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hallmarks of fine ambiance
Friday, February 11 2000
Fired up by the sympathies of one of my better managers, I emailed the "coach" (as they're called) of the team in Austin which took over and subsequently fired me from the horoscopes project. I was working under the impression that perhaps I would be restored as the developer for horoscopes, but that wasn't to be.
The Austin "coach" conference-called me along with Bargain, the new 18-year-old project leader of Horoscopes. The two had nothing of any substance to offer me; they were just trying to arrange a tidy closure to the case. Their main intent, I suppose, was that I no longer sully their names here at the San Diego office, something I'd been doing with glee. Well, when I sensed over the phone how the cards had been stacked, I was no longer interested in being pleasant. I told the Austin people in no uncertain terms that I thought that my firing from their team was a gross blunder and furthermore, that I regarded team leader Bargain's decision to reduce by two thirds my January bonus as "theft, plain and simple." Since I didn't give a fuck about what these idiotic Austin people thought, I didn't even bother to be rational, letting my outrage escalate into a barrage of obscenities until I was speechless with fury. My colleagues in the cubicles around me looked on with bemused interest, perhaps tinged with a sense of alarm.
In the evening Kim and I went out to eat at Pepe's, an Italian restaurant in Ocean Beach south of Newport Avenue. I'd never been there before, but Kim had a few times and she knew the food was good. Indeed, it was excellent, but the presentation was so unappealing that the experience was anything but appetizing. For starters, the food was brought out on styrofoam plates, not real dinnerware. I would have dismissed this as folksy Ocean Beach charm were it not for the floor mopping that ensued. Yes, as we sat there and ate, the grungy grey-yellow "danger floor wet" cart was wheeled to the edge of the dining room, visible in all its funky splendor. A skinny guy with a mop then proceeded to splash down the entire kitchen floor with an ammonia-rich translucent-grey fluid. No matter how good the pasta was, it was difficult to appreciate while ammonia hung pungent on the air. Mind you, the night was still young and there were many patrons in the restaurant at the time, yet no one except Kim and I seemed even the slightest bit disturbed. But who were we to raise a fuss about this Ocean Beach institution?
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