NOT ENTITLED

When I embarked on a new career as a lawyer ten years ago and got this in-house job at one of the big TV studios in town, I couldn’t believe how cushy it was.

They have closets full of office supplies…reams of paper of every color, boxes of pens, clips, post-it notes in all different sizes, notebooks, pads. The best copy machines money can buy, these things scan and do color. Do you know how much color copies cost if you go to Kinko’s? Do you know how much office supplies cost? That shit’s a fortune, those color copies alone are a few dollars apiece.

And I know how much the shit costs because I was a substitute teacher before I went to law school, so when you needed anything, you had to go to Staples and Kinkos and pay for it yourself.

So when I got this job at this studio and saw how well-stocked this supply cabinet was, and that it was all free, I dropped to my knees and did a little Jew happy-dance. It was like a country club. I hadn’t seen that kind of abundance in years. I spent my 20s and 30s foolishly rebelling against my upper middle class background and walked out of some pretty cushy jobs, so when I finally went crawling back to law school and then walked into this nice, clean job with all these fancy pencils and pens, I realized God was giving me a second chance at selling out.

Thank you, God. I promise, I will never stray again, God. I will never, ever quit my day job because of one good audition where a casting director tells me he “really likes me.” I’ve told my close friends to handcuff and drug me if I even start thinking about doing anything like that. Fuck no.

They order sodas for you at this job. You just tell this one secretary what kind of sodas you like and the next day, they back up a truck and deliver you a case of each kind.

To me, this is the most amazing thing I’ve ever experienced – free sodas! But to my colleagues, who are used to this kind of silver-spoon treatment, this means nothing.

I guess it’s a matter of perspective. Most of these people have never been outside of their little upper middle class bubble EVER. They’ve gone straight through from college to some Ivy League law school to some big law firm, then a cushy studio job. They’ve somehow made it to 40 without ever getting so much as a scratch on them. They’re USED to getting things. They’re used to things going their way and they’re used to being serviced and treated like their needs matter.

For example, this woman who works next to me, if she has a moment of confusion about entering one keystroke on her computer, she calls the IT guys and makes them spend 45 minutes with her. And I don’t mean for something complicated, I mean because of some random error message or maybe a certain window doesn’t open promptly enough. But instead of trying to figure it out herself, she picks up the phone…actually, she makes someone else pick up the phone, to call this poor IT guy who comes downstairs and spends 45 minutes with her. And if she’s still flustered – hell, he’ll just buy her a new computer; in a different color if she asks for it.

It’s crazy. And what’s amazing to me is not that this kind of service exists, but that these people around me assume that they’re entitled to it.

Why don’t I have that same sense of entitlement? I always assume I have to do everything myself and that everyone else is an idiot and can’t help me anyway.

Part of it is because I’d just spent 5 years working at the LA School District. Jesus Christ, that is not even like working in the United States. No, that is third world. I was a substitute teacher and let me tell you, remember that old lady with the glasses on the chain who worked in the office. Well, she’s still working there. And if you want Xerox copies for a lesson you’re teaching, you have to bring that old lady a requisition form 5 days in advance and she has to make those copies for you. And that old lady is blind, or pretty close to it, so you better not ask her for anything too complicated. Double-sided, forget it. You’re lucky if those pages have words on either side when she gives them to you. And you’re limited to 25 copies per day, which is about enough for 1 of the 5 different classes you’re teaching that day. Which is where Kinko’s comes in – you’d rather go out of pocket than deal with that senile old bitch.

Oh, and remember Willie the 400 pound janitor? Well, he’s still working there too. And let me tell you, old Willie belongs to some union that answers straight to the Governor’s office because no one can fire old Willie. No sir, not even the goddamned principal can fire Willie, and if she even tried, they’d have her transferred to South Central just to teach her a lesson. Oh no, Willie’s got pull. So when you try to use your 5 minute break between classes to use the restroom, and the one working restroom at the entire school is inexplicably locked shut with a rusty chain, you have to charm old Willie into opening that mother fucker. You have to charm old Willie even when your bladder’s about to explode and you’ve walked half a mile to find him sleeping it off in the furnace room out back.

And if you even have the balls to ask old Willie to do something really advanced, like mop the floor in your classroom once a year, he’ll look at you like you’re out of your fucking mind. And he’ll remember that shit too when you need to get into that locked restroom one day. He will fuck you good on that day. You will have piss rolling down your leg and Willie will laugh his fat fucking ass off as revenge for that day you made him pull out that bucket and mop your damn floor. You will make his day and he will tell that story to all his other 400 pound janitor buddies while they’re hosing down the cafeteria at the end of the week.

Because that’s how they clean the cafeteria…they take a big hose and spray it down like they’re cleaning a slaughterhouse. No need to wipe it down or dry it, either. Just a good old country-style hose-down.

Let me tell you something, when I did an internship for a federal judge in law school, they took us on a field trip to a federal prison, and man, I’m not kidding, it was way nicer than any of the campuses I taught in at LAUSD. I mean, way nicer. They had weight rooms, nice showers. So if any of you are thinking of pulling any crimes, make sure they’re federal crimes…best time you’ll ever do.

But I digress.

But that LAUSD experience is only one of the reasons I come into most situations with so little expectations of being supported. In reality, it runs a lot deeper than that. The real reason I expect so little from people, at jobs, in relationships, in general, is because my mother was batshit crazy.

It always comes back to that, doesn’t it Mr. Freud. Seriously, batshit crazy. She still is, but now it’s just funny. But when you’re a kid and your mother is batshit crazy, you learn early on that she is not the person to go to when you need some kind of help. No. You learn that this person is barely coping with life, and the last thing she needs, the very last thing, is for you to come in there and wake her at 11:30 am because you’re having trouble tying your shoe. No. Because even if she does try to help you, she’s gonna get so worked up and turn it into such a production, that you’re gonna have to talk her down and convince her that everything’s gonna be okay. And by the time you’re finished doing that, you are exhausted. You’re spent. So the next time, you just learn to tie that shoe lace yourself. It’s a lot easier than waking a crazy sleeping dog.

That’s what I did anyway. I learned to do as many things by myself as I possibly could. And I got used to it.

So when I went to work at LAUSD, it wasn’t hard for me because I expected everyone to be incompetent. And when I go to a restaurant, I don’t expect to get good service…if there’s no fork or place setting at my table, I don’t ask the waiter to get one for me, no, I just get up and grab one myself from one of the other tables.

I expect to do everything myself.

And I didn’t really notice these tendencies until I got this cushy job in this cushy little legal department where they actually have people who are competent, and people who are sane who are actually capable of helping you. I have bosses now who won’t rip my head off and have a meltdown if I go to them with problems. But still, every time when I go down there, I still expect them to have a nervous breakdown.

Still, after 4 years.

And when I realized where all of this lack of trust and pathological level of self-sufficiency came from, I went into a lot of anger about it.

But I’m starting to look at it differently now. I’m realizing that growing up with that crazy bitch mother of mine made me the person I am today.

And what I am today is one pretty self-sufficient, competent, hard working mother fucker.

It’s like I went through boot camp as a kid, so when I come into a situation now, work or whatever, everything is so easy. I’m like a fucking machine. I mean, I can go at twice the speed as everybody else around me, because while that whiny, spoiled bitch next to me is asking for private lessons how to use her Blackberry, I’m getting work done. And it’s amazing how much I can get done by myself. I mean, I have an assistant, but I don’t even let her do anything because she just gets in my way.

My batshit crazy mother made me into a marine. A skinny, gay, Jewish marine, but hey…

And another thing, if you have a batshit crazy mother, you develop the ability to get along with anyone. I mean anyone. And you also learn to spot crazy people and to detect subtle mood swings and emotional changes in the room. I can sniff out a psycho at 50 yards blindfolded, and I can tiptoe around those motherfuckers like a samurai. I know how to humor them, how not to trip them off, and how to circumnavigate them. You have to learn that stuff when you have a crazy bitch mom. You learn to improvise and to be quick on your feet – you have to.

And my sister is the same way. Funny, resilient, with incredible people skills. And we’re both like that because we both came out of that same sick woman’s crack.

That woman made us smart and resourceful, and tougher than hell.

And so I thank that crazy bitch mother of mine…and I say that completely without irony. Because it’s the difficult people you encounter in life that force you to dig deep and develop the weak parts of your character. People who are slow of mind or stubborn teach us patience, and people with opposing viewpoints teach us tolerance, and so forth.

My mother, by being the needy, overwhelmed, explosive narcissist she was, made me the resilient, resourceful, people-pleasing tap dancer I am. And by making the first 20 years of life so goddamned difficult, she made everything that came afterwards seem real easy.

I love you, mom.