I’ve had bad days but not as bad as John J. Macreedy’s in Black Rock,
a day for him that began as
he stepped off a train and into a world of secrets and lies,
isolated place of menace
led by Reno Smith and his heavies, Hector David and Coley Trimble.
Spencer Tracy, Robert Ryan,
Lee Marvin and Ernest Borgnine got on with their day
and I went
to work in a bleak and miserable period of bad day after bad day
after bad day.
We were a ‘respect for the
individual’ company, modern American guru claptrap,
mouthed by old-school
bosses who really couldn’t give a toss about changing.
Why change for the sake of
change? After all, the old bark and bite ways worked.
“Just bloody well do your
job, or else!”
Big bully boss-boys and,
sometimes, girls dressed themselves in the morning
with a sneer, a grimace,
ready to belittle, begrudge, be a bastard or bitch
because that was their fun,
that was ego in top gear.
“JFDI!” “Just fuckin’ do it! Do you hear me? Do you hear?"
A mantra behind the
wafer-thin curtain of culture, a workplace on paper
that looked like Disney
cartoons, wholesome, encouraging, celebratory and proud.
Away from the bullshit,
smeared on wall posters, on pocket-size leaflets, on badges
and message pads,
stone-faced business tyrants - Renos, Hectors, Coleys
- underestimated us
Macreedys. “JFDI!” they’d bawl,
“JFDI!” LOUD.
Until one of our number, hit
back, just like John J. -
“You're not only wrong. You're wrong at the top
of your voice.”
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