[Listen]

Christopher Gronlund:

I want to make one thing perfectly clear: this show is not about lumberjacks…

My name is Christopher Gronlund, and this is where I share my stories. Sometimes the stories contain truths, but most of the time, they’re made up. Sometimes the stories are funny—other times they’re serious. But you have my word about one thing: I will never—EVER—share a story about lumberjacks.

This time, lingering coughs be damned, it’s the annual November story a couple weeks later than planned because my wife and I were sick over the Thanksgiving break in the U.S. But…we’re well, again…at least well enough to record this story that IS fiction, even though it sounds real. It’s unlike anything I’ve done for the show, and I hope you enjoy this tale about an entrepreneurial podcast gone rather wrong.

Check out the show notes for the episode’s content advisory.

All right—let’s get to work…

The Lumberjack of Williamsburg

[INSPIRING MUSIC PLAYS.]

HOST: Hi! I’m Brooke Ainsleigh, host of the Creative Ascent Podcast, where I talk with cutting-edge, innovative creatives about their treks to success so you can walk a shorter trail to all your creative dreams. This week, my guest is L. J. Burke, a creative innovator known to many as the Lumberjack of Williamsburg.

Before we get started, apologies about my voice—I’ve been a bit under the weather, lately.

L.J.: I understand, Brooke. It hit me, too. I’ll do my best to not to cough or snarf through this.

[LAUGHTER]

L.J.: I know, I know…

B.A.: All right, let’s get the obvious questions out of the way: Why “The Lumberjack of Williamsburg?” And does the “L. J.” in your name stand for lumberjack?”

L.J.: I get those questions a lot, Brooke, and I wish it stood for something cooler, but it’s my given name: Larry Jayne—and that’s y-n-e. As far as the lumberjack moniker…it was given to me by another podcaster: The Three-Step-Dick himself, Richard Costas. Everyone in Williamsburg was into that ironic hipster look at the time. You know the one with skinny jeans, PBR t-shirts, trucker caps, and mutton chops.

I wanted to stand out from the crowd, so I trimmed my beard and started wearing flannels and hiking boots. It became my calling card, and when I was on The Three-Step-Dick podcast, refining my roadmap to success down to just three things, Cotas titled the episode “The Lumberjack of Williamsburg.” And that name stuck with me.

B.A.: Cool. You’ve become known for your bespoke outdoor gear: waxed canvas bags, restored axes, painted canoe paddles, and more. Were you into the outdoors when you were younger?

L.J.: Not really. I grew up in Brooklyn Heights and moved to The Burg right after its big boom. My dad managed hedge funds and my mom’s a lawyer. After design school, I didn’t want to be just another guy making logos and managing ad campaigns for conglomerates.

When I saw Field Notes take off for Aaron Draplin, I knew there was a market for busy professionals wanting to feel that old-school, outdoor John Muir aesthetic.

I started with waxed-canvas messenger bags, and it took off from there. One of my customers bought a lake house up in Waccabuc, and he asked if I could create some things to make his getaway feel more authentic. And that’s how I got into painted canoe paddles, axes, and rustic signage. I love hand-lettering and weathering things to look like they’ve always existed.

B.A.: You mentioned design school. How did you get into design?

L.J.: Oddly enough, through the J. Peterman catalogue. My parents always got it, and I loved how it was full of paintings instead of photos—just how every item came with a story. It was so different from any other marketing I saw at the time. You’d look at a Sears catalogue as a kid, and there’s someone your age with a bowl-haircut and wet lips playing with a Tonka truck in an over-saturated, high-contrast photo that looked like it was photographed by circus clowns. And that was all accompanied by boring copy.

But the Peterman catalogue made you yearn for a different way of life. You wanted to travel the world in those clothes, carrying all the right accessories with you. It spurred imagination.

It’s the butt of so many jokes, now, but I can still pick up a Peterman catalogue and feel like a little kid imagining all the many ways to take on a big world out there.

B.A.: That’s beautiful. Your story, and that way of marketing. When you can shape the consumer and make them crave becoming something they never knew even they wanted to be, it’s a win. Like inspiring them to be better than they were before interacting with your brand. But anyway…

You just passed the two-hundred-fifty-thousand subscriber mark on YouTube. How did you leverage what you do with that?

L.J.: Well I’ve always loved photography and video. I was lucky that my parents recognized and supported the things that I loved. I used to make little photo comic books and then I started editing video stories. And not just funny things made with friends…because, if I’m being honest, I really didn’t really have a lot of friends. I kind of lived inside my head. And maybe because I was trying to appease adults, I knew I couldn’t just make a video about fighting a monster or something and be told I did something special.

Jump forward, and I saw a mini-documentary on YoutTube about Cut Brooklyn’s Joel Bukiewicz. There’s a guy who started out as a novelist, and he didn’t make it, so he began grinding steel to ease his nerves. He ended up making incredible knives, and his business took off with just a couple video features on YouTube…shot like they were made for TV and not just some little throw-away thing.

So I dragged out the cameras and made a four minute documentary about what I do and I uploaded it to YouTube. I contacted everyone I knew to share it, and it got passed down the line to the right people, who shared it on Twitter. It went from something like twenty-five views to a couple thousand overnight. And then by the end of the week, it was almost at ten-thousand views.

So I vowed to make a video a week, sometimes telling my story, and other times featuring a project I was making. Just sharing how I did what I do.

I know many people think you should hold all your cards close to your body, but I find that sharing how I do all I do shows people that what I make is not just something made on an assembly line. They know it’s me in my shop, making a thing by hand especially for them. I mean, sure, they can try making it themselves, but when they see all that goes into what I create, they’d rather just pay me money.

B.A.: Great point. How else do you promote your brand? Do you work with any influencers?

L.J.: Beyond YouTube, it’s mostly just word of mouth. I don’t really don’t do a lot with influencers. I don’t need to pay someone to hold my product on Instagram or make a video we all know that they’re making because they’ve been paid.

I go where the money is—my parents taught me that. Some of the people I sell product to can afford to pay even more than I charge…and I defintiely charge what I’m worth. My customers, I suppose, are my influencers.

B.A.: Have you thought about offering lower-priced items to attract customers on the way up?

L.J.: That’s a common move for many, but I think it cheapens the brand. I want people to aspire to my products—not work their way up. You can either afford what I offer or you can’t. And that’s part of its appeal.

But I’d be lying if I said it didn’t cross my mind early on. Things like beard oils, hand-carved pipes…things like that. It was more important to stay true to my vision, though.

B.A.: Okay, so you’re not into influencers, but if you could have any celebrity endorse your product, who would it be and why?

L.J.: Man, that’s a great question, I’ve never really thought of that. I sell to some celebrities, and they talk about what they do with their friends. But if I had to seek someone out, I suppose Nick Offerman. I usually don’t go humorous with what I do, but he has that right blend of rugged and serious, but he’s also seen as trustworthy and down to earth.

That fireside video with Lagavulin that he made is a good example. Ya know, it’s not necessarily funny…it’s just him sitting beside a fireplace and drinking product. It’s whimsical at best. So maybe something like that: just him taking a tree down with one of my axes…paddling his canoe with something I made maybe? Or just out hiking and taking out gear from a bag I created.

B.A.: Yeah, he’d be perfect for your brand!

All right, let’s take things back a bit. What’s the first thing you remember selling?

L.J.: Mystery boxes.

B.A.: What are those?

L.J.: It started with me just taking things like old toys, putting them in boxes, and selling them to my friends. You might get an old Star Wars figure or a redemption coupon for a toy truck or something that was too big for a box. I’d sell them in batches to kids in the neighborhood, and they went nuts for it.

I’d look at all the old things I wanted to get rid of, and then I’d figure out a price for it all, and then I quadrupled that. So, say everything was worth about twenty dollars. I’d shoot for eighty bucks…maybe an even hundred. And say it was ten things I was getting rid of—I’d be selling ten boxes at eight dollars apiece…or maybe even ten.

Kids in the neighborhood practically fought to be part of it. I mean, obviously, some things were worth far less than eight dollars, but as long as I made sure that there was one or two decent things in the bunch, it’s like it created a gambler’s reflex. And because I only sold ten boxes…eventually, I had crowds of kids wanting in. It got so big, that I started selling one-dollar lottery tickets to be one of the kids who had the right to buy an actual box. Before long, I started making more money just from selling those tickets.

B.A.: Did any other kids eventually catch on and then try doing the same thing?

L.J.: Oh, yeah.

B.A.: What did you do then?

L.J.: I got better boxes. Better things in those boxes, so my reputation was always the one people paid for. And then I charged more.

Then, one year, I made enough that I started selling to adults. I’d buy boxes from antique stores and other things and do the same thing, just on a bigger scale. I had an uncle who owned a book shop, and he let me set up my little shop there. That’s when I realized how much money adults had, and how much they wanted to A) Help an enterprising kid and B) feel the magic of buying something they couldn’t see. People will pay a lot for a surprise.

Going back to J. Peterman, I think that’s why it worked so much: you never saw the actual product until it arrived. You saw a painted representation, but it wasn’t until you opened that box that the last dopamine hit dropped and you felt like you were part of some elite club.

B.A.: Wow, this is golden.

Any plans to bring back the mystery boxes? Maybe a subscription service?

L.J.: That’s a really good idea, but I’d have to hassle with employees.

B.A.: Okay, let’s talk about that. You do all this yourself, correct?

L.J.: es.

B.A.: And that drives demand?

L.J.: Yeah, it does. I can only do so much, so there’s a waiting time. I turn a lot of requests away. If you’ve purchased product from me before, I’m more likely to take that commission than something new. That’s the thing: so many people spend time chasing influencers and investing time and money in getting more new customers, but you can make a decent living from existing clients without that big investment chasing down more people.

B.A.: So, no plans to expand into a bigger operation?

L.J.: No. I think that would ruin a good thing for everyone involved.

B.A.: How so?

L.J.: I could probably make more money mass producing my work, but at that point I’m like everyone else. If anyone can buy what I’m selling, then really—what’s its worth?

 I don’t say this to sound arrogant, but my customers see me as an artist, and they have a surplus of funds. So, that small base I allow to purchase my creations are part of an exclusive group. And I guess in that sense, it’s kind of like offering the right to only ten kids out of eventually hundreds who wanted to buy one of my old mystery boxes.

The thing with that was everybody knew the agreed-upon worth of what was inside the boxes. If I tried selling the right to purchase for fifty or one-hundred dollars, no one would have bought in because they knew that the whole haul was probably worth eighty or a hundred dollars. But now I can offer something I spent a week making and I end up making thousands in return.

B.A.: All right, let’s just go there. How much do you make in a year? That is, if you’re comfortable discussing numbers?

L.J.: Sure, I can do that. Uhm…I have a small shop space I own free and clear. And then I shoot for a quarter mil a year. I know I could make more, but I’m not my mother or father, who wanted as much as they could make.

And I’ll be honest…so I don’t sound too much like an asshole—

Sorry. Can I say that on this show?

B.A.: You just did.

[LAUGHTER from BOTH.]

But yeah, that’s fine. Occasional swearing is honesty, right?

L.J.: I fuckin’ think so.

[MORE LAUGHTER.]

But anyway, just to be out in the open about things: my parents made sure I’d never want for anything, other than what made me happy in life. They are both very Type As. I guess I have a little of that in my blood, but not like them. I just need enough.

And I seriously love what I make. I love hearing from my customers and…example: Last summer, someone I sell to was hiking in Colorado and a storm came up. Everything he needed to keep dry stayed dry. I got a postcard from him while he was still on vacation, sharing the story. I have a file cabinet over there full of letters and postcards and things like that.

It might sound funny, but if this place ever went up in flames, that particular cabinet is what I’d rush in to save.

B.A.: That’s so sweet. It really is about the relationships we build through commerce.

L.J.: Oh, it is.

B.A.: All right…What do you do when you’re not working?

L.J.: On some level, I suppose I’m always working—at least always thinking about new things and ways to make existing product better. But it’s not like some of my friends who tease me about being a hipster. People can make fun of what I do all day, but I’m not the one answering email from my boss at three in the morning when I wake up in the middle of the night and see my phone lit up from people working from their beds.

When I’m not working and I let my mind go, I enjoy reading.

B.A.: What do you read?

L.J.: Novels.

B.A.: Really?

L.J.: Yeah. I know as an entrepreneur, people expect me to read business books, but almost every one I’ve read is ten to twenty pages of actual decent information, expanded to hundreds of pages just so people feel like they got their money’s worth and accomplished something. There’s no challenge in those kinds of books. I can hone in on all I want to learn with a Google search and not waste a fifteen to one ratio of wading through a bunch bloat.

Fiction does something different to my brain. I not only get a better feel for how to tell better stories, but I learn what different people deal with when I read books written by people I might never meet. Business books seem to break everyone down to just a few things or types because easy sells. Most entrepreneurs I meet know nothing outside their little bubbles because they see everyone as an archetype, instead of an actual human being.

If you’re marketing anything and not reading fiction, you’re probably mediocre at best, and very limited in thought and understanding.

B.A.: I see…

What habits or mindsets make you successful?

L.J.: Well, reading novels. But part of what I love about novels is the time it takes to read one. I’m not sitting there listening to audiobooks at two-times speed just to get them in my head. And along those lines, I’m putting time and deeper, uninterrupted thought into what I create. I give ideas and processes time to incubate. And I don’t mean for a day or a week…some things I think about for years. Most of those may go nowhere if I measured it, but I find that in giving them so much time, other things bubble up along the way that I’d never have come up with otherwise.

I mean, I get where Seth Godin is getting at when he talks about always shipping things, but a machine gun approach is desperate, don’t you think? I mean, anyone can do it. Maybe you hit a thing or two once in a while, but I’d rather take time, dial in my sights, and not miss a shot.

B.A.: So you’re saying you never make mistakes?

L.J.: I didn’t say that. I said I never miss when it’s time to pull the trigger on an idea.

B.A.: You’ll have to forgive me if I don’t believe you.

L.J.: You’re excused. But it’s the truth. So many people just throw so much out there, hoping something sticks. I’m not the kind of guy who thinks about monetizing everything. I mean, shit, people can’t have a hobby anymore without everyone asking when they’re going to make money with it. I find that sad.

 A friend suggested I turn my love of reading into a side hustle. And man, I hate that term: I’d rather make my one thing matter so I don’t have to do other things on the side. I work, and then enjoy my time not working. But to this friend, I have this big YouTube following, so he’s like, “Dude, you need to figure out how to monetize reading!”

No, I don’t need to figure out how to monetize reading because enjoy reading and some of the other things you do simply for the sake of enjoyment. I don’t think people enjoy things anymore, because unless you’re hitting your numbers, even hobbies have become stressful things for people, now.

Again, I know that I’m speaking from a place of privilege in never wanting for anything growing up, but I do know what enough looks like. My dad stopped what he did because it made him sick. You can’t catch infinity, so find enough and enjoy what comes with it.

I can’t tell you the last time I stressed about something or didn’t have a good night’s sleep. That’s worth far more to me than some five-year plan that quadruples my income.

I mean, I appreciate what you do, but I bet you and your audience would be happier if you weren’t always chasing things.

[AWKWARD SILENCE]

B.A.: Well, this has taken a bit of a turn.

L.J.: I’m sorry.

B.A.: No, it’s okay…

[SILENCE]

L.J.: Okay…Can I ask you and your audience something?

B.A.: Sure.

L.J.: What does enough look like to you?

B.A.: I’m…not sure. I guess I never thought about it like that.

L.J.: Brooke, you have over 1.5 million followers on YouTube, and you post three times a week, getting almost a million views each video. Between your ad revenue, money as an influencer, and your products, I’m sure you make considerably more than I do.

B.A.: Yes. About three to four times more each year from the numbers you discussed.

L.J.: Well when does it even become enough, Brooke?

B.A.: Never, I suppose. If I slow down, it all goes away.

L.J.: Well, I think you have more than enough. You need to stop chasing so much. You’d be a lot happier.

[SILENCE]

L.J.: Are you okay?

B.A.: No, I’m really not. I have you on the show to have a nice conversation about what we do, and you pull some almost abusive mentor shit on me. Psychoanalyze me and tell me I’m not happy?

This show is a mutually beneficial thing for both sides, and I really do hope it helps listeners figure out something they’d rather do. So don’t you dare tell me what enough is, because between your parents, you grew up a billionaire who never wanted for anything. You can make nothing at all the rest of your life, and you’re good.

I don’t expect people to know my story, but let me put things in perspective, Larry. My dad was a heavy-equipment mechanic, and my mom worked at a convenience store until I made enough that she didn’t have to work. You grew up here, in the city. I grew up in Flat Lick, Kentucky…and no, that’s not a nickname—that’s the name of the actual town!

L.J.: I’m so—

B.A.: I’m not done!

I have four siblings, and there were times, at dinner, when we were lucky to have pork chops purchased the day of expiration. That, and boiled potatoes and a can of green beans was often it. Not even a big can of beans…just a regular—what…fourteen ounce can or whatever it is? So imagine this: you fucking love green beans, but there are five other people going at it. And if you wonder why I didn’t say six, and include my mom…that’s because I later found out she used to eat Saltine crackers and butter while cooking dinner for us so she could get some fat and carbs and leave something for her family.

You mentioned your dad retired from trading. How is he today?

L.J.: He’s fine.

B.A.: Yeah, well my dad’s been dead for years. Mesothelioma from brake pads and clutches and shit. So imagine how much all that fucks you up. I could be as rich as your family and still worry that one day I would wake up and it would all be gone, even though I know better. But that’s the wicked thing about growing up in poverty—you really can’t escape it, even when you’re rich. I have to try ten times harder than people who grew up with money, and I’m still worried it will all fall out from under me and I’ll end up back in The Gap with nothing again…like that’s my destiny.

L.J.: I…I’m sorry, Brooke. I had no idea.

B.A.: I didn’t expect you to, but don’t pull some abusive, self-help guru shit on me about what enough looks like. Okay? I think we’re done.

L.J.: I’m sorry—I really am. Uhm…Can I say one more thing?

B.A.: Sure, why not. This is a mess of an episode as it is.

L.J.: I have a confession.

B.A.: What’s that?

L.J.: I don’t make even a fraction of what I said I make. I wasn’t kidding about the postcard from Colorado or making things for a client with a lake house up in Waccabuc. But…that guy’s my dad’s best friend.

I kind of sucked at design, even though I did make it through school. Most of what I do isn’t very original, I guess—it’s stuff that I kinda copied from J. Peterman or stuff I learned how to do online. Ya know, I’d probably be happier if I took my friend’s advice and started doing book reviews. Uhm…so there’s that. Uhm…

One more question?

B.A.: Sure.

L.J.: Now that you have money, how often do you eat green beans?

B.A.: [LAUGHTER] I can’t stand them anymore. I made myself sick on them when I was on my own, and I can’t even look at them today.

[LAUGHTER]

L.J.: Nah, I get that…

B.A.: Well, I usually wrap up episodes asking guests what’s in store for their future. Uhm…Want to take a crack at that one before we cut this short?

L.J.: Yeah, sure ’cause that’s a…that’s a really good question and I with I had a good answer. You’ve given me a lot to think about today. I guess…I really don’t know what the future holds for me. I suppose in never having to worry about my future, I’ve never really given it much thought.

And maybe I should start…

[SILENCE]

[MUSIC FADES IN]

B.A.: Okay…

            [CHIRPY ANNOUNCER VOICE]

Thanks for listening to The Creative Ascent Podcast with me, Brooke Ainsleigh. You can learn more about L.J. Burke at nolumberjacks.com…I hear he has time in his busy schedule for commissions.

[L.J. LAUGHS]

L.J.: Yeah, I do…

B.A.: Next week, I’m talking with cellist, Madeleine Clarke about giving up a career with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra following the death of her husband, and how she found her true calling by making music of her own.

Until then, climb hard, and stay creative!

[Inspiring Music]

Christopher Gronlund:

A big thank you for listening to Not About Lumberjacks.

[Quirky Outro Music Plays]

All music by Ergo Phizmiz and April Moon, from Epidemic Sound. Visit nolumberjacks.com for information about the show, the voice talent, and music.

Because I was sick, you only have to wait a couple weeks for the annual Christmas show. This year, enjoy three stories: two that are kind of somber, and one that’s…well…it’s rather ridiculous.

Until next time: be mighty, and keep your axes sharp!

[Listen]

[Intro Music Fades In…]

Christopher Gronlund’s Voice:

I want to make one thing perfectly clear…I’ve been sick.

My wife has also been sick.

The week before Thanksgiving in the U.S., I came down with something that’s still lingering this week.

My wife caught it a few days after me, although she seems to have been hit harder in the middle of it all and is rebounding quicker at the end.

So why am I telling you this?

Because, despite any lapses in the Not About Lumberjacks schedule, I’ve never missed a November anniversary episode.

If you’re not familiar with what I’m talking about, the November anniversary story is the most Not About Lumberjacks of all stories not about lumberjacks I tell all year.

This year’s tale is a bit different than anything I’ve ever done for the show, but currently, we can’t get through the recording session without coughing.

Trust me: After the response to the vile sounds of the last episode, Booger, you don’t want to hear my wife and me narrate a story together while sounding like cappuccino machines. We’re hoping to have it released next weekend…December 7^th or 8^th.

The good thing? That means you get two episodes in December, because the annual pile of Christmas stories is coming together rather well.

And while being sick for a couple weeks has affected the recording schedule, I have plans for stories through January…and maybe even February if people want a story longer than most I share, here.

After that…I have a handful of stories in various states of development, but I may take a break in February or March to devote my full writing attention to a novel.

Even though rolling into the last month of 2019 sick was not in the plans, I have a feeling 2020 will be a very good year for my stories.

Thank you for listening. I hope you’re staying mighty…and keeping your axes sharp…

[Listen]

[An ax chopping wood; THEME MUSIC plays…]

[Host: Christopher Gronlund]

I want to make one thing perfectly clear: this show is not about lumberjacks…

My name is Christopher Gronlund, and this is where I share my stories. Sometimes the stories contain truths, but most of the time, they’re made up. Sometimes the stories are funny—other times they’re serious. But you have my word about one thing: I will never—EVER—share a story about lumberjacks.

This time, it’s a story about a kid who makes a goopy monster in his bathtub…and the mayhem that follows its creation.

All right—let’s get to work…

* * *

[Narrator: Christopher Gronlund]

BOOGER

Bobby Simmons took one last look at the cup full of spit he’d been filling for two days before dumping it into his bathtub. He used his older brother’s hockey stick to mix his saliva into the mass of toenail clippings, urine, dirt, dog feces, toilet water, garbage, motor oil, decayed leaves, rocks, and the contents of the vacuum cleaner bag—and then bag itself. He was almost done, except for the final ingredient, the piece de resistance!

Digging deep into his nose, Bobby fished out a huge booger, the kind that feels like they’re connected to the bottom of your brain—the kind that feels good coming out. He balled it up and added it to the mass in the tub, like a tiny, mucous-covered maraschino cherry atop a compost sundae.

He then dropped in two 9-volt batteries, expecting the mass to ooze to life, but nothing happened. He figured the batteries would be enough to jump-start his creation; after all, when he touched his tongue to 9-volt batteries, it tingled and his mouth tasted like he was chewing aluminum foil. He needed something better, though—something more jolting, like lightning with Frankenstein’s monster.

Bobby once heard about a man who didn’t want to live anymore. The man filled his bathtub, climbed in, and dropped a live-wired toaster into the water. A jolt like that, Bobby hoped, would bring the heap to life, but his mother would scream at him if he ruined any kitchen appliances, even in the name of science. After giving it some thought, he grabbed his brother’s portable stereo; Justin wouldn’t need it—he was away at military school.

The cord on the stereo didn’t reach the tub, however, so Bobby got a long, orange extension cord from the garage that did the trick. When he plugged the stereo in, one of his brother’s rap CDs played.

S/FX:   RAP BEAT THROUGH THE JUSTIN SECTION

Justin fancied himself hardcore, despite being another rap-listening white boy living in an affluent suburb of Chicago. When he finally got his driver’s license, he let the whole world know by driving around in his tricked-out Honda Civic, windows down, bassin’ away. Blocks before he drove by a house, its inhabitants heard the THOOM-THOOM-THOOM of an Alpine subwoofer “pumpin’ new shit by NWA.” To complete the image, Justin wore his cap backwards, said “Yo!” a lot, and stopped calling his mother “Mom,” opting instead for “Bitch.”

“Yo, Bitch—s’up?” he said one morning in a bad accent culled from Boyz N the Hood. “Want me some muthafuckin’ Wheaties!”

A week later, he was shipped off to Saint John’s Military School, where drill instructors made Justin the bitch.

Bobby pulled the shower curtain to the wall and dropped the stereo in. Sparks sprayed from the wall outlet, collecting at his feet before going cold. He thought for sure he’d end up electrocuted, just like the guy in the tub with the toaster, but a big POP, followed by the smell of ozone and burning plastic told him the outlet was fried and that he was safe. A thick, foul-smelling smoke rolled over the edge of the tub. a gurgling sound like a carp sucking Jell-O through a straw came from the other side of the shower curtain. He pulled it back and stared in awe at his work.

“Wow…”

Standing before Bobby was a shambling mound ready to take its first sticky steps into a strange new world. It was covered with tiny pores that swelled and burst under pressure, like fissures at Yellowstone National Park. The resulting odor lingered somewhere between sulfur and catfish bait, crossed with the stench of a dead, bloated raccoon Bobby saw on the railroad tracks in the heat of the previous summer. A vile pile come to life.

The orange extension cord hung from its neck, like a ready-made leash just waiting to be used. Justin’s stereo made up the bulk of its head, the two speakers looking like over-sized eyes, the volume knob serving as a nose. Its mouth was a big, gurgling hole, and sticking out from its neck were the two 9-volt batteries, like those from the neck of Frankentein’s monster.

“Hello…?” Bobby said.

He expected a grunt or a growl, but instead, he was met with a wave of bass.

S/FX:   Bass THOOM THOOM THOOM

“What?” Bobby said.

S/FX:   Bass THOOM THOOM THOOM

Bobby reached up to the monster’s face and turned the volume down.

“You need a name,” Bobby said, as he noticed something sticking out like a wart beside the creature’s nose—something he pulled from his own nose several minutes before. “I’ve got it: Booger!”

A knock at the door startled Bobby; it was his mother.

“What are you doing in there?” she said.

“Nothing! Going to the bathroom.”

When Justin was twelve, he went through a phase where he locked himself in the bathroom, even though he didn’t have to go. He masked what he was doing behind closed doors by playing his stereo loudly. It drove his mother mad, and looking back, she attributed the beginning of his delinquency to those times spent alone in the bathroom.

“Stop that right now, young man!” She tried the doorknob, but it was locked.

“Stop what?”

His mother was taken off guard; she didn’t know how to say it. “Stop…that! You know…that!”

“Going to the bathroom?”

“I know what you’re doing! Your brother did it, too, and look where it got him.” She rattled the doorknob. “Unlock this door now, young man!“

Bobby pulled the shower curtain shut and cracked the door. He rocked back and forth, acting like he needed to get back to the toilet. When the stench reached his mother’s olfactory system, she crinkled her face in disgust and gasped for fresh air. Bobby capitalized on the moment.

“It’s your meatloaf,” he said, rocking even more. He looked back at the commode and rubbed his stomach. “I think it got to me. I don’t feel so good.”

His mother, defeated, covered her disappointment with anger. “Well when you’re done, clean your room! How many times do I have to ask you? And stop listening to that rap music—I heard you. Do you want to go to military school like your brother?”

Bobby’s mom yelled a lot. Justin said it stemmed from their father’s frequent business trips. Bobby never knew what was wrong with business trips—their father had to work, after all, and he needed to bring his pretty secretary along, right?

“Okay,” Bobby said, shutting the door. When he felt for sure his mom was gone, he pulled back the curtain and looked at his creation.

Booger was created for a simple purpose: to get revenge on Chad Earnst, the school bully. Chad picked on Bobby unmercifully. Whether it was a simple slap to the back of the head in the hallway, to an all-out beating, there was nothing Bobby feared more in life than the mere sight of Chad Earnst.

“We better get you to my room,” Bobby said to Booger, while reaching for the extension cord. He helped Booger get out of the bath tub and checked the door.  

As Bobby scoped out the hallway, making sure his mother was nowhere to be seen, Booger caught site of the mirror, stopping for a moment to admire itself. It reached up and fidgeted with its nose.

S/FX:   Bass THOOM THOOM THOOM

“Shh!” Bobby said. Booger turned the volume down and stared at the mirror. It reached out with a dripping pseudopod, touching its reflection, leaving behind a gooey smear, like lumpy oatmeal.                                      

When Bobby was sure the coast was clear, they made their way down the hallway, leaving behind a wet trail like the passing of a four-hundred and fifty-pound slug.

*   *  *

Bobby’s mother was quick to overreact when it came to the tiniest things: microscopic crumbs left on the kitchen counter, the garbage “dangerously” nearing the top of the kitchen garbage can, and stray drops of water left around the sink. To her, the presence of these little everyday messes was a reminder of just how little control she had over life. The day Bobby spilled grape juice on the living room floor, knowing full well that drinks were only allowed to be consumed over the safety of the linoleum floor in the breakfast nook, his mother went over the edge for an entire week, working at cleaning the stain so furiously and often that she ended up rubbing a hole in the carpet. The only thing that could fix the mess that was “all Bobby’s fault” was new carpet. But when Bobby’s mother got on him about cleaning his room, however, it was not without reason.

Plates encrusted with the remnants of old dinners found a safe home beneath piles of dirty clothes. Comic books and video games were stacked in groups resembling ziggurats, and plastic Coke bottles crunched beneath heaps of paper when Bobby walked across the floor. Any mother—even one as profoundly clean as Bobby’s—had every right to demand that their son clean such a dump.

Booger slid to the corner of the bedroom, out of Bobby’s way. The creature seemed at home in the mess, the room so cluttered and dirty that it could serve as camouflage for Booger if Bobby’s mother poked her head in to see what kind of progress he was making. Booger belonged in that bedroom, a tall, upright extension of the clutter on the floor.

“I gotta clean this up. When we’re done, though, we’ll go have some fun.”

Bobby had a simple plan: he’d leave Booger in the small forest on the outskirts of Memorial Park, where Chad Earnst spent all his freetime smoking stolen cigarettes and roughing up sixth graders. Bobby would go to the edge of the park and shout, “Hey Chad, I fucked your mother!” and run for the treeline. Chad, of course, would follow, only to find himself face-to-face with Bobby’s newly created bodyguard. Bobby would explain to Chad that if he ever sucker punched him in the hallway again, or beat him up when they got off the bus after school, that he’d have to answer to Booger. Problem solved.

Bobby started filling the first of what would take several garbage bags to hold all the trash that had accumulated on his bedroom floor over the past couple months. It would be an all-day task, and he debated sneaking out, but his mother had been threatening military school more frequently, and with a brother already at St. John’s, he knew the threats actually carried with them some certain weight.

When Bobby had filled the first garbage bag, he set it near Booger, who had taken a great interest in what Bobby was doing. Bobby shook the second bag open, and as he started filling it, he noticed the first bag was nowhere to be seen.

“Booger, did you do something with the bag?”

S/FX:   Bass THOOM THOOM THOOM

“Huh?” Before Booger could belt out more bass, Bobby shaked his hands and said, “Nevermind, it’s cool.”

Bobby picked up a handful of trash and brought it toward his new friend.

“You hungry, pal? You want some of this?”

Booger’s gaping maw opened, and mixed in with the sticky goo that seemed to comprise much of Booger’s mass were the remains of the first garbage bag. When Bobby tossed the trash in, Booger welcomed the snack.

“Cool…”

As Bobby gathered more garbage from the floor, Booger reached down with a sticky pseudopod, gathering an armful of debris. It raised the mass toward its mouth, before stopping and looking at Bobby, like it was waiting for permission.

“Yeah, that’s cool. Go ahead, eat it.” Bobby gestured toward the room. “Eat everything on the floor if you want.”

In a matter of minutes, aside from the sticky residue left behind as Booger made his way around the room, Bobby’s bedroom was spotless.

“All right!”

What would have taken Bobby all day was done in minutes. But Booger wasn’t finished. As it “cleaned” beneath Bobby’s desk, he didn’t stop at just the pile behind Bobby’s chair. Booger ate the chair before making short work of the final mound.

“No! Booger, not the chair. Only the garbage!”

Booger looked down at Bobby.

S/FX:   Bass THOOM THOOM THOOM

“I’ll take that as an apology?” Bobby said.

But his room was now clean, he took Booger by the extension cord and said, “Come on—let’s go.”

*   *    *

Bobby was making his way toward the back door when he heard his mother. He stopped, but Booger didn’t; he bumped Bobby’s back, smearing it with warm garbage. He shoved Booger back, getting even more garbage and slime on him. His mother was walking their way.

“Shh…” he whispered to Booger.

S/FX:   Bass THOOM THOOM THOOM

“What?!” Bobby’s mother said as she got closer. “Bobby, is that you?”

Bobby poked his head around the corner. “I’m sorry, Mom—I stubbed my toe.”

She was still walking Bobby’s way; he stepped out to block her, but she walked right by, missing everything. Bobby quickly ushered Booger to the other side of the entry to the kitchen. Just in time. His mother turned around and made her way toward the front door.

“I hope you don’t think you’re going anywhere, young man. Have you cleaned your room? I can smell that pig sty all the way out here.”

“I’m cleaning it right now. I just need to get a couple more garbage bags from the kitchen.”

“Well, if you’d just keep it clean, you wouldn’t have to spend an entire Saturday cleaning, would you?” She pointed to the living room. “Do you see how clean the rest of the house is? It doesn’t take much time…just a little here and there.”

Just a little here and there consisted of practically fulltime work for Bobby’s mother. Most people could spend an hour cleaning their house and be content with the results, but Mrs. Simmons took clean to the molecular level. Bobby’s brother, Justin, blamed it on the medicine she took, but Bobby had a remote feeling that it somehow had to do with his father’s trips away from home.

“Okay, Mom…I’ll start doing that.”

Mrs. Simmons straightened the door mat and left the house.

“Whew!” Bobby said.

S/FX: CRASHING POTS AND PANS

He remembered that Booger was in the kitchen. Alone.

Booger was eating the toaster when Bobby stepped into the kitchen. The creature had already devoured his mother’s mixer and blender, and had also—from the looks of things—eaten two of the four chairs in the breakfast nook. Slime was everywhere.

Booger! No! Come on, stop!”

Bobby rushed over, hoping to save the toaster, but it was too late—it had already gone somewhere deep inside Booger to join its Kitchen-Aid cousins in the belly of the beast.

S/FX:   Bass THOOM THOOM THOOM

Bobby looked at the mess made in the kitchen, shook his head, and said, “Let’s just go…”

*   *   *

“You wait right here,” Bobby said to Booger. They were standing just inside the treeline on the far side of Memorial Park.

“Don’t go anywhere, and try not to eat stuff, okay?”

S/FX:   Bass THOOM THOOM THOOM

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Bobby muttered as he headed off in search of Chad Earnst. And there he was, just as Bobby expected, terrorizing a group of younger kids, pinning them to the ground and blowing smoke into their faces. Bobby stopped halfway across the field between the trees and the park, making sure he had enough distance between himself and Chad so he could make it back to the safety of the woods.

“Hey…Chad! I fucked your mother!” Bobby bellowed.

As predictable as a Swiss watch, Chad jumped to his feet.

“Simmons? You wantin’ to die?!”

“Yeah, that’s it!” Bobby shouted. “Only I don’t think you have what it takes, you pussy.”

Chad Earnst spat his cigarette to the ground, pointed Bobby’s way, and yelled, “Dead man walking!”

Bobby turned and ran; Chad Earnst followed, making up the distance between the two faster than Bobby had planned. He could hear Chad getting closer—if he could only reach the trees, he’d be safe. He heard Chad’s raspy breath catching up as he pushed into the maples and oaks and rushed to the spot where he’d left Booger. The monster was nowhere to be seen.

“Booger?” Bobby said, but the only answer was Chad saying, “Time to die, Simmons. Time to die…”

Chad Earnst made his way toward Bobby, cracking his knuckles and walking slowly with purpose. Chad was experienced in beating the snot out of anyone who gave him a sideways glance, or looked the other way, and he took great pleasure in dragging the terror of his victims out. It made the beating all-the-more satisfying to him—smelling that fear. Bobby was backed up against a tree, Chad Eart’s smoky breath right in his face, threatening the beating of a lifetime, when Bobby heard Booger eating something in the trees.

“Booger! Help!”

“What’s with this booger shit, bitch?” Chad said.

Bobby smiled. “Why don’t you turn around and find out.”

Even though Bobby was now looking at Chad from behind, he could tell Chad’s Levi’s had gone wet with fear. Urine creeped down his legs as he looked up at the towering mound of garbage lurking above.

“What the fuck is that?”

“That’s Booger. He’s my bodyguard,” Bobby said. “So if you ever mess with me again, you’ll have Booger to answer to. Right Booger?”

Bobby was waiting for Booger’s aggressive bass or hardcore rap lyrics to drop from Booger’s speaker eyes, but instead all he heard was a sickening SLURP as Booger swallowed Chad Earnst whole.

“No! Booger! You weren’t supposed to eat him!”

S/FX:   Bass THOOM THOOM THOOM

“You’re gonna get me sent to military school, just like Justin. I can’t go to military school. It’s not my thing! Booger, come on, cough him up.”

Bobby began pushing on what he figured was Booger’s stomach, but had no luck, and he realized that irritating the mound may result in a similar fate as Chad Earnst’s. Bobby had to come up with something…quick!

He grabbed a branch from a tree and shoved it down Booger’s throat, hoping the creature’s anatomy worked like a human’s and something pushing down its throat would result in a gag reflex, bringing Chad up in a flood of sticky vomit. But Booger ate the branch, too.

“Booger, no!”

Booger looked down at Bobby, clearly not understanding what he had done wrong. Bobby grabbed the orange extension cord from Booger’s neck and led the creature home as quickly as he could.

*    *    *

“You stay here. Understand?”

Bobby shook his head, left his bedroom, and ran for the garage. He didn’t want to do it, but desperate times called for desperate measures. He grabbed his father’s circular saw. He’d never used a powertool, but there was no better time than now to learn than now. He had seen Booger’s stomach convulsing with Chad’s struggles…there was still time to save him.

As Bobby made his way through the kitchen, he heard his mother’s car pulling up out front. From his bedroom, he heard crashing and banging—this was the day his mother would have too much, this is the day he’d be shipped off to military school, he was sure of it.

He ran to the bedroom, prepared to cut Booger open wide, freeing his enemy from the creature’s gooey gut. The thought devastated Bobby—with a specter of a father, a mother who liked cleaning more than her second-born child, and a brother he hadn’t seen in a year, the eight-foot mound of garbage tearing up his bedroom was the closest thing he had to family. He wondered if Booger could somehow be trained; he wondered if the circular saw would kill his new best friend. He heard his mother open the front door open…moments later, he heard his mother screaming downstairs.

“Bobby Simmons, what is this mess?!”

He ran into his bedroom, slamming the door behind. Things were only getting worse—Booger had eaten Bobby’s dresser and was now working on his bed. The creature was swollen like a tick. Booger gobbled Bobby’s bed in two quick gulps; Bobby never had to use the circular saw.

SFX: SPLUT/SPLASH

Booger could hold no more—the bed was one big bite too much. Bobby’s new friend had exploded everywhere, sending bags of garbage, kitchen appliances, and Chad Earnst flying about the bedroom. From a far corner, he heard Chad Earnst moan—he was still alive, at least, covered in goop like a newborn foal.

S/FX: BANG BANG BANG

Bobby’s mother was pounding on the bedroom door. Chad shook his head, regaining his senses.

“Bobby, you open this door right now and explain the mess in the kitchen! If you don’t have a good excuse, you may be taking a trip to Saint John’s before your father even gets home. Do you hear me, young man?!”

He had no choice. He opened the bedroom door, letting the mess that was once Booger spill out his door and into the hallway. His mother grabbed her nose. Retching sounds like the time she found spoiled milk in Justin’s room echoed from her throat. She looked at the mess in Bobby’s room; she looked at Chad Earnst covered in goo.

“What the hell is going on here?! I told you to clean this room and instead, you invite your little friend over and trash the whole damn house? He needs to leave, and you need to get cleaning, mister!”

Bobby and Chad looked at each other—the events of the last fifteen minutes leaving both of them in a daze.

“I’m going to call Sergeant Patterson and let him know another Simmons boy is coming his way!”

She slammed the bedroom door, and when it was clear she was not coming back, Chad Earnst gave Bobby Simmons the beating of his life.

* * *

A big thank you for listening to Not About Lumberjacks. All instrumental music by Ergo Phizmiz and Yung Kartz. The rap tune was “Whip Yo Head” by Dollar Boyz. Visit nolumberjacks.com for information about the show, the voice talent, and music.

In one month, it’s the annual November anniversary show that I SWEAR is not about lumberjacks! The title? The Lumberjack of Williamsburg.

Until next time: be mighty, and keep your axes sharp!

[Listen Here]

[Music fades in]

Female Narrator:

This is Behind the Cut with Christopher Gronlund. The companion show to Not About Lumberjacks.

Christopher Gronlund:

“Alone in HQ” is obviously a satire, but maybe just barely.

I once worked with somebody who put so many hours into work that it wasn’t uncommon for them to occasionally collapse from stress and exhaustion. (Once, while they were visiting family in another state and obsessing over email they couldn’t check on their phone as it came in, they stepped away to take a look and…down they went…in front of their entire family.)

I know of at least one woman who was already working on her phone from a hospital bed the day she gave birth. And along those lines, I know of someone else who had cancer and heart issues…who was told not to work at all, but they were secretly working from their hospital bed.

Sadly, that person died…and when they did, someone who didn’t know they died mentioned to others that email to the person was going unanswered. The response?

“Yeah, they died a few weeks ago. We’ll let you know when we hire their replacement.”

It was said in a tone of, “How dare they die before finishing their part of this project!”

In April of this year, I left a company where I worked for almost seven years. Aside from the Chief Financial Officer saying they planned to get rid of technical writers, the spirit of the company had changed. It went from a place where the attitude seemed to be, “We let our work speak for itself,” to one of, “We must crush all others at any cost!”

Suddenly, everyone was an enemy to destroy. In the last company town hall meeting I sat through, leaders talked about how the industry was our birthright and how we must do all we could to take back what was rightfully ours! It sounded more like a meeting of white nationalists than a state-of-the-company meeting.

Most recently, I heard they told employees layoffs are likely coming…and that if you lose your job? It’s nothing to get upset over.

“Hey, ya know, so you’ll lose your income and healthcare, unless you can afford paying for COBRA with no money coming in…and sure — it’s a big wrench in all the plans you have, but…don’t be upset about us taking from you all those memories with family you gave up for us!”

It’s sickening.

I share all this not to attack a company I once felt at least a certain pride working for, but to highlight how strange corporate life has become. Despite so many articles about the biggest life-end regret being, “I wish I hadn’t worked so much,” people now work constantly. I know people who can’t get through a lunch without checking their phone every time it lights up, vibrates, or makes noise.

I can only imagine how many times a day people look at their phones and say, “Just a minute—work.”

So, is it really beyond the realm of belief that if power and connectivity went away that some would seek out some semblance of the routine they’ve been conditioned to follow?

* * *

Steve Jobs once said that he viewed Ayn Rand’s book, ATLAS SHRUGGED, as one of his guides in life. Former ExxonMobil CEO, Rex Tillerson, said it’s a book that shows the positive effect CEOs can make on the world. Other CEOs similarly credit Rand’s THE FOUNTAINHEAD as their guide.

But before Ayn Rand wrote those beefy, rambling things, she wrote a little book called ANTHEM. (If you’re familiar with it, you probably picked up how much I framed “Alone in HQ” around the book.)

For all its faults (and believe me, there are plenty), I will always have a fondness for ANTHEM. It’s a story about a street sweeper in a dystopian future without much technology.

When the main character discovers electric light and brings it before the leaders of the society in which he lives [he’s punished]…Later, he escapes into the mountains with a woman he meets and finds a house high up above everything he knows. He vows there to start a family and show others the literal and figurative light, driven by a sacred word he will carve over the portal of his fort, that sacred word: EGO.

(Yeah, it’s a bit much, but seriously—the book does have its moments.)

Like so many others, I came to ANTHEM through the band Rush’s 2112 album…which mirrors the story in many ways. And hey, were that not enough, Rush also released a song called “Anthem,” influenced but the book as well.

However, framing parts of “Alone in HQ” around ANTHEM is one of the reasons it took so long for me to release. (Well, that…and I was wrapping up a novel.)

In ANTHEM, the protagonist (named Equality 7-2521…so how could I not name the protagonist in “Alone in HQ after an employee number?), meets a woman named Liberty 5-3000 (Yeah: Liberty 5-3000. I mean, come on…that sounds like an old-timey telephone number, doesn’t it?). Mirroring that, I eventually had a woman tending to a nearby financial company wander into Employee #312566’s headquarters.

And that led to…a very bloated story. (Okay, maybe not bloated, but I try to keep stories on Not About Lumberjacks anywhere between 20 to 30 minutes. I do all I can to not go over that 30-minute mark, and this was probably becoming a novella.)

But to introduce a new character and not give her much time in the tale seemed kind of cheap. So…when the novel I was working on was done and I returned to “Alone in HQ,” the solution was simple: keep Employee #312566 completely alone. Strip out all those scenes with Employee #817481.

(I’ll pause here for another aside: the two employee numbers are the beginnings of old phone numbers I once had. 312-566 was the start of my old number up north, and 817-481 was the beginning to the number we had when I moved to Texas from the Chicago area when I was fifteen.)

* * *

I’ve never been a writer afflicted with “This sucks!” syndrome…and by that, I mean when a story is weak, I know it’s part of the process. Your job as a writer is to work with a story until it’s smooth enough to show to others if that’s part of what you want out of writing. Obviously, I record this and release it for free to anyone in the world who wants to listen, so…that’s part of what I want out of this.)

All that said, it wasn’t until I did the first vocal read through of the story that I felt there was something there. When I read it in my head, it seemed a bit ham-fisted. But once I read the story out loud, it worked for me. And…it seems to have worked for others.

“Alone in HQ” had 20% more listens in its first week than any previous episode of Not About Lumberjacks. Now, before you say, “Wow!” know that the reality of that is…instead of 40 listens, it received 50. I’ve put more than 40 hours into some episodes of the show that saw the kinds of numbers that would make many podcasters quit and try another show, or give up podcasting for good.

And maybe that’s part of why I like this story so much.

We seem so damn fixated on measuring everything by numbers. How many retweets something promoted received; how much money people make as a measure of their worth. And, more today than any time before…equating how many hours one works in a week as a measure of how dedicated they are not just to work, but to their lives.

There’s something to be said about doing a thing simply because you love doing it. There are miserable people who can never have enough in life, while others making enough to get by with some degree of security and comfort do their things and live rich and happy lives. But there are many people who measure their worth in how much control they have over others, and those people seem unsettled by those who don’t share their philosophy.

I’m a very hard worker, but I am nothing like Employee #312566. In forty hours a week at my day job, I often do better work than those putting in 60, 80, or even 100 hours or more. Beyond that, I am definitely happier than many people I’ve worked with, choosing not to put my entire value as a person into a place that is likely to lay us all off one day.

How sick or scared must one be to somewhat regularly pass out from work-related stress or exhaustion? How sad is it to be dying, continuing to put in long hours believing it all matters somehow, only to have team meambers see your death as an inconvenience, rather than a thing to mourn?

The way we approach work seems to become more twisted each year. I know somebody who actually had a manager tell him and his group, “If you guys don’t hit your numbers, I’ll put you through a fucking wall!” I once watched one of the good CEOs of a company I worked for step down in front of us all in tears, talking about realizing how off-track his life had become when his family begged him to stop answering text messages from others at work during Thanksgiving dinner with them. He told us all that he missed seeing his children grow up; and they were all about to head off to college, and he barely knew them because he put work before family. It wrecked the guy.

Let’s get back to Ayn Rand…

She glorified the characters in her novels, even the terrible ones. Perhaps the reason I like ANTHEM’S Equality 7-2521 is he’s at least redeemable. The characters in THE FOUNTAINHEAD and ATLAS SHRUGGED, however, are shitty human beings skipping anniversaries, having affairs with others who “understand them and their work” more than their families, and were often handed down the successes they claim to have made completely on their own.

No wonder her work is loved by so many CEOs.

I suppose when all you do is run from life and do nothing but work, you’ll do anything to convince yourself you’re living the best life there is to be lived.

The sad thing is when they expect us to do it, too…

Sadder still: when we actually do…

[Outro music fades in…]

Christopher Gronlund:

Thank you for listening to Not About Lumberjacks and Behind the Cut. Theme music for Behind the Cut is a tune called Reaper by Razen. Visit nolumberjacks.com for information about the music, episodes, and voice talent.

In a month, it’s the strangest father and son story I’ll probably ever write…

Until next time: be mighty, and keep your axes sharp!

[Listen]

[An ax chopping wood; THEME MUSIC plays…]

[Host: Christopher Gronlund]

I want to make one thing perfectly clear: this show is not about lumberjacks…

My name is Christopher Gronlund, and every month I share a story. Sometimes the stories contain truths, but most of the time they’re made up. Sometimes the stories are funny — other times they’re serious. But you have my word about one thing: I will never — EVER — share a story about lumberjacks.

This time, I’m recording on the anniversary date of the day I came up with the show. In honor of that, for real, it’s the post-apocalyptic office story.

All right–let’s get to work…

* * *

[Narrator: Christopher Gronlund]

ALONE IN HQ

Employee #312566 walks through the wild buffalograss covering the Globotek lobby. High above him, dusty banners a full story tall hang from the ceiling:

GLOBOTEK: SHIFTING YOUR PARADIGM

GLOBOTEK: TOMORROW…TODAY!

GLOBOTEK: GLOBAL TECHNOLOGY

And his favorite of all:

GLOBOTEK: ONE IN ALL, INDIVISIBLE FOREVER

On the walls, oversized monitors that once welcomed visiting clients and informed employees of upcoming company town hall meetings have long gone dark. An array of clocks showing times in Globotek offices around the world stopped working a dozen years ago. The Zen waterfall fountain near the wall of windows is so dry that it no longer supports the algae once growing on it. Were it not for Employee #312566 filling the fountain’s basin with water from a nearby creek, the frogs and turtles calling it home would be dried up as well, or at least left to fend for themselves outside in the elements. A deer near the security desk raises its head at #312566’s approach and runs down the hall toward the cafeteria. As it passes, birds scatter from exposed ductwork in the ceiling and fly outside through broken windows.

It used to not be like this…

#

To know Employee #312566, one only needed to look at his annual performance reviews. Every year, he was the one his manager deemed as exceeding expectations. He was the one who could be counted on to work during weekends and holidays, while others slacked off and dared have lives outside of work. Working overtime was a fair tradeoff for health care and other benefits that seemed to dwindle a bit more each year. But that didn’t matter when Employee #312566’s 401K grew, and the value of his small house increased over time. He’d seen the United States and some other parts of the world on the company’s dime, even though it was mostly airport to job site to hotel to restaurant and back to hotel—that routine, repeated all week, until flying home on Friday with a bit of time to rest before getting back to work on Saturday.

It never bothered Employee #312566 that management told their subordinates to tighten the purse strings, while they took meetings in other countries, just to keep platinum travel statuses. When meets- and fails-to-meet-expectations coworkers said it was crooked, he argued their leaders worked hard and deserved it. Give to the corporation, and it would provide in turn. If they needed him to sweep streets around headquarters, he would have gladly done so.

And then one day, everything changed…

#

It took nineteen years for the technological collapse promised by many at the stroke of midnight in the year 2000 to become real. With the push of a big button, two childish world leaders started a war, which led to other countries jumping in so they wouldn’t feel left out. New weapons were revealed—power grids went down and never came back. Doomsday preppers finally had the “I told you so!” moment they’d built lives around. Everything crashed. Finally, all those people who swore they’d get off Facebook in the new year actually did…just not by choice.

And through it all, out of some sick habit, many returned to work, like zombies returning to the places they once knew when they were alive. Only now, instead of zombies, it was middle managers who had no idea what to do with themselves once connectivity and work went away. The old ones were long terminated in a bid to save on salaries and not fulfill pension payments. No one was left who remembered the times before email, when things were managed on paper. So they returned to their desks and clicked and clacked on keyboards, hoping dark screens would light up bright again and return to them a reason to exist.

When the world stayed dark, tempers flared, and many went mad. Employee #312566 heard the CEO of Globotek used a cow femur to smash the head of the CTO he blamed for all the company’s stumblings at the close of Q4, shortly before the power grid went out. Gone were the days of quick hallway meetings with promises to catch up over drinks when projects were done; gone was the social hierarchy based upon which floor one worked on. Gone was email—sweet email—answered from bed on smart phones late into the night.

The last thing Employee #312566 did with his smart phone was throwing it at a rabbit he ate for dinner one night. It was the first thing he ever killed, and he cried as he cooked it whole, the smell of burning fur filling the grill top where he piled sticks to build a fire in the cafeteria. The stench permeated the entire first floor, so he spent the night up top, in the CEO’s office, looking out over the dark town. The only lights in the distance came from dim campfires in custom fire pits that let him know people were still out there, small bands of people that had taken up residency in easier-to-defend McMansions rising above the trees. Employee #312566 initially wondered if taking up residency in Globotek headquarters was wise. It stood to reason, he thought, that others would come back, or worse—attack—but the building was haunted by something far worse than ghosts: the memories of what used to be.

#

In the beginning, the solitude was overwhelming. Employee #312566 considered joining others on the outskirts, if only to hear cherished words uttered by collective voices: synergistic, bandwidth, and his tingle-inducing favorite: impactfulness. But there’s a certain sadness in people left unmoored without a greater sense of purpose. Would seeing the influencers and thought leaders he once respected tending to their own waste and other lowly tasks steal from his mind the golden image of them that he’d built up inside? Would seeing them out of their element, lost like children unable to survive on their own, make him wonder if they were ever great leaders at all? It was better to go on alone, he thought, honoring those he once revered by keeping their tenuous authority alive in fabricated memories.

To be in such a large, empty space, though, left him feeling panicked at the start. Hearing eight floors of office space settle in the quiet of night stirred Employee #3126566’s imagination. Was that the sound of footsteps coming from the main stairwell by the security desk, or simply the knocking of a pipe no longer in use? A face looking in through the window in the dark, or his own visage reflected back against the glass?

Fear could not be allowed to prevail—Employee #312566 was determined to be the building’s keeper. Remembering a passage from a book he liked when he was younger, he wrote it down and carried it in his pocket, a tactile reminder to “Fear nothing of the forest. There is no danger in solitude.” That thought eventually came with a sense of peace and purpose. Soon he established a new routine based on days long gone.

Besides, he was never truly alone—there were others out there, some maybe even working to bring back all that was lost. He’d do his thing while they did theirs. In a strange way, it was why he liked working in HQ: it was possible to feel completely alone among eight-thousand people lost in their own tiny orbits.

As long as there are campfires on the horizon at night, there is hope.

#

Employee #312566 pauses at the security desk and says “Good morning, Steve!” even though he’s alone in HQ. It’s important to him to keep up the old routine: coming in just a bit before seven in the morning, saying hello to Steve at the security desk, and then getting to work. When Globotek was a thriving, humming thing, most employees passing the front desk were already too busy answering email on their phones, or thought they were better than Steve and his lowly job that they never acknowledged his existence. But Employee #312566 always said “Good morning, Steve,” at the beginning of his workday (and, “Have a good evening, Sharon,” at its end). He was a people person, after all.

Today he walks down the main hallway from the lobby—paved with cobblestones that once echoed the sounds of catering carts servicing lunchtime meetings—and eventually stops at the old Starbucks counter near the cafeteria. He drags a chair over to the chalkboard menu above the counter and erases the previous day’s inspirational quote:

“Don’t count the days. Make the days count.”
– Muhammed Ali

With a piece of blue chalk, he writes a new message in one of the many stylish scripts he’s practiced since things went dark:

“The secret of your success is determined by your daily agenda.”
– John C. Maxwell

Employee #312566’s workday begins on another chalkboard next to Starbucks that he pulled out of a conference room. A white board would be preferable, but most of the dry-erase markers in the building were already drying out when the lights were on and the building was full—now, their color is gone and their tips are like stone. On the chalkboard is a painstaking recreation of an Excel spreadsheet drawn by Employee #312566 to remind himself of better times.

He misses the sanctuary of Microsoft Excel. Life should be like that, he thinks: plug a part of it into a cell and let a formula make everything secure. Be the person who creates the formula that makes everything work, and achieve demigod status among your peers in a manner not even reserved for the person who can make Microsoft Word stop auto-formatting text.

In Employee #312566’s chalkboard spreadsheet, nothing entered in cells populates to other places, but there’s always that millisecond when he writes something down and expects  magic to occur before his eyes. He craves the days of mapped processes and tools that [mostly] worked. Today, the chalkboard is little more than a way to present a to-do list in a comfortable format: perfect rows and columns waiting for information to give them meaning in much the same way they once gave meaning to so many lives.

#

A Typical Day in The Life of Employee #312566:

At 5:30 a.m., he is awakened by an internal clock that’s yet to fail him in his forty-three years. Rising from several stacked yoga mats serving as his bed in the corporate gym, he heads to the locker room to relieve himself in one of the few gravity-fed toilets in the building. A water collection system pulling from a spring-fed creek keeps him not only alive, but affords him several creature comforts. When his morning workout is complete and logged, a make-shift shower bag washes away sweat and any remnants of the day before.

Breakfast is usually the Prairie Salad from the cafeteria, a mixture of nearby edible plants and pecans Employee #312566 mixes up in the evenings. When the Great Outage occurred and most people raided grocery stores for a temporary sustenance fix, Employee #312566 raided the library near GloboTek headquarters for a crash course in bushcraft and urban survival tactics. He will never run out of the fresh greens, nuts, mushrooms, and small animals that keep him alive. He tells himself that one day soon, he’ll begin making artisanal sourdough bread instead of basic hardtack, but even during the apocalypse there are well-intended tasks left undone in the rush of daily demands. Or maybe it’s just the way most human beings are wired, giving up bigger dreams for smaller tasks and the quick dopamine hit that comes with them.

After breakfast, Employee #312566 packs his computer bag and heads to work. He picks up trash on his commute from the back of HQ to the front. Over a full decade after the Great Disconnect, and plastic bags and the lids of fast food drinks are still deposited against the side of the building by the wind. He misses his old commute, with time to think about the work waiting for him each day, or queuing up podcasts when he knew traffic would be particularly heavy. What happens to a podcaster during the apocalypse, he wonders, when there are no more get-rich schemes to be shared, movies or television shows to review, or true crime to talk about; no more self-important hot takes on popular culture, long-winded interviews to schedule, or dude-bros who think they’re actually funny? Employee #312566 likes to think the guy with that lumberjack show found a solar charger and still writes and records his stories. Maybe with twelve years and little else to do, if the power ever comes back, he’ll have enough of a backlog to finally release his show again on a regular schedule.

Entering the lobby, Employee #312566 looks up at the banners hanging from the ceiling. He whispers, “One in all. Indivisible forever,” with a sense of pride and then checks on the frogs and turtles in the old fountain. While it’s dawned on him that in the fountain, he has a replenishing food source without the danger of forays into the woods, there’s something comforting about keeping other creatures alive in HQ. Besides, the croaking of the fountain frogs has become its own kind of white noise at night, something dependable to drown out the echoing creaks of such a large building.

Old habits mustn’t fade—Employee #312566 says, “Good morning, Steve,” as he passes the empty security desk on his way to the Starbucks counter to change the inspirational quote of the day on his chalkboard. Never one to establish a coffee habit of his own (after all, the excitement of work should be all one needs to fuel their morning), he misses the smell of the drink—to the point that early on, Employee #312566 brewed a pot each day for effect. Even now, long after running through the coffee stocks on all floors, he is still surprised headquarters wasn’t raided for coffee over other supplies. How many people died in the months and years after the Great Disconnect fighting over the cherished bean, he’s wondered? Somewhere, someone must have been bludgeoned to death by a stout coffee mug reading, “I AM NOT A MORNING PERSON.”

The rest of the morning is spent of the third floor, in his cubicle, where he types away on a long-dead laptop. The sound of typing is soothing. The memory of hot-key commands in proprietary software must never be forgotten. There are reports to read and papers to organize. (When they are all in order, it is not uncommon for Employee #312566 to throw an entire filing box worth of papers from the atrium to the lobby floor, only to retrieve them and sort them all over again.)

In empty conference rooms, there are imaginary meetings in which he plays all the roles. Even though the phones haven’t worked for twelve years, before meetings start, he repeatedly says, “Can everybody mute their lines, please? I’m getting a lot of noise on the call.” It always bothered him to hear typing during meetings—people clearly not one hundred percent devoted to listening to what leaders better than them had to say. He remembers when it wasn’t uncommon to hear someone’s dog barking in the background, another reason he believed everyone should be in headquarters and not allowed to work from home. Once, an at-home employee didn’t know her phone wasn’t muted, and the entire business unit heard her child approach and say, “Mommy, I make poopie…”

At lunch, he eats a handful of squirrel pemmican and hardtack at his desk, a reminder of busier days when there was no time to disconnect for even thirty minutes, let alone an hour. Coworkers taking hour-long lunch breaks clearly weren’t serious about their work, laughing and carrying on with others in the cafeteria—or worse, leaving headquarter grounds for nearby restaurants to “get away for a bit.” Nothing said, “I’m dedicated to my work!” like eating microwaved tuna at one’s desk, a malodorous message that you, unlike all those slackers rushing off to restaurants, believe in the work you do enough to do it even through your lunch hour. At least now, the sound of those never taught to chew with their mouths closed, smacking like feral animals at a carcass on a nature show, is a distant memory.

The rest of Employee #312566’s afternoon is spent in heads-down mode at his desk, clacking away at his keyboard, organizing papers, and writing reports no one will ever read. It’s as if he downloaded the contents of his laptop into his mind, and these daily exercises are a way to be prepared better than anyone else should things ever come back. He can see his computer desktop and the way his personal drives and network drives were all laid out. With a thought, he can track any file he ever worked on, watching folders cascade as memories he refuses to let go. So, when he pretends the director of his business unit stops by his desk and says, “I need the monthly TSR report as soon as you can generate it,” he grabs piles of paper and recreates them by hand, from memory. At the end of his workday, he heads downstairs, being sure to say, “Have a good evening, Sharon,” as he passes the security desk on his way out. But his daily work is not done; in fact, now the work of survival begins.

On his way to the back doors of HQ, Employee #312566 checks his snare traps for squirrels, rabbits, and anything else unfortunate enough to have taken the bait. He’ll never get completely used to dispatching and preparing food, but it no longer bothers him like it once did. Most evenings, he prepares dinner in a makeshift grill beneath an overhang out back. After that, it’s tending to food stores, collecting water, and cleaning waste. Never a complete germaphobe, he was still a big fan of hand sanitizer and doing all he could to never get sick. Today, cleanliness is his god.

Nights are still the hardest. Before the Great Disconnect, the urge to fill time alone with deeper thoughts or regrets could always be drowned out by booting up a laptop and working some more, or answering email on his phone while paying half-attention to a Netflix binge going on in the background. Now, he turns to books, like the times before work became an around-the-clock thing and people read more. To keep his mind busy, he’s trying to remember the smallest book in his collection, so he can recite its entirety verbatim all the way through. It’s a story about a street sweeper who brings light to the masses and ends up chastised for thinking outside the box. He sees himself in the character, a curious individual with good ideas that were often shoved down by authority. He can recite the book up to the last chapter. Tonight, he has a simple goal: remember to opening lines of Part Twelve.

He mutters: “It was when I read the first of the books I found in my house that I saw the word “I.” And when I understood this word, the book fell from my hands, and I wept, I who had never known tears. I wept in deliverance and in pity for all mankind.” Over and over he repeats the lines like a mantra, until falling into the darkness of sleep to the sound of frogs and crickets.

And so it goes, until one day…

#

Employee #312566 is startled awake when the building creaks like a waking god. Lights flicker and printers groan. Air rushes through the building as the old god takes its first breath in more than a decade. The smell of the HVAC system is atrocious: stagnant mildew and the scent of animals in various states of decay in the ducts. The long hallway leading to the lobby looks like the set of an old horror movie, with dark sections of dead light illuminated by flickering fluorescents and the red glow of EXIT signs.

Employee #312566 rummages through his gear on the far side of the gym. His eyes widen as old habits never fully gone return. He plugs his laptop into the outlet; lifting the screen and pressing the ON button brings his system to life. It’s like a vital organ returning to his body, making everything right once more.

His heart races as the sound of Windows 7 booting up fills the gym. The reflex is still there: before Employee #312566 can think, he’s types his password and presses ENTER. His breathing becomes audible as he clicks the Outlook icon in his system tray. The program comes to life. He begins the Reawakening at Inbox Zero.

#

Two days later, Employee #312566 hears it in the distance—once, such a common thing now just a memory. He cannot tell how close it is as he charges through the buffalograss on his way out of the Globotek lobby. He fears he’s too late as he rushes up a nearby hill for a better look, but the old sounds always did have a way of silencing the natural world, burying the beauty beneath its din. He waits for several minutes, the distant hum growing louder, until its source finally comes into view. A glint of sunlight on the windshield, and then the Doppler effect of the first car to pass by on the highway in twelve years. He waits for others, but no more pass by. Still, if there is one, more are out there. It’s now just a matter of time.

When Employee #312566 returns to HQ, he’s overcome with shame. Soon, others will arrive…only to see the lobby overrun by grass and frogs. Carpets near broken windows reek of mildew…a cafeteria sure to fail a health department inspection.

That night, he climbs the stairs to the eighth floor and sits at the CEO’s desk. Campfires in the distance have given way to a smattering of electric lights as McMansions glow once again. He catches movement on the highway: headlights! Even eight stories up and ensconced in the CEO’s glass lookout, it is the loudest sound in his world.

What will it be like when they all return?

Employee #312566 leans back in the big, leather office chair and closes his eyes, imagining being the one in charge. His heart races when the building shifts and is sounds like somebody entered the office. He opens his eyes, almost expecting to see the CEO standing in the dark, wielding a cow femur, ready to commit his last barbaric act before The Great Reconnect.

“We mustn’t think like that,” he mutters.

He makes his way downstairs in the dark. No need to light up HQ until it’s in proper shape. So much work ahead of him, but not much time. Anxiety settles in and…it feels good. Something needs to be done in a hurry, just like the days used to be when managers commanded the lives of thousands of underlings, giving their lives a sense of meaning and purpose, measured in stress.

Employee #312566 looks down the long hallway toward the gym. He decides he will not sleep there tonight. He considers working through ‘til morning, but the day’s excitement has given him much to think about. Soon, there will be no time to think; soon the race of days will return, and everything will somehow get done in the chaos of it all. Maybe not done well, but that’s what the marketing department is for.

He climbs the winding lobby stairs against three stories of windows. It’s like climbing into the sky. At the top, on the landing overlooking the lobby, he’s face-to-face with the GLOBOTEK: ONE IN ALL, INDIVISIBLE FOREVER banner. It shines so brightly in the moonlight, he would not be surprised if it gave off heat.

He sits down above it all, and recites the final chapter to the book he’s worked so hard to recite from memory:

It was when I read the first of the books I found in my house that I saw the word “I.” …

Now I look ahead. My future is clear before me. The Saint of the pyre had seen the future when he chose me as his heir, as the heir of all the saints and all the martyrs who came before him and who died for the same cause, for the same word, no matter what name they gave to their cause and their truth…

These are the last things before me. And as I stand here at the door of glory, I look behind me for the last time…

When men accepted that worship, the structure of centuries collapsed about them, the structure whose every beam had come from the thought of some one man, each in his day down the ages…

Theirs is the banner in my hand. And I wish I had the power to tell them that the despair of their hearts was not to be final, and their night was not without hope…

As Employee #312566 nears the end of the final chapter, he looks at the banner glowing before him, burning like a messenger. He knows what he must do.

He stands tall and proud and recites his own ending:

“And here, over the entry to our lobby, I will carve in the wall the word that is to be our pulse and breath. A word that will not die, even if the last vestiges of the system crash and we are no more. The word that cannot die in this building, for it is the heart of it and the meaning and the glory.

The Sacred word:

OVERTIME.”

* * *

A big thank you for listening to Not About Lumberjacks. All music by Ergo Phizmiz and Kai Engel. Visit nolumberjacks.com for information about the show, the voice talent, and music.

In a month, I’m bringing you the weirdest father and son story I may ever write.

Until next time: be mighty, and keep your axes sharp!