Biking off into the Sunset

I stand there half drenched from head to toe in my cheapest throwaway t shirt and khakis as I wrestle with the coiled-up garden hose above my head. The number of flowers in the garden center had been slowly dwindling for weeks, and my boss made it very clear that this seasonal gig would be over by the end of the month. My mind raced with thoughts about what I was going to do next. Sure, I was still living with my parents, but I had to keep this train moving so that I could change that and more.

I mindlessly sprayed a tomato plant with probably twice as much water as it needed when I felt my phone vibrate. “Hello?” I answer.

“Hi. Is this Logan?” 

“Yes.” 

“This is T.J. from...” (such and such). I could barely hear a thing over my own racing heart and the clammer of customers all around. This nice, middle-aged man went on to describe the job position that he was about to offer me, highlighted why he thought I would be a good fit because of my prior experience at Amazon (only two months' worth), and then he says, “Is that something you’d be interested in doing?” 

“Yes,” I say automatically. I’m so scatter-brained as I struggle to recall which of the dozen applications that I filled out that this guy was calling from. He was the only one who called out of all of them because let’s face it, my resume sucked. I was a deadbeat for almost a whole year without a job before this temporary garden center thing. 

After working out a few more details, I ended the call with a genuine thank you and a patter of nervousness echoing through my body. 

Come to find out, the name of my new job was called Planet Cyclery, indicated by the big, beautiful sign imprinted on the glass front door to the warehouse. My first day was finally here. I rang the doorbell and a few seconds later was welcomed in by a friendly guy in shorts and a t shirt. I sat on the couch and waited for the head boss to come and greet me. The wall behind me was covered by a huge poster of the New York City buildings glowing at night and the break room to my right had a spot in the corner with five bicycles all lined up. My new boss, Mitch, welcomed me into the warehouse part a moment later. He was a man of about forty with a thick beard better suited for a motorcycle enthusiast and a tattoo across his knuckles that read “I don’t give a fuck.” His deep voice and relaxed, but stern attitude made me respect him immediately. 

Other employees were walking around with rolling carts in the narrow aisles which each had a yellow letter imprinted on the floor at the start of each one from “A” to “Q.” Everyone had on their most casual clothing just like Mitch and the guy who let me in through the front door. Laughter and silly jokes permeated through the warehouse. 

A skinny guy with a backwards hat and an aura of cigarettes and weed approached me. “Hey, Logan. I’m Zane. I’m gonna train you today since Mitch is busy.” I followed Zane to another part of the warehouse. He had me go through a slideshow on a computer as he explained all the different parts of a shipping label.

Still feeling my heart pound, I stayed mostly silent and just nodded my head. I thought to myself how long am I going to work here? Just another month or two like I did at the last few jobs I had? I didn’t think I was going to fit in. I’m not much of a bicycle person. I had never had a job in my life for longer than a year. 

Then it was time to do some actual work. Everyone’s job here, including mine, was simple: fulfill online orders for bicycle parts in a timely manner and ship them all out at the end of each day. Zane spent the next hour teaching me what I was to do pretty much all day every day – picking. He got out a King Soopers type of grocery cart and put a white post office bin on top of it. Then, approaching a fancy printer by Mitch’s desk twice the size of the one I had at home, he said, “This is where you’ll get your tickets.” Mitch clicked a few buttons on his computer screen and a whole stream of tickets began printing in a neat stack. After the last one came out, Zane tore it off and directed me toward aisle A. 

It was so easy. All I had to do was read what was on each ticket and pick whatever they said to pick. I quickly became familiar with all the different bicycle parts and high-end brands of tubes, tires, wheels, and the like, and over the following months, I quickly became the fastest picker and took pride in doing my job fast and well even though no one ever congratulated me or said I was doing a good job. I found that a big part of pulling myself out of the deadbeat phase of my life involved telling myself that I was good enough and that I was doing a good job every day. Let’s just say that years of therapy also played a huge role in my transformation. 

As I got to know the people and familiarize myself with all aspects of the job, I quickly realized that I was going to like it here. I got to know some really good people and saw all aspects of my life slowly start to improve. About six months after I started at Planet Cyclery, I decided it was finally time to go back to college. I had dropped out after just one semester right out of high school and had not been back in the seven years since. That past failure gnawed at me for the longest time and now I was finally doing something to remedy it. 

I went on to graduate with my associate's degree with an almost perfect GPA and transfer to a four-year school, all while working at Planet Cyclery. I even met my amazing girlfriend, Emily, and moved out of my parents' house for the first time while working there. 

As amazing as the job itself was, the people I worked with were the sweetest icing on the perfect cake. I met probably the friendliest person I’ve ever met in my life at Planet Cyclery, Danny. He was a fellow picker and a hard worker but a bit of a people pleaser only when it came to speaking to Mitch, T.J. and the other bosses. Danny worked six days a week and reveled in that sweet overtime pay to help support his wife and daughter. However, I always heard stories about him missing a shift here or there because he got so burnt out. Oddly enough, Danny was a blackbelt in karate even though I thought he was too nice to ever want to fight anyone. 

Danny told so many cool and interesting stories that got me through some of my worst workdays. He often spoke of a very peculiar, unfortunate and ongoing situation he was in. Supposedly, there was some unknown person stalking him on all his social media accounts and had even hacked into some of them. Yet, he never seemed stressed or depressed about it in the slightest. But I fully believed everything he said because Danny was no liar. 

“Logan!” He said one day in his always upbeat tone. “What’s up? You finish that movie with your classmates?” 

He was referring to this ten-minute iPhone recorded production that my classmates and I had to make for the end of the semester final. I was embarrassed by my role of the creepy stalker that I played in this horror / thriller that I also wrote and directed. 

“Yes,” I said. “Now it’s just waiting to be graded.” 

“Alright, let’s see it.” 

Most of my self-consciousness vanished because of his sheer enthusiasm for this project that nobody else at work cared about. Danny was a rare person because he showed genuine interest and enthusiasm with everyone around him. He was truly everyone’s best friend and not in a needy or annoying way. 

As Danny watched the student film on my iPhone, he didn’t laugh or have any kind of reaction. Not even the part where I held up my fake knife, got fake shot, bled fake blood, and was fake dead in the not fake baking sun. Then after it was over he looked at me with the most impassive expression and said “Well Logan, I think I know who my stalker is. You and me need to go out to the parking lot right now. Let’s go.” We just stared at each other for a moment and then both started laughing uncontrollably. 

Not long after that, Danny told me that his nefarious and still unknown stalker was now impersonating him on his own hacked Facebook profile and telling his wife (as Danny) that he was cheating on her with another woman who was now pregnant. Apparently, there were a lot of outrageous deeds that this mysterious person did that he was constantly having to clear up. 

What fascinated me most about him was his resiliency and his ability to talk about such things like it was the latest Marvel movie. 

There was one thing I couldn’t help but notice over the years of working at Planet Cyclery. People would leave, but there would be nobody new to replace them. Business was slowing down. To help fix this, Planet Cyclery merged with another company while retaining the name. The combined businesses started operating out of two different warehouses. 

Mitch transferred me to the other warehouse, so I was unable to see Danny or many of my other favorite coworkers who stayed behind at the other one. 

One coworker at this new warehouse, Tad, walked right past me every time I crossed paths with him and gave me the coldest of shoulders at every turn. Of course, I was also to blame for this increasingly toxic relationship. Every Monday, I would use the packing station that he would use the whole rest of the week. The boxes were all neatly lined up below the desk in a specific way and the computer monitor was rotated ninety degrees in portrait mode. Over time, there would be some days I would leave the monitor the normal way that I liked it, which really pissed Tad off. So, one day he came up to me and spoke to me for the very first time in the two months that we’d been working together. He was wearing his usual Toronto Blue Jays hat, thick glasses, and baggy pants. “Logan,” he said. “Two things. One – put my station back the way you found it. Two – put the carts where they go.” It was such rapid, aggressive speech that I could barely understand it just like it always was when he spoke to other people. He walked away before I could respond. 

I would always see Tad on the phone, cussing out the person on the other line. I became increasingly intimidated by Tad and always made sure to leave his station the way I found it. 

But then one day out of spite, I left his station a complete mess. I was getting tired of his attitude and decided to do something about it in my own passive-aggressive way. The next time we worked together, he came up to me again and spoke to me for the second time ever. “Logan, put my station the way you found it. Thank you.” He said the “Thank you” part so forcefully that I thought he was going to get out a gun and shoot me. “This is the second time I’ve told you that,” he said while stomping away. 

So, over the next month the pettiest and most ridiculous feud that I’ve ever been involved with in my life ensued. I could hear him speak negatively about me behind my back to everyone which built up my anger like a balloon filling up with way too much helium. Then inevitably, I exploded. I started to approach him just as he finished mouthing off about me once again. “YOU GOT SOMETHING TO SAY ABOUT ME, COME SAY IT TO MY FACE!” I screamed. 

“I got nothing to say to you,” he said, sidestepping in another direction. That was the only thing I understood before he started running his mouth once again in his usual rapid-fire speech. 

I followed, practically foaming at the mouth with rage. “SHUT THE FUCK UP!” 

“Hey!” yelled Mitch. It was the only time I ever heard him raise his voice. He quickly approached us and probably expected to have to break up a fight. “Both of you clock out and go home.” 

So, that was it. I had come such a long way at this amazing job, and I thought that it was all over for me there. All because of a ninety-degree rotation of a computer monitor that I neglected to do. 

Thankfully, I was able to keep my job, but Tad and I both got written up. Mitch moved me to a different packing station to resolve the issue and going forward, we were both on our best behavior and went back to not acknowledging each other at all until... the incident. 

While packaging orders at my new station, I heard a harsh scraping metallic sound against the floor and then a heavy impact. Then Tad’s pained voice echoed throughout the whole warehouse. “OW! FUCK! SHIT! OW!” 

All my coworkers and I rushed over and found Tad on the floor next to a ladder. “The motherfucker moved!” He said, clutching his leg.

Looking down I could barely make out his partially separated shin bone obscured by a thick pool of blood. His torn flesh and pants looked like a bullet wound. Apparently, the ladder punctured him on his way down. The whole bloody mess would have triggered a former combat solider. 

Someone called 911 and I immediately went for the first aid kit. “Don’t worry, Tad,” I said, bending down and looking him in the eyes. "You're going to be okay." For the very first, I saw the precious humanity and vulnerability within him and not the person I had come to hate. I wish I could say that in one swift and heroic action, I created a makeshift tourniquet out of my belt that stopped the bleeding and saved his life. But my coworkers and I did nothing with the first aid kit and just exchanged nervous glances until the paramedics arrived. 

Tad was fine but had a very difficult time walking on that leg after that. He ended up suing the company and just a month later left and was gone from my life forever. 

Over the next year, business kept slowing down more and more. They even shut down one of the warehouses. People who had been there for years were getting laid off right and left. Finally, the announcement that everyone anticipated came like a blow to the heart. 

“It’s a type of bankruptcy,” the owner said in our company wide meeting. “Our plan is to liquidate the seven million dollars' worth of inventory over the next two to four months. Obviously, this is not what anyone wanted. But we just kept getting punched in the face.” 

“What’s our debt level?” Mitch asked. 

“Around ten million,” replied the owner. “And that’s just one bank account.” 

“That's not that bad,” Mitch said, trying to muster up some kind of optimism. 

“It’s pretty bad.” 

“What’s the likelihood of some other mega corporation coming in and taking on all our debt to save the business?” 

“Next to zero.” 

So, I stayed with the company until the bitter end and helped them sell everything. I watched as this precious business with all its fond memories and good associations slowly withered away into nothing. We stripped the shelves of everything until the warehouse resembled a skeleton of itself. 

That New York poster that was hanging up in the break room along with all the computers, printers, desks, and anything else left that didn’t get sold got thrown into the giant dumpster they rented. 

On everyone’s last day, we stood in the smallest of company-wide circles and shook each other’s hands. Then we all somberly clocked out one after the other and exited the Planet Cyclery warehouse for the last time. 

I rode my bike home, and the whole rest of the day reminisced about all the good times I had at Planet Cyclery. Even the bad times shaped me into a better person. Sure, I still had my many flaws, but thanks to everything I learned from this job, I was extremely far removed from my deadbeat phase. After just over four years at Planet Cyclery, I had the utmost confidence that I would keep the train moving by finding another job and finishing school. 

If there was ever a single point in my life that I could point to and say this is when I really started to move in a positive direction it would be getting hired at Planet Cyclery, which I am forever grateful for.