True Porn Clerk Stories

by Ali Davis

  So, yeah, it was increasingly time to go, if indeed it hadn't been long before.

  It had been a long time since I'd had a truly humiliating job search.

  The phase when my freelancing started drying up was quietly terrifying, but not actually humiliating. A few freelancing agencies told me they loved my stuff but didn't have any work, a few restaurants giggled at the bartender who was hoping to keep a standing performance commitment every Friday and Saturday night. I signed on with a temp agency (also with a caution that there wasn't much work to be had in the New Economy), but the recruiter was a friend and so it was a painless process. As was my first temp assignment, until Gordon the Friendly Middle-Aged Guy turned into Gordon the Creepy Middle-Aged Guy Who Was Really Into Swinging and Wouldn't I Like to Meet His Wife? As Gordon ignored increasingly less polite forms of "no," suddenly the "Employment Opportunities Within" sign at my local video store seemed like not such a bad idea. (Say what you will about the video store, but not even the scariest porn freak there ever hit on me as relentlessly as Gordon did. Even dirtbags know to take no for an answer.)

  But while all of that was bizarre, none of it was actually humiliating. My last big stupid job search was when I'd first moved to Chicago at 22. It was then that it really hit home for me that companies with shitty jobs to offer will do everything in their power to let you know that while there is still dignity in all work, it is not for lack of trying on their part.

  I interviewed at a Sheraton that didn't have an HR office, they had a "casting office." I went to one of those massive Tuesday-only application days that hotels have and saw a hallway full of people scrambling for terrible jobs to try to feed their families. They were, according to the application, aspiring "cast members" for the big fun show that is changing dirty linens at the Sheraton. Jesus.

  I was young and bright-eyed back then, but in recent years I'd been working for some pretty cool places and then working for myself, so I was out of practice with sucking it up.

  I was just called in for an "interview" for a job being a concierge in an office building, which unlike being a real concierge seemed to mostly involve saying hello and occasionally buzzing people up. Instead of talking to someone, I filled out a colossal application that included an essay section on what teamwork (or as they repeatedly and incorrectly put it throughout the application, "Teamwork") meant to me. I had to write an essay on why I wanted the job and how I would throw myself into it in a unique and exciting manner. I had to do a worksheet (even more incorrectly headed "Check Off Which Ones Are Important To You So You Will Give One Hundred Per Cent!!!") in which I checked off "Teamwork," but left, say, "Gossip" blank.

  I made it almost all the way through like a good toadie, but then on the last page I snapped. I was supposed to write an essay on what I hoped to achieve at the company over the next several years, but instead I flipped out and got honest on them. I even started the essay with "I'll be honest with youÉ" I said that the company was not a part of my personal goals, and that, while I would throw myself into any job to the best of my abilities, it would still only be my day job. The advantage in hiring me, I said, was that they would have a cheerfully overqualified employee for maybe the next year or two.

  For some reason I haven't heard back.

  I'd also applied for a job in the exciting world of telephone reception, to which I am no stranger -- it's what I did most summers during college. Reception is incredibly boring and also fraught with rude people, but at least one can pass the time by practicing Sultry Receptionist voices and putting the truly vile on hold for minutes at a time. I didn't really want the receptionist job, but I was really looking forward to the simple joy of knowing where rent was coming from every month. I had an interview -- a real one, this time, scheduled for Friday.

  And then on Thursday morning I woke up to a phone call. Kurt, the man on the other end, wanted to know if I would like to take over writing and producing an online game for Jellyvision, the software company I used to work for.

  Yes, please.

  Suddenly bang, a job, and one that I actually wanted. I start Monday after Thanksgiving and I'm looking forward to it: The work will be challenging and fun, the people I'll be working with are terrific, and I dimly remember health insurance being a pretty nice thing. (In a perverse way, I've realized that I'm actually looking forward to my next illness or injury, just for the sheer joy of going straight to the doctor instead of waiting for five weeks to see if whatever it is clears up.)

  Everything else happened suddenly too, so suddenly that I never knew Thursday would be my last shift. I thought I'd get one final shift in there Monday or Tuesday to say my goodbyes, and even dropped a note asking for one, but Gary just went ahead and took me off the schedule.

  It makes sense, I guess -- this way I don't spill over into another payroll week, but still. I dropped by Saturday to find out when I'd be working my last shift and instead turned in my hard-won key. I spent a little time reassuring a pissed-off Casey that I'd never meant to just split without telling anyone, and then it was time to go. I'd always visualized a sort of Dorothy-leaving-Oz moment, but it was the shift change and they were busy and a new clerk had already sprung up to take my place. So we said so long and that was it.

  I felt a little bad that I didn't get to spend a last shift cheerfully announcing my departure to my regulars and positively beaming at my dirtbags, and a little sad that I didn't get to thank Mr. Gentle for being such a bright spot, but in the end clean breaks are usually best.

  I am no longer a porn clerk.

  Addendum:

  When people e-mailed me about this journal, hands-down the most responses were about the special joys of Aqua.

  But the individual person who inspired the most mail was Mr. Gentle.

  I was sad that I didn't get to say goodbye to him. I did get one of the clerks to let me go into the system one last time and leave a note on his file: "Please tell him Ali says thank you for being such a bright spot in her mornings."

  As I typed the note, I of course had his contact information right there, but to use it would have been a violation in a couple of senses, not to mention way too creepy. And I wasn't really sure what I'd say.

  So I had to leave it.

  He found out I'd left when the other clerks rolled out the red carpet for him once they saw the note. Anyone who had dealt with him before already liked him, but that definitely gave him a little extra oomph.

  He, as it turned out, asked for my contact information, but, to their credit, no one at the store would give it to him. He understood.

  One clerk did, however, tell him about this blog, and a few days later I got an e-mail from Kevin Mullaney at the Improv Resource Center that finally put us in touch.

  And then a day or two after that we ran into each other on the street, which undercut the drama of the search a little bit, but was still fun.

  I think the first thing he said after hello was "I'm royalty at the store now!"

  Mr. Gentle and I became close friends. We still are.

  So if I were to give one last piece of wisdom I picked up at the video store, it's to trust the hunch that you and that person might get along really well.

  Let's Talk Evolution

  As soon as I started clerking (or, rather, as soon as I started telling people that I was clerking) people wanted to talk to me about porn.

  Sometimes it was with the same combination of giggle and frisson that is normally used for bringing up a silly-yet-scary ghost story, sometimes it was with an almost scientific detachment, sometimes it was with prurient interest, and sometimes it was just because the over-the-top world of porn is frequently hilarious. Actually, it was usually a combination of all of those. I'm not being superior when I mention that -- I dove into the conversations before I got all cold and dead to porn, and I'll admit to getting quite a bit of mileage out of my odd little job at more than one cocktail party.

  Anyway, almost all of these conversations ended up with the other perso
n at some point saying something like this: Men like porn because they are evolutionarily programmed to sleep around and make lots of babies with as many women as possible. Women don't like porn because they need to catch a man to provide for her babies and keep him forever and ever.

  In other words, men are bad, but they just can't help it if they screw around. Women don't get to sleep around, but isn't it nice to be inherently virtuous?

  Because, I think, I politely resisted saying this in every single case, I'm going to take the liberty of doing so now: That argument is complete horseshit.

  Evolutionary success is not about having the most sex, it's about producing the most fertile offspring.

  To rephrase: The idea isn't to spread the most baby batter around, it's to raise the most children who themselves grow up to produce children. That's why your parents won't leave you the hell alone about making them grandparents; their jobs aren't done until you do.

  If you're just spreading sperm around, you're not strategizing your evolutionary success well at all.

  Male sleeping around simply wouldn't have cut it as an evolutionary strategy. First off, the male in question can't just sleep with any old female for evolutionary success, he has to have sex with a woman who is currently fertile.

  Human females have concealed ovulation. Fucking around means rolling the dice each time, while staying with one woman at least through a full cycle (or two, or three -- our ancestors didn't have our ridiculous abundance of food and thus weren't as reliably fertile) meant a good shot at pregnancy.

  ...And that's assuming that the opportunity for Cro-Magnon or australopithecine fucking around existed at all.

  Illicit sex requires privacy, and the days before bricks, mortar and loud stereos didn't provide much. Ever try to get away with something in a small town? Now try it when you live in a community of 60 breeding adults who live in thatched huts around a central campfire. Everybody knows your business.

  And there's not a lot of stealing away for you-time when there's a danger of being eaten by predators. Doing things alone, for that very reason, tends to be looked on with suspicion when it happens in pre-modern societies, to the extent that it happens at all.

  I once read an account of an anthropologist's attempts just to go out to urinate without company. The people he was living with couldn't figure out why he'd want to do such a dangerous thing.

  I'm not saying that affairs never happened back in the mists of time, just that they would have been damn sight harder to have than we think of them.

  And while a single fling might have been possible if dangerous to attempt, being a rake would have been out of the question. Again, in a small community, word gets around. There aren't many evolutionary advantages in being ostracized by your clan or getting your head caved in.

  Even if someone did manage to buck incalculably high odds and impregnate more than woman (and assuming the women don't abandon the offspring), he still has an evolutionary problem -- the kids have to reach adulthood and have kids of their own.

  His time and provisions would be split between more than one mate and more than one child, decreasing the odds of anyone getting enough food or growing up completely healthy.

  The "faithful" male only has one child at a time, but can devote his whole energy to making sure the pregnancy goes well and both mother and child are healthy and well provisioned. You have better odds raising well-fed children with two sides of a family for support than scrambling to split food between multiple children, some of whom may bear a stigma from having no socially sanctioned dad and only half the number of clan members helping out.

  The healthy kids with family backing them up are more likely to have a prime choice of mates, and thus more likely to have healthy children of their own. Over thousands of years, it adds up.

  On the other hand, women have more of an evolutionary reason to screw around than you'd think.

  Theoretically, a woman who can overcome the (still huge) odds, have an affair, and convince two (or more) men that they've fathered her child can raise her child with the advantages of extra provisions and extra adults looking out for it for its entire life. Again, healthier growth, better choice of mates, more surviving offspring in the long run.

  My point is that men are not evolutionarily hard-wired to screw around and never commit and women are not biologically "meant" to pick just one. There are (or at least were) advantages to both in being faithful, and advantages and dangers to both in screwing around.

  The men-get-to-sleep-around-and-women-stay-home thing isn't in the evolutionary hardware, it's just deeply embedded in our culture.

  Saying that women are naturally good girls and men can't help being dogs is a cop-out for both genders.

  It gives men an excuse to do a lot of unexamined sleeping around and women a way to pretend that they never have stray naughty thoughts about sleeping with the entire tuckpointing crew that's working across the street.

  It's easier for men to just go on cruise control and not make the effort of being faithful (and thus vulnerable) to one person.

  It's easier for women to just coast along being nice girls and not dealing with the fact that temptations are very much there and look like a hell of a lot of fun. Or that the anxiety over settling down may have more behind it than pure, inherent virtue.

  Watching several men rent hardcore video after hardcore video over the past year and a half has solidified this position for me.

  The ones who rent four or five or six a day, the ones who call on New Porn Day and want to reserve the new ones and paw through the boxes and then can't wait for the next New Porn Day seem to be looking for something that mere variety can't give them. Maybe it's trite, but sometimes I can't help but wonder if slowing down and taking the time, risk and effort of dealing with one other human being for a bit could show them a glimpse of that thing.

  On the other hand, when women wrinkle their nose at tales of my workday, I sometimes wonder if pawing through the boxes until they found an image they liked might be just the thing they were looking for as well.

  Valedictory Address

  Writing this journal has taught me many things.

  The first is that people who hold a given point of view too passionately tend not to be careful readers.

  I've had rabidly anti-porn people (mostly women) tear into me because I didn't say that all porn ever is inherently evil, and I've had ferociously pro-porn people (mostly men) send me frothingly outraged e-mails because I didn't say that all porn ever is healthy, free, and wonderful.

  Both groups almost invariably accused me of writing things I hadn't -- and sometimes accused me of taking positions when I'd clearly written the opposite sentiment. At first I thought I was being willfully misinterpreted, but then I realized that these people were just seeing what they expected to see, and what, I think, they wanted to see. It's hard to deal with someone's gray areas when you're spoiling for a fight.

  But that has been the only negative. Mostly this odd little burst of pseudo-semi-almost-fame has taught me that people are funny, thoughtful and kindhearted.

  I was amazed at how many strangers dropped me a note to say that they'd enjoyed something I'd written or just to say hang in there and it would all be over soon. I couldn't believe how many people who were brand new to the IRC message boards kicked in a donation to keep them going when the bandwidth got tight.

  As for the old IRC hands, I knew they were a nice bunch, but I've been constantly floored by their generosity of spirit. Performers and writers are supposed to be viciously jealous and competitive, but these have failed miserably at that. Their eerie ability to drop notes of praise and support just when I needed them made me much bolder about sending around writing samples, even ones without porn in them. Thanks so much for that.

  While I'm at it, I'd like to say thanks to everyone, past and present, at my video store. I am forced to agree with Mr. Buddy: you rule.

  To everyone else, I'd just like to say this: Be nice to your vide
o clerks. Rewind, take your late fees like an adult, and keep the spooge to a minimum. Better yet, be nice to anyone you meet in a customer service position. Odds are very, very good that they're having a rougher day than you are, and it's easy to become a store favorite just by being The Friendly Guy Who Never Yells.

  And, in the immortal words of Aqua, be HAPPY!

  Love,

  Ali