Pleasure Doing Business

A member of CoBaD used to work in a white collar setting before he was laid off. While waiting for the right opportunity to get back into the white collar world, he took on a blue collar job working in a deli department in a supermarket. This sketch was partially inspired by his time in the deli.

This sketch is also partially inspired by “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.” In the story and this sketch, both lead characters have a habit of daydreaming. There are three key differences, though: (1) environment, (2) intensity, and (3) relation of dreams to one another.

1. Environment - Walter Mitty’s dreams occurred while driving around town on his day off (presumably on a Saturday) running errands (taking his wife to the hairdresser’s, buying overshoes and puppy biscuits). Dalton Sidney’s daydreams, on the other hand, took place in a workplace environment. While Mr. Sidney’s occupation is clear (he works in a deli), the same cannot be said for Mr. Mitty. As far as we know, any one of Mr. Mitty’s so-called “daydreams” may have been him thinking about work or were perhaps even flashbacks to his glory days, and it is in fact being away from his comfortable surroundings, coupled with his tedious errands is what is making him so restless. So what both characters are attempting to escape is quite different.

2. Intensity – In his daydream state, Mr. Mitty was completely oblivious to his surroundings until shaken by an external event (his wife yelling at him for driving too fast, a parking lot attendant shouting at him telling him that he was in the wrong lane). Mr. Sidney, on the other hand, was aware of (or at least couldn’t escape from) his surroundings (the dish room and the loading dock) and was fully aware of the tasks he had to complete (washing dishes, thawing out chicken pot pie filling, and taking cardboard boxes to the crusher). He simply amplified their significance to make him feel like someone important (John the Baptist, a naval captain, a police interrogator, an Antarctic explorer and a villain in a spy movie).

3. Common thread – Mr. Mitty’s daydreams were triggered by random events (passing by a hospital, a newsboy shouting about the Waterbury trial) and the daydreams were unrelated to one another. Mr. Sidney’s daydreams, on the other hand, were triggered by tasks he was assigned to do (washing dishes, soaking frozen pot pie filling in cold running water, taking cardboard out to the crusher) and were very much related to one another.

We here at CoBaD don’t think there’s anything wrong with Mr. Mitty. As we said previously, his daydreams take place while running rather mundane chores. We think it is safe to say that they are fairly boring things for any husband to do, so it seems perfectly normal that Mr. Mitty would want to escape them via daydreams. Where daydreams become particularly problematic is when they occur during more critical times of the day, such as spending quality time with the wife and kids, or in Mr. Sidney’s case, when at work. When daydreaming takes precedence over family, it leads to a lost marriage; when it takes precedence over work, it leads to a lost job, or in the case of operating a meat slicer in a deli, a lost finger.

As we said, we don’t know much about Mr. Mitty’s occupation, but we think it’s safe to assume that he holds some comfortable, white collar middle class job. We here at CoBaD like to think of Mr. Sidney as the blue collar answer to Mr. Mitty. While white collar and blue collar jobs both involve boring and repetitive tasks, blue collar jobs, particularly those in a supermarket setting, are more physically demanding (standing on your feet eight hours a day, lifting heavy loads and taking out smelly trash). As you can see in this skit, daydreaming is quite pervasive at the Tom Quixote Supermarket. Mr. Sidney isn’t the only one trying to escape from his humdrum job; the deli manager (as a protective mother), the produce manager (as a no-nonsense sheriff) and the produce workers (as a priest and gravedigger, respectively) are all doing their best to make their jobs appear more meaningful and adventurous. Indeed we here at CoBaD argue such rampant daydreaming in the blue collar world is actually healthy as it is the mind’s way (if only somewhat successful) of fighting off the despair of knowing that their full time jobs pay so little that they have to take on a second job just so they can pay the rent and put food on the table; something that it appears Mr. Mitty didn’t have to worry about. The fact that daydreaming is so rampant at Tom Quixote Supermarket is more an indictment of the corporate world (both blue and white collar) of not keeping their employees engaged by taking advantage of their God-given talents. It appears to us here at CoBaD that the corporate world is using a “warm body” talent acquisition approach, shoehorning individuals into any old job.

Dalton: "I see you have come to me soiled by the world…Go in peace to love and serve the salad case…” – A spoof of John the Baptist. Honestly, now, who else do you know would wear a Camelcrombie and Itch designer coat and drink a Venti Locust Tranquility Tea with Honey? We kid, of course. Everyone knows that the health department doesn’t allow drinks in the kitchen.

Dalton: “Great Scott, Captain Scott! It’s Captain Oates…As a hot tray centerpiece.” – Refers to the tragic story of the Terra Nova Expedition (1910-1913), led by Captain Robert Falcon Scott. He and his four companions, Henry Bowers, Petty Officer Edgar Evans, Captain Lawrence Oates and Dr. Edward Wilson, in addition to conducting scientific research in Antarctica, attempted to become the first men to reach the geographic South Pole. While they did indeed reach the pole, they discovered that Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen had in fact beaten them to the pole by 34 days. It was on their journey back that the expedition encountered trouble. Evans died of severe frostbite on 17 February 1912. Progress was further hampered by bad weather and by Oates, who also was suffering from severe frostbite in his left foot and was unable to travel more than five miles a day. On 16 March, 1912, Oates, with severe frostbite now spread to both hands and feet, allegedly said to Scott, “I am just going outside and may be some time,” walking to his death so that his companions might live. While the remainder of the team did indeed make significantly faster progress to their rendezvous point at One Ton Depot, Oates’s sacrifice turned out to be too little too late. The team died in a fierce blizzard on or about 29 March 1912, just 11 miles south of the depot. For another lighthearted take on what happened to Captain Oates, see the Red Dwarf episode “White Hole.”

Dalton: “This is a bailer, Mr. Box…No, Mr. Box, I expect you to die!” - A spoof of the James Bond movie “Goldfinger” (1964).

Dalton: “I welcome any crusher that increases my cardstock, which is considerable.” - A former assistant grocery store manager once said: “That [the garbage compactor] costs [the store] money and that [the baler] makes [the store] money.” It’s not hard to imagine this man (wherever he is now) as a Mr. Corrugated.

Dalton: “Choose your next cut up carefully, Mr. Box, it may be your last…” – Chicken cut up is delivered to delis in a 49 pound box. It consists of cuts of chicken: breasts, legs, thighs and wings, as opposed to whole chickens, which are, in fact, um, well, whole chickens.

References:
Grant, R. & Naylor, D. (Writers) and Bye, E. & Jackson, P. (Directors). (1991, March 7). (Series 4, Episode 4) [TV Series Episode]. Red Dwarf.
Hamilton. G. (1964). Goldfinger [Film]. Eon Productions; United Artists.

Thurber, J. (1983). The Secret Life of Walter Mitty: A Classic Story of Daydreaming. Creative Education, Inc. Mankato, Minnesota. (Original appearance in The New Yorker magazine, March 18, 1939)

Wikipedia. Terra Nova Expedition. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_Nova_Expedition