Fielding Questions About My New Job's Shift Meal Policy

Are you in the Bay Area and free this Monday evening? Come by Pegasus Books on Shattuck in Berkeley around 6pm and see me talk with Soleil Ho about Christmas at the Women’s Hotel. It’s the only stop on my book tour this year, so make the most of it.

Previously in this series: Answering questions about getting to drive the big bus for work.

FRIENDS: How big is the big bus?

DANIEL: Let me put it this way. If the bus were any bigger, I would need a commercial driver’s license.

FRIENDS: Does the big bus beep when you put it in reverse?

DANIEL: It does. With a satisfying depth of sound, too.

FRIENDS: And is there a button you can press to open the accordion doors?

DANIEL: There is. I can open and close the accordion doors with the slightest movement of my finger. Both admitting and denying egress and ingress for passengers is as child’s play, to me.

It’s been two months since I started my new job in senior living. One day a week I drive the big bus; two days a week I drive the company car. Two days a week I manage the daily activity schedule and for the remaining two days each week I labor not, neither do I spin.

The citizenry’s hunger for news remains unsatisfied; every day people ask me questions about my new work and I endeavor to satisfy them all.

FRIENDS: Is it true there is no limit to your company’s shift meal policy?

DANIEL: In practice there are limits. I cannot order three lunches, for example. But the company’s shift meal policy is licentious. I can request soup, salad, an entree, two sides, and a dessert, should I feel so moved. All I have to do is write it down.

FRIENDS: The entree almost always comes with gravy, does it not?

DANIEL: It does. Five days a week, should I particularly wish it, I might eat a hot lunch with gravy at no cost to myself, and without lifting a finger to prepare it.

FRIENDS: Your blood pressure must be through the roof —

DANIEL: Perhaps I have neglected to mention that all of these meals are already reduced sodium…?

[Murmurs of quiet admiration follow.]

FRIENDS: And your inbox situation?

DANIEL: The burden is easy; the yoke is light. I receive no more than two to three emails a day on average.

FRIENDS: Surely not —!

DANIEL: It is not unheard of to go an entire day at work without receiving a single email.

FRIENDS: But meetings?

DANIEL: I do not attend meetings. There is no meeting at work that requires my presence.

FRIENDS: None at all?

DANIEL: Once a month the Active Living Committee gets together to discuss future outings and so on. But I would hardly call that a meeting. I don’t have to take notes or anything.

FRIENDS: Scarcely a meeting at all…!

DANIEL: Moreover, I understand every element of my job. I could easily explain what I do to any schoolchild. No one has said the word “deliverables” to me, not once.

FRIENDS: Well, it’s only been two months —

DANIEL: I drive people to their appointments. I drive the big bus on outings. I move the chairs and set up the tables for volleyball. Sometimes I call Bingo or play a round of Uno. Twice a week I lead a seated exercise class. And I make fliers that go up in the elevator for the evening movies.

FRIENDS: It can’t all be games and honking the horn on the big bus.

DANIEL: I’m afraid quite a lot of it is.

FRIENDS: Nothing leaves you uncertain? Nothing overwhelms you?

DANIEL: I — sometimes it’s difficult to operate the projector in the theater. Sometimes I have trouble with that. And once I opened an email that was part of an HR-led phishing expedition that resulted in a mandatory twenty-minute online training.

FRIENDS: The subject line of which was…?

DANIEL: It was “Time card discrepancy,” sent from an email address that only tangentially resembled my boss’ email address.

FRIENDS: I see.

DANIEL: But I can serve myself unlimited Diet Coke from the soda gun in the kitchen.

FRIENDS: Can you?

DANIEL: I’m — I’m not entirely sure. The soda gun lies a few steps beyond the sign that says “KITCHEN STAFF ONLY BEYOND THIS POINT.” And I am not kitchen staff.

FRIENDS: I see!

DANIEL: But I am sometimes permitted beyond that point, to get ice, in the course of my ordinary duties, and no one has yet told me to stop pouring myself Diet Cokes…

FRIENDS: You need say nothing else. I see it all perfectly.