Proposals, Shoes, and Bennie 'The Jet' Rodriguez

Each Tuesday I will be posting a short story of an event that has occurred in the office the past week that may be memorable, embarrassing, or offensive in nature. If nothing too scandalous has occurred I will share a story from the recent past that may or may not still be relevant. This event took place on May 11th, 2007 but its ramifications have lasted until today, and beyond.


I arrived at work today, ready for a bi-monthly ritual in the office that usually destroys the entire flow of my week. For this is the day the representatives from corporate come in to check up on our progress with whatever the hell it is we're doing at the time. My boss comes up to me around 8:30am telling me that our rep will be here any minute, and that I need to get some paperwork together. I have a basic idea of what paperwork he's talking about, but to be honest with you, it could really be anything. I grab the file of my biggest client, randomly throw a few labels and paper clips throughout to make it look more 'professional', and return to focusing on my fantasy baseball team.

A few minutes go by and I hear my boss's voice accompanied by another voice that is obviously our new corporate rep. They come around the corner to my desk and the boss says, "Here's another one of our guys, Steve. Steve, this is Dave from corporate." So I stand up to go shake his hands and suddenly realize that my goddamn shoes are off. (I sometimes take off my shoes at my desk because a) my feet hurt and b) i don't care anymore). Of course Dave looks straight down at my socks and up at me with a glance that says 'what are you doing kid, why are you shoes off?' I reply with a look that says 'honestly, I really don't care who you are just let me get back to gchatting with my friends.'

I look up at my boss and he's shaking his head like he normally does whenever I do anything out of the ordinary. And when I say out of the ordinary I mean anything that I do before 11am on days where I've been up until 4am the night before drinking boxed wine and playing Wii. Also of note is that currently at my desk I have three bottles of Vitamin Water, two coffee cups (one full one empty), an orange juice, and a yogurt. For some reason, Dave thought this was odd. I realize that my shoes are off but make no move to put them back on while we continue to converse. The topics range from my previous work experience to the progress I'm making with my main client, with most of the questions coming from the rep not out of normal curiosity, but out of complete awe that I was actually hired by this company.

While Dave is glancing around my work area he notices the background of my computer, which I usually change every few weeks with something absolutely random and off-the-wall. On this occasion it happens to be a picture of Bennie "The Jet" Rodriguez in the 'The Sandlot' right after he hits the webbing off the baseball, to which Dave surprisingly says, "Man I love that movie". Well for the next three to four minutes we discuss the movie Sandlot, how Dave grew up in a small town in Illinois where baseball was his life, and how fantastic the movie portrayed that sense. I then mention how when I was young I went to out to Hollywood with my father and tried out for the lead role of Smalls, (a complete lie, but I've always thought I could have owned that part) and Dave thought it was the coolest thing he'd ever heard. He then, right at that moment, hands me his business card and says it was a pleasure meeting me and he has to run, but that we need to keep in touch.

This event happened a year ago this week, and is probably the reason I'm still employed here. Dave and I have shared countless emails and I'm usually the first desk he will approach when entering the office. Despite doing as little as possible and infuriating every authoritative figure in our office for the past 18 months, the fact that I'm friends with someone higher than my boss will keep me in his good graces for years to come. If I would have just kept my shoes on, I'd probably be Executive Vice President at this point.