TheBanyanTree: Craving

[Margaret R. Kramer]

There are commercials on TV showing a person being yanked out of a family
gathering or work meeting.  They’re tossed around.  Slammed into walls.  And
finally, they end up outside smoking, because they couldn’t fight off the
craving for a cigarette.  I like these commercials, because that’s exactly
the way a strong craving feels for a smoker who’s trying to quit.  I’m only
two years into my quit, so being thrown against a wall is very fresh in my
mind.  I’m glad I don’t get tossed around much anymore.

I could see those same invisible forces working on my boss these past two
weeks.  No, he’s not a smoker; he’s an alcoholic.

He’s a binge drinker.  Anytime there’s a holiday or a celebration or a
reason to have a happy hour or even a gathering after a funeral, he’s there.
Then he calls into work the next day because he’s too hung over to make it
in.  Mark always takes a day off after his vacation, because he needs that
extra day to sober up.  It’s kind of a company joke.

Mark has been with the company long enough to get four weeks vacation.  One
of my coworkers tracked the time he took off during one year and it turned
out he had taken EIGHT weeks!  See, his old boss just looked the other way
and never confronted him about it.  Like any thief, and Mark’s a vacation
thief, he took full of advantage of it.

Now he reports to a new boss who knows all the stories.  She’s tightened up
the attendance policy so it will be very difficult for Mark to disappear on
Fridays around 1 pm.  It’s publicized department wide on email whenever
anyone calls in sick.

We’ve been in training the last couple of weeks.  We’ve been locked together
in a small room trying to learn a new system.  The trainer was a woman from
Baltimore.  And we had another woman from Charlotte who was training with
us.

The first week went along OK.  But Mark started getting flaky during the
second week.  He kept changing the times of our training, so it would occupy
more of the day than it needed to.  Then he would just keep talking,
talking, talking during the session.  It was almost like he had to hear the
sound of his voice.  He was having trouble tying all the concepts together
and kept going over the same things over and over again.

I got impatient, and that’s why I’m not a teacher, because I have a
difficult time when someone doesn’t “get it.” Another pet peeve for me is
when a person who won’t even make the effort to try to figure things out on
their own and have to have someone hold their hand.

Mark prevented me and maybe the rest of the group from going forward because
of his “what if a tornado comes and blows off the roof of the house and then
a car crashes into a tree and the kid next door starts crying and the sun
comes out?” scenarios.  They went on and on and all he did was confuse
himself and us, too.  But his lips kept flapping.

Mark is a short, stocky guy, and when he begins to feel self-important, he
puffs his chest out, rolls his shoulders around, and waves his arms in the
air trying to make himself look BIG.  He keeps talking LOUDER and LOUDER.
It’s like watching a bird puffing himself out to attract a female, except
none of Mark’s female coworkers are intrigued by this display.

He insisted training be held from 8 – 4 on Thursday, even though it was
apparent that there wasn’t much left to train on.  We had some loose ends to
clean up and that was it.  But by Thursday, the demons were visibly picking
at him, and I could see he was being tossed against a few walls.

Mark had stayed sober for two weeks.  He didn’t miss a day, because he didn’
t dare.  But his boss was out of the office this week and almost all the
other bosses were, too.  So on Thursday he kept hinting about going out for
margaritas after training.  He had already planned to take Friday off from
work, so he knew he could get hammered.

The hints became a formal invitation when he got up in front of the room and
told us training would end at 2 pm and everyone could go out for drinks.
Mark was practically shaking in anticipation.

When the big hand was on 12 and the little hand was on two, Mark ran to his
desk, grabbed his jacket, and dashed out the door.  He could finally give
into the craving that had been eating at him for two weeks.  I’m sure it was
nirvana when he lifted that first margarita to his lips.

Well, I did all my drinking in my 20s, and spending an afternoon in a bar
just doesn’t cut it for me anymore.  I like being clear eyed and feeling
good.  As Mark ran out the door, I organized my desk, got my stuff, and went
home.

It was rainy, cold and windy afternoon, but the Twins were playing an
afternoon game in Oakland.  Ray got home from work just a little after I
did.  I turned on our gas fireplace, turned on the TV, and we settled deep
into our big green couch and watched the game.

No demons were throwing me against a wall.

Margaret R. Kramer
margaretkramer at earthlink.net

http://www.polarispublications.com
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A birthday is just the first day of another 365-day journey around the sun.
Enjoy the trip.

~Author Unknown