Tag Archives: occupational folklore

Toots The Gaseous Ghost

Informant (L.P.) is an 18 year old student. I had heard her enthusiasm for telling ghost stories the week before, and this one stood out. L.P. works at a local novelty shop. This interview is conducted at my house one Saturday evening.

I ask about the ghost in her workplace, which she had mentioned during our previous encounter.

L.P.: “There’s a ghost called Toots because it farts a lot and people smell it all the time. It’s not mean, it just likes to fuck with people. They have a video of it knocking a whole stack of books off the shelf.”

I ask her to elaborate on Toots’ antics

L.P.: “I saw it knock a book on my coworker. The book hit her on the side of the head and she spilled her tea… Today it knocked over a bucket in an aisle when some guy was reading a book.”

I ask her if the ghost has any legend attached to it

L.P.: “It used to be a post office, so maybe somebody died in there I’m not sure.

I ask her if she’s has the video, but she says no, as she doesn’t have access to the work computer. As the youngest employee at Wacko, I’m assuming L.P. is going through a right of passage in learning the store’s occupational legend of Toots the gaseous ghost.

The OJ Simpson Metaphor

The informant (A.H.) comes from a Black Christian family. A.H. does not identify with Christianity.

Now well retired from the game at 54 years old, A.H. played football in the NFL from 1983 to 1987; first drafted by the Philadelphia Eagles, then transferred to the Seattle Seahawks, and finally the San Francisco 49ers. Since then he has coached youth football teams, and works now as a financial analyst. A.H. was over house for dinner one Monday evening, and after our meal I interviewed him for football specific occupational folklore. I asked about the superstitions, traditions, and legends A.H. had come across during his career as a professional player.

A.H.: “I remember growing up I was a huge OJ Simpson fan. I think every kid my age that grew up in my area that wanted to be a running back wanted to be OJ. And I remember reading in an article somewhere that he never ate before games. He had said somewhere that he wanted to know what it was like to be hungry, and he thought that it would transfer over into games. I think I might have been in high-school when I read that. It affected the way that I ate, like I would never eat the night before the game or morning before the game. The interesting thing is when I coached, I passed that on to the players that I used to coach. He said something like, if you didn’t eat it would make you like a hungry dog. You would play better. Every guy has his superstition before the game… So I saw one of the kids on Facebook that I used to coach… A lot of those kids are coaches, and they’re passing that stuff on now.”

I found A.H.’s story compelling, because what began as Simpson’s individual superstition was perpetuated by his success, and eventually A.H.’s success. As seen with the OJ Simpson metaphor, a young generation of football players dons the occupational superstitions of their predecessors as a rite of passage in the hopes to achieve similar success on the field. A.H. was well spoken, and seemed to enjoy revisiting memories of his time in the game. He was equally, if not more enthusiastic about the legacy he left behind as a coach.
Not only does A.H.’s story provide an occupational superstition, but also a new interpretation of a popular metaphor. Specifically, in English speech, ‘hunger’ serves as a metaphor for desire or motivation. In this particular superstition, the hunger metaphor is associated with the desire to win the game. For a popular example of the hunger used as a metaphor for motivation, see Suzanne Collins’ novel The Hunger Games.

“Hook Up”

Original Script: “Hook up is the term…weird right? So when I joined drill team, which is like a specific dance team focus on visual and sharp arm movements…it is more focused on visual affects. The most well known move is called the kick line. It is when we get in a straight line, like perfectly straight line, and it is not for balance because if you try to balance on someone it is just going to ruin the whole line…think of kind of like the rockets…one perfect straight line with lots of high kicks….Anyways, one of the terms you say is “hook up” to get in a straight line…even though it has a sexual connotation in popular culture it means something completely different on drill team.”

Background Information about the Piece by the informant: Jessica grew up in a catholic Irish home. She is nineteen years old and has always been on a dance team. She grew up on one and in high school was on the most competitive dance team in high school, which happens to be on the drill team. Though growing up on dance Jessica has never heard of the term “hook up,” until she was on the team.

Context of the Performance: Drill Dance Team Practice

Thoughts about the piece: When Jessica first said the term was “hook up,” I was thoroughly confused. For the term “hook up,” in popular culture, like Jessica had mentioned, does mean a sexual connotation. Although, it can also mean to meet up with someone, so I thought: how many connotations can this term actually have? However, when Jessica had explained it to me that it is part of the drill team movement, I was completely surprised.

This fits perfectly in the section of “occupational folklore” or even “folk speech” because of the term belonging to a specific group of people who understand it. While it is not an inside joke, it is an inside saying to the group of the drill team. Take me for example, when I heard her say “hook up” I never thought of it being a line up like the Rockets at New York’s Radio City. I instantly thought, “oh a meet up,” or something that had a sexual connotation to it.

Interestingly, I even brought up this story with my sister, and she had the same exact thought I did. However, when I brought it up with my mom, she thought I was talking about hooking up a computer or a picture frame. (Notably considering she is a computer engineer.) Therefore, it is remarkable that the saying “hook up” has not only different meanings in different occupational groups (a drill dance team to a computer engineer who works in security) but also in different generations (from my generation meaning to meet up or a sexual innuendo, so my mother’s generation meaning to literally “hang” something up). Thus, because of the different definitions “hook up” has to different groups, it is considered “occupational folklore” or “folk speech.”

Lawyers in the Ocean

Informant: What do you call a group of a hundred lawyers at the bottom of the ocean?

Informant: A good start.

The informant (my dad) is a particularly self-deprecating lawyer. While he does take pride in his work, he often admits that he only went to law school because his father had been a lawyer, and the informant had “no idea what to do with [his] life” after he graduated from college. The informant currently works at a law firm in San Francisco, CA (he recently changed firms, after his former firm became too large and very corrupt. I suspect the series of lawyer jokes he told me were told with some of his old colleagues in mind.) This joke was told to my family over the dinner table, and was very much enjoyed by my mom (also an attorney).

The informant told me that this joke was relayed to him “a couple weeks ago” by a close friend and colleague. Given how often the informant complains about other lawyers being “assholes” and the stereotype of the conniving and greedy attorney being true, I suspect that this joke was aimed mainly at those in the profession who reflect this kind of negative image. It’s probably very important to note that the informant and the friend who told him this joke both left the firm they worked together at a handful of months before this joke was passed on to my family.

Restarting Basic Training

“‘Don’t think just because you went though a ceremony and got your little certificate and your, uh, your pins—denoting your rank and everything—that, that you’re all done. That we’re equals. Your character reflects on us up until you leave sight of everyone at this base. It reflects upon you until you get, uh, your new billet. It reflects on, it reflects upon us—you and us—up until the end of your career. In other words, if you fuck up in such a way as to make people think ‘How’s this person, how could this person ever be in the military?’ they will send you back to bootcamp.’

“Their example—they don’t have any special nickname for him—but what happened was as soon as he graduated, he shook hands with all of his company commanders, and he got up on the bus, and the bus was leaving the gate. You know, it was just passing the gate, and the company commanders were watching the bus go by, and this guy, opened the window, stuck his hand out: [makes middle finger gesture] and did this to everyone on the base as he was leaving. They stopped the bus, and he had to repeat the entire eight weeks of basic training.”

 

The informant learned it from company commander on the day of his graduation (the beginning is the commander’s speech)  from the Coast Guard basic training. At the time, the informant was so elated that he made it though everything that he didn’t take it personally. He said he had seen other people in his group screw up (often badly), but he and his fellows and company commanders had gotten close so he held no malice toward his superiors.

When he was told this story, he recalled thinking to himself, “wow” saying they should kick him out permanently because “he’s the kind of guy that’s just going to grit his teeth and wait patiently until he no longer has to be put through this ordeal that is basic training, and then be like, ‘fuck you all!’”

Whether this legend is true or not, it allows the commanding officers in the Coast Guard to get their point across without unnecessary disciplining of misbehaving troops. By using a singular party (who may even be fictional) as a harsh example from which the recruits need to learn from, commanding officers can maintain the good behavior of a larger mass that identifies—at least partially—with the offending character. The commanding officers, thus, essentially make an example of one of the recruits’ own peers.