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| Car washers at QTA... |
October 13th
I heard from the Avis washers at QTA this evening that there was a
gun-flashing car thief - stealing a Camry first that was nearly out of gas. He
then swapped it for another rental and blew the tires out on tiger teeth
driving the wrong way out of the lot. Then he jumped out and showed his gun to
an Avis driver and took that car and drove it through the wash and successfully
escaped the labyrinth of overpasses and lots of the storied parking structure and
the seven different rental agencies housed there.
Strangely, being a driver/hiker was likely one of the most dangerous and
physical jobs I have had. It kept my attention and kept me alert during times
of intense rain and in icy conditions. I learned to take depth cues quite well,
not seeing stereoscopically… I learned
by mistakes… “crashed” more cars than I can count. Cars were totaled by other
drivers while I was there… Employees run
down and sent to the hospital by other employees. One reason I assume that we
made such a low wage was because insurance to cover the vehicles for each
employee as driver was quite high. Every car had a value of 15 to 60k. After
the fourth crash that management new about you were let go…
The on duty manager told me it was all too common to have cars stolen.
His theory was that drug dealers knew there were easy cars to snatch at the
airport rental lots - they could then do their drug deals and ditch the cars –
or they were quickly sold over the border. This was the reasoning for
installing the 60 new security cameras on the National portion of the PDX
rental world – And for requiring each employee to sign an agreement that would
let an outside agency aggressively dig into every corner of their employees
lives. If we did not sign we were told in so many words that we would loose our
jobs and were given a date to do so… I never signed but was continually
persuaded to… Because I liked working hard I think they saw reason to let this
slide. This document was not provided in any language other than English as far
as I know… I asked John, a betel chewing Pacific Islander with permanently
purple stained lips, if the union rep had been involved to explain to the high
number of employees that did not speak English as a first language what they
were exactly signing… “Union rep just said sign - I trust her. I need job.”
Dec. 12rd
The back office today had a newly tacked bulletin that I read today as I
clocked in… 4 armed and dangerous rental car thieves had been stealing Avengers…
I asked the manager, who was trying to figure out the new video monitoring
system, if we were getting guns to protect ourselves… He pretended to ignore
me… Jamalo then walked in, taking advantage of his break to cover a bit of
ground and stretch his legs and walk from QTA to the office…He saw the
spaghetti like wires and Jay’s head stuck in the newly converted closet to video
cabinet. He said to Jay, “You watching me all day long?” “All day Jamalo,
that's all I do.” I asked Jamalo if had seen the bulletin and said you gotta
tackle them if u see them… “Hell no! I say please take the car and don't hurt
me. Then I call it in. My kid need to grow up with a father.”
It became clear the managers were thinking these car-jackings could have
a connection to current employees…
September 23rd
A phone went missing - the customer thought he left it in a Dodge Charger
he had just rented. Kelsey asked me to check at QTA. Ablaq helped me look
briefly and we couldn't find it so I him and just drove it back to the customer
for him to search. The customer found it wedged between the seat and console.
When I returned to QTA Ablaq asked? "You find?" He was relieved.
"I no steal because god watching. In my country they cut off hand first,
then leg so I learn very young, no steal. Three times I find money in car I
bring to manager…”
When I could, I would work helping push cars through the wash with the
Ethiopians, Somalis, Pacific Islanders… They had hard and physical jobs,
dealing with chemicals, gasoline... I attempted to ease the seeming endless
tide of cars that would come through in a shift so that by evening if/when it slowed
I could sit in the break room with them and hear stories…
Stories of other lives,
when they were younger in Africa, Turkey, in the service in Iraq, stories of
the easy life under communism in the Ukraine…
November 22nd
“People were strong. Lots of fresh fruit, not like today, kids with
diabetes – all the fat, sugar...” Ablaq today shared that he had friends in
Somalia that went crazy. “One, as a boy his mother raped and shot in front of
him. Now he talks to himself. Al-Shabob... A new government they say buy still
not strong enough to control tribes. People not smart, no school so kill for no
reason. My country in war for 22 years, man.” Somalia does not sound like a
happy place. He says he hopes he lives long enough to see it balance. "If
the government good the country good." Ablaq came here at 16 and had to
work right away to support his much younger brother who is now in the military.
"I never want to kill anyone. Not for me." I would later learn that
much of his family had been murdered in Somalia which prompted his father to
send his two remaining sons to the US under refugee status…
I looked forward to my “history lessons”, as told by those had lived
through pieces of incredibly difficult times. "Somalia was colonized by
the British in Djibouti in the south and in the north where I am from by the
Italians, France had the other third. And many tribes - too many. All three of
us right here we from different tribes. We all speak Somali but they might not
understand some words in my dialect. We are a crazy mixed up people man. We all
Muslim so we learn Arabic but that's not our language." For awhile I had
wondered what the piece of cardboard was for, wedged between the wall and
employee lockers in the break room… It was a makeshift carpet used for prayer…
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