Finding the Way Out

For the first time I have a guest writer for this week's column. The following feature is from my close friend and colleague Giovanni Boone. He describes his experience working at the Department of Motor Vehicles.

Finding the Way Out

The moment I walked out of the elevator, the claustrophobia set in. A vast maze of cubicles stretched before me as far as the eye could see. It felt like the walls were closing in on me. Everywhere I looked, people were hunched over computers staring glassy-eyed at their monitors. No one laughed. No one smiled. I had arrived at the heart of darkness: the DMV headquarters. To make matters worse, I was there for an interview. When they called my name, my only thought was, I’ve got to get the hell out of here.

I made my first attempt to escape even before I got the job. At the interview, they asked me a few basic questions - name, age, sex, pulse? After checking my pulse, which was racing, Jeanne, my soon-to-be boss, offered me the job. I politely declined. This environment just wasn't for me, I said. And besides, I think a graveyard shift just opened up at the Circle K. I figured this would be the end of the interview, but instead of letting me leave, she tried to convince me to take the position. My resume was not that strong, she said. It would be good for me to have experience doing mindless work for little pay, she added. It would get me ready for the real world. I’m not sure it did that, but it did help appreciate the movie Office Space more. My reluctance notwithstanding, she finally badgered me into accepting her offer.

There were five student assistants, including me, who all shared the same workspace. We were penned-in like sheep and relegated to the far corner of the building. I soon came to realize that hard work was not rewarded. My bosses seemed annoyed rather than impressed when I finished a project quickly. One time, Kevin, one of the other sheep, and I spent half a day copying and collating a 500-page binder. When we delivered it to Jeanne, she said, oh, we don't need that anymore. Sorry. We were even told that it was okay to play computer games as long as weren't caught. I got pretty good at minesweeper.

My mind started turning to jelly. I'd come home every night completely exhausted from boredom and nap for two hours before going to bed. It was depressing. Four months into it, I decided to quit. Being a conscientious student, I lined up another job at a local ice-cream parlor before giving my two weeks. This gesture, I thought, would get me a good letter of recommendation for my meager resume. My boss was disappointed that I was leaving, but she understood. The staff even planned a going away lunch for me at the Olive Garden.

During that second to last week, I received the same chain letter three times. Email was a relatively new phenomenon back then and chain letters were popular. The letter said: if you send this letter on to 10 people you will see the Taco Bell dog walk across your screen. I had already seen the Taco Bell dog enough on TV, so I deleted those emails, but it got me thinking. Who started this email? Are people really stupid enough to keep forwarding something like this? Wouldn't it be great if I sent out a chain letter and received it back weeks later by some random person?

My last day of work finally arrived and I was feeling good. I did some fake work for a couple of hours and then went out for lunch with the staff. I even got a few going away presents. When we arrived back at the office I decided to reveal my chain letter idea to the rest of the student assistants. They enthusiastically encouraged me to go for it.

I crafted a chain letter similar to the one I had received, replacing the Taco Bell dog with Godzilla. The deal was this: forward the letter to seven people and a mini fire-breathing Godzilla would walk across your screen. Send it to 12 or more, and you'd see Godzilla chasing Japanese citizens through the streets of Tokyo. It seemed reasonable.

Now I needed to decide who to send it to. With my colleagues looking on, I began to scroll through the DMV address book. There were lots of names I didn't know, but as I scrolled, I came upon headings that read, "first floor, second floor..." and so on. Hmm...? I could send it to everyone on the fifth floor, exactly the kind of wide dispersal that would kick start my letter. Moments before sending it off to the entire fifth floor, I happened upon another address that read "DMV internet users." I decided that that would be an even better idea.

It wasn't.

Less than thirty seconds after clicking send, Javier, one of the full-time employees who never left his cubicle, came over to us. He simply stared at me for a moment as if seeing me for the first time. Then with a heavy tone, he said: Dude, you've got a lot of balls to send something like that. His words hung in the air like the reverberations of a gong. I looked around at my friends who smiled back, in agreement -- yes indeed, I did have a lot of balls.

Javier advised me to recall my email. The look on his face convinced me it might be a good idea. The magnitude of my actions quickly became apparent. A counter started rolling to show the number of emails successfully recalled. 100... 200... 300... Moments later it was at 1000. My stomach sank. And then the phone call came.

It was Pat, one of my bosses. Network security had called, she said, and were concerned that my email message might crash the server. Security was demanding immediate action be taken against the perpetrator. Pat, said Jeanne, my other boss, would speak to me when she got out of her meeting. I might have to clear out my desk early, she said. This was not going well. How did I get into this mess?

I looked at the clock. It was 4:00 pm.

It'll be no big deal, my buddies consoled. What are they going to do, fire you with an hour left? Besides, Jeanne won't be that mad. Turns out they were wrong: It was a big deal, they were going to fire me, and Jeanne was pissed. Her first words to clued me in to that. Do you know how bad you f#*% up, she hissed. I was beginning to get the picture and it did not look pretty. She told me to get my things and follow her to her office.

In her office, Jeanne grilled me about this email. What was I thinking, she asked. Why did I send it to everyone? Was I trying to get fired? Was I some kind of moron? I didn't have a satisfactory answer for her questions, and to this day still don't know how I made such an obviously idiotic decision. I settled for apologizing profusely and agreeing that I was indeed a moron. Next, she took my employee badge and called security, effectively barring me from ever coming back onto the premises. I could be charged with trespassing if I tried to come back, she let me know. Why would I try to come back? I've been trying to leave ever since I arrived. Furthermore, I was to be blacklisted and would never be allowed to work for the state again. Security showed up a few minutes later to personally escort me out. It was 4:45. I got fired with fifteen minutes left on my last day. It wasn't funny then, but now I can laugh about it.

Ironically, I currently work as a public school teacher and get my paycheck from the State of California.

I never did get that letter or recommendation.