A Crossword Orange

The incriminating puzzle

Ingrid, my new Home Depot manager, caught me doing the NY Times Saturday crossword when she stopped in the training room to fetch some paperwork in the 7th hour of my 32 hour Home Depot re-education.

All I felt was a shoulder tap and a glare, followed the come-hither pointer finger to her office.

I knew it was wrong to do crosswords while getting paid and, ostensibly, being trained. I would never want to appear unprofessional or disrespectful towards our trainer, Candi. But the puzzle was a life-preserver in a sea of stupidity and understimulation. If I had had to stare pleasantly at Candi's frumpy, jowly figure (picture an older, chain-smoking version of her cartoon namesake) for another minute as she attempted to suck out my soul through my earhole, I might have grabbed a weed-whacker and done something far worse than a crossword. I was also careful to conceal the puzzle from Candi's view so as not to hurt her feelings, and I was making eye contact her at least once every two minutes, smiling politely whenever anyone in the room laughed.

I was proud of myself for holding up so well for the first six hours. Monklike, I had endured the hairshirt of Candi's million stupid words march, dozens of dumb questions she asked and answered herself, hundreds of sprawling, inane anecdotes about things that had allegedly really happened at THD. I had managed to hold my lunch down when she spoke of fellow employees who "bleed orange" or when she described us trainees as "B.T.A. - Before the Apron". I watched stoically as she explained the origins of all nineteen buttons and patches on her apron (there is no required amount of flair, but it must be related to Home Depot or products THD sells). I did not protest the fact that we would be fired if we accepted tips, nor did I point out the irony that we had just been informed that the C.E.O., Bob Nardelli, makes $36 million plus tips (even though the stock has been flat during his six year tenure.) I did not question Cathi's lengthy explanation of why Home Depot's anti-union policy was really intended for the good of its employees.

I had stared complacently at many earnest, good-natured orange apron wearers, in many videos, including a Chinese THD employee showing off his karate kicks, a Latino Depotino playing "La Bamba" on his guitarra, and a reenactment of the time a bunch of THD employees helped save 12 ducklings trapped in a storm drain with some PVC pipe and duct tape. After the video, Candi pointed out the wheelchair in the room that belongs to Rick in Plumbing. Rick was her anecdote to illustrate that "Inclusion" is one of THD's core values, occupying no larger a pie slice on the Core Value Wheel than "Increasing Shareholder Value".

I didn't walk in there intending to do crosswords. For the first couple of hours I was all eyes and ears, even feeling a little bit proud to have been invited to join this "Fortune 13" company, the 2nd largest retailer in the world (who, Candi has heard, treats their employees way better the 1st largest). This was not retail, this was The Home Depot. We would never have a job this hard, or this easy. For every one of us sitting there 15 others had been interviewed and turned away. If the Home Depot was a country (which it may soon become), it would have the 5th largest number of troops in Iraq, and have the sixth most medals in the most recent Olympics (and by far the nicest kitchens). That's right, Olympians work for Home Depot. Gold Medalists were on those videos lifting bags of mulch in orange apron just like I was going to lift bags of mulch in an orange apron. And guess who was the only corporation down at Ground Zero, supplying the cops and firefighters? And guess who had a mobilization plan for Katrina 4 days in advance? (Hint: the answer isn't FEMA.) And the benefits, I mentioned the great benefits, didn't I? That was why I was there, after all.

But, the more Candi talked, the less I liked Home Depot. And Lord, could she talk. She should train the Democrats on filibustering. It was like the movie "Speed", only instead of having a bomb on Sandra Bullock's bus, there was a bomb in Cathi's larnyx that would explode if her vocal chords stopped vibrating. And what kind of half-assed "training" was this, 40 of us trapped in a room listening to a very unimpressive middle-aged journeywoman (she had given us a half-hour monolgue on her depressing career path) babble about how great Home Depot was? Apparently there were 4 more days of the same on the way, then 20 B.T.A. hours on a computer getting trained for our specific departments. This was idiotic, interminable.

I normally don't even attempt the Saturday NY Times crossword because it is too damn hard, but I had to give it a stab before I stabbed myself with my pen. With Candi droning on about why she wore cheap sneakers, I was filling in the blank rows and columns like never before. I was going to make it to five o'clock and I was going to complete my first Saturday crossword, all while collecting my $11 an hour.

Then, came Ingrid, and the tap on the shoulder.

I followed her to her office in silence and we sat down to finalize some paperwork, but first, she closed the door, turned up the glare, and said, with the disdain appropriate for an SVU detective grilling a child pornographer:

"What were you thinking doing a crossword puzzle during your training?"

She was so severe, in fact, that I hesitated, half-waiting for her to break into a big "I'm just messin with ya" smile. Maybe she was a crossword lover, too?

No smile came. Okay, then. What was I doing?

"Multi-tasking?" I replied, with the hint of a smile as a doorway to a conversation less bizarre than the one she had started.

She did not smile back. "We aren't paying you to multi-task. You know, if you don't want to be here, you can walk right out the door. I could see some of the younger kids goofing off, but you've been around the block, you should know better."

If I had even a half-formed sac, I would have told her that I had been around the block enough to know better than to waste another minute of my fleeting life enduring this corporate bullshit, then walked out her door, through lumber, and past the Sensomatics forever.

Instead, I bit my tongue hard, and apologized, head low. I applied for the job because my bank account was dwindling after a slow winter with my real job installing solar panels. Plus, our health insurance runs out in July when my wife finishes med school and takes a year off to be with the kids. So, I didn't quit right then, but orientation is only getting worse, solar work is picking up, and, God Willing, I will forever remain BTA.


1. Goofing off? This was not a Gameboy, it was not even the People crossword, this was the Times Saturday puzzle, the pinnacle of cultural savvy and lateral thinking. The puzzles get progressively harder as the week goes on, and I am a solid Thursday player, Friday on a good week. (Ingi, on the other hand, looks like a word search type of gal.) Most Saturdays I can fill in one or two sports-related clues, mainly because I am not fluent in seven languages, I haven't memorized all the rivers in post-Soviet countries, etc. But, this Saturday, perhaps because of the stupefying boringness I had been subjected to for 7 hours straight, I had actually filled out more than half the grid. Ingi, if she knew any better, should have offered me a management position on the spot. The only fact relevant to being a Home Depot employee I learned that day, in fact, was in 14 down: "A woodworking tool" was a "rasp".
Fun fact: It turns out that this was the first Saturday crossword I ever finished unassisted. Go figure.

2. "Been around the block"? This is by far the oldest phrase ever used to describe me. I'm 32. Perhaps, I "wasn't born yesterday", but "been around the block" makes it sound like I'm a few birthdays away from the "no spring chicken" demographic.