208: Office Politics

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Jacobs and the other guys did not like their boss man-right. Man-right was full of himself. He took credit for things that they did. He was hard to deal with.

And they set out to sabotage him. Sociologists named Calvin Morrell watched how they did it. It's part of a study of office politics in different companies.

These guys are worked for an old line banking firm that he calls old financial. All the names in this story have been changed.

In traditional companies like this one, Morrell says, all the politics happen in secret. It's all subterfuge.

Here's how man-right was destroyed by Jacobs.

Man-right used to rely on this fellow Jacobs to prepare him before he would go before the senior executive committee meeting.

And Jacobs was very good, very smart guy. And he could anticipate some of the questions that his boss would be asked at these meetings.

And so when he prepped him, he would just neglect to tell us boss about some of the key questions that he could anticipate being asked.

The area his boss would stand at the committee meeting naked without the information that he needed.

And eventually he was removed as a result of this.

Now did man-right understand that he had been sabotaged?

He didn't. When he actually got back each time, this happened to him over the course of several meetings where he was misprepped, if you will.

And each time he came back, he was firmly convinced that his subordinates were incompetent.

Because how else could this have happened? It never dawned on him that they were so competent that they might actually be intentionally engaged in sabotage.

Another multi-billion dollar company that Morales studied is one that he calls PlayCo, in the toy and education product business.

Unlike our financial, where bosses were bosses and underlings or underlings, and so all the scheming had to go on in secret, at PlayCo there was no real hierarchy. It wasn't clear who was in charge of whom.

And while that might sound like a kind of nice place to work, with no big bosses, it turns out that with no one absolutely in charge to make decisions and keep people in line, all the fighting was right out in the open.

At meetings, people would try to humiliate and out argue each other. They'd form alliances. The executives at PlayCo would talk all the time about honor and respect, as if they were medieval knights, or maybe mob figures.

Then I even witnessed violence in this firm between executives. One of the incidents I talk about was about two executives actually getting into a fist fight in front of the world headquarters of this multinational firm.

Yeah, just as tell what happened between those two.

Yeah, well, one guy was called, I call him Greer, and the other guy actually had a nickname called the Terminator.

And he was called the Terminator because this one guy said he liked to hunt big game. I like to look for executives who he could best in arguments and meetings.

And so these guys were parking their cars in the parking lot, and they called each other out essentially.

Greer accused the Terminator of playing around with women and at a local health club and embarrassing the corporation.

Meanwhile, the Terminator accused Greer of being a weak executive. This thing escalated, and after a few minutes, one of them had the other over his load of sports car.

There's this idea in capitalism that companies are making decisions in products and strategy based on rational evaluation of the market and their customers.

To what degree, to what degree is that true based on what you saw, and to what degree are decisions being made based on office politics and not a rational evaluation of where their company is in the market.

There is some rationality, but thinking about the bottom line is sometimes a myth that outsiders tell each other about how decisions are made and it's not always about the bottom line.

It's about politics with one another, maneuvering with one another.

Given all that, given all the conflict that Calvin Morales saw at all kinds of offices, what surprising is not how many fist fights there are in offices, but how few.

I know I've been in one. This happened years ago on a public radio show that was just starting up.

And I do not think of myself as much of a fighter, but here's how it went down. The guy who raised the money to start this show had this vision.

And what his vision was was he said, what if there were a radio show where you could turn on every day and you would hear something like Spike Lee and Philip Glass, the composer, and Stephen Hawking, the physicist sitting down together and talking about the things that interest them in common.

So this show was two hours a day. This guy had never worked on a daily program. He had done other stuff, but never a daily program.

I and a number of the other people who worked on the show had worked on daily shows. At the time, by the way, it was not on the arrows, just a producer.

And so we're trying to start this show and every day we would come in and we'd work and work and work and work and work.

And every day we would have this experience of we would say, okay, here's what we think we can do.

It was a very, very small step, very small step. And every day we would say, okay, here's what we think we can do this week.

And we would lay out like the programs and this and this and this and this. And at the end of the whole thing, all this work had gone into at the end of the whole thing, the guy who had raised all the money and was our boss would say, you know, that's really very nice.

But, you know, it's just not our original idea. It's not Spike Lee and Philip Glass and Stephen Hawking sitting down and talking to each other.

And those of us who worked on daily programs that always said, well, that is a perfectly good idea. There's a very valid idea, a perfectly good idea.

But you have to remember that you're on for two hours a day. You have two people making phone calls and booking this. You have one or two tape cutters, one or two other people. It was a very, very small step.

And so, even if, you know, you could get Spike Lee and Philip Glass and Stephen Hawking into a room and you could figure out what in the world they actually have to say to each other, which would take a certain amount of research and time on someone's part.

Even if you could make all this happen, you know, that's only one hour. That's only going to be one show. And so we have to think about what's going to happen in all these other hours.

And so that's a very good idea, very, very fine idea. But here are all these other ideas that we're going to do to fill all this other time too.

And this one on for day after day and week after week.

And people working very, very hard and sort of burning out. And finally, after weeks of this, we're all standing around.

And we've just finished our first five shows and it's been grueling. It's been really, really hard.

And we're evaluating what to do next and how we should change the format of the show and all that kind of thing.

And we get to the end of this long, long discussion. It seems like we're all on the same page. And at last, like we're all in a court, here's what we've been, here's what we've going.

And our boss says, well, you know, there's one thing that we haven't gotten to. And that is, I think we're forgetting the original idea of the show.

That really what it needs to be is, I think every hour needs to be more like, just imagine if Spike Lee and Philip Glass and Stephen Hawkins could sit down together.

And you know, just chat about whatever.

And it had been a really hard few weeks. And as Nelson Mandela said in a very different context, you know, we had tried reason.

But reason had failed to produce a solution. And so violence was our only option. And I didn't really see anything else to do.

What to say, I didn't see anything implies a kind of thinking that really wasn't exactly happening.

It was just straight, pretty much gut instinct. And I walked over and I punched him in the stomach.

And his reaction, I have to say, it was not really satisfying as I was hoping for.

It was like, he was sort of, he was sort of cushiony. I didn't feel like I was making much of an impression.

And we're standing very, very close now. And he got closer, I think, than we'd ever stood to each other.

And he looks me in the eyes, and he's a little bit sweaty, and he doesn't get mad at all.

The whole thing just makes him get really, really sincere. And he says, you know, Ira, I really think that you should think about what you're doing for a second.

Which I have to say, you know, just made me mad. Like if you're really mad at somebody, and they just start to talk to you like they're your therapist, you know, it just makes you mad.

And so I punched him again. And again, not terribly satisfying, and sort of a cushiony kind of feeling.

And you know, punches don't make as much of a sound in real life as you think they might.

And again, he sort of like, looks me, our face is very close to each other.

He looks me in the eye, and he says, you know, Ira, I think you're really having some feelings here that maybe you might be expressing a different way.

Which of course, made me punch him again.

At this point, at the third punch, pretty much people had gathered around us, and I was pulled off by the public radio staff of this show, which included a guy in a wheelchair, which gives you a sense of the tough kind of fight that was going on here.

And I say all this now just to illustrate that even in the offices of an outfit known for its calm, voiced, let us all sit down together and reason together kind of reasonableness.

You know, even in the offices of public radio, even here, in the office where I speak to you from right now, feelings are so extreme that they can lead to hitting.

Our relationships at our jobs, I think, contain all of the feelings, you know, we have in all of our personal relationships.

You know, there are people you like, people you don't like, there's gratitude, there's resentment, there's jealousy.

It's all there, all the feelings are there, except in the workplace, we can express it, you know, because it's a workplace, you have to keep it bottled up inside, and then it ends up seeping out in all these other ways.

Well, today on our program, office politics, we bring you three stories of conflict and high drama from our nation's workplaces.

Act one, hang in there kitty cat, it's almost Friday.

In that act of lowly office worker gets in a jam and discovers that in times of trouble, when all else has failed, when all hope is gone.

Companies in her industry turn to one woman, one woman, my friend, in a suburban home in Long Island, who solves their corporate problems without ever turning off the TV that plays in the background.

Act two, she cakes in the conference room, whiskey after dark.

David Rackoff discusses the world of birthdays and other holidays as they are celebrated on the job.

Act three, when the job to get you off the streets is on the streets.

In that act, we hear stories of the intricate office politics that take place in a location where you might not suspect there is any politics because there is no office.

Stay with us.

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Is this American life?

Today's show is a rerun from long ago.

Act One, hang in there, kitty cat. It's almost Friday.

Starly kind to us the tale in this act of an office problem that refused to be solved by ordinary means.

And so extraordinary means had to be employed.

Kelly worked for a small startup.

There were only by a dozen people on the staff and the office was just one big room with no walls, like in a classroom.

And a lot of the same office politics that happens behind closed doors and other offices happened in this one, except without the doors.

It didn't take long before the employees took on the established roles.

There was a cool kid, the flirt, the gossip, the nice boss who was really mean, the mean boss who was really nice.

There was even the person who functioned as an unofficial psychologist.

Every office has one. The person who's everyone's confident, who listens to your problems and gives you a shoulder to cry on.

In this office though, the politics were so extreme that even she couldn't be trusted.

Our person would come in with a person who was crying and the person who was crying would be like, thanks, I'll buy you a beer sometime.

I really needed to get that off my chest.

And the psychologist would be like, oh, it's okay, you know, anytime. I'll be right back.

And literally walk over to the person who the other person had just been saying is torturing them, making their life hell, and that they think might want to kill them.

And then go over and be like, do you see that person sitting right there? Yeah, the one right in front of you?

She thinks that you might want to kill her.

Since it was a start-up, the company was having trouble even staying in business.

Pressure was high, hours were long. There was a lot of stress and breakdowns and tears and fighting. And of course, sex.

There was one person in particular who was sleeping with one of the women in the office.

And until the last day, I think that most of the staff thought he was gay.

There was a woman who was heterosexual, but was obviously had a crush on the one lesbian we had in the office, like a hot and heavy crush.

And also on the men too, like she wasn't, you know, doesn't discriminate.

And I mean, a certain amount of sexual attention is great. You know, it gets you to get up in the morning to actually wash your hair.

But in this office, it was flying at you from such strange directions and there was couplings happening within the office.

From Kelly's perspective, the creepiest coupling was between her two bosses.

The three of them were working super closely on a new project.

The two bosses had both pretty much already hated her and they'd been hard enough to deal with them as individuals.

But together, they formed this sort of invincible two-headed monster of hate and Kelly was her number one target.

When you're working with a very small staff, it's like being stuck on a ship with people.

That's your only existence at all.

So let's say you're stuck on this boat, you're out at sea, calm waters in the beginning, a lot of those celebrating.

I like you. Do you like me? I like you too. Yeah.

And then things start to get rougher. Things start to get rougher.

People are testy because they've been stuck in that boat for a long time.

You now know things like things that you don't even want to know about people.

You're forced to know in those environments.

So imagine that and then imagine the two people that I need to work with on a daily basis, not talking to me and not liking me and sleeping together.

So imagine we're all on that boat and we have to make room for them to sleep with each other.

Like, okay, move over on the cards.

They just wouldn't make eye contact with me, wouldn't talk to me for the entire deadline that we were on.

And also this person is only sitting six feet away from me.

So they could be uncomfortability of that was through the roof.

And then slowly the ship began to sink.

They were running out of money. The boss is a group paranoid and started picking off their employees one by one.

A person entered the phone incorrectly and was fired that same day.

Malay said in, employees started coming in late or not at all.

No one believed in the project anymore.

And then one day, some irreplaceable photographs that Kelly was in charge of went missing.

I looked everywhere. I looked in the bookcases under my desk.

I looked in, you know, other people's offices on our floor.

I looked in the drawers that were public.

You know, we had public drawers that were people could store stuff.

And then we had drawers that were private, which I didn't go into when people were there.

But I did get so desperate that I went through everyone's stuff.

Like, I was getting irrational.

Kelly suspected that one of her bosses had stolen the photographs.

They knew that she had to return the photos to the photographer and that her reputation was on the line.

It would be a huge embarrassment if she had to actually call the photographer and tell him they were gone.

In her office, sabotage was becoming trendy.

Kelly had seen other examples of it. It just had never happened to her. She thought always lost.

Until a friend told her what other companies in the industry did when objects like this couldn't be found.

If this situation arises, they will hire a psychic to help them locate the images.

A girl gave me a number of someone who she said was certified by the state of the New York, was a crime psychic.

I called her, she said, okay, I've got a half an hour for you to date from now come.

Apparently, once you've accepted the notion that your bosses are actually trying to sabotage you,

the idea of going to psychic just doesn't seem that crazy anymore. It's even appropriate.

Kelly called the psychic from her desk in plain sight of everyone, including the suspected boss.

She didn't even bother lowering her voice.

And then she said about following the psychic's instructions.

She took Polaroid photos of the office and all the people working there.

And then she got in a train to the psychic's house in Long Island.

She was hoping that the psychic could be able to tell her something, anything about where the photos were.

What she got was a whole lot more.

The psychic lit a cigarette while Kelly laid out the Polaroid she'd taken.

Then the psychic started describing the subtlest nuances of her co-workers' personalities.

So no, she would just say words like, oh, she's so insecure.

So she was having a whole nother conversation that wasn't with me.

And she'd be like, oh, she's not pretty.

Oh, like, and she would start to feel sorry.

And then she'd be like, oh, okay.

He doesn't like women.

He's not like he's gay.

He just never thinks that women are worth that much.

Of all the reading rooms and all the homes of all the psychics in Long Island, Kelly walked into this one.

The home of Anne, the office politics psychic.

Anne and Kelly draw a little map of her office, was lined indicating where everyone sat.

The psychic went from desk to desk to desk, describing the office politics between Kelly's co-workers.

These two are always gossiping with each other, don't trust them.

This one was your friend, but they didn't like her, so she got fired.

He sweet, you can tell him things.

Then she got to Kelly's two bosses.

And then she said, oh, okay.

The person who sits here talks to the person who sits here all day long.

She actually drew a line between the two bosses who were sleeping with each other.

She drew the line.

Well, she would draw a little stick person behind the desk.

And then she would draw another little stick person.

And she'd be like, oh, this area, to this area.

Like, my two main bosses, she was saying we're constantly talking to each other all day.

She went into things that I didn't even know happened that later I found out happened.

Like, they went on a trip.

She knew basically that he was living at her place.

There was not anything that she didn't know.

The same amount of information with added psychic phenomenon as if she'd been sitting next to me the whole six months.

I've never called with Cleo.

I've never had a terror reading or had my tea leave thread.

I've never crossed over.

But when I heard there was a psychic along Island who could tell who was lying about breaking the office facts machine, I had to go.

I called and made an appointment.

She'd won stipulation for letting me come.

No debunking.

And lived with her elderly mother and her seven-year-old daughter.

When I get there, grandmother and granddaughter are nestled in easy chairs watching Golden Girls.

And she's doing a reading in the back and her mother turns to me and asks if I'm there for a reading too.

I tell her I'm not.

We watched TV together in silence for a few minutes and then Anne's mother turns back to me and asks if I'm there for a reading.

This pattern continues for the rest of the show.

I finally give it and say yes, I'm there for a reading.

Then she gets up and shuffled off to the kitchen and I can hear her muttering under her breath.

And jipsies.

Then Anne comes in and takes me to her reading room.

She kept the red carpeting.

It's a root chakra and gives me a lot of energy because I'm actually in a beta-level sleep state.

So I'm kind of groggy and the best thing to wake you up in the morning is that nice red carpeting.

Anne's reading room looks like a suburban guest bedroom.

There's a day bed that she likes because it makes me feel more like a therapist's office, pictures of her family,

and a TV cluttered with chaachkas, like a jar labeled, ashes of problem customers.

Anne prefers to be called a clear-audient transmedium, which means that she can hear stuff that isn't there,

as opposed to seeing stuff that isn't there.

She goes into a trance and then her three-spirit guide to feed her the information.

When I talked down on the phone, she told me she'd be in a trance when I got there.

In fact, she'd been in a trance when she told me that.

It turns out Anne's almost always in a trance.

At her house, I saw her receive payment for her services, recommend a good restaurant,

and I showed her a client to the door, all well in a trance.

This seemed to be a complete abuse of the word trance.

Not to be debunked or anything.

Appointments with Anne are hard to get.

She'll take anybody, but she's usually booked months and advance.

People come for the usual stuff like channeling dead relatives,

but she does a big business of finding lost objects,

and a large percentage of her clients come about problems at work.

If you think about it, that's where you spend most of your waking time

during the day in most cases is in offices.

That's why there's so many issues that people with a variety of issues

I could begin to count or measure.

I mean, you name it. I've had them all.

I watch Anne's clients drift in and out of her home for morning till night.

And when I learn this, it doesn't matter that the people work in different kinds of jobs.

All their stories are the same.

There's a cop with a crap boss intent on making his life hell.

You know, you could be sitting in a room of five people.

He would walk in and say hello to the other four.

And just like, ignore me like I wasn't there.

There's a woman from the car rental agency with a boss who didn't like women.

And he had already been responsible for firing the two other girls in the office.

That was the last remaining female.

There's a woman from the phone company who's working with a lot of people younger than her.

There was a few managers that had a problem with it.

She was the type that will laugh in your face.

But she actually like, did you win behind your back?

Talking to Anne about all this, every office is a fellow.

Full of jealousy and greed and intrigue.

Kelly's story wasn't surprising to her at all.

Surprised me?

Not much of it, honestly.

Because I find it very common in the workplace.

And very oftentimes there's a lot of backstabbing.

At some point I'm guessing, you've worried about investing too much emotional energy in your colleagues, your boss, your work.

At least we're all doing it.

In fact, for Kelly, one of the best things about going to Anne about the missing photos

is that Anne didn't view her freak out as excessive.

Up until that point, you know, I would be like calling my mom saying like, they've taken them.

I know they have.

And she would be totally freaked out as all of my friends were.

And they're like, let it go.

You're going to find them.

And I'd be like, no, no.

This is bad.

This horrible place.

And I'd be going on these rants.

And my friends and my family were trying to be okay about it.

But she was the first person that was like, oh, yeah, this is bad.

And you're right.

And that's unfortunate.

And I said, well, you know, I brought photos, you know, so I wanted to show her the photos

to show her the different places in the office.

And she basically looked at the first one, which was a pulleroy of all the guys in the office

and said, oh, that's him.

He was really mad when you were taking that photo because he knew that you were coming here.

The man she pointed to with Kelly's boss.

He's read in the face in this photo, glaring at me.

His veins on his neck are sticking out.

And it looks like he could probably hit me.

How much actual clairvoyance was involved in this is anyone's guess.

And the client's all swear by her, lover, actually.

But and her clients all say that a part of what Anne does is confirm what you already know.

Kelly suspected her bosses and told her she was right too.

Armed with this new knowledge, Kelly did absolutely nothing.

She didn't confront her bosses or go over their heads to the head of the company.

She didn't do anything. She didn't need to.

She felt better.

I felt totally vindicated.

I felt like released after Anne.

Yeah, I totally felt released because before I went to her,

I kept waiting for them to break.

I kept thinking that maybe they'd tell me or that they'd admit to it

or that they'd just like put them on my desk at night

and I'd come in in the morning and they'd be there.

I've had fantasies about that a lot.

And then afterward, I just, I didn't have to worry anymore.

I had no suspicions.

I knew that everything that I had thought she had told me was true.

And I stopped caring.

I felt like I could look at them from a different angle

and it wasn't personal anymore.

It was just more like, wow, that's pretty pathetic, you know?

The last photos were never found.

Just like Anne said they wouldn't be.

Kelly now works somewhere else.

Anne is booked for next summer.

The problem with office politics

is it never really makes sense outside the office.

Your friends and family will never fully understand

what it is you hate so much about the girl down the hall.

With Anne, not only does she seem to understand,

you don't even have to tell her about it.

Starly Hind.

She was a producer in our show when she made that story.

In the years since we first broadcasted a show,

she went on to create this beloved

and short-lived podcast called Mystery Show.

If you like this story, you might want to check that out

or ever get your podcast.

Act 2.

She kicks in the conference room whiskey after dark.

Americans are, as everybody knows,

spending more time on the job,

which means more people's social lives are organized around their work lives,

and more holidays are celebrated more intensely,

and mean more on the job site.

They would rack off for this next story

while we at this American Life took a show on the road,

doing our show before live audiences around the country.

It is a parable of three such holidays

as celebrated on the job.

Holiday the first national secretaries day.

At least we consoled ourselves we were assistants, not secretaries.

In the world we were in the world of New York

publishing these titles meant everything.

It's a loathsome distinction,

the almost meaningless difference between field and house slave.

After all, we all of us,

secretaries and assistants alike,

had much the same duties,

filing, photocopying, taking dictation,

and making reservations for meals we would never get to eat.

There was one glaring discrepancy

between us and the secretaries,

specifically their salaries dwarfed ours.

But our penury came with the promise

that we were bound for better things.

We would be mentored, promoted,

and one day raised to our rightful stations

as book editors, our faith in the East Coast Maritocracy, restored.

Still, every April, when national secretaries day rolled around,

many of us took sick days,

genuinely nauseous with worry,

that we might be mistook for them

and there on our assistance desks

would be the asparagus fern

and baby's breath surrounded long stem roses,

with the heartfelt note from the boss

who just couldn't do it without Ja.

Instead of national secretaries day,

we assistance had our own folk traditions

with our own holidays, one of which we celebrated often,

almost nightly, in fact.

We called it drinking.

With disturbing regularity,

the end of the workday found us at the old monkey bar,

the dorset bar, the warwick bar,

all of which were attached to serviceable

and somewhat down at heel hotels.

Midtown Manhattan used to be full of just such,

comfortably shabby establishments

where career waiters,

with brilliantined comeovers

and shiny elbow jackets,

served marvelously cheap, albeit watery drinks,

along with free snacks,

withered celery sticks,

an ironic faux-Asian poo-poo platters.

Pretzel nuggets accompanying a cheese spread of a color

that in nature usually signals,

I am an alluring yet highly poisonous tree frog, beware.

Dinner and forgetfulness all for $10.

Youth is not wasted on the young.

It is perpetrated on the young.

Who chapily was one luxury we could afford?

Our drunkenness was twofold.

First, there was the liquor,

but there was also the intoxication

brought on by the self-aggrandizing conviction

that we, happy few, we cheery booze hounds

were the new incarnations of that most mythic bunch of sources,

the Algonquin round table.

This pipe dream sustained not just us,

but I suspect countless other tables

of publishing menials all over town.

So desperate were we to assume the mantles

of Parker, Benchley, and their ilk

that we weren't going to let some silly thing

like a dearth of wit

or the complete absence of a body of work

on any of our parts, detour us.

With enough $4 drinks sloshing through our veins,

even the most dunder-headed schoolyard japery

qualified as caroscating repartee.

What do you want, a repost might begin.

A metal or a chest to pin it on.

Oh, to share we cried merely as we clutched our martinis.

That represented the high point of the discourse.

Gradually our tongues thickened

and our moods darkened unpleasantly

as the evenings wore on a hostile,

gin-cented pole fell over everything,

and our glittering aphorisms

were reduced to the wishful and direct.

I hope my boss is dead right now.

Paying the bill, we stumbled out into the street

and back to our apartments,

where we spent the rest of the night jealously

reading the manuscripts of those who actually wrote

and didn't just drink about it.

Rising unrefreshed, we would return to the office

and rubbing alcohol and cotton balls in hand,

get down to work, swabbing leaf by leaf,

the potted plants in our boss's office,

a vain attempt to stop the outbreak of whitefly

going around the floor.

Impressing the higher ups became our constant purpose.

We spent an inordinate amount of time

attaching disproportionate significance

to our message-taking skills,

our collating acumen,

no small feat from under a hovering cloud of job hatred.

How sad to realize,

from the vantage point of years later,

that the answer to the question

that was perpetually on our minds,

what do they think of me was they didn't.

At all.

Realistically, we were the help,

and it was best not to forget it.

Holiday II, Christmas.

Those three weeks or so of Midtown Manhattan Christmas

are an assistance dream.

No work gets done,

and all is romanticized melancholy.

It was precisely why so many of us had moved to the city

so that we, too, might gaze missanthropically

at the corporate Christmas tree in the lobby

surrounded with gift wrapped empty boxes that fooled nobody.

And in the institutional fluorescent lit sadness

of it all feels something approaching depth.

The phones idle.

We spent our days going to the movies

during lunch, returning hours later to troll the holes

of the office,

faraging through the gift baskets

like a ravening pack of voles,

subsisting on cars, water biscuits,

individually red waxed dip bowls of baby gouda,

butternut toffee, popcorn, smokehouse almonds,

and fancy fruit preserves eaten directly from the jar.

A diet that had our faces peppered with blackheads

and glistening with oily sebum

as unto the shining visages of the apostles.

Our bosses were away with their families at country houses,

having real lives.

We wondered how they might greet the sight

of the empty food baskets upon their return,

such anarchy, such transgression,

as usual they never even noticed.

We, on the other hand,

could not even conceive of a world wherein

we did not know the exact quantity and location

of our giant cashews.

Holiday the third. Happy birthday.

After any moment of extreme assistance subjugation,

say, a morning wherein one might innocently open

an unsolicited manuscript only to find

that someone had mailed the publishing house

a jiffy pack full of human feces,

or one might be sent to the corner

to pick up a cappuccino for an author

who had just been given a million dollar book advance,

a coffee for which I was not reimbursed.

After such moments,

we would make our way to Sheila's cubicle,

where we could always be guaranteed clear-eyed advice

and cigarettes.

Sheila was our bad girl leader.

A poet and writer herself,

she despised her job and didn't care who knew it,

smoking openly at her desk,

and standing on ceremony for no one.

These would be my pajamas that I slept in last night.

She would say indicating the black long-sleeved t-shirt

and black workout pants she was wearing.

And this, she would add fingering a crusted white smear

on the hem of the top.

This would be spilled food, nice.

Well, they say, dress for the job you want,

not the job you have.

So, of course, it was immediately to Sheila

that I went when I received my birthday card.

It was late November.

Opening the envelope, my eyes fell upon it.

A reproduction of one of those tinted B movie stills

from the 1950s.

A woman in a smart, worsted business jacket

wearing a pair of glasses at which men seldom make passes,

and a switchboard operator's headset

out of which were shooting tiny lightning bolts

were shown to be thinking someone needs coffee.

Above her head, in screaming sci-fi acid yellow type,

was the title of this card's purported movie,

the amazing tale of the psychic secretary.

I slid the card back into the envelope, walked over

and showed it to her.

Get your coat, she said.

Her voice, business like her face, unreadable.

We went to the Warwick bar.

Don't talk for a while.

Just smoke, she said.

And then, as an afterthought, she added,

but you knew I was going to say

that didn't you, psychic secretary.

LAUGHTER

Across from us in the darkened booth,

a couple sat, a man and a woman.

They had clearly been there for hours,

because the woman's head was lulling about on her neck,

as she alternately whispered lubriciously

or laughed too heartily at her companion's jokes.

We had a clear view under the table where we could see

her rubbing ever higher up his thigh.

I knew where this exchange was leading.

Psychic.

LAUGHTER

Not long after that evening,

I sat in a movie theater packed to the rafters.

Just before the lights went down,

a woman marched up the aisle,

looked at me and asked,

is that seat taken?

I was nowhere near the end of the row,

but trying to be helpful, I asked,

which seat?

Looking directly into my eyes,

she said that seat.

She pointed.

She was pointing to the center of my chest,

to my very heart.

Well,

I'm sitting here, I managed, finally.

LAUGHTER

As if I were her college-aged daughter

who had suddenly announced that I was a vegetarian,

she shrugged in a kind of suture-self indulgence

of my fantasy of existence and moved on.

LAUGHTER

I looked up and down the row for some sort of laughter,

some eye-rolling commiserationer,

just plain corroboration that this had just happened,

but I got no response.

To this day, I cannot explain it.

Was this an emissary sent from on high at that time of year,

not to trumpet the birth of the Son of God,

but to proclaim with heavenly proof

my complete and utter insignificance?

She's right, I thought.

This seat isn't taken.

It was the perfect moment for that time in my life.

I mean that, of course,

in the worst way possible.

The theater went dark.

Up on the screen, the camera zoomed past a huge close-up

of the statue of Liberty,

swooping down to find the statin island

very scutting along the water,

transporting our working girl to her office job,

where we already knew she would triumph

vanquish the harpy boss and win the love of the man.

Sheila taught me a survival technique

for getting through seemingly intolerable situations,

interminable lunches,

stern lectures on attitude or time management,

being trapped by the office board

beside the sheet cake in the conference room and the like.

Maintaining eye contact,

keep your face inscrutable and mask-like

with the faintest hint of a smile.

Keep this up as long as you possibly can,

and just as you feel you're about to crack

and take a letter opener and plunge it into someone's neck,

fold your hands in your lap,

one nestled inside the other,

like those of a supplicant in a priory.

Now with the index finger of your inner hand,

right on the palm of the other,

very discreetly and undetectably,

I hate you.

I hate you.

I hate you.

Over and over again as you pretend to listen.

You will find that this brings a spontaneous look of interest

and pleased engagement to your countenance.

Continue and repeat as necessary.

In the dark of the theater,

I write my message pressing hard into the flesh of my hand.

Although I don't know who I'm writing to,

I'm just glad to feel that it hurts.

Thank you.

The late David Yakov.

He put a version of the story into his first book,

which is called Fraud.

Coming up,

filled up glass,

spiked glee, and Stephen Hawking,

set around and had a casual conversation about, you know,

whatever,

that'll be the day.

In a minute,

from Chicago Public Radio,

when our program continues.

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It's a American Life from Ira Glass.

Each week in our program, of course, we choose some team,

bring you a variety of different kinds of stories on that team.

Today's show is a rerun for many, many, many years ago.

Office politics, high drama in our nation's workplaces.

We've arrived at Act 3, Act 3.

When the job to get you off the streets

is on the streets.

So it's a time in New York City.

It's 6th Avenue and 8th Street in Greenwich Village.

For pretty much any day, you would see tables on the sidewalks

manned by scruffy-looking men.

These days, there's just a handful of tables like this.

But back in the early 2000s, when we first made this episode

and put it on the air, the tables extended for two blocks,

one after another, selling magazines and books.

Most of those magazines and books have been pulled from the trash,

found in dumpsters.

Julie Snyder reports on the politics of this particular business.

After spending a couple of days on the corner of 6th Avenue and 8th Street,

what strikes me is not how different street bending is from other businesses,

but how similar.

As if the rules of business are so deeply encoded in us

that as soon as anyone starts to sell anything in any setting,

the rules and hierarchies of a company start to gel around them,

even if what they're doing is selling other people's trash.

On the corner, you've got your entry levels,

and you've got the people who have worked and clawed their way to the top.

That's more or less what Ishmael Walker did.

When I visit, he has the best spot on the block, right on the corner

in front of the Barnes & Noble.

And what got him there was simple ambition.

At one time, I was down the block.

And I was just sitting on it.

I said, damn, all the money is up there and everybody up there.

Go see, that book store, people going buy books, right?

And I got books on the table, I got money, I just got what they want.

There are other reasons Ishmael wanted the corner.

Right across his grave's Papaya, a hot dog restaurant with plate glass windows

that looks directly under the corner.

When it rains, he can sit inside and eat and still keep an eye on his stuff.

Also, there's a small alcove that's right in front of Ishmael's table

where he keeps a chair and can relax or nap during the day.

To understand how you rise to the best space on the block

or how you get demoted to the worst, consider Ron's story.

I told you one time I had this old block from the light post to the light post.

This is when I first came out here.

Ron's at the very end of the blocks in what is arguably the worst location.

Years ago, before Ishmael made his move to the top,

Ron controlled the entire block, including the area where Ishmael is now.

Now, all I got control of this old block was that I was living here.

I was living right here on the sidewalk.

There was no way anybody was going to get here before me.

You understand?

And I used to sleep over there.

Me and a few other guys used to sleep over there.

I packed my stuff up in a dumpster, a post office thing,

and I would push it over there.

You understand?

If I wanted, I could be up 24 hours if I wanted to.

More than half the guys on 6th Avenue were homeless.

So, it's easier for them to stay with their stuff and keep their spaces on the street.

Eventually, Ron moved in with his aunt and Harlem.

He lost control of the block, and now he doesn't get as much business as Ishmael does.

He's away from all the action.

But it's just not worth it to Ron anymore.

Because I'm not going to stay out here all night to hold on a spot.

I said, I've got a place to live now.

You understand? I'm going to pack my stuff up at night and go home.

The way Ron started here is the way all the guys start.

He was a panhandler.

But you're lucky if you get any of the guys to admit that.

Because for the most part, the vendors are embarrassed about their panhandling pass.

The panhandlers, meanwhile, looked down on the vendors, saying they have too much pride to sell someone else's trash.

Ron remembers panhandling is just being humiliating.

I was like a panhandling over there on 9th Street.

And I remember one day I walked up to my brother in law.

I didn't walk up to him.

I was panhandling.

My back was turned.

And he walked up.

And I turned around.

I said, being some change that he was my brother in law.

And he looked at me.

So I got a wife and kids to support.

And he kept going.

And one time I was really embarrassed.

This time I was working at this job.

I was working at this job as a timekeeping.

I was getting good money.

And I ended up leaving that job because of my drinking.

And one of the core workers,

I didn't really get along with that good, was a girl.

And she had a boyfriend.

Her boyfriend was a police, a police, a New Jersey cop.

And I remember one day I was panhandling uptown.

And she walked up.

And she looked at me like she was real startled.

And she was with the guy.

I remember I was really embarrassed that time.

So I'm actually glad that I was able to start bending,

which is more respectable.

When you spend time on the corner,

what it looks like is there'll be 20 or 30 guys all around the tables.

And it seems like they're just hanging out doing nothing.

But it turns out they all have different and distinct jobs,

with different responsibilities and pay scales.

There are placeholders who camp out overnight on the sidewalk,

holding a space that they sell to vendors in the morning.

That usually pays around 20 to $30.

Guys called storage providers have places either in their apartments

or under the subway tracks or in empty store rooms,

where they charge $7 to $10 for the vendors to keep their tables

and crates of magazines during the night.

The movers help the vendors haul their stuff on and off the sidewalks.

They generally make $5 to $10 a move.

If you were to show up on sixth avenue tomorrow to start in the business,

even with a high school or college degree,

even with other job experience,

you'd have to work your way up, same as anyone before you'd make vendor.

When sociologist Mitch Deneer came to the block to write about the vendors,

he was first put to work getting coffee and helping out in little ways

for months before getting his own table.

He ended up spending years with the vendors.

Not anybody can come out here and set up a table.

You have to work your way through the system,

because there's only a certain number of legal spots on the street.

The city regulates how many spots there can be.

Some guys show up in the morning and their whole job is just to be a mover.

In fact, that's how Conrad got started out here.

He was originally just a mover.

Now he moved up to getting his own table.

There are many people who start out as table watchers watching a table all night

while someone else goes to sleep or watching a table while people go to the bathroom

and they may wind up having their own table one day.

Mitch introduced me to everyone on sixth avenue

and explained that excessive drug use is pretty much what brought all of the guys out here.

Most times a person's position on the sidewalk correlates to their level of addiction.

If you smoke a lot of crack and aren't too trustworthy,

a placeholder is about the best job you can get.

If you're pretty clean, you're probably a regular table watcher or a vendor.

So there are clicks on the sidewalks and mutual snobberies

between the panhandlers and the vendors.

But like in any workplace,

there are people who sidestep those trivialities, ignore the politics.

BA is one of those people.

Some people say the BA stands for bad attitude,

but BA prefers business administrator.

It's an app title for him because he's sort of a floater on sixth avenue,

one of the few guys who jumps from job to job during the day.

On this afternoon, BA is table watching.

He's also placeholding a space next to him for a vendor named Joe,

an elderly white guy who sells rare and out-of-print books

but only comes to the sidewalks on weekends.

And then on top of all of that,

at four in the afternoon, most days,

he goes down to the Path Train Station to Panhandle,

though today he isn't going.

I got somebody down there working for him.

At the train?

Yeah, the Path Train Station.

You pay somebody to go down there for you if you can't go and then...

Pay me when they come off.

They pay me.

Because you have a spot down there too?

Yeah, they take my town.

You know what I'm saying?

My town is for 46, right?

So if they want to get on my town,

I tell them to give me half.

If you go down there for 46, give me half.

So right now, you're making money down at the train station.

And then you're also making money right now on the table.

Cool.

That's how I go.

And then you'll also make money tonight

holding the space for Joe for tomorrow.

Got it.

What would you do if they went?

If somebody just went down there from four to six

and started panhandling and you didn't know them

and they didn't pay you?

Like, isn't that possible?

No, no. They got to go.

Because I go like 330 and I check out my spot.

You know what I'm saying?

I go like 330.

I go make sure everything is clear.

I'm saying I go set myself up.

I'm going to creep down there, get my cup ready.

I tell you my clothes and look like a bomb.

Wait.

At the risk of making homeless advocates cringe,

I want to make sure you caught that.

Right now, B.A. is wearing a polo shirt from the gap,

khakis and adidas.

But when he goes down to panhandle, he says,

he changes his clothes to look like a bomb.

I tell you my clothes and look like a bomb.

You change your clothes to look like,

because right now you look really nice.

That's how I tell you I have to go change and everything.

You have to go down and go panhandling.

Then what do you wear?

I'll put on my all.

All the walls of the song.

I'll change my sneakers up.

You know, that's something I do like that.

You know, I sit down and look homeless.

And in two hours, how much can you get?

About $60,000.

Hey, sorry.

Where you get those, baby, fuck.

What's that?

Back, is that you?

At one point in the corner,

Ishmael's friend Shorty pulls up on the sidewalk

and gets out of a cab carrying several cardboard boxes.

Someone had cleaned out their apartment

and given Shorty a bunch of old books.

Oh, no.

You got something up in there.

The guys gather around and evaluate the books.

Most of them seem pretty old,

with titles nobody's ever heard of.

But there are a few known sellers.

The baby said it's club.

These are self, bro.

And that nobody does tell them,

like, approaching those self books of magazine

don't know nothing about it.

Some of these guys have known each other for over 20 years.

In the mid-80s, they lived together in Penn station

before the city cleaned it up.

After time in jail and treatment programs,

the guys regrouped on 6th Avenue.

And they're close,

and a way that makes it nice to hang out with them.

They joke around,

they get in the little arguments that last a day or two,

and then blow over.

There's all good prices on foot.

How much of a service do you get?

I'll give you a dollar piece on them.

You're a good deal for those.

Starting around four in the afternoon,

the sidewalks start getting busier.

The music gets turned up on the stereos,

and what's known as the power hour begins.

Each table has about 150 to 200 magazines laid out.

The sellers,

Vogue, Vibe, GQ,

Martha Stewart Living,

Architectural Digest.

There are foreign fashion magazines

like Italian Vogue,

and the occasional specialty order.

I got a girl right now

and she wants Drew Barrymore Playboy issue.

She said on the internet,

they asked for $60 for it.

I don't have that book many times.

I'm waiting on it now.

I'm just charging $35.

The Losers,

any weekly magazine,

the New Yorker,

Sports Illustrated Newsweek.

Neighbors will often donate stacks of weekly magazines

like people to the vendors.

The vendors will take them just to be polite

and later,

quietly throw them away.

It seems that smut sells the best,

and there's a surprisingly large stock of gay porn

that everyone is completely a matter of fact about.

In fact, it's all pretty relaxed, no hard sell,

except for Ishmael,

sitting in his premium spot at the top of the block.

At one point,

a cab driver who Ishmael has apparently dealt with before

pulls up next to the tables

and asks Ishmael

if he has any computer books or software.

Yeah.

They right there,

the whole session,

the whole foot,

come on out to the cab.

You got to get up out of the cab

and come on by the table, bro.

The cab driver is reluctant to leave his cab parked,

sitting in the middle of a lane of traffic

on the side of a busy New York city street.

You got to come on out,

you got to get up out of it.

But we ain't going to have that accident no more,

like we did last time.

I don't know what about the tick,

I don't want you to see the books, man.

Ishmael actually gets the cab driver

to come out of his cab into the table.

He sells the computer book for $10.

Now I don't understand how you're going to see like that

and get to go around the table,

you can see what's in front of you.

What got Ishmael to the top of the block

is pretty much what gets someone

to the top of any business.

He just wanted it more.

When he first started on the sidewalk,

there was a guy named Scotty sitting at the corner

by the bookstore.

So Ishmael made a plan.

He says he stayed inside

and rested up for a week

and got ready to make his move on Scotty.

So they come here, come here.

So my table's in there.

Nice minute.

Here he come.

Oh boy, I've worked for three mornings,

three days straight.

Right, physically fighting.

Tables in the street,

comic books in the street,

books in the street.

He kicked mine and I kicked it.

For three days straight,

eight o'clock till about 11 o'clock

in the afternoon.

Morning.

When Mitch first introduced me to Ishmael,

Mitch said he'd met few people in his life

with a determination that Ishmael has.

And I know it's weird that the path to triumph

will be kicking the ass of your opponent

for three hours every morning,

but if Coke and Pepsi could do the same thing,

don't you think they would?

Ishmael, I have seen you

in 30 below zero weather

at three o'clock in the morning.

I've seen you preserving this space out here

when everybody else was gone.

That's right.

Because it's like they said

the ghosts come out at night.

And if you're not there, believe me.

Somebody is willing to slip up in there.

On a good day,

when the weather's nice

and lots of people are out,

Ishmael makes about $150.

But he worked seven days a week

and a lot of days it rains.

Julie Snyder was the senior producer of our show

back when we first broadcasted today's program.

She went on to create the serial podcast

thanks to Mitch Deneer for acting as our guide to this story.

His book,

documenting several years in the lives of the vendors,

is called Sidewalk.

That book became a documentary film with the same name.

Mitch still visits the vendors every few months.

B.A. and Shorty have since passed away.

Ron was deported to Jamaica.

But Ishmael still hangs around the neighborhood.

He's retired now.

When people started looking on their phones on this subway,

they stopped buying books and magazines to read there.

The vendors on 6th Avenue took a big hit.

Thanks to Lady Monica Hall and Chris Neary,

production hub on this rerun

from Michael Cometay,

Miley Marcello,

Stone Nelson, and Ryan Rummery,

this American life is a little bit of public radio stations

by PRX,

the public radio exchange.

Thanks as always to a program's co-founder,

Mrs. Dory Malatia,

you know,

and Spike Lee walks in on Tory at me

and fill up glass at Stephen Hawking.

This is what happens.

He would walk in and say hello to the other four

and just like ignore me like I wasn't there.

I'm Eric Glass.

Back next week,

with more stories of this American life.

I'm working girl.

Next week on the podcast of this American life,

a bus full of people going to DC.

Only the driver doesn't want to go to DC.

He's going to go wherever he wants.

And the passengers?

Strangers are never met till now.

Nothing like one rogue person

to make everyone else unite, you know, right?

What happens next?

A real life version of the movie Speed.

Next week on the podcast,

on your guppup radio station.