I had a pretty good job when I got married. If the pay was better, and if the bridges to Louisville were not about to undergo major renovations, I might have stayed.
I might have stayed long enough to not longer be the New Mark.
My predecessor was not named Mark. I don’t remember his name, which is surprising because I heard it almost every day I was at the job. I wasn’t John to my boss, who in all fairness was a very nice lady named Carol. I was the New Mark.
It was honestly a cushy job. I spent about a third of my time at a desk and the rest of the time running around a warehouse. I pulled samples of our products – eyeglasses – and shipped them to off to our sales reps.
It was easy. It was fun. Ownership was stand-offish, but management was terrific. Everyone wore jeans in the winter and shorts in the summer. I never, ever had to wear a shirt with a collar.
Carol made sure to ask about that when I handed in my resignation. “You’re going to have to wear slacks and collars and dress shoes.”
“I know,” I said. I did not add that I would no longer be labeled as the New Mark. But I definitely thought about it.
Staying the New Mark might not have been as lucrative in the short run, but it would have been more pleasant. Hindsight, you know.
My stint as “The New Mark” came to me years ago as I was working on book five in the Dead Park series. My plan for book five, originally, was to do a flashback book, telling the backstory of Dead Park when it was a military base. That book is coming very soon. But book five ended up being more office-related catharsis.
Again, I had no issues with Carol, with the place I worked, or with the job itself. It was active. It was fun. It was something I easily left at the door when I clocked out at 4:30 every afternoon.
But being The New Mark led to some creative thoughts. What if someone at Dead Park was The New Mark? What if, over the course of a few weeks or months, they literally became the employee his new boss missed?
I didn’t have a Jekyll and Hyde story. Now I do. You can read “Ken/Mark” in the book Return to Dead Park, a second compilation of work-related horror stories (and book five in the series).
