The Adventures of the NSP

It’s a Tuesday night & I’m tired.  Its been a long day at MTV.  The past few days there have been a lil crazy but I am definitely just glad to be working.  I can’t wait to go to sleep in a few hours.  The events of the past few days have taken a lot out of me.  It seems I can’t have a calm weekend but didn’t someone say that an ‘unexciting life is not worth living’?  Or did they say an unexamined.  Well let me take this time to examine it. 

Now normally I like tho keep these things fun & good times bc hey that is one of my favorite things.  My own mother called me a party boy the other day.  Still not sure how I feel about that one.  That term can be used to describe so many things.  Well the confessions of this party boy is that sometimes being the life of the party is the hardest one to have.  If something happens to me everyone seems to know about it.  Good or bad.  So I guess the next thing I should say is I’m fine.  Word really does travel fast with my friends & as I found out when I went into work yesterday it does just the same.  I guess this is the problem with the fact that everyone seems to know me.  For those of you not in the know I will leave names out to protect the innocent & even the guilty. 

What I do want to address is…when partying/drinking becomes too much of ones life, how do you go about breaking the cycle?  Here in the city its sooo hard to not go out.  There’s always a party to go to.  It can be any random day of the week & the weekend?  Well its obvi that you’re gonna go out.  Staying at home would be boring, especially when you have a cast of characters like mine.  I’ve had some crazy, crazy times.  Most of you read about it every week in the blog or you’re there with me experiencing it.  We’ve all had our drunken shenanigans.  We’ve all had our dirty little secrets.  We’ve all had trysts & one night stands.  Most all of us have had some kind of problem at some point in our life.  Nobody’s perfect.  So I try not to judge.  Its easy to.  One of my favorite stories was when a coworker & I was out at a bar hanging out.  He told me of a time when he was dating a guy who apparently had a drinking problem.  He had gotten mad at him & called him a alcoholic, then turning around bending down to do his 10th line of coke.  It was at that moment that he was like…hmm wait…maybe this is the pot calling the kettle black.  Isn’t there something that we all do a little too much that we should not.  It could be one of those that was mentioned before.  It could be shopping.  It could be sex.  It could be a number of things for God’s sake.  Problems can hit you smack in the face right when you weren’t even paying attention to it.  I myself have definitely done my share of bad things so I try to keep in mind to not do that one thing….judge. 

But I have to say in the past month I’ve had a couple of instances where I’ve had to deal with some people who can’t handle their alcohol.  One night coming home, quite tipsy myself, I get a call from a certain str8 boy.  Someone who I’ve hooked up with a number of times but can not seem to admit the fact that he likes dick a little too much.  Originally this was a fun idea.  I mean, seducing a str8 guy?  Doesn’t everyone dream about that at one point in their life?  I wouldn’t have thought that he would end up coming in my apt starting a fight with me, physically.  I wouldn’t have thought about the whole almost rape scenario.  He apparently was upset about his realization of his gayness.  It went from him telling me that its something only he could talk to me about to trying to hit me.  This apparently is how he is drunk.  Now if I hadn’t been so drunk myself I could’ve dealt with him a little better.  I guess we all act differently while intoxicated.  At least I just get on top of boxes & dance half naked.  Ok so maybe I also tend to make crazy phone calls to half of you.  Recently, I even called one person thinking I was calling another & needless to say I said a few things that I shouldn’t have said.  Oops!  So I guess thats the bad part of my getting drunk.  The other circumstance?  Well its had a little more of an effect on me & what should be done.

Brunch on Sundays is meant to be getting together with your besties & drinking as many bellini’s/mimosa’s as possible & talking about your most recent shenanigans at a club/bar/home.  This one started out that way but unfortunately ended in quite a disaster.  It’s been quite noticeable that one of my really good friends has been having some problems with the bottle.  At first I tried to shake it off.  But when other people are bringing it up to you & when you see certain things happenning you can’t help but know its time for a change.  Now I will be the first to admit, I’m not Mr. Perfect.  Anyone who really knows me knows that.  Even recently I have made not the smartest decisions but I’ve managed to keep things under control.  But on Sunday I saw my friend do something that is now the last straw.  After brunch a few of us came back to my house to watch Mean Girls & share a bottle of vodka.  Neither was finished.  After said friend kept going to the kitchen to fill up a drink that wasn’t finished, they started falling & breaking things.  I decided that this person needed to go home. But they didn’t see it this way.  While trying to put this person in a cab they went to fall so I tried to help them but instead they shoved me into a gate.  We both fell but the gate had jabbed into the right side of my temple.  I felt blood & freaked out.  Rushing back upstairs I began to deal with it.  Our other friends dealt with still trying to get this person in a cab.  This was the second time the cab was unsuccessful.  The first had kicked them out, the second?  Who knows.  Somehow this person was still trying to come upstairs to get in the door.  My roommate screaming no.  I was angry.  My friend & I begin to fight outside my door bc I won’t let him in.  I was soo upset bc this time things had gone too far. Before I knew it I was shoving him & then I hit him. For me that was the clencher.  Someone had made me soo mad that I physically lashed out.  I’m not a violent person & its been a long time since I was so mad.

Its now been 2 days.  I feel bad to know that I did this to someone but in the same sense I can’t help but think that this could’ve been much worse.  The mark & cut on my face is better & the swelling is down.  I haven’t personally heard from my friend or personally received an email but my name was put on a mass I’m sorry email.  The point is things have to change.  I never want to see a drink in my friend’s hand again for fear of what he could do to himself or someone else.  But what I do want to say is that I still love this person with all my heart & I want him to get better.  He’s seen me through some rough times & always been there for me when I need him.  Thats what besties do right?  They’re there for you in ups & downs.  When everyone else hates you or says you’re in the wrong, they’re still there in your corner.  So I hope this friend remembers this.  But most importantly, I feel compelled to say it has to start with loving yourself.   

If some of you haven’t heard, last week I went back to New York Sports Club.  I know, I know…shocking!  We all know how much I proclaimed, "I won’t go back!"  Then it was, "Well I’ll only go back if its Plan Z."  Hmmm…needless to say I absolutely exhausted Plans A through Y.  You can say I pretty much squeezed everything that I could possibly get out of em.  I mean hey, tried the whole thing of working at a bar.  Thank you Tommy.  Had fun for a hot minute drinking on the job with you & Dylan.  Then checks started bouncing & the joint was shut down.  Tried temping but we do know my computer abilites is limited to turning the thing on, checking my email & updating my blog.  I mean I’m not the dumbest thing on earth.  I felt much better after interviewing last month at Abercrombie.  Like I said, "Its a scary thing when I feel like the smartest person in the room."  But anyway, back to temping…if anyone knows Power Point please give me some help on that.  The only thing I know how to point with power is…well nevermind.  I also did work for MTV/Spike Tv.  That was my favorite.  Kind of a gopher job but I’d much rather do it then wait on tables.  Although I still found myself making drinks for Luiz Guzman & his cousin, cousin’s gf & then some random associate of the cousin.  Ghetto motha ufckers.  And yes I meant to mis-spell that.  This is the PG mix y’all!  But anyway loved this job but since its a freelance job I can’t get it to be a Mon-Fri kind of deal. 

Then there’s the interviews.  Good Lord, the interviews!  I mentioned the Abercrombie, nuff said.  I feel as if I’ve interviewed to do everything at this point.  I’ve literally been a Craigslist whore and no I don’t mean by being all on the personals.  I’ve rocked the talent ads, the sales, marketing, customer service, admin…get the point?  The jobs that I’ve really wanted?  Yep, someone else was hired.  Then the email:  Dear Nick, we think you’re a wonderful candidate but we ended up hiring someone else.  We do wish you the best in all you…BLAH BLAH BLAH!  Dear Sir/Madam, please eat me!  Mutha ufckers! 

Going 2 weeks w/out working gets rough.  Back in June & July I was ok.  I was still managing to get a check from NYSC bc I had accumulated all the vacation hours & I had actually saved a lot of money.  So at that time I wasn’t worried.  I was like well I’ll be ok….I’ll manage.  At least I can say the summer of 05 was the one where I was just able to be a man of leisure & get my party on.  But the party has to end sometime doesn’t it?  I had that rude awakening a few weeks ago when I woke up one morning to turn my tv on.  Only to find out that the cable had been turned off.  Oh the horror!  Now I can deal with eating Oodles of Noodles.  I can deal with downsizing my minutes on my phone(most of you know to call me after 9 anyway).  I can deal with not going out as much & only going to places that I get in for free or has open bar.  But by God as my my witness, when my electronic best friend is killed.  Thats when the line has been drawn & thats when I had a breakdown.  So I made my call back to a former sales manager at NYSC.  Yes, I can come back.  Yes, I understand I won’t be back at the gym I used to work for.  Yes, I understand the company has changed.  Yes, yes, yes.  So I found out that I was gonna be placed at one of the best clubs.  They get a lot of traffic & the other chick that works there had 116 sales last month.  Hmmm, $60 commission x 116 + bonus?  Someone do the math for me but damn I know that adds up!  So I start.  Meet the other girl, she tells me that she has internet access & she’ll hook me up.  Thank God!  I have like 7 tours in 2 hrs.  3 sign up.  Nice!  Yes, I’m being micro managed to death.  Each hour having someone come in & ask me if I’ve made calls & I’m like geez a man a break.  Its my first day, who the hell am I gonna call?  Tell me, is yo mama a memba?  Well ok then, get out my ass!  Sorry I strayed from my PG rating.  But if ya like that you’ll love whats coming up.

So basically the other people I was supose to work with in sales mysteriously are sick & can’t come in for days.  So its just me. No problem, more sales for me.  Management says, "We need you to stay longer & come in earlier."  Hmmm ok I’ll deal.  But being the only one that gets micro managed is rough.  I was like someone please tell me how I’m supose to do the tours, take care of members, make my calls, go out to bring in people….oh thats right….I can do it because I CAN!  So after working the whole day Monday & dealing with this please picture it.  Its 30 minutes before I’m about to finally leave.  My sales manager calls to find out the numbers.  Oh yeah btw Nick, tomorrow I need you to report to the training center bc the higher ups feel you need to go through sales training.  I’m sorry, excuse me?  Did the higher ups forget that I’ve been with this company for 5 yrs?  Did they forget I used to work for a gym that consistently hit its numbers & went over quota?  (Yes Big Daddy you were the brunt of that but Irv & I did manage to do well?  Remember when we actually made money?)  So she’s like trying to explain that this is a good thing but even she is realizing that she is failing miserably so instead she says, "Nick I gotta go but we’ll talk tomorrow."  Fuming, angry, hurt, betrayed, l-i-v-i-d….you can pretty much say these were emoted all over my face.  I went home, immedietley jumped on craigslist.  Try to sleep on it but even my dreams turn into angry ones of me cutting all of them on the face Michael Myers style.  I wake up even angrier.  So I try to call 2 different clubs to try to talk to some managers I know.  Thats like waiting for the second coming of Christ bc the front desk put you on hold just to pick up minutes later asking who you’re holding for & what was your name again?  This makes me angrier.  Nick who?  I’m like this is Nick the damn sales consultant who you just say yesterday!  Still put on hold.  Minutes people my precious damn minutes!  So I give up & decide to physically go down to see my sales manager.  I reiterate everything that I said before & this time even more.  She still says its bc they want me to understand the book.  This book is the ‘new way’ which I’ve already been learning bc the manager at the gym was showing me.  Then she’s like well you’ll only be at the traing center 30 days.  Angry Nick face.  Downsized paycheck, pain in the ass hours, working with new green employees most likely having to train them as well?  No thanks.  So she tells me to at least go there & talk with the sales trainer there.  Relunctant I go.  Only to see its this guy who used to be a consultant as well.  I hated him just as much then for certain reasons that can be compared to the scene in 9-5 when Dolly tells Mr. Hart that she’s gonna get that gun of hers & change him from a rooster to hen in one shot.  He tries to be like Nick, this will be better for you. Do you even have the scripts memorized(smirk smirk)?  This is when I get annoyed.  Yes I have those Goddamned scripts memorized bc I’ve been saying the same thing for 5 yrs now.  He then says, "We understand that you’re mad."  Mad is an understatement.  He then is like, "I really wouldn’t want you to bring forth such negative energy in with the new consultants."  So I decide to remind him of the fact that wasn’t it apparently true that just a weeks ago that his newbies went out for lunch & never came back?   Yep, don’t have nothing to say now do ya asshole?  So I stood up & asked where my paycheck was going to be sent bc I won’t be coming back. 

Thats right, I quit again & this time for real.  If a company is gonna treat me like that after I’ve been there for 5 yrs then I will not be apart of it.  But honestly, I don’t know why I’m shocked.  Because seriously I’d seen em come & go & I’ve seen soo many people treated like shit that this being done to me shouldn’t be a surprise.  So in about an hr I have an interview for something I sent my resume out to.  Then for the next few nights I have work with a lighting company(thanks J).  Then the beginning of next week I’m back at work w/MTV (thanks Kelly).  Once again, I’ll manage.  But I’ll be damned if I ever deal with a certain gym again. 

Thanks,

NSP’s managemnt