Odd Jobs

I've had a lot of random jobs over the years. I've sold pizzas outside the Kingdome in Seattle on commission. I had a gig for a while at the end of the 90s where I basically helped a guy install home appliances like refrigerators and dishwashers for cash under the table. I've spun pizza dough. I worked a coffee cart in front of a Safeway. I purchased office supplies for a law firm. This doesn't even get into the number of children's theatre productions I've directed, selling my artistic soul for a paycheck.

For the last several years I've been a freelance "simulated patient" for several medical schools, to help train med students in their clinical skills. To answer your questions: Yes, kind of like Kramer on Seinfeld. No, it doesn't require that I get anything put up my butt. There, that's the answer to the first two questions 90% of you thought.

I also do a lot of temp work these days. Usually I'm sitting at a reception desk answering phones and surfing the web, my favorite kind of temp job. On Monday I had something completely different.

Some guy hired about 5 of us temps to go to a Jimmy Carter book signing. What for, you ask? Well, he calls himself a "collector" but I think a "dealer" would be a better description. He's one of those people who sells stuff on eBay.

We went to his car where he had a trunk-load of Jimmy Carter books and he gave each of us a huge stack. I had a garbage bag full of the Nobel Peace Prize lecture. Now, when I took the assignment I thought it was going to be something more officially connected to the event, like helping carry around big boxes of books at the store or something like that. And I took it because I thought it would be cool to meet Jimmy Carter.

But this was a little more shady than I thought. As we were walking with the guy to his car he laid out some ground rules. First, he said that we were in the Barnes & Noble we should act like we don't know him. He didn't want the Secret Service to know he brought a group to collect signatures. He claimed that the Secret Service sometimes gets "weird" about it. And then he tells us that if they ask us how we heard about the event we should give them some line about Googling it or some such bullshit. Of course my first thought was "Dude, if the Secret Service ask me a question my ass is going to point to you and say 'that guy hired me to get these books signed.'"

What the fuck was this guy thinking? I'm going to lie to a federal agent to protect some geek for ten bucks an hour? I don't think so.

And he also began a sentence with "If I get removed by the Secret Service..."

What the fu...? I'm doing a gig for a guy who has in the realm of possibilities that he could get grabbed by the feds? What the hell am I doing here?

He then left with his bag of books and told us to all to follow about a minute apart to keep spread out. I called the temp agency to see what the heck this is all about and they assured me that they did this for the guy last year and it is all above board. OK, but I'm still not going to lie to a fed for this guy. They told me I didn't have to do that.

It did turn out to be an OK thing I guess. There were several guys with a huge amount of books to be signed. This guy was right I guess, Carter will sign a ton of books for people and the bookstore will allow it as long as you have at least one copy of the new one.

Still, the former President is going to sign for 90 minutes and then stop. So I would be pissed if I went there to get a book signed and saw all these people in front of me with 50 or so books. So I'm even more annoyed that I am one of these guys. I was so embarrassed. And I know there were some people that had their heart set on getting a book signed by Jimmy that didn't get it because there were ass-holes in line with dozens of books. Ass-holes like me.

But Jimmy was really nice. He talked to me a little bit while he signed my books. My 51 books. I got to tell him I grew up in Georgia like he did. But I did forget to ask him if he could still get his hands on any Billy Beer.