Warning! Doppler radar!

Whoa wait a minute – what’s with this tornado business? Nobody warned me about this when I moved here! I knew tornadoes existed from The Wizard of Oz, but I thought they were only found in MGM scripts. Besides, tornadoes aren’t something you’d intuitively take under consideration when looking at prospective areas to call home. Does the city have a high percentage of employment? Are the school systems decent? Does it have a low crime rate? Is there a chance I’ll be sucked up into a life-threatening 150mph tunnel of wind?

I hail originally from Arizona, where there is no weather, only heat. Someone once asked me what we did for fun during those 120-degree days (i.e. all of them). I told him truthfully, “We sat on the couch and whined.’” We couldn’t get up from the couch if we wanted to, because we had become stuck to it.

Then I moved to New York where I discovered there is more than one season. Colorful trees in autumn, sparkling snow in winter that decorated the city in birthday cake frosting. And when the snow’s pristine white became peppered with black soot, it looked like Cookies and Cream.

I thought Alabama would have even prettier seasons than

New York. Plus I assumed it would be a lot safer. But I discovered seasons have a dangerous side, called “inclement weather.” This is a scientific phrase meaning “weather that could kill you.” For example, the tornado, a side-effect of seemingly harmless thunderstorms. The tornado is defined by Webster’s as “a rotating column of air… whirling at destructively high speeds.” This translates into my own words as “a rotating column of air… that could kill me.”

When the sirens went off I ignored them and went on watching TV. But my boyfriend immediately leapt into Tornado Action while I sat dumb-founded on the couch, wondering why he didn’t want to watch the movie anymore. “Don’t you hear the sirens?” he cried.

I blinked in bewilderment and tried to concentrate. As a matter of fact, there was a high-pitched squealing siren that seemed rather urgent in its intensity. He gave me a look that clearly said, “Are you paralyzed, or just an idiot?” What he didn’t realize is that if I’d leapt up in a panic every time I heard an unexplained high-pitched siren when I lived in Manhattan, I never would have sat down the entire six years I was there. And I would’ve required even more prescription medication.

“That’s the tornado siren,” he explained, disassembling the couch and hauling cushions towards the coat closet. “We need to be prepared to take cover, if necessary. I think the coat closet is the best place.”

He seemed serious. Also, he was making a mess. Panic started to kick in as I began running a quick calculation of which valuable possessions to take into the closet. I vaguely wondered why Tom was suddenly so attached to the couch cushions.

I thought maybe we should get water and batteries and duct tape, since that’s what everybody says you should have in an emergency. I learned this from TV. Left to my own devices I would have selected chocolate chip cookies, Diet Coke, and a battery-powered television. While everybody else was saved by the life-giving powers of duct tape, I would have perished, full of sugar and soda and watching “Cheers” reruns.

But Tom explained that tornadoes are one of the few emergencies that do not require duct tape. We just needed to prepare to take cover, using the cushions as additional protection. In the meantime, he seemed to feel it was just fine to go on watching television, which is what I had already been doing. It seems to me that if all we needed to do at this point was watch TV, he could’ve kept the rest of it to himself, since I was now fighting the urge to curl into the fetal position and whimper.

For the next 30 minutes we watched Channel 5’s Doppler Radar. They are mighty proud of their Doppler Radar, and not too eager to divulge just what Doppler means, in order to keep a corner on the Doppler market. I was quite impressed with the Doppler Radar computer graphics. However, the “Storm Team” member at the controls must have had about twelve pots of coffee that night. He was zooming in, zooming out, spinning the map back and forth, and drawing arrows and lines and circles at such lightening speed that I started to feel slightly nauseous.

Turns out there never was an actual tornado that night. As far as I know, the only fallout from the excitement was the hospitalization of several people who were treated for severe dizziness after watching too much Doppler Radar. But before the next tornado hits I’m running out and getting myself a pair of ruby slippers. I’m no idiot.

© 2004 Karen Bertiger

Would You Hire This Person?

Except for the poverty, unemployment is great. You can get up late, watch crappy TV all day, and grocery shop when the lines aren’t aggravatingly long.

Well, it was great for about the first two months anyway. Then I started to notice that my brain was kind of rotting away. I was having trouble formulating sentences. I realized my world had become too narrow when I started stressing about emptying the dishwasher. It was the only thing I had to get done on a regular basis. To feel more secure, I would create a priority list: 1) empty dishwasher… 2) write tomorrow’s priority list.

Really I decided to start looking for a job so I’d have somebody to talk to, but I should have thought things through a little better. Interviewing is certainly not a medium for fascinating conversation or, for that matter, honesty. I am stretching the truth about my background or lack thereof while they are conveniently leaving out the downsides of the job, such as 26-hour work shifts and fluorescent lighting that has been known to cause severe facial ticks in 40% of their employees.

My most recent interview was conducted by a man who should be in the Guinness Book of World Records for Largest Stick Up the Ass. This guy made it look like it hurt to be happy. He didn’t laugh at any of my jokes – I mean, let’s face it, you’d have to be dead not to laugh at my jokes - and he was asking seriously stupid questions. Like, “Do you consider yourself an ethical person?” An ethical person would answer yes; an unethical person, due to a lack of ethics, would also answer yes. I mean… duh.

My favorite question is, “Where do you see yourself in five years?” There is no good way to answer this. “I want to be the president,” is no good because that gives them the impression that you will not be happy to be a lackey for the next 10 years, which is what they secretly have planned for this position. “I want to do the same tedious crap I’ve always done,” is no good either, because then they will think you lack the initiative to do the really awful grunt work, which is what they secretly have planned for this position.

At least interviewing here is a little less complicated, albeit less interesting, than it was when I lived in New York City. Since I usually had a bit of a walk to and from subways, I wore my sneakers and carried my heels in my bag, just like you see in the movies. Then I would change my heels in the elevator. But no matter how fast I was, the elevator doors always opened up to reveal me leaning over, balanced on one foot, with one heel on and my dirty socks tucked under my armpits. Once when I performed this little ballet in a packed elevator, a good looking suit remarked, “You’d make a terrible Superman.”

Also, people in New York tend to forget certain interviewing laws and guidelines, which is to say, they didn’t know there were any. In one interview I asked if any of my five (yes five) interviewers had any more questions for me and one executive piped up, “Have you ever been a man?” I think he was trying to be funny. The others at least had the decency to look horrified. They offered me the job, probably because they were afraid I’d sue them if they didn’t.

While this second type of interview could in fact land you in court, it does seem to me that employee turnover would be significantly reduced if we could ask the questions we really wanted to in job interviews. Like, “Do you foresee having any problems working for a manic-depressive alcoholic?” Or, “Are you against kissing your boss’s ass in order to get promoted?” And in return I could ask, “Are the rest of the employees here as dull as you?” or “Do company benefits include Krispy Kremes in the coffee room?”

I guess it’s a toss up. You can have interesting interviews with crazy law-breakers, or really boring by-the-book interviews that make you want to quit before you even get the job. In any case I doubt anybody who has read this article is going to be inviting me in for an interview any time soon.

But if you happen to be looking for a lazy smart ass who likes to talk about herself, isn’t shy about pointing out your shortcomings or those of the company, and doesn’t really like to work past 3 on Fridays, please let me know. Because there’s absolutely nothing to watch on TV and I’ve already emptied the dishwasher.

© 2004 Karen A. Bertiger