The Million Mile Hallway

Chapter 4 - Jason

Damn, this being a grown up is hard. I still hadn't cleaned the apartment, at least not properly. Unless I spilled something, it remained the same as it was when I moved in. Finding time was so hard. My working days were incredibly stressful at the beginning of the first week.

I work for a company called Burns Electrical, named after the guy who founded it. It's an ironic name, considering that frying someone is the worst thing an electrician can ever do. Anyway, they do a lot of the maintenance contracts for some of the biggest firms in the city, so whenever there's a problem, they'll send me out to see what's up. That's not all they do though. If people are doing extensions onto their houses, we'll also take on all the work that they need done.

So on the Monday I was sent to basically every corner of Baltimore to check out some faulty lights. I hate doing jobs like this. Anyone can fix it. Most people in these office buildings don't even know what a circuit board is, never mind where to find one. It's usually a five minute job and then I have to drive again for half an hour to do the exact same thing. The cycle then repeats itself over and over again. Of course, every time I arrive somewhere I'm considered late too. I try explaining to them that I have maybe six different office blocks to get to that day but no one wants to hear it. And then when I finish in no time at all, they complain again because "If it's such a quick job, why didn't you do it first?". It's so annoying! The worst part is that when you try to talk to them in a friendly manner, they take a look at your old t-shirts and working pants and develop an expression like they've just been force fed a million lemons all at once. They think that because they wear a suit to work, they're better than you. Sometimes I secretly wish I could let these guys get electrocuted after all.

In order for me to wind down, I came home from work and had a shower before making two strong coffees back to back. Unfortunately this finished off the milk; I had no idea how quickly that stuff runs out! I needed to go to the store anyway to get some food so it wasn't the end of the world.

It turns out that the girl from across the hall, Louise works at the store just a couple of blocks away. I think she was surprised to see me because she took quite a while to get talking. I found it kind of weird because I thought she'd probably see loads of people that she knows there but maybe she hates them seeing her working. Maybe if I'm nice to her I can just give her my shopping list and she can pick the stuff up for me and bring it to my door!

Anyway, I got my shopping and now my place was more liveable.

On Tuesday I made sure to limit the amount of milk I put in my coffee and my cereal (although I'd bought an extra bottle just in case) and headed off to Burns main office. There, I found out that I was back doing exactly the same thing again. Great.

Apart from all the complaints I listed above, there are two issues that are worse. The first is that if by some divine miracle there aren't any problems in the offices, I have nothing to do. I don't mind relaxing at home or at a night time but when you're at work and not doing anything, the day takes forever to go by. The second issue is that because other people are doing their "important" work, I can't play my radio. For me, that's the most important part of my tool kit. The background music helps the day go by so much faster, and besides, who doesn't like a good sing-along?

For the rest of the week I was sent out to work at a brand new building downtown that was under construction. Thankfully I could play my music there and actually talk to people. One of those people was my friend Kevin. He was working at the same place so we spent most of the week working in the same areas so we could talk our way through the week.

I'd known Kevin since high school and we'd always gotten along. The only real problem that we'd ever had was near the end of high school when, in typical teenage boy fashion, we both had a crush on the same girl. It was quickly resolved though when, once again in typical teenage boy fashion, it turned out that she had no interest in either of us.