Creating a Comic

About three years ago, after some early years as a suit-wearing corporate tool, I went a little nuts in the opposite direction and got one of the most menial jobs imaginable. For a year I worked as a package loader at UPS, on the overnight shift, in the most notoriously crazy section of their busiest regional hub. It was an absolute madhouse — but when the back-breaking work didn’t make it a living hell, I had a blast.¹

When I started working there, though, all of my co-workers seemed like antisocial jerks. Nobody even made a token effort at being friendly, and they couldn’t be troubled to remember your name even if you introduced yourself. There was a cadre of “cool kids,”² employees who had seemingly been there forever, but they didn’t even bother making eye contact with new employees. Eventually I stopped trying to be friendly and just did the work.

The Marines use this slogan, now, but it
could just as easily apply to the UPS Night Sort.

After I had been there for three months, almost to the day, my co-workers started to thaw. They finally remembered my name, for one, and I became sort of included in the periphery of their conversations. This thawing trend continued, day by day; by the time I had been there six months, I might as well have been there six years. I was now one of the “cool kids” myself — albeit its most junior member.

At that point I began to realize that there was actually a reason for the seemingly sociopathic behavior toward new employees. Because the minimum wage job was so crappy and physically grueling³ — and on the graveyard shift, no less — the employee turnover was ridiculous. A full 80% of new employees didn’t even last 90 days. Turnover at six months was 90%.

If nine out of every ten new hires are going to be gone within a matter of weeks or months, then does it really make sense to spend time getting to know them? I tried to, at first, and gradually realized that it was a colossal waste of energy. Eventually I adopted the same attitude as the other veterans: I’d wait to see if the new meat survived before investing the time in getting to know them. Ignoring newbies was actually a perfectly rational conservation of energy.

I’m sure you can see where this is going, and how it relates to the social hierarchy among stand-up comedians. Unfortunately, I appear to be congenitally unable to make a simple point in under 600 words, so please tune in tomorrow for the not-so-thrilling conclusion. I’ll discuss similar examples from backstage on the comedian social circuit…

1. You seriously would not believe some of the shit that goes on there, but that’s a story for another day. [↩]
2. The average age was about 23 — similar to the demographics of new stand-up comics. [↩]
3. I am not exaggerating about the physical rigors of the job. I lost 20 lbs in my first two months; it was not uncommon for new hires to lose as many as 50 lbs. [↩]

 — Posted by CJ under Creating a Comic. Please comment or trackback!