Captain Crazypants III: Symmetrical furniture of DOOM

The final chapter.

At last, I shall become free of this experience.

As noted in 'part II' of the Crazypants saga, the man is a paranoid, OCD, control freak who believes that selling a product is best conducted by having a wonderful looking facility. Wonderful looking is best described by the Captain as a place that is sterile, lacks life and above all is SYMMETRICAL. Everything must have an anal balance which is evident throughout the entire complex but never more so then in our lovely store front. An important place to be sure as it is the place all potential clients see first, the front door. So, the storefront, located right on a minor Chicago street, is stark white with white tiles, white walls and a sterile white ceiling lighted whitely with comfort removing flourescent lighting. The place drains your energy upon entering and really quite reminds one of a tax preperation service. There are five desks lined up perfectly along each wall, three on one side, two on the other. It is utterly important to the Captain that these desks line up precisely. On each desk is a small shelving unit with a company sign placed 'just so' in front and topped off with a lovely company frisbee. There are a few blue banners with the company logo hanging in the room to offset the monotonous white. The frisbees are also the same blue color. It is important to understand the importance of the frisbees. They MUST be there at all times otherwise the 'flow' of the room will be destroyed. Once we gave a frisbee away to a potential client who expressed interest in this minor item and the Captain noticed immediately.

"Where's that frisbee for the back desk?! You CANNOT give away the frisbees, we only have a limited supply and they have to be here to keep the office looking slick!"

When I worked on updating the company website I saw to it to include a picture of myself giving away a frisbee to a poetential client.

Another important aspect of the office is the furniture. When I came on-board the office had no particularly nice furniture and I was promised that very soon the crappy, mismatched chairs would soon be replaced by lovely blue chairs that will make our office the best in the city. Naturally, this happened some 8 or 9 months later and then we we're told that we definitely had the best sales office in the whole city (with in our field). IN fact, once when I was complaining that we really ought to think about some kind of advertising (any kind) I was told by the Captain that advertising costs money and that we should try and get the Chicago papers to come to our office and see how beautiful our office was. Then we could offer to challenge all our competitors to prove that our's was, in fact, the most beautiful in the whole city...Hell, why stop there? Why not declare it the best in the WHOLE FUCKIN' WORLD!!!

Our small, stale, awful office was the apple of the Captain's eye. Not a week went by when he didn't come down and step up to the front and center of the office to be sure that everything was correctly in it's symmetrical place. He would adjust all the little shelving units, make sure the fancy blue chairs sat at the appropriate distance from our desks, make sure the frisbees were facing the correct way. This seemed theraputic for him as he would frequently do this during times of stress. The company is about to fold up due to financial incompetence and the Captain busies himself by routinely checking the symmetry of our office or else hangin utterly pointless certificates and correpsondence from the mayor on our walls throughout the company. My favorite part of this process is after he finsihed making all his minor adjustments to the various shelves, chairs and frisbees in our office he would then go back to the front of the room and squint his beady fucking eyes, and lean to the right and left quickly...Apparently, the office was symmetrical from straight on AND from an angle.

Shortly after the fancy blue chairs arrived and took their places of honor before our desks we also received some even fancier, 'over-stuffed' furniture to sit in the very front of our office. Ya know, for clients to sit comfortably and wait in the unlikely event that somebody would be busy. This furniture was the dealmaker, it was the single most important aspect of our office to really make sales pick up! The process of selecting and purchasing said furniture took the better part of 9 months and man was it ever important! The original plan was to get two love seats for either side of the office, however, upon further review the Captain realized that everyone who comes to our business would undoubtably be homophobic so he nixed the love seats and went for four 'overstuffed' chairs. Comfort was coming to our office and there would be no worries about it turning anyone gay to boot!

The magic day was set and naturally the wrong furniture arrived as those special chairs were 'on order' so we had a few weeks of bliss with substandard loaners, one of which was a loveseat which was lovely for us as we now had somewhere to lay down while waiting for the influx of clients that was never coming. A month later, the real magic day occurred ALL OF A SUDDEN as a truck driver wandered into our office one quiet afternoon and said he had some chairs to deliver. Now, in normal world we would say, "Yes, bring them in." They would, we would place them in their appropriate location, they would remove the loaners and life would continue. At some point, after the new, precious chairs were placed we might notify the company president (or more likely his secretary) that the new chairs have finally arrived, to which he might reply, "good." Not so with the Captain involved. The Captain was just sitting down at a meeting with most of the company managers to go over the final plan for a client appreciation event that was coming up when the security guard informed him that the chairs have arrived downstairs. To which he replied, "WHAT!? They were supposed to call me ahead of time!?" He got all redfaced and immediately left the manager meeting with nary a word. They had no idea what had happened and why the Captain suddenly left.

He blasts into our office all redfaced and began shouting orders, "Get those old chairs ready to be removed, WHERE IS THE DELVIERY MEN!?!" They were in the alley getting ready to bring in new chairs and were met with a psychopath as the Captain ran out to the alley and simply erupted, "WHY DIDN'T YOU CALL AHEAD, I WAS TOLD YOU WOULD CALL AHEAD!!?!" Poor guys hadn't a clue but apparently this was all their fault. Captain calmed down and proceeded to direct the delivery men in their careful installation of these seemingly relgified artifacts that to the naked eye appear simply to be four chairs. This ten minute job was then stretched into a forty-five minute debacle as the Captain insisted that each chair be brought in individualy and carefully inspected by myself AND the Captain's secretary (she's a woman so the Captain assumes that she somehow has a magic eye for trouble, whatever that might be, she naturally had no idea what she was supposed to be looking for.) The Captain also noticed that one of the delivery guys had dirty boots so he was barred from treading on our precious floor, so it was up to myself and the Captain to move the scared chairs into place.

After 45 minutes of nonsense the chairs were in place and the Captain blustered off to conduct the meeting that was ruined by these awful delivery people. We enjoyed the new chairs by taking them for test sits and laughed about the free comedy show we just watched. Over the course of the evening (we worked to 7pm every night) other employees would come down and also enjoy a momentary sit. The Captain loved these chairs and often bragged about how the material could withstand well over 10,000 rubs and Oh don't they make the office look just wonderful! Needless-to-say, the number of clients brough in by the sacred chairs remained at it's usual zero.

Time went on, and the chairs became part of our scenery and often myself or the other sales reps would change up the monotony of any given day by spending some quality time parked in lovely new editions. One late evening, my international sales rep was sitting in the sacred chair nearest my desk whilst we complained about the utter lack of support or advertising (beyond the afore mentioned chair installation) our office received when the Captain passed the store front window on his way home for the night. He seemed to pay particular attention to the international rep. and knocked on the window and gesticulated wildly. The International rep. smiled and waved and I said under my breath, "I think he wants you out of the chair?" The INt. Rep. said, "What? Why?" and before I could answer the Captain blustered into the office and somewhat jokingly said, "What are you doing in that chair, ha ha, you have a chair behind your desk! You should be getting clients! Ha HA!" The Int. Rep. smiled and laughed and sauntered back over to his desk and the Captain left. Leaving me wondering how serious he was...Is the Captain really going to want us to stay out of the chairs?

Sure enough, a few weeks later, I was sitting in the very same chair nearest my desk while talking to the other sales rep. It was another quiet morning with nothing going on and all of the sudden the back door flings open and The Captain storms in, again redfaced, and yells, "GET OUT OF THAT CHAIR!!! YOU HAVE CHAIRS BEHIND YOUR DESK!! STAY OUT OF THAT CHAIR!!!" Then he demanded me to produce a database report (something he knows that I loathe to do) and storms out of the office. At which time, I decided to act like I was treated and proceeded to jump on all the chairs WITH my filthy shoes on! He proceeded to visit several other departments throughout the facility to inform them that no one is allowed to sit in those new chairs downstairs, they are only for clients, not the security guard, not the business manager NO ONE! He told this again to the other sales rep. when I sent him up with my report as I was unsure if I could behave myself in the face of this retarded stupidty. He yelled at me as if I were a nine-year old covered in melted chocolate...About sitting in a chair some three feet away from my desk, man!?

I knew this day that it was time to start planning for my future as I figured that if I didn't find another job stat I was sure to face unemployment yet again. Sure enough, a few weeks later I was "Let go, nothing personal, we just don't have any money, sorry." Sadly, the company has acted like job repellant on my resume and I remain unemployed currently...Thank you Captain Crazypants! Last I have heard, I wasn't the last to be laid off as the company is now operating under "Plan B" and several other staff members were let go as well.

The Captain was said to be upset that someone watered all plants in the facility without permission and now all the plants have signs on them declaring, "Do Not Water." The company is falling apart and this guy is worried about the fucking plants...There are more people fired from the place this year then there are employed and Captain still has absolutely no sales strategy, or plans to advertise what-so-ever. I feel for my friends left behind and I hope they escape successfully soon...Shit, I hope that I can find a new gig so I can laugh comfortably when this company collaspes after 100 years of service it merely took one insane ASSHOLE to destroy it in four years.

And so ends the Captain Crazypants saga...