Wednesday, August 25, 2010

The Rise and Fall of Captain America

When I was a student teacher at college, before I realized I couldn’t teach because I don’t like kids, we learned the tactic of studying by association. The idea was to associate a word or idea with the thing you were trying to remember. But the mind works like this naturally. One word can make your brain leap to another place and time. This happened to me this weekend while watching an all-day "Beauty and the Geek" marathon on TV (yes, somehow I still had brain waves while watching it). For those of you who don’t watch mind-numbing reality shows, the concept in a nutshell is a house full of socially awkward but mega-smart geeks paired with ten “beauties” who share three brain cells between them. They have to interact with each other, the idea being that the beauties get smarter and the geeks get…well, less geeky. Each episode, the geeks/beauties take a pop quiz (for the women, something “intellectual” and for the men, style or fashion). The question for one of the women was—hold your laughter Alex Trebek—what are the three colors in the comic book character Captain America’s uniform?

At the name Captain America, mind association kicked in and I had an instant flashback to nine years ago. I was working in Spain for a family-owned publishing company that hired American ex-pats who would later morph into angry, miserable, bitter “lifers,” wasting away their talents and intelligence for 800 bucks a month. The place had an amazing capacity to turn even the most upbeat person into a paranoid, negative psycho. One by one, I’d see a "New Guy" come into the cushy office full of hope at a real job in a foreign country, only to be broken by the backwards office politics, the miserable, jealous lifers, and the “Dr.,” the 70 year-old company patriarch who ruled his kingdom with an iron fist. The worst of the lifers was a woman who took it upon herself to do a CIA-like background check on every new employee (she’d check the history on their computer, refuse to give them the code to the office door and could be heard saying to anyone who’d listen that the newbie might steal the company’s secrets). We called her “Paranoid Wendy”* or PeeWee for short.

Then came Mark Hardy.* From the American Midwest, Mark quickly became known around the office as Captain America or Mole. He was christened Captain A after I’d had the misfortune of witnessing one of his soapbox speeches about how George Bush had every right to invade Iraq, and how it was NOT for the oil, but for the noblest cause of all—to free the Iraqi women! Mole, his second nickname, came about partly because of the way he continuously scratched himself due to an unfortunate dermatological condition, and partly because of his ability to infiltrate a group in an attempt to “network.” He first shook things up when he started to go through lunch buddies with a vengeance, changing his group of friends several times, leaving a string of casualties in his wake as he burrowed his way to the top. He quickly became the Dr.'s henchman. He could often be heard complaining to his friend of the week about how negative everyone else was.

“I don’t get what’s wrong with everyone here…you gotta take the bull by its horns,” he’d say, ever the King of Positive Clichés. Or his catch phrase: “I always say if life gives you shit, eat shit sandwiches.”

But as much as his popularity and positivity threatened the evil kingdom, PeeWee knew better. She told me one day, whispering in the hallway, the pink creeping across her angry face as she twitched in rage, “His star may be rising. But it will fall.”

And fall it did. While I never learned of the specific torture he must have gone through, within six months Captain A could be seen slouching down the hall, all traces of his usual scurry erased. His scratching became more intense, and red splotches emerged across his face and neck. Instead of smiling, a pained grimace spread across his wholesome face (too many shit sandwiches for lunch?). Rather than changing lunch buddies again, he started to dine alone. He stopped shaving. We lifers gave each other knowing looks. He’d been broken. After a few weeks of this, we never saw or heard from him again.

Flash forward nine years. The question on TV rattles me…I instantly picture Mark Hardy and wonder where he is…did he ever bounce back to his cheerful deluded self? Did he get a job where he could actually use his talents? Did he stop scratching? Dismissing Captain A, I concentrate on the question. What THREE colors (they actually have to give a hint) are in Captain America’s costume? Jesus, if only I’d studied more in school. The “beauty” pauses and wrinkles up her face. Using that one brain cell. The seconds pass. I’m sweating. But Thank G she finally answers: Red…White…and Blue. And she's right!

*Name changed to protect the person I'm exploiting to get a chuckle on my blog.

6 comments:

  1. :D
    Unfortunately, that's what working in Spain is like. You are 100% right. Not even Capt America would survive in a Spanish company. I changed my job to escape from a company like that, and now my old company has bought the one I escaped to and I'm sure they are planning sthg sinister like brainwashing me to turn me into one of their zombies...

    So probably Mark Hardy is still in Spain, has only one remaining brain cell in his head (to say yes to his boss), and he has lost all hope of escaping from that mental prison...

    So I'm glad you escaped. But probably it's just they didn't know how to handle you...

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  2. I love how you put the word beauty in quotes when describing the women on the show. Is that because in your definition, beauty has to include intelligence and personality or are these women just fake, overly made up, augmented franken-barbies and therefore not truly beautiful?

    Your take on office life is thoroughly entertaining. You should write a book.

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  3. So for some reason I've been watching "Fear Factor" and there was a special "Miss USA" edition. Anyone familiar with "Fear Factor"'s format will know that the second stunt always involves the eating of or immersing oneself into something disgusting. As Joe Rogan was explaining this particular stunt, which involved the beauty contestants pulling various ropes that would hundreds of gallons of gunk onto them including fish oil, Miss Kentucky queried "What's fish oil?" Another Miss replied "It's oil, from fish", to which 18-year-old Miss Kentucky responded "Fish have oil?" Cut to Joe Rogan, jaw dropping open, speechless. Are the people on TV really so stupid, or are they the smart ones and we're the stupid ones for watching them?

    Yes, working for Spanish companies can really be a challenge. (@Josep, your thoughts are interesting, especially considering it's your own country... I have a few other Spanish friends who have said the same and have worked outside the country and while here try to work for international companies for the same reason.)

    The office you describe sounds so familiar -- I feel like I've worked there myself! The experience can change people into automatons or make them rebel till they're conveniently laid off on a Friday afternoon by the long-suffering personnel manager while the chief officers skulk down the back stairs.

    Sounds like there was no hope for PeeWee, but let's hope Mark has sorted himself out! Give us an update if you ever hear...

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  4. I always find word associations to be fascinating. It's the perfect opportunity to delve into someone’s subconscious without having to trick them. Many a lazy Sunday I go to the park and ask an unassuming lady (who is all alone) to engage in a friendly game of word association. Little does she know she is inviting me in to chillax inside her brain, for as long as I wish, all the while planting seeds as to why she should sleep with me. So far I'm 0 for 30. Just need to find the right combination of seed/soil/fertilizer.

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  5. Reminds me of the stunning young lady who started working at the unnamed empire with bouncy blond curls and that enthusiasm that the Emperor and PeeWee we always so wont to quell. Six months later she could be observed wandering the office halls in a bathrobe, split ends and a dullness to the eyes that only comes from a premature dampening of the soul. It was said after she left the company that her desk had drawerfuls of half-eaten granola bars and rotting apples.
    *btw- I DO know what happened to Mole. But in the interest of preserving his ever-rising star, I will not reveal his whereabouts. But mark my words, someday we will all be blinded by it's sparkling brilliance.

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  6. Hey, Kiki, you've got the inside stuff...I think I know who that young lady was.

    I was also there the very day Mole finally cracked. He was lurking around in the gents toilets in the newly reburbished basement (where I'd been banished to, a victim of Peewee's spy work). He was scratching his head and his stubbly jaw and the sides of his mouth were pointing down. He looked like he'd just lost the highschool basketball championship after his 3-pointer at the buzzer was disallowed.
    'Man I'm soooo sick of this f***in' place...Nobody knows how to do their job...People stabbin' you in the back...You try to make the best of it...the Big Guy don't letcha get on with anythin', gives you these half-assed projects...tellin' ya man I'm sick of it, gettin' the f outta this sh*thole'...etc

    I was gobsmacked. The mole was a broken man. I'm sure he's bounced back.

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