Workmates tend to be people you may not have otherwise met. You cannot choose them. They have different interests, beliefs, and backgrounds. They’re all ages, all colours, all creeds — a tapestry of humanness. But if, by chance, you meet on the job and tack in the same direction, prepare yourself for serious amusement, camaraderie, and long-term soul-mating. And never discount the network of friends you might score because of those buddies at work. I’m talking about folks you can be yourself around. The ones who will point out the dribble on your blouse or an errant chin whisker. The ones you can laugh with.
“We’ll be Friends Forever, won’t we, Pooh?” asked Piglet.
“Even longer,” Pooh answered.
― A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh
When I moved with my kids out to the country in 1983, I’d been hairdressing for several years in a busy salon in a mid-size town. I thought there’d be no problem finding a similar job nearby. The closest town was 30 miles away, so it would mean a long commute into work each day, but I knew that going in. Then I heard about a clerical position at the border — a five-minute drive from our acreage.
I resisted at first. I’d vowed to never take a job in any office. My mom had been a secretary, and it seemed a dull and uncreative way to earn a living. But this was a situation too good to pass up, so I applied. That’s how I came to work at the Kingsgate, BC / Eastport, Idaho, border crossing at age 30. The job turned out to be less boring than expected, and rewarding in unexpected ways.
It just so happened that the manager in charge of hiring was originally from my hometown of Redcliff, Alberta. Rick was five years older than I was, so we’d not been chummy as kids, but everyone knows everyone in a small town, and he was happy to recruit a person he knew.
It was only the two of us at first, working from a single-wide trailer 300 yards from the Canada Customs office. Cramped, awful quarters. Unhealthy too. We both chain-smoked. Most of the truckers who came in lit up too. Sometimes we could barely see each other three feet away through the haze. We laughed about this. And about having to walk sideways around the office equipment. But within a few months we happily moved base down the street into a vacant yellow clapboard house on Customs Road. A row of dwellings that had once lodged customs officers — a compensation for posting them in the godforsaken wilderness of Kingsgate.
We had ROOMS. You could cast a fishing line off the back porch. My desk and the trucker’s counter occupied the living room. Around the corner from where I sat, a kitchen with cupboards, a sink, a fridge, and a stove. Rick had his office in the master bedroom. We even had a bathtub in the washroom. Joked about selling soap and showers to stinky long-haul drivers.
Whenever I used to tell folks I worked for a customs broker, they’d ask, “So you check people coming into the country? Do you wear a uniform? Carry a gun?”
My response was, “I don’t actually work for the government. I work for a company that takes money from the Canadian public and gives it to the government.”
Further explanation was always required. “Customs brokers do the paperwork for commercial shipments entering the country. Assessing duties and taxes on imported goods is complicated. Customs laws change often. Most businesses can’t manage it themselves.”
Not long after I started, a large firm bought the company we worked for. Rick and I came with the deal. That’s when he encouraged me to take the CSCB licencing course.
He said, “If something happens to me, you can step up.”
I went for it. I had no desire to step up, but had plenty of free time.
Little did I realise, Rick had an ulterior motive.
At least one person in each brokerage office must be licenced. Back then, it was done by correspondence. They sent you the reading material, and you sat monthly exams. Then at the end, a final exam.
Living in the middle of nowhere, there wasn’t much to distract me from my studies. We had no television in our house. For that, we would have needed an ultra-expensive satellite dish. Only radio reached us, and only CBC. But I should never say only. I’m forever grateful to the folks at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. They were our link to the outside world in those early years.
So, I got busy and plugged away at the year-long programme. Now, that was boring. Customs law is drier than the contents of the ashtrays that sat on our desks. But I completed the course and did well.
No sooner had that happened when… surprise… Rick applied for and was promoted to a different border crossing, in a larger office with 26 staff members. So, within three years of starting my new career, I was a licenced customs broker set to manage our two-person operation. Totally out of my depth. I had to hire someone. I was expected to monitor another person’s work. I did not relish this responsibility as some employees would. I was, in fact, terrified. But I did it.
A perk of the new job was our yearly manager’s meeting. They called it team building, but it was really an all-expense-paid booze-up in some western region hotel. A chance to meet and party with our peers. That’s where I met Wendy. She was the manager of our Vancouver Airport office then. We hit it off straightaway. Drank and danced the night away at the company bash. Laughed until we cried.
Back at work in Kingsgate, one individual came to my rescue over and over during the next few years — Denis. He worked in the customer service department in Vancouver. He became my go-to guy for every little problem that sprang up. We spent hours on the phone each week. Not only did he know the business, and could give sound advice, but he was fun. He had a heavy Scottish brogue, a bawdy infectious laugh, and an irreverent sense of humour that synced with mine. I hadn’t met him in person. This was before cell phones and the internet, so I’d never even seen a photo, but I imagined him as portly, balding, middle-aged — the bloke who’s a friend to everyone down at the neighbourhood pub.
Denis was my lifeline at work. A dear soul who left this world too young, and all these years later I still suffer his loss. But Denis left a wealth of connected friendships in his wake.
I never went back to hairdressing. It’s amazing what you’ll do for a stable income with benefits. The job didn’t pay well, but it was steady. Before I knew it, almost eight years had passed. By this time, my love affair with country life had fizzled to a stub. My teenagers graduated high school and moved out, and once they were gone, I couldn’t bear the prospect of an eternity married to that hinterland.
That’s when I got a break. My old boss, Rick, wanted to return to Kingsgate. His wife hated city living. They still had their house and property about a mile away. And an opening came up at the office he worked in — a supervisory position close to Vancouver. I’d go there, and he’d come back. Perfect!
The posting was only temporary — thank G_d. Rick had told me stories about the squabbling in that office, and I didn’t fancy working there for any length of time. Plus, I was only 36 years old and eager for change. The regional manager assured me he’d find me a spot at the airport or the downtown office, all in good time. So, I packed up my Honda Civic and said goodbye to country living. One of the best days of my life. I’d taken the plunge. But it was truly more of a toe dip than a plunge. I was moving away, just me, free to live alone for the first time ever, but not without a secure job at destination. And it’s not like I didn’t know anyone. Wendy, from the manager’s meeting, still ran our airport office. Denis worked at the head office in downtown Vancouver. I was so eager to meet him in person. I will never forget my shock the day we met.
I’d travelled into the city for a meeting. A chance to check out head office and meet some people I’d be dealing with day-to-day. I heard him before I saw him — that big, loud, boisterous laugh. He was chatting with a group across the room. This was no balding middle-aged man. He looked so young — about the same age as me. A full head of ginger hair, a slim, good-looking man.
He stared at me, eyebrows spiked — just as shocked as I was. I’ve often wondered what picture he had conjured up of me.
Fast forward several years. I’m working at the Vancouver downtown office as a team leader. Wendy has been promoted, and she’s my boss now. I see her every day, and her new position is demanding. But we still get together socially on occasion — have some hilarious times.
Denis is a team leader like me, but for a separate pod of folks. At work, he and I go for walks at lunchtime. We grumble about our workload. We share many laughs and many liquid lunches. In the off hours, Denis and his partner Steve, and their close buddies Michael and Robert tuck me right up under their merry wings. We go out to clubs and restaurants, party at someone’s place on weekends, go on excursions around the city, attend each other’s life celebrations. They call me a fag hag. We laugh about that.
Michael sits in as a disc jockey for our company’s Christmas bash. I go to Robert’s fiftieth birthday party. All four boys attend my granddaughter’s baby shower. I buy an apartment in the West End — to be near work, to be close to these fabulous boyfriends. These four guys and another buddy, Irv, spend the May long weekend helping me paint. Michael and Robert live in a high-rise apartment so close to my new place, they have an eagle’s-eye view into my living room. Robert, binoculars to his face, calls me up after I’m all moved in. “Is that a new lamp I see?”
One morning, the phone rings. It’s Michael. He’s calling from Denis’s condo with awful news. A tragedy the previous evening. Steve found Denis dead in the shower early that morning, the water still running. Devastating. He was only 53. We’re all crushed. We grieve together.
This happened in 2002. I was 48 years old. I’d just met Karl, my life partner and one true love — a union that would endure until fate had a different agenda.
In the following decade, Wendy took another promotion. This time to Toronto, to become the Vice President of our company and later the President. A feat for a woman in the corporate world of the day. Smack up against that glass ceiling in the executive suite. I was proud of her, but she was super busy now, and we had less contact over the next years. I lost touch with Rick, my former boss at Kingsgate, and he died before we had a chance to reconnect. Michael and Robert moved away. First to Yaletown, then Burnaby, then all the way into the depths of Surrey. We didn’t see each other as often anymore. In 2018, I retired and loved it, even with the knowledge it’s the gilded stamp of old age. Finally, I had unlimited time to pursue my art and writing. But in 2023, reality took a tough turn. My lovely Karl died of cancer, and I became a widow. I won’t even try to describe the gap that left.
In January 2024, Michael and Robert moved back into the old neighbourhood, back to the same apartment near mine where they’d lived 20 years earlier — serendipitous magic. Then a bonus. About a year ago, Wendy retired and returned to the West Coast. Bought a condo in the neighbourhood. These friends — all home, all present, and all enduring. Filling that gap and securing a gilded pension for me!
Many people I’ve met through work over the years have faded into the ether of the past. Some died, leaving their marrow bonded to my memories. But these few have reappeared in person, and we’ve picked up exactly where we left off. We’re older now, and quieter too, but we still get together, go on excursions, and attend each other’s life celebrations. And we still laugh — just as much as we ever did.