First Day

I arrived completely disheartened. This wasn’t what I wanted, but it was all I could get, and I had to deal with it. I got out of my car and headed into the branch to begin my new job. I felt defeated and knew my expression screamed the same sentiment. The nine month battle I had waged on the job market was over, and I had lost horribly. I’d finally acknowledged defeat and accepted a job as a Personal Banking Specialist at a retail bank location. It was a job I could have gotten 10 years ago. A quantum step back. I was humiliated and hurt, and was mindful of the swagger I’d once possessed, but that seemed so foreign to me now. Then things got bad…

It took 15 seconds for me to decide that I hated my new boss and that he was one of the dumber people I had met in quite some time. He stood firmly planted with his goofy smile revealing his bad teeth. He was mammoth, easily topping 275 lbs of fat and stupid. I learned within the first 10 minutes of our conversation what a phenomenal athlete he had been 40 years ago and it was obvious he still viewed himself as a jock. A bum knee caused him to hobble rather than walk and he struggled with each step as he shifted his girth from one foot to the next. He spoke incessantly about nothing and would interrupt any conversation to express even more of his pointless insights. He was an absolute buffoon. Prior to that day, I hadn’t known what a buffoon was, but here was one in the flesh and perhaps the finest example of the species. Much like a dufus, only dumber and fatter.