No Respect...

Did you ever know that you are a wanker?

That question was posed to me by Kyle - a co-worker on this shoot from Indiana.

This strapping young lad had just returned from his first year of college and was aimlessly drifting through the summer - until he was rescued from his life of leisure and drafted into the indentured servitude of production by my wife.

Now he toils all day under the hot sun - the subject of my pointy barbs and the lifter of all heavy objects I am asked to shoulder.

A couple days ago - I decided to institute a social experiment in the workplace.

My former employee and now employer Bill hates rap music. He hates it almost as much as he hates lazy incompetent workers - but somehow he is dealing with me...

I have decided that anytime a stereo is turned on while we are working - it has to play rap. I have enrolled the help of Kyle - who has no choice but to do my bidding, because I have locked his will in a large glass timepiece - and until the sand runs out - he is my slave.

The two other kids who are working with us - Adam and Joel - have agreed to join me. They think it is really strange that an old guy like me is so down with the brown - but hey - that's how I roll...

Each day - the rap gets a little cruder and a little louder - and I can see Bill getting to the boiling point. Yesterday - Bill started to laugh - not the funny ha ha kinda laugh. More the "I am about to take this table saw and cut off my own ears" kinda laugh. Then he asked why we were listening to this crap. I asked him if he was a racist - because this is how we like to show diversity in the workplace - since all he could do was hire a bunch of white guys.

He walked away shaking his head.

Today (yes, at our sweat shop we work on Saturday) Bill actually got to the point that he asked us to turn it down.

I decided to reverse the experiment after 5 hours of grumpy silence from Bill and switch the station to Christian Family Radio.

Somehow - the joyous notes from the piano and the gentle singing of the choir broke my psychic hold on Kyle long enough for him to ask me if I was a wanker. The music was now driving him crazy - and Bill was all the more smiley.

Thankfully, I have Sunday to recoup.

Round one goes to Bill. But don't count me out yet. There is still 4 more weeks to wear down his defenses.

And I won't go down with out a fight...