life’s full; never a dull moment. Anyone who disagrees is looking through the wrong colored spectacles. (Rose is best)

At a time when the majority of people worry about their jobs and futures, I’m on a road trip to unwind.

I haven’t retired – there’ll be another contract in a few months – but the constant overhead gray that is Seattle needs a blast of blue sky to balance it.

The plan’s vague at its best – simply to travel south to the warmer weather then spend a good deal of time in the National Parks, hiking and cycling. The snow shoes are along for the ride too but I suspect they’ll not see daylight until the car’s unpacked in a few months. In any case, it's time for a new blog...

Those familiar with previous blogs will know that, although inspired by travel, they rarely contain much about it. The material comes from my perspective on circumstances that occur around me and the interactions I have with people.

Any mention of scenic beauty or interesting towns generally appears by chance, if at all, however this one will contain more than just unusual situations. Astounding - a travel-inspired blog actually mentioning travel! I suppose you could describe it as a personal splurge of creativity stimulated by a change in surroundings.

I see humor in the absurd and the irrational. Both are everywhere and humor frequently derives from the negative but how my posts are received is entirely subjective.

So – to explain the title: walkabout is an aboriginal rite of passage involving a journey and survival in the wilderness. Feenix, based on the mythical phoenix, began with my early IT career and has become, over the years, a pseudonym. I think 2013 is self-explanatory.

A gentle warning: no offense is ever intended, however we are all different and some people are more sensitive than others. If you object to political reference, sexist, racist or religious comment, tales of drunken mishap or the use of particular words – you know what to do.

Otherwise, please read on – and feel free to comment…