Pod People

Originally posted Oct. 17, 2005

Ah, but I do miss the old pod days. We didn't know how good we had it!

Back when I was a cops reporter (and even to this day), the newsroom at the paper I worked at was laid out in "pods." We had these plastic Rubbermaid desks or whatever that fit together in a few different formations. The pods we had usually fit four people, with an opening on one side. From the air, it would look like an incomplete square.

In the beginning, I was in the editors' pod with good ol' Joe. Good times. We had Text Twist contests. We gouged a coin out of a "pot o' gold" candle with a letter opener. (Damn soda machine wouldn't take a Susan B. Anthony dollar, though. Blah.) We gained and lost a tiny pet frog.

But then Editor From Hell came. She was this little Long Islander with a Napoleon complex and stirrup pants. And we hated her.

My inability to even be in a 10-foot radius of her facilitated my move across the room to what would become known as "The Pod." I got a window seat that overlooked the front walkway (complete with its rats), and neighbors that included B (the quintessential bohemian), S (the oxymoronic smart stoner dude), I.M. (the neurotic), and across from me in the next pod, J (the bitingly sharp Midwesterner).

B sat to my immediate left. We shared part of the desk and somewhat of an Odd Couple relationship. Her desk: Piles of papers and books that we named "The Wall"; cups, dishes and Tupperware full of 2-year-old food crusts; Fidel Castro/Che Guevara/Cuba memorabilia; dead flowers that were not intentionally dried or saved; a rotating cast of boas/sweaters/scarves on the back of her chair; etc. My desk: Orderly stacks of files; Rolodex with actual numbers in them; books; some of B's stuff.

I love B. She's a free spirit. She never (OK, occasionally) paid bills, her car was never registered because she didn't have a CA license or insurance, which would allow her to register the car -- but to get insurance, you had to have the car registered, and to get a license, you had to have insurance. See how that vicious circle turns? She spent her days trolling futon Web sites, and her wallet was a silver cigarette case that fell on the floor and expelled its contents no less than three times a day. She was always barefoot. She was the type who would drive us all to lunch and then run out of gas at the restaurant. We had to walk back to work once. It was the funniest thing.

J also was somewhat messy, but it was more of a this-mess-was-made-in-a-hurry situation. She spent the 23rd of each month dodging the collection agency seeking her car payment, and was forever coming up with get-rich-quick schemes brainstormed with B. One time it was a psychic hot line they wanted to run out of the newsroom (editor caught wind of it and quashed that plan). Another time it was going to the horse track armed with a complicated formula for how to turn $3 into $90. J had problems registering her car, too, and she and B would each avoid the cops when out on assignments or lunch. But J was a little less successful. She even got pulled over by a cop on a bicycle once. Frustrated by too many tickets that week, she came back to the newsroom and paperclipped the citation to her hair.

J and I had special fun torturing B with jokes and snide exchanges. We're kinda no-holds-barred. We were forever kicking around the idea of writing a "Simpsons" episode. J is one of the funniest people I know...one of those Catholic Midwesterners who seems anything but Catholic, or Midwestern.

S was an interesting guy. Like I said...the oxymoronic combo of smart and stoner. His get-rich-quick scheme was opening a roadside granola stand. He was part environmentalist and part Harvard wannabe. He'd roll up between my and B's desk and just start random conversations. Eventually, when I left, he took over my beat. Three months later, he left. He was never one to submit to anyone's control but his own.

I.M. was the gal who drove everyone nuts. She was neurotic and annoying to the point of inspiring B to build "The Wall" when she sat across from her. I.M. eventually moved into our pod, to B's left...across the opening. I.M. was the kind of chick no one wanted to invite to parties but had to because they knew she'd find out and give everyone shit for not telling her about it. She is Diane from "Cheers." She talks down to people and will throw in the occasional "hello, mes amis"-type comments....yet, everyone still remains friends with her. She eventually moved on too, and Joe took over her desk. To her credit, she was like a bulldog with sources. She hardly ever backed down. She was always at odds with the mayor of the city she covered.

"The Pod" spent more time goofing around than doing any work. It's a wonder we actually ever turned any stories in! We played penny baseball with a bubble-wrap bat. We "exercised" our pet crab by having it box a letter opener. Poor Dr. Claw ended up in the cafeteria sink drain when I changed his water one day. Pod came to the rescue and we fished him off his corkscrew-noodle perch in the garbage disposal. He lived...but much later passed peacefully in his sleep. It was us, The Pod, that gave him his final hurrah by leaving him in the bottom of the women's room toilet. That gave Editor From Hell real pause for thought when she went to relieve herself and found a dead crab in the loo. We played kitten clay shooting on our computers; we kidnapped J's stuffed strawberry when she went home for the holidays and created a ransom Web site full of photos; we took overlong lunches; we screened each other's calls. We laughed. A lot. We took a camping trip that lasted 24 hours but yielded stories that still get told today. We had fun.

Of course, we thought everything else sucked because we hated Editor From Hell. One by one we left, and The Pod got split up. We're still friends today, but looking back, those were good times working together. One should never take good co-workers for granted. We found comfort in each other's presence when our environment seemed tumultuous. They were the type of people you didn't mind seeing every day, and even on weekends. We comiserated. And we injected humor into what otherwise would have been a dreary work existence.

Those were the days. They really were. I miss them!