King St. John's Jim

Friend, Don’t you hate it when a retired worker keeps coming back to the factory and trying to fit in at the old job?

After some billions of years, Spring has found herself out of a job. Too many constellations in the Zodiac, import/export costs of weather, the End Times, theBilderburggroup, theHAARPproject. You pick your own favorite conspiracy – I believe in ‘em all, it keeps my mind flexible. Anyway, a few days ago I reported that St. John’s had dumped spring in favor of Glorious Summer.

There was the final office party, she got her exit interview and she just blew out of town. She had a good cry that night, and decided to reinvent herself.

Following my sage advice, Spring went up to the temp agency and found out about the opportunities we have. Spring was told she had to pay for some aptitude testing and now has to come up with money to pay for her employment.

I told her that she could get cans and bottles around and put them into the recycling machine. One good sweep through the neighborhoods of St. John’s can get $10 or so.

One weepy evening, she came up with this: "But Jim, I’m not good at that. Why are they being so hard on me: Shouldn’t they be grateful for all the flowers? The animals? The hot springtime sex? All the centuries of work experience I have?”

“OK, Spring,” I had to put her straight. “Stop your whining. The folks of St. John’s don’t have to have ANY emotional reaction. The Church of Who Gives a Fuck is big, big, big. So it is purely each person’s choice and that’s a total universal, Spring, never expect people to have your point of view.

"Second, You never learned how to monetize your services, and you are just not with the times. Face it, you are way overqualified."

I admonished her: "You should think about getting an indoor job. Yeah, that’s a good idea, so you can be with the people and find out what they like instead of just being outdoors and simply lurking around till June. If you are real good, you might be included in the Pharmaceutical Technician Hall of Fame!"

I said a curt goodnight. She left all puffed up with herself, and when I woke up, I saw that she had tried to blow empty beer cans over to the recycling machine. Stuff was blown all over St. John’s. It was so bad that the Hope For Health bar started a Trash-4-Beer program. Street people answered the call and everything was picked up by 9AM.

Friend, This kind of thing happens when a worker is laid off. You know, he keeps coming back and cries all the time. Tries to get back onto the assembly lines and do his old job. It’s sad. That’s when the Marshal has to come over and cart him off for observation.

“Spring," I said, "things are different now. There are Earthquakes, Tidal Waves, Cosmic Shifts and Earth Farts. You have to move over for the new generation of weather. In St. John’s, Winter starts on the first snowfall after Christmas, and continues until there are two consecutive days that you can go outside without long underwear. That’s when Summer begins. Autumn may lose his job next and we can run on two seasons. So get your head on straight, Spring, just do what you need to do.”

With that, Spring blew my bus pass and $40 bucks out of my hand somewhere between Slim’s and the James John Cafe. “Cut that out!” I called after her.

The Eternal Temporary Agency gave Spring a bunch of aptitude tests, and found that she was totally an outdoors worker and in need of extensive retraining to be able to fit into our current economy.

Intake Specialist Natalie Nobody reported: “We informed the candidate, a Ms. Spring, that significant differences remain to be resolved. We gave her a package of information and a small subset of the required forms that she will want to complete if she is to be a player on our team and be a viable contributor to our clients. We wish her well in any future endeavors she may entertain.”