Great opportunity: parking lot job
October 5th, 2011 § Leave a Comment
I listen to a few podcasts while cooking, shopping or working out – RadioLab, Definitely Not the Opera, This American Life. Tonight it was the September 10 edition of A Prairie Home Companion – you can listen to it here.
Garrison Keller is spinning an epic tale of his childhood – miraculously translocated by a tornado! The part I love is where he’s talking about his college job directing cars in a large parking lot. He was there at 5 AM in wintertime to neatly direct cars to double rows, no creative parking allowed – a shitty job for sure.
He makes it into a wonderful opportunity to learn how to be authoritative: how to stare down a driver until he submits, how to stop everything to deal with any rebellious outliers. He remarks smugly that the cashiers had no such learning opportunities.
I love this type of self-deprecating humor. I love the sarcastic nod to Americano-style positive thinking. Maybe I can use this approach to cope with the menace of stray dogs on the streets of Bucharest?
