CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

PAST

I was busier than ever, which was not how it was supposed to be. The whole purpose of employing Angel to take over F.B.A. from me was to free up time, but it seemed to be having the opposite effect. Angel was creating more work than she accomplished and all of the sales through F.B.A. were dangerously dropping as we ran out of more and more items. I was starting to really feel the strain.

I had a goal of implementing an entirely electronic system from the very front end of writing a product listing through to printing the address label for the sold product to the customer. Everything between those two points, from pricing to stock ordering to inventory to scanning as you pick error correction, would be entirely automated.

No solution actually existed on the market to do this, there was no one company I could go to and order this system, so night after night after night I sat awake dealing with app designers in Japan, with HTML programmers in India, with hardware manufacturers is China, with Content Management companies in the UK and between us we designed an entire integrated system. Everyone’s specialist element integrated with everyone else’s, all I needed now was the available time to implement the system.

But time was the one thing I seemed to have less and less of. Ever since my relationship had begun with Angel, my weekend drug habit had transformed into a daily necessity. And despite the amount of illegal substances I put within me, there are still only 24 hours in a day; no matter how much methamphetamine you take to keep you awake, you’re not going to squeeze a 25th hour out of the day. The stress of watching my business tank, combined with the meth, combined with the emotional rollercoaster I was on with Angel forced me to see that I needed to get another employee. I was losing money fast and yet the only way I could come up with that would enable me to recuperate, was to spend more money on another employer. 

Phoenix arrived for the interview set up for him by my ex landlord and longest friend in Bulgaria, Ivan. Ivan scared the crap out of me the day I met him. No one I had met before or since, looked more like a mafia boss than Ivan. Ivan was 6’6” tall and weighed 350 pounds, he was huge. He had close cropped hair, wore a black leather jacket, the type exclusively sold in Russian Mafia outfitters in Moscow, he was about 30 years old and was constantly sweating. Ivan was a grizzly bear of a man.

I met him when I was signing my two-year lease on a villa he managed for a ‘client’. That had been my first day in Bulgaria and I’d already gotten myself into a contract with the Mafia! I had done some stupid things in my life but this took the cake, or so I thought.

It turned out this was the world’s biggest case of ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’. I was more wrong about Ivan than anyone I’d ever made a snap judgement on in my life. Ivan is the gentlest, kindest, most helpful, intelligent and thoroughly decent man you could ever meet. He drove from the capitol Sofia 300 miles to Burgas to take me fishing because I was bored, he paid for repairs on the villa out of his own money because the ‘client’ wouldn’t, he would mail me pots of jam his mother had made. Ivan is the archetypal Teddy Bear and Ivan’s associate had vouched for Phoenix, which is why he was currently sitting in front of me being interviewed.

Phoenix was one of those people who can wear any old clothes and look like they have just stepped off a catwalk in Milan. He was wearing deck shoes with no socks, cargo shorts and a Ralph Loren Polo shirt that had seen better days. He looked fantastic.

I hated him for it.

His connection with Ivan reminded me of ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’ lesson that I’d learned in the past so I put my distaste for him out of my mind and concentrated on his ability to do the job. He was sharp minded, he had run a business in the UK on his own and just returned to Bulgaria to marry his fiancé. He’d been educated in Switzerland at a private university, spoke flawless English and generally appeared to have the gumption needed to implement a fully digital retail management system; I hired him to start the following Monday.

Apparently, there are some books that should still be judged by their cover since I was feeling as if I was truly losing my touch at hiring staff. I’d always prided myself on being able to spot someone’s hidden potential. I had hired many people in the past that defied logic to most people, paying little regard to criminal records, open drug habits, poor CV’s. I had one philosophy, well two actually:

1) You can teach skills - you cannot teach attitude

2) If you give someone a chance that no one else will, you will get rewarded tenfold.

I’d either been very lucky in the past or I was now very, very unlucky. Hiring Angel to be in charge of F.B.A. had turned out to be a disaster and, while Phoenix was enthusiastic, he was not able to grasp even the basics of the systems we were supposed to implement. It had been weeks and he was becoming more of a liability than anything else.

What was wrong with me? This used to be so easy, so obvious, you employ good people with intelligence and aptitude and then let them get on with it, reward their successes and teach them from their mistakes. I’d been doing this for 25 years and it had always worked before, why was it suddenly failing me?

After losing $10,000 dollars that mysteriously disappeared a few months ago from the overcrowded office, I had a CCTV system installed to prevent a repeat of the missing money incident and I’d made sure to get a system that could be controlled directly from my iMac back at the apartment office, as well as on my iPhone. It had been in operation for a couple of weeks but it still needed a Cat 5 network cable to the main router to allow the remote access over IP or Internet Protocol as it’s called. I pondered the difficulty of getting intelligent Bulgarian employees to do, well anything, as I walked up the road to the computer shop. The more time I spent in Bulgaria the more I was convinced that Bulgarians just seem to totally lack the ability to do anything!

“What is wrong with these people?”

I was deeply trying to understand the culture as I walked to the store to get the cable myself. Honestly, they are intelligent and young, eager to prove themselves in the world, yet a monkey with its brain scooped out could do a better job than they can. Bulgaria? Brain Scoop Monkey Land is more like it. I should write to the United Nations and get them to change the name from Bulgaria to Brain Scoop Monkey Land!’

“Hello? Hello? Can I help you?” said a voice bringing me back to earth. I was so wrapped up in my Brian Scoop Monkey Land revelations that I hadn’t noticed that I’d arrived at the computer shop and was standing in front of the counter

‘God – it’s contagious,’ I thought.

“Oh, yes sorry, I was miles away, er, Cat 5 network cable please NONE X-Over, straight through,” I answered.

“What length?” asked the computer guy who had told me his name a thousand times but was still ‘computer guy’ in my head.

“Just give me the longest you have, I'll coil any excess up,” I stated, my head still full of the mystery of stupid intelligent employees.

“Well, anything over one meter we make up custom, so we need to know the length,” he persisted.

This is not unusual in Bulgaria, a huge number of things are still made to order, unlike the blister pack culture of the west. There is even a shop in Burgas that makes custom gaskets, no matter what you need the gasket for, a washing machine or the exhaust manifold of a new BMW you take the old one along and they will cut you a new one in five minutes and at a tenth the price the manufacturer would charge you.

I grabbed my iPhone and called Phoenix

“What’s the distance from the CCTV hard drive unit to the wireless router?”

“You expect me to know this off the top of my head,” he asked as if my petition was thoroughly inconveniencing him, despite the fact that I was PAYING him to work for me.

“NO, I don't expect you to know, I expect you to measure it!” I answered annoyedly.

“Oh,” he said as if I he had just had a revelation. I could almost imagine the lightbulb going on over his head.

“Ok, call me back ASAP please, I’m in the computer shop waiting,” I stressed.

“Right ASAP,” he replied.

I waited for 30 minutes, no call back ever came.

I walked out of the shop another 20 minutes later with a 30-foot cable, refusing to waste any more time waiting for Phoenix to call me back. I had things to do and I was too furious to call him, 30 feet would be more than enough.

I stomped down the pavement towards the office ready to give Phoenix a piece of my mind. I wrestled with the thought of what I was going to say and how I was going to say it the whole walk back. Image is everything when you’re the Boss, even more so in Bulgaria. It was important to always remain calm, collected and in control of everything, that’s how your staff needs to see you; even if in reality you are flustered, furious and flipping out of control on the inside. I took pride in the fact that at any time in my working life, if I was too far gone to pull it off, I didn’t even try; I would have a breather and tackle it later.

My walk to the office was me having a breather. I sat at my iMac composing a letter to the United Nations asking them to change the name of Bulgaria to Brain Scoop Monkey Land, when the phone rang, it was Phoenix. He was calling me now, and not to let me know he accomplished the menial task that I had given.

“I can’t get the measurement for you,” he said lazily. “I can’t find a tape measure.”

I simultaneously cut the call and exploded. It was two and a half hours since I’d asked him for the measurement and for two and a half hours he had been looking for a tape measure - there was a hardware store 200 yards up the road where he could have bought one for $1!! My goal of never losing it in front of my staff went flying out the window, I suddenly didn’t care anymore if my staff saw me un-calm, un-collected and out of control; I was going to tear him to shreds, how could these people be so useless??

I stormed through the office door and the first thing I saw in front of my eyes was a length of threaded stud bar left over from the CCTV installation, it still had its bar-coded price tag on it with the size 1m (3.3ft) x 8mm. I picked it up and resisted the temptation to shove it directly up the well-dressed yet utterly useless guy’s ass. It was raised in my hand like a bat.

“What do you need a bloody tape measure for??” I asked loudly.

“Do you see this??” I shoved the pipe in his face, he didn’t even flinch. “This is 1 meter, 1,000 millimeters’, 3.3 feet, it SAYS IT ON THE TICKET! DO YOU KNOW HOW TO READ? Why could you not use this?? LOOK!!”

I walked the metal rod end over end for the eight meters of the wall from the router to the CCTV unit.

“I never saw it,” he replied in that same lazy, I could care less tone.

“IT WAS IN THE DOORWAY,” I screamed. “IT WAS THE FIRST THING I SAW WHEN I GOT HERE,” I was fuming. As I rolled my eyes in exasperation I noticed the floor made up of 50 – centimeter tiles.

“Why did you not just COUNT THE FLOOR TILES AND DIVIDE BY TWO? You do know how to divide DON’T YOU??” I screamed, genuinely marveling at the incomprehensible stupidity of my new staff member.

“Or you could’ve walked the whole 200 YARDS to the hardware store and BOUGHT A TAPE MEASURE FOR $1.00,” I put my hand up as I could see he was about to offer an excuse.

“I want you in my office tomorrow at 4:00 p.m.” I said as I walked away. Tomorrow was Friday and it was going to be Phoenix’s last day at work. I could no longer tolerate this level of uselessness any longer.

 

—- § —-

 

The next day I got to the office and put a big brick of cash in the safe. The keyboard we had ordered from Germany, because we needed those funny characters they have over there for the listings on the German Amazon store - you know ö and that sort of thing, arrived and it turned out to be bloody Italian. I cannot remember what specifically we needed it for but it was urgent so I shot up to the computer shop where they were pretty good to us in regard to being helpful to order a German keyboard.

When I arrived, the owner of the shop was there as well as the staffer who had said 4 days before they didn’t HAVE a German keyboard, prompting the order from Germany. I told him just to get us one as quickly as possible - the owner said “Why are you ordering it - we have them in the ware house?”

“ARE YOU SERIOUS??” I just ordered one from Germany and it arrived wrong and YOU had them this whole the time?”

“Let me check!” He replied checking the computer “Yes - we only have one at the moment, how many do you need?”

“One,” I said bluntly.

“Right, I’ll have it here in an hour.”

“You could have told me this 4 DAYS AGO!!” I was now losing my cool everywhere I went. “Are you SURE its German, Bluetooth and a keyboard?”

“YES - 100%!”

“OK – I’ll be back in an hour!”

And I stormed out fuming about being constantly screwed around by Bulgarian shop’s, Bulgarian staff, Bulgarian girlfriends, Bulgarian, everything!

I seethed for the rest of the next hour - it was a hot day and I walked past the watch shop regretting the way I had mistreated the owner. In fact, I deeply regretted what I did and I was ruminating about Angel’s over the top pleasure in it and I began to feel a deep-rooted anger within me.

The minutes were ticking by, lasting forever, leaving me tormented by my thoughts. I couldn’t wait to get this stupid keyboard bought and just blow off the rest of the day, go to a bar for a drink on my own. I seriously needed some space, even the air around me seemed excessively oppressive today. I was in a foul mood. I hated the air, the incompetence, the frustrations, I hated everything Bulgarian today.

Eventually I grumped my way up to the shop, in the oppressive heat, and arrived sweaty and pissed off. My brain had far too much time to marinate in the negativities of my life here.

And of course, the keyboard had not arrived.

Once again, I literally bit my tongue - it was on its way I was informed. I sat on a hot sticky black PVC sofa and it glued itself to the backs of my bare legs. I sat there in uncomfortable, slightly painful silence for a further 20 minutes waiting for the stupid keyboard to arrive.

Eventually after what genuinely felt like several hours, it arrives in an unmarked brown box. I paid a very reasonable $10.00, and having learned my lesson about all things in Bulgaria, I opened the box to check and make sure that it actually contained a keyboard and not, for example, a calzone pizza.

There was no calzone pizza, but what there was, was even less use to me than the pizza would have been. In the box, sitting nice and neatly packaged was in fact a German keyboard YES - a German TV station video editing keyboard in a multitude of color coded keys!

I screamed a small scream - literally - and they all looked at the contents of the box. No one spoke - I looked at the owner of the shop, he looked at me with an “oh lord” look on his face. I walked towards him and shoved the keyboard in his hands.

“YOU PROMISED ME 100% THAT IT WAS A BLUE TOOTH GERMAN KEYBOARD!”

“I can order you one in - it will only take a few days.” He stuttered - now technically THIS was exactly what I had originally gone there to do in the first place.

“YOU PROMISED ME 100% THAT IT WAS A BLUE TOOTH GERMAN KEYBOARD” I repeated unable to believe that I had wasted hours, feeling uncomfortable and miserable for NOTHING!

“I said we can order…” he began but I cut him off

“I can’t hear you,” I said with menace

“I said we can,” I cut him off again.

“NO - I MEAN I LITERALLY CAN NOT HEAR THE WORDS YOU’RE USING - THE ONLY WORDS I CAN HEAR OUT OF YOUR MOUTH ARE THE WORDS…GERMAN……KEYBOARD….AND BLUETOOTH,” I said loudly but slowly. “I CAN NOT HEAR ANY OTHER WORD - DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?”

“But we need to order one I,” I cut him off.

“DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME - I DO NOT CARE IF YOU HAVE TO GET A HELICOPTER TO FLY THE THING FROM GERMANY - GET ME THE KEYBOARD YOU PROMISED ME!”

“It’s literally impossible – we,” That was as far as he got when I made my first venture into the world of seriously losing it.

I turned around and walked out of the shop, 300m away was the Flamingo Sex Supermarket (no I did not have an account there) and went to the dildo section - this really IS a supermarket – it’s HUGE and they have an entire isle dedicated to dildo’s. I selected the biggest black one I could find that didn’t have balls on the base of it and marched over to the cashier with it. I handed it over to the cashier.

“You’re going to be having some fun tonight I guess, I’ve never seen anyone decide so quickly - I guess your girl has some very specific tastes?” He asked with a sly smile.

“IT IS NOT FOR WHAT YOU THINK IT IS,” I screamed. I still had not come down from my rage and the tone of my voice was still in attack mode. I must have looked maniacal and unhinged because the guy rang me up very quickly and refused to make eye contact again.

I walked out of the store with my 18” of black rubber shlong - quietly surprised with the weight. I marched up the street, no longer noticing the terrifying heat of the day. And back into the computer shop.

“GERMAN BLUETOOTH KEYBOARD NOW,” I yelled in my now familiar tone of anger and psychotic rage.

“We will have to order it,” said the manager. I pulled out the 18” black dildo, much like Scar Face pulled out his machine gun, only I’m sure he looked a lot more together than I did. I held it firmly by the base as if it was a club - and that was exactly what it was going to become. I had had enough of Bulgarian uselessness and this guy was going to pay for it - I was going to beat the daylights out of him with an 18” black rubber penis!

He would spend the rest of his life known for one thing and one thing only - the black rubber penis beating!

He would lose all identity, all respect, all authority from his staff because every time he tried to discipline them - they would have the image off him., their boss - being beaten by an 18” black rubber schlong.

Within 24 hours - all of Varna would know - he had been beaten with a black rubber dildo.

NOW - in all fairness - for a guy facing a lunatic with an 18” black rubber cock who was threatening to beat the crap out of him with it, he was pretty composed! He put up a pretty good stand - he was sure as hell not going to go down without a fight - black schlong or no black schlong.

An argument was in all fairness NOT what I had been expecting - if he’d have either made a move towards me he’d have gotten the penis full force. If he had made a move to back away - he’d have gotten the cock full force. But an unyielding argument caught me off guard completely and 15 minutes later I walked out with a Bluetooth keyboard and a set of German key character stickers - a solution we could have reached without the involvement of stress OR an 18” rubber penis.

The keyboard and stickers were free – but I still came out the looser as the dildo had cost me over $100!

I got home and had a cold shower - dried myself off with one of the bamboo towels that are super absorbent as they bloody should be for $90 a piece or whatever they cost!?!?!? I sat on the bed - calm now - and wondering what had just happened? What in the name of God just happened?

I just threatened a shop owner who had previously been very good to me and very helpful with an 18” $100-dollar black rubber penis, more over I had every intention of hitting him with it and this was the bit that screwed up my head – my motive wasn’t to hurt him but to HUMILIATE him, to DEGRADE him in front of his staff.

What was I thinking??

I could almost wrap my mind around wanting to hit him – not that it’s my style; in fact, I hadn’t hit anyone in 20 years. Even when I had been the one getting hit, I had only ever STOPPED the other person hitting me again - never hit back. I could 10% get my head around wanting to hit him with a black cock to hurt him; BUT to do it TO HUMILIATE HIM?? Where had THAT come from – I had never lived my life with the goal of humiliating anyone. In fact, I had never thought of doing ANYTHING to humiliate anyone EVER in my life. The concept was entirely alien to me and the thought of it had now horrified me.

I got dressed and went to the Trisha 24-hour alcohol shop and bought a limited-edition bottle of Jack Daniels in a Wooden box with glass front for about $140. I walked up to the computer shop and rather naturally was immediately the center of attention, the boss sat in the chair at the service desk. I didn’t say anything as I approached, but pulled out the box long before I go to the desk so that he didn’t fear it was an evil blow up doll this time.

I handed over the box and he took it silently.

“I was in the wrong, I apologize,” I said loudly enough for all his staff to hear. I wanted his reputation cleared of this event as much as possible. He held out his hand to shake mine but remained silent. I shook it firmly and he returned the grip - but it was no macho contest - just a firm respectful shake of the hands and I left.

About a week later I went to the computer shop to buy a printer for the office, the other that had printed about 500,000 orders had nobly died and needed replacing.

I was surprised to find out that our discount had been increased from 20% to 40%.

I had truly no idea if that was for the threat with the black rubber cock OR the apology and questioned the guy behind the counter “I don’t know man. The boss is about as crazy as you are - I think he just liked your style.”

Years later I was able to see the funny side of what I had done but at the time there was an underlying deep concern that would not leave my mind - NOT that it was a pretty crazy thing to do – it was not unusual for me to do absolutely crazy things. But it was the reason I went psycho crazy that was disturbing. That was NOT me, not me at all.

On the way to the office the thought circled in my head “where did that thought even come from, what made you act like that?” but it was an uncomfortable thought and I suppressed it with the better one about how funny it was.