Players:
Summary: Pudge and Michael have a bit of a chat about jobs.
Date: October 7, 2009
Log Title A Day In The Life
Rating: PG
NYC - The Parlour
A fun Irish Pub, The Parlour offers more than just alcoholic beverages, they offer a selection of Irish Foods on the menu. With the polished wooden floors, tables set up by the window, and a jukebox, everyone can enjoy this place. Once the best things about the Parlour is their apple pie.
See, he /can/ take off the Uniform, once the player realizes what kinds of places he is going to. Sitting at one of the tables in the corner, he is still dressed nicely; a button up shirt and tie, a jacket and slacks; but it doesn't scream military necessarily as he sips a whiskey and reads the newspaper.
Some people might think that being the Weather Man is a nice and easy job but it's more than just standing in front of a green screen for ten minutes. Pudge also is in charge of the weather team in tracking storms and seeing what the weater patterns will be over the next few days. The hardest part is actually hiding his powers that shows he always knows what the weather is going to be. After all Pudge has earned the repuation as the weather man whose never wrong. He comes in to the bar in a blue suit and tie and sits down at the bar, not to far from Michael, and orders his usual, scotch on the rocks.
Michael raises an eyebrow as he looks up from the crossword puzzle to notice Pudge standing there, not that he knows him as Pudge most likely. He ponders for a moment and looks back down at the crossword. "Would you do me a favor and spell your last name for me?" He asks the man.
Pudge almost spits out his Scotch, single malt, when he's asked to spell his last name. "What? It's Weathers, W-E-A-T-H-E-R-S. Why do you want me to spell my last name?" This is the first bar he's gone to tonight, he's not drunk in public. He doesn't even have a record of being drunk in public. Lucky for Pudge though most people don't know his first name, even on air he goes by Pudge.
"Because it's in the crossword puzzle." Michael comments, holding up the USA today crossword puzzle where indeed, sixteen across is 'Ironically named New York Meteorologist', eight letters. "Sorry for interrupting." He offers mildly, smiling slightly.
Pudge gives Michael a curious glance and looks at the newspaper. "Yeah, yeah, be the millionth person to say something about my last name being Weathers and that I'm the weather man, real orginal there." Pudge says with a shake of his head, it's something he hears all too often. "Sometimes your name is a bit of a destiny and you can't help it."
"Yes, but you have a million people who remember your name in the largest tv market in the world." Michael points out dryly. "Hard to buy publicity like that unless your last name is Bailey and you open a circus. I'm Michael Pola." He introduces himself, to be polite.
Pudge shrugs and offers a hand. "Pudge, Pudge Weathers, but I guess you already knew that." He says as he won't ever mention to anyone his name is Gale. It's an awful, awful name. "It's nice to meet you Michael, so what business are you in that you need a drink and crossword puzzle at the end of the day?"
"The government." Michael explains with a chuckle. "Which affords little luxury for drinking or overly intellectual thought throughout the day." He explains, reaching out to shake the hand firmly.
"My job allows enough luxury for a drink after the day is done." Pudge says grateful for that. "And the Government, that's fairly impressive. I just work for the corporations that run most the media in the US. Yay for me." Pudge doesn't exactly like the whole corporate aspect of his job but he loves metorolgoy and doing the weather so he makes his small scrafice for a paycheck. "No overly intellectual thought? That doesn't exactly sound stimulating."
"Oh, it is stimulating in its' own way. Dealing with a veritable batallion of unique individuals and getting them to all row in the same direction is stimulating. It just isn't always intellectual as much as it is…visceral sometimes." Michael responds, sipping his drink. "I wouldn't mock corporations, much more difficult to get anything done there since you can't just pull rank all the time."
"Oh believe me, you can pull rank all the time. Where you're ranked in the company, senority, believe me, it gets pulled quiet often. Deligation is a horrible thing." Pudge says as all too often he's seen it done. "So what line of government are you in? Politics? Miliarty? FBI? Not supposed to talk about it?"
Michael nods. "But people can also quit and take all their dirty secrets to another network. Harder to quit a three year term. I'm a U.S. Military Liason to the United Nations, hence my billet in New York." Michael dissembles slightly with practiced ease; all of that is true, he is just fuzzy on the specifics to avoid any kind of…specificity.
"I bet you see some interesting things in that line of work." Pudge says as know he knows he's definately not going to say anything about his magic abilities. "Military and Coporations both have politics but they're both different kinds. I'd like to believe that Coporate ones are more petty."
Michael chuckles. "I've seen a lot of things that I wouldn't want to see again." He agrees as he drains his whiskey and sets down the empty glass. "I try to avoid the politics, as much as I can, but you don't make full colonel by not knowing how to play the field. Oh, don't disparage the military's ability to never forget stupid things."
"I tend to let things roll off my back, like water, but everyone wants to get ahead." Pudge says taking a sip of his scotch. "Ya know, for me, it's not about my name being out there, or about a picture of me on a billboard. What fat man really wants to see a large picture of themselves on a billboard? I just like my job."
"It's good to like your job, although you should enjoy your picture on a billboard and your name in the crossword. Marines don't get put up on billboard, and the last one really in the crossword was Colonel North." Michael says, shaking his head. "And it lets you drink scotch at the end of the day.:"
"Are you sure, you may not get your name in the billboard but you get those fancy advertisements before the movie with a catchy song by some famous rock band." Pudge says holding up his glass as he says it. "Marines have quite a few advertisements even if it isn't you in them. So you can't say the Marines don't get put up on a billboard, I'm sure I've seen an add or two on a billboard before."
"Yeah, but it always seems to be that one really clear cut guy. I loved the advertisments back in the 90s with the guy battling this dragon creature, I always wondered how many people we got at Paris Island wondering when we learned to sword fight." Michael says with a laugh.
"I can honestly say I don't remember that advertisment." Pudge says. "And clear cut guy, isn't that part of the military, being uniform and as one? I was never a military kind of guy even though I think most of my home town proably went and joined the Army." Pudge says taking a drink from his glass to finish it off.
"I mean to say that a lot of the men we get don't come in with the marine haircut straight away. A lot of hair ends up on the cutting room floor." Michael explains. "I just remember that one, because at the end he killed the monster and turned in to a Marine. It really made Basic sound much more exciting then it was. Small town, then?"
"Well a lot of the pictures are to show what happens in the Marines, right? Not before?" Pudge says but then shaking his head deciding it's just gonna confuse him more. "They're not going to tell you the bad when trying to recruit you, so they're always going to make the job seem more appealing no matter what job you're in. And yeah, small town Kansas. Horrible place."
