A Bullshitter’s Manifesto

 “As you move through this life and this world you change things slightly, you leave marks behind, however small. And in return, life, and travel leaves marks on you.”

—Anthony Bourdain

    I bullshitted my way into my last job.  They asked me “can you cut a shoulder clod?  We cut a lot of shoulders.”

    “Sure.” I told them, full of shit.  I had only cut them once when my employer a few companies prior shipped us clods to cut up for ground chuck.  I had never merchandised them into steaks, roasts, or even touched the top blade.  They hired me on my word, which didn’t mean much.  I even lied about how much I was being paid at my previous employer just so I could score a fifty cent raise.  Don’t trust me.  I lie.  And I’m really good at it, because I never lie—I never lie to my friends or my women.  One must have, at least some, morals in this immoral and degenerate world.  But lying to people above you in life is a moral imperative.  Because they will beat you down every step of the way and you need to take what leverage you have to use against them.

    I bought a book about meat-cutting and stayed up late memorizing all the cuts off a shoulder clod so I could meet my first day head on.  And I excelled.  I bullshitted.  I told the guy in charge “it’s been a while since I’ve cut one of these things, so I might be a little slow.  You just cut off the top blade and seam everything else out for stew then cut roasts and steaks out of the heart, right?”

    “I’m sure it will come back to you.” He replied.

    I’ve cut probably a thousand shoulders since then, each better than the last.  I don’t know many “meat cutters” these days who can actually break one down.  “Fake it until you make it” they say.  I did.  I faked it so much I was promoted to Market Manager after a year and a half after never having been an Assistant Market Manager at that company.  I bullshitted my way through that the first six months.  But again, don’t trust me.  This is my story and I will always be the hero in my stories.  I lie and embellish.  A true story always needs a pinch of fictional spice.

    Today at my new job I was bullshitting.  I didn’t mean to do it.  It just came natural.  Saturday is check-in day at the local resorts and hotels which equates to the busiest day of our work week.  The bossman made it seem like the flood gates of Hell would be unleashed and every evil creature—demons, Hellhounds, ghouls, goblins, and succubi—would descend upon the store with bloodshot eyes and fangs dripping with venom.

    “Don’t be shy about cutting today.  You probably don’t hear this much but go all out.  Backup all the steaks and cut a whole case of strips into family packs.”

    “Sure, thing.” I replied.  One whole case, I thought, wow…that’s a tough order.  However will I manage?

    Ever since I came to this company I was surprised by how little meat they actually cut.  At my old job, we’d cut eight or ten racks of meat a day and buggies filled to the brim of offals—neckbones, smoked meat, turkey wings, pig feet, etc.  And it was rarely enough.  You turned the saw on at 8:00AM and didn’t switch it off until 4:30PM.  Just a steady rumble and tumble of roaring motors and spinning wheels, a rotating blade zipping into bone and flesh.  Zip-zip-zip.  All day.

    At this company I found I could cut a day’s worth of meat, with backup on sales products for the following, in about two and a half hours.  Then I kind of got bored and would stand in the office and vape the rest of the day or stand at the counter pretending to look busy on the pretext of helping customers.  As a result, I slowed down considerably so I could drag out the cutting until 1:00 or so then take my lunch.  This new summer job, I went in with the mindset that it would be balls-to-the-wall busy like a fit of bi-polar mania like the tourist season was in Myrtle Beach.  So I busted my ass and setup the service case in about two hours, filling it three high on every steak I could fit in to that 15 foot bubble top.  Then I set to cutting and knocked that out in the next two hours.  By 11:00AM I was finished.  I didn’t know what to do with myself so I went to lunch.

    My bossman used to be a Meat Specialist and I was warned he was not a man easily impressed.  He looked at me, then turned his gaze to the Assistant Market Manager who was making fancy burgers in a plastic press.

    “He just cut a whole day’s worth of meat in four hours.  Let me ask you something, Josh.  Was your last store mad when you left?  I know I would be pretty pissed.”

    “My bossman took it personally, I think.  He told me ‘thanks for screwing me over when I’ve always had your back!’”

    He also asked “how old are you?”

    “Thirty-six.”

    “I knew it.  I told [so-and-so] there was no way you were in your twenties with that kind of work ethic.  I figured you were mid to late thirties.”

    “Yeah, man.  This last generation sucks ass.  They want a paycheck but don’t want to earn it.”

    “I’ve got two that are that way.”

    He kept on talking me up, explaining that his shoulder sure felt a lot better with my being there.  He apparently has some sort of muscular or nerve issue that wears him down when he has to cut meat.  And he hadn’t had to do any of that that day.  I felt welcomed and at home, a sense of belonging I hadn’t felt since I left South Carolina all those years ago.  I’ve always felt out of place in Fayetteville and Laurinburg, like an outcast or vagrant just passing through.  Only staying for so long out of a burdening notion of being stuck and complacent.

    I don’t fit in Laurinburg.  I enjoy the small town vibe, but it’s too small of a town.  People form cliques in High School which follow them the rest of their lives.  Everyone my age married young and had children young and settled down.  There’s no room for a bachelor man in their late-thirties…no bars to mingle with single women.  No single women to be found.  The only socializing most do extends only to the Friday night lights of the High School football game or church functions.  And I am decidedly not a Christian and I don’t do sports.  If something doesn’t die at the end, it’s not a sport in my opinion.

    I don’t get the right vibe from Fayetteville, either.  Which is why I never moved there after five years working in the city.  It’s too hood and full of crime and poverty that spills over to every street corner and every neighborhood.  My buddy who spent six years in the Army once claimed “everything the Army touches goes to shit.  The whole area becomes full of drugs, prostitution, and crime.”  That statement has yet to be proven false.  Plus Fayetteville has too many memories for me that I’d like to finally move past and get over—an overwhelming aura of failure and hurt looms over me in that city, like a dark cloud that blots out the sun and fills my mind with rain and gloom.  

    But the future is bright here.  I look forward to going to work and interacting with everyone.  No one knows me.  I can bullshit my way through life.  When you’re in a new city, you can build yourself to be whoever you want to be, tell all the girls whatever the fuck you want.  You can start over.  A new lease on life.  You earn your place with hard work, build new friendships and relationships, and learn more about yourself and who you are as a person.  When you’re in a foreign place, the only one you can really rely on is yourself.  And you’ve got to have the familiarity and confidence from within.  Because at the end of the day, the bullshitting can only take you so far.  You’ve got go the rest of the way.