The Old Card Trick

It's the same thing, over and over again.

I go into FEGS WHATTHE- FUCK and sit down, eat my breakfast in the classroom as we sign in. Then I read my AM New York and the New York Metro. I'm bored. At 10:30 I'm still churning air, and we take our first break, ending with us returning to room 4F to go to the lab. I sit behind my favorite PC and work on reading my emails, which do not last for long. Then, I'm churning air. Churning baby, churning. I'm fucking pissed. My life has settled down to this stupid time wasting process. I can't believe that they actually pay people to waste your time. What's the purpose of this? I can't understand this. Why do I have to sit in a room and putz away on a computer when I could stay home and do the same thing?

And they are paying people a full time salary just to watch over me. It's a prison and they are our Corrections Officers. I take my long walk at lunchtime and I find that my range in a half hour is a third farther than when I started. I'm getting stronger all the way around with everything that I'm doing, from sit ups to push ups to walking. I am very pleased when I get back to the lab, although on time I am too late to find a seat behind a computer. Someone has already sat his lousy ass in my favorite seat. I stand up like a manikin with five others, waiting for the Facilitator to walk in and give us another lab or two to go to. It's fine by me. I have only an hour and a half to go to with the day anyway.

The Facilitator, Marilyn, walks in and takes her seat at the desk in the front, regards her screen and then sits back, calling into the air: "Hobobob!" Yeah. "You're wanted upstairs on the seventh floor to sign your IPE."

Fuck. I KNEW they would do it today. They just want to fuck everything in my life up for the next week. I just KNEW it. I head upstairs, boiling, because I know that they area going to give me a list of ultimatums in signing the IPE. Ultimatums that I'm not in the mood to deal with today. I sharpen my teeth, I'm going to eat my Case Worker's ass out today. They have me wait an hour in another waiting room on the seventh floor. Oh, that's not good, because it only gives me more to bottle up when I explode. It's nearly time for me to be gone for the rest of the day. I look at the clock. Fuck this. When it hits Three O'clock, I'm walking out of the door. They can FTC me for all the shit I care.

Of course they would show up for me five minutes to Three.

Here is what I was faced with. Two people, a man and a woman, their backs to me at the counter. The man calls my name and turns to me. On his approach he whispers: Your Case Worker is not in today, so we are going to process your IPE today." That's cool. Who's ass do I cut into surgically now, yours? "I'm just a trainee, your case worker for today is...." He motions with his hand to the woman who finally turns around from the counter and I swear to god, she looks like Bib Fortuna from Return of the Jedi. My heart sinks in my chest. She has extra flesh bulging out from her neck, wrapping around her collar...she looked just like Bib Fortuna I tell you. I shit you not. I do a doubletake, she extends her hand and I shake it.

"Hello," she says in a breathless, phlegm filled voice. "I'm your Case Worker for today, Bib Fortuna, and this is my trainee, numbnutz." She motions to the man. "Pleawse phollow me." I follow. We pass through a door and into the rat warren that a cubicle world, out of control, makes. After several twists and turns that only a fellow rat would know, we end up in Bib Fortuna's cubicle. I take a seat and Numbnutz drags a chair into the already cramped space. Bib Fortuna then goes into reading to me my IPE, which is a simple document outlining, in very professional terms, my strengths and weaknesses and if I agreed with them. I did. I signed. Then I was told about the training that they give in computer sciences, and that I can do training in that instead of coming to their classes and my WEP assignment.

Hmmmm, Interesting. Lastly they brought up the WEP assign- ment, in a Community Center on Broadway, just north of my apartment several blocks, about thirty. Hmmmm, walkable. Bib Fortuna coughs up heavy phlegm but it doesn't clear her voice in the least. It still comes out breathless, low and froggy. I work up a smile. I am to report to my WEP assignment where I will work as a clerk for Mondays and Tuesdays, and on Wednesday through Friday, I will report back to the Roach Motel for classes in retail. That retail is not what I signed up for, I point out. Well, it's next to clerical, so it was assigned to you for your short range goal. I shake my head. I want to know about the training. She prints me out a print out of the certification classes. Nice. If I elect these classes, I don't have to do their retail classes or my WEP assignment.

I am intrigued. It's over just like that. The IPE was signed and I sold my soul to the Devil. I shook hands, was given a present, a porcelain piggy bank in the shape of a New York City taxicab. I took my ill-gotten gain with me out of the office, and into the elevator.

Shit. The bastids got me.

I walked to the Meat Packing District, stunned and dismayed with myself that I would allow a deformity to fuck up my harshness. I was ready to fight until Bib Fortuna turned around and addressed me. My heart went out to her. I was both shaken and stunned. I lost this one hands down. I headed to the High Line.

I still had magazine work to do.

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