A True Story From When I was Poor and Worked at The Copy Shop and Drank a Lot and Was Thinner and Single and Didn't Wear Flip-Flops

I spent far too much time in my 20s working at an infamous retail copy-shop (hey, I was in college, I made my own hours and got as much sticky back paper as I wanted). Even though I've since moved into the professional realm (I now wear flip-flops to work occasionally...is this professional? I'll get back to you on that) I still have inadequacy dreams about working at the copy shop again.

Much like those weird dreams where I'm still in high school, trying to find my locker, and wondering where my life went wrong that I'm a 34-year-old high schooler standing in a cafeteria line, these retail dreams seem to speak to some underlying sense of inadequacy, or even a fear of failure. To make it even worse, in these dreams I'm really good at being a copy monkey, I'm solving people's problems, disarming the most irate customer with easy charm and authority. Of course, the fluorescent lights are flicking on and off and I'm probably nude from the waist down but, hey, it's awesome! I'm good at this!

And then I wake up and feel like shit. I hated that job—I couldn't wait to get the fuck out of there. And now I'm back there, doing great, because - apparently - my current life has just become too much effort and my shitty retail past is now some sort of emotional safe haven. You know what? Screw you, brain. I don't need this. I have enough problems without this crap. I don't need my dreamlife underscoring any potential fear/confidence issues; let's have more of the flying and the naked people, seriously.

Anyway. here's an amusing anecdote from back in the copy shop days:

So it's Saturday afternoon, one of our busiest and, of course, least-staffed times. There's maybe 3 employees in the whole place, and a line 13 people deep. Certainly, every person is a) really pissed off at having to wait 25 minutes to get to the counter and b) totally incredulous that their little project can't be done while they wait. I can sympathize, really.

This slightly older man gets to the counter, finally. A business lackey of some sort (I assume that if people held any real status at their company, they wouldn't be the ones dispatched to the copy shop 30 minutes before the investor presentation is due), he looks like a man who snaps his fingers at waiters and tells cashiers that he's "in a hurry." Bad news, dude, everyone is "in a hurry" here. He's red-faced. He's angry. He has a very important project (these people loved to use the word 'critical'... like there's a dying CEO in a cab outside, he could go any second...getting 20 color copies of the Maclellan briefing is his dying wish), and do I know how long he's been standing in line, this is absurd, etc. Like I said, I can sympathize.

He wants about 100 stapled copies of some packet. I want to tell him that he just waited in line 30 minutes for something he could have done himself in 5 minutes at a self-serve copier—but that would be assuming he had a real-world skill such as, say, operating a copier or using applied logic. Instead I take his papers in-hand and look at the machines behind me in the grand drama of "oh, let's see if we can do it now, oh drat, the machines are all in use, etc." But—holycrap—a machine actually is available, it just finished running something for some other red-faced person.

So I run this guy's job. It takes, oh, maybe 6 minutes. The whole time he just glares at me from the counter. He refuses to budge from his spot... no going to sit by the window for him: if I don't feel his hateful, burning gaze, lord knows I'd probably go on a break, or forget about his job, or go do whatever-the-hell-it-is I do to waste his time.

So I bring the copies back up to him and start to ring him up. I'm thinking, that went perfectly. Actually, I'm thinking 'this job is living hell, I wish I was dead,' but let's just say I was thinking 'perfect.' He looks down at the copies. I had placed them facing me. In a thin rage barely concealed as would-be authoritarian tones, he loudly says:

"this is all wrong. This is all wrong, I can't believe this."

Shocked, I wait for more info... how can it possibly be wrong? He looks at me with a clenched jaw and says,

"you printed these upside-down."

I reach forward and slowly turn the copies 180 degrees, so that the print is now facing him. A big vein appears on his forehead as he thinks for a few beats, and then says:

"I don't like your attitude."

I wasn't sure if I wanted to laugh in his face or scream and 3-hole-drill myself in the head. I think I said something like, "well, let's just get you paid and get you out of here." Hah hah, funny, right? Yeah, I worked there another 2 years and it just got worse and worse. Maybe next time I'll tell you about the lunatic who used to come in and have us copy all his creepy fan mail to Christina Ricci, until he discovered we were making copies for our own amusement.

No, I should not be dreaming about this.