Shit for Brains

The View Video/Arkadia Jazz days were instructive for me in terms of how I learned many lessons about what NOT to do when running a business. Bob Karcy for all of his intelligence and good instincts was at times a horrible manager and even worse at anything remotely resembling Human Resources. When I joined the company, Bob told me that he had just lost his Controller and was in the process of replacing him. This process would essentially last the entire length of my service to Arkadia with Bob going through 3 or 4 different Controllers. One of these was a rotund white man in his late 30's/early 40's who took the train down from Poughkeepsie every day - a 2 hr.+ one way journey. Robert seemed to be a nice enough guy as far as I could tell in the 2 weeks in which he worked with us.

Physically, Robert's appearance was quite strange. While I don't want to make fun simply because he was overweight it was fascinating to me that his clothes fit him such that they made him look like a character somewhere between a puppet and a bowling pin. His head was perfectly round and jowly with a short goatee that didn't quite cover his multiple chins. The dress shirts he chose to wear must've been tents when fully stretched out and were amazing due to the fact that they did not reveal the curve of this stomach or chest but simply extended down from his neck to where his pants began. The pants seemed to just hang from his waist and continued straight through his short stub-like legs to brown shoes.

Perhaps due to his girth, locomotion seemed like a chore for Robert as he swung his entire body - both upper and lower when walking.

One particular afternoon I heard Jerrold, our Radio Promotions man, approach my desk stifling laughter but not doing a very good job of it.

"You should see the bathroom", he said through a chortle. "It's disgusting. I think Chunky here had an accident. There's shit everywhere, man. All over the seat. I'm not using it for the rest of the day! Chunk-eee!," he exclaimed in mock tribute.

This was the first documented usage of the nickname Chunky for Robert and it seemed very appropos given the current state of the bathroom after he had used it.

I went over to our little bathroom, pathetic as it was without being covered in shit, to survey the scene. Indeed Jerrold was right. Not shy in using hyperbole or just plain bullshitting, Jerrold was often prone to overstatement. Not this time. His words were true. I recoiled in horror. The next hour or so was filled with laughing and groaning at the sorry state of our bathroom from various Arkadia staff members. Bob then paid a visit to my desk not to address this hygenic conundrum but to discuss a marketing matter of great importance with me. In the course of this conversation "Chunky" materialized nearby and approached my desk hesitatingly. I shot him an accusatory look and Bob quickly looked up from what he was showing me and said, " Is that stuff all set?"
"Yes"
"Allright, thank you!" Bob responded in a dismissive sing-song tone.
Robert looked a little surprised that he was actually being let go and kind of smirked in disbelief before quitting the scene.
I seriously doubt that Robert had been fired for desecrating a bathroom that had no real vanity to speak of, a tempermental toilet and a door without a knob lock but a hook that kept it closed. There must have been a pattern of incompetence over the last two weeks that Bob witnessed and combining this with the use of shit as if it were fingerpaint was finally the last straw.

But Bob's hiring practices in general were somewhat suspect. He often didn't have the time to devote to personnel searches and would frequently make job offers to the first person he interviewed. Apparently he thought that his pre-screening of applicants via resume reviews was enough due dilligence before interviewing and then making an offer.