Elbert

"I can't take it anymore!" His meaty hands pulled at his stringy brown hair in a flout of passion, his shirt rising to expose a large swathe of pale flesh. He swiveled his chair towards me and grumbled, "I swear, these people are going to make me have an aneurysm, what with my mother driving me crazy and these clowns not doing their jobs, just the other day..."

And the familiarity of his voice drifted me into a daze, and my eyes drifted towards the computer. What does he do in here all day? I doubt the masturbating rumors are true. Damn, this office has no sense of feng shui, I'd probably go crazy too if I spent the majority of my time sitting in this cluttered office on a non ergonomic chair from the 90s. "...and this server just decided not to show up today, God, i swear I'd fire everyone if I could..." And the color choice is terribly drab. My closet has more space and color than this turd of an office. "...I don't understand it! I'm sick of this place..." Okay, I'm going to stare at his eyes and nod every three seconds. Then shift slightly towards my stack of cash every five seconds until he subconsciously gets the hint. "... I'm glad someone understands. You're the only one who ever truly listens to me, Diamond. I've never had a problem with you at all..." The irony almost made me want to actually try to empathize with this man, only I've tried that before. All his negativity just seeps into me if I allow it, and that's no way to go home to my two young boys. His ruddy, shiny face looked up at me in frustration. "I give everybody in this restaurant what they want. They want to cherry pick their schedule, I bend over backwards to honor that. They want free food, smoke breaks, whatever, I'm there saying yes to them. And you know why I do that, Diamond?"

I shake my head, not wanting to interrupt this night's tirade partly out of curiosity and partly out of exhaustion.

"Because when I'm there asking them to wipe the bar down or clean their tables, they can think back to all the times I've said yes to all their requests." He sat back in the chair with an air of disgust and shook his head. I figured this would be an opportune time to take my money and leave for the night, but he stared back at me, this time with a sharp look in his eyes.

"Everyone here demands respect from me, and don't want me to talk about them behind their backs, but what about when they're crowding around the servers stations snickering about me?"

His tone changed from an obnoxious rant to tired resignation and defeat. I couldn't help but think back to all the fat jokes and mimicry of his signature penguin waddle and his obnoxious voice...

I guess he could see my eyes widening in panic as I grasped at a response, and he went in for the kill.

"Everyone loves Damien, even though he's been an asshole his whole life. I'm a nice guy, I work hard, and I try to be fair, yet he comes in insulting employees and being a dick and all the girls come running to give him a hug. What does he have that I don't? Why does everyone hate me?"

The answer was glaringly obvious, Damien had rugged good looks, money, and status. Elbert had none of those, not even charisma to make up for it. Poor Elbert. What could I possibly say to him? I inadvertently shifted my eyes to the stack of money on his desk and inwardly cursed at myself.

"Oh I understand I'm holding you up. I'm sorry for ranting to you about me, I'll just do my job and hand you your money. Have a nice night, Diamond." His face was devoid of the raw humanity it possessed moments before, and all I could see was a caricature of a restaurant manager just doing his job. With a customary "Goodnight Elbert", I left his cramped office a half hour later than expected and blamed my lateness on Elbert, which garnered a few laughs from my coworkers at his expense.