Stream of (Total) Consciousness: 7/17/13

The only thing more awkward and embarrassing than being the new guy is actually doing something that makes it plainly apparent that you're the new guy.

Since I've gotten here, I've lived by those words with the same dedication and devotion that Marines live by their code; they've been my Bandon Dunes equivalent of "Unit - Core - G-d - Country." And thankfully, I've done a respectable job of upholding them, working hard to learn the ropes and prove my worth while simultaneously blending into the scenery. 

Until this morning, that is. 

As I've explained before, there are buses that shuttle caddies from the caddy shack to whichever course their guest is playing. Twenty minutes before your tee time, an announcement is made over the shack's public address system, detailing who needs to get on the bus and what course each person is going to. Because there are four possible courses (Bandon Dunes, Bandon Trails, Pacific Dunes, Old Macdonald) that are located in varying directions, there are commonly multiple shuttles waiting out front, and the overhead announcement denotes who is to get on which bus. 

I was a little anxious about going out to caddy today, and I was closely watching the clock as it counted down to go-time. Well, when I heard the girl start to make the announcement, I immediately popped up and headed for the shuttle -- without paying much attention to which shuttle I was supposed to board. 

Once you get on the bus, the drivers typically get on the radio and re-confirm to the office how many caddies they've got and to which course they're going. Sitting there, I heard the guy say, "Two to Bandon (Dunes)" -- when there were actually three of us on board, and I needed to go to Old Macdonald. This didn't stop him from starting to pull out of the lot, though, and as we approached the exit, I then heard the driver from the other shuttle say over the radio that she was missing one person, but she didn't know who. 

That missing person was me -- and nobody knows who the hell I am.

Mercifully, we hadn't yet turned left onto the main road to go to Bandon (Old Macdonald is to the right), and I was able to hop out before too much damage was done. Of course, there was still the matter of the long run around the corner and the embarrassment of getting on the correct bus after I had so blatantly screwed up. Typically, there aren't more than three or four caddies on each shuttle, but for my walk of shame, there was not surprisingly a full house of seven or eight.    

"Stellar listening skills," one person cracked.  

On the bright side, maybe this blunder will help a few more people around here actually learn my name (the current approximate stands at three), although that can be a slippery slope, and I'm not of the opinion -- at least in this situation -- that any publicity is good publicity. With that in mind, I think it's best to keep doing what I've been doing, to remain rooted in my maxim that's gotten me to this point nearly unscathed.

After all, I'm a little scared to find out what they do for a Code Red around here.

Stream of (Total) Consciousness: 7/16/13

We’re into Day 4 of this new “daily journal” approach, and in reading through the first three entries, I realize they haven’t really been that daily journal-esque; they’ve been more of the same style of articles I’ve been writing, and I’ve actually had to go back and write down some of the occurrences from the last few days in the notebook I’ve been keeping, just so I wouldn’t forget.

From what I can tell, there are two issues at play here. First, if I’m sending something out and hoping people will read it, I want it to be interesting. As the great Aaron Sorkin has said (and as I have referenced before), the responsibility of a writer or director or whoever is to keep the audience’s attention for as long as he’s asked for it. This leads directly into issue No. 2:

I haven’t been doing anything all that interesting.

As I mentioned the other day, it’s been slow going around the caddy shack, at least for those of us who are fresh out of our green Trainee bib. I haven’t had the chance to meet any new people or receive a completely underwhelming tip. Yesterday, minus water bottle fill-ups and restroom visits, I sat uninterrupted in the same chair from 6:15 a.m. – 2 p.m., staring at my computer, trying to be productive in the face of a couple of horrific Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston movies. After merciful back-to-back episodes of “How I Met Your Mother,” I finally gave up on getting a bag and went to the practice center for a couple of hours. Then I came home, made dinner (chili!), and had a Slingbox-Skype date with my girlfriend, Emily, to watch “Dexter” on DVR.

Riveting, I know.

Stream of (Total) Consciousness: 7/14/13

I woke up at 5 a.m. this morning. Like most everybody, my tolerance for getting up early has increased with age, though when I was younger, I couldn’t imagine that ever happening. I’d hear about people rising at the crack of dawn—and acting as if it was normal—and it simply didn’t compute. I hated those people and their attack-the-day mentality, and I never wanted to be one of them.
 
Yet sure enough, here we are. My tolerance hasn’t grown out of ambition or wanting to be up at and at ‘em, though; it’s come from necessity. With every successive job I’ve held, the alarm on my phone has gotten pushed earlier and earlier. Eight a.m. became 7:30 a.m. became 6:15 a.m.—as the college student in me slowly met his demise. Each time there was an adjustment period, but each time I made it through. The good thing is that it’s made certain situations easier to deal with. Early flights, early tee times…they’re not as intimidating or debilitating as they once were.

But early wake-up calls to go try and get a caddying job? No such luck. Five a.m. is freakin’ early. It’s mess-with-your-REM-cycle early. What’s funny, though, is that, armed with my built-up tolerance, I had a false sense of confidence, convinced it wasn’t going to be that bad. Then I started doing the math: to get eight hours of sleep, I’d have to be in bed by 9pm. The sun doesn’t even set here until at least 9:04 p.m. If I went to bed at my normal time around 11 p.m., I’d get six. And when you factor in all the instances I’d wake up in a panic, worried about how much time I had left, I’d get even less. All of this made my head hurt, and before I knew it, it was 10:30 p.m., and I was still sorting through pointless message board threads about Texas football.
 
T-minus 6 ½ hours and counting.

Stream of (Total) Consciousness: 7/13/13

This is a little strange writing like this. Typically, I spend hours and hours thinking, outlining, and rewriting (and rewriting again), hiding my words away until they’ve reached maybe, possibly, half-decently-written quality before I’m willing to put them out for public consumption (and by public consumption, I mean the approximately five to eight friends and family members who don’t instinctively send my emails directly to their trash folder). So this is an adjustment, and it’s not going to be easy to let go. But since things haven’t been working as I’d hoped, there’s no point in furthering the definition of insanity...

My parents have been in town since Monday afternoon, and they left this morning. That they ended up here at all was unquestionably a synchronicity or the stars aligning or some other term or phrase about the universe at work that my mother potentially heard on Oprah’s Super Soul Sunday. My dad booked the reservations nine months ago, way before I began seriously considering coming out here to caddy. Actually, it was his booking of this trip that brought Bandon Dunes back to the forefront of my mind. At the time, I was in a miserable situation, feeling miserable the majority of my waking hours, unsure of how to turn the tide. And hearing my father talk about the place helped me reconnect with that yearning (do you ever yearn?) and gave me a sliver of hope that there was a way out. I also grew concerned about how I might feel if he were to come out here while I was still at my desk, intently watching the clock to ensure that I hit the mandatory 50-hour work week my former employer required (that’s another story for another time), wondering what the hell I was doing with myself.

Having my mom and dad come out was equal parts bitter and sweet. I got here the latter part of June, and their impending trip  for the early part of July served as sort of the first mile marker of this experience. Whenever things got tough or other caddies failed to make eye contact with me, I could always fall back on the comfort of knowing that my parents would be here in a matter of weeks. It gave me something to hold onto, something to look forward to.

Then, just like that, it was over, and they were gone.

Against the Wind

I am standing in a pit of sand, pushing dirt around, back and forth, back and forth. The wind is howling right through me, driving the falling rain against my glasses, ensuring each drop’s descent is more horizontal than vertical. My lower back grabs with every movement, my cheeks are flush from the chill, and my feet are on the verge of incineration; you would’ve thought I’d taken The Proclaimers’ one-hit-wonder literally and walked 500 miles—then walked 500 more. I am 35-years-old doing the job of someone 20 years younger. I am doing it voluntarily, and I am doing it for free.

I am a caddy-in-training at Bandon Dunes.

Nobody said changing your life would be easy, and I’m certainly finding that to be true a couple weeks into this journey. Much to my surprise, though, it hasn’t been my anxiety’s greatest hits—money, writing, what happens next—that have given me the most trouble; it’s been the little things, the stuff I glossed over and dismissed as no big deal before all of this started.

Such was the case with caddy training. Obviously, I knew I’d have to go through some sort of educational process; they weren’t just going to throw me out on the first tee with the Dalai Lama himself. But on paper, the training didn’t appear to be all that demanding; basically, you just follow, or “shadow,” experienced caddies while they work. This gives you the opportunity to both see how the job is done correctly and to begin familiarizing yourself with the golf courses. Bandon Dunes has four 18-hole layouts, and you are required to shadow two rounds on each, for a total of eight rounds.

My goal was to approach the training as aggressively as possible, to get it over and done with in four or five days. This would not only allow me to start making money as a real, live caddy quicker, but it would help me feel a little more settled in what, to this point, remains an unnervingly foreign environment. I needed to begin building a new comfort zone and all that that entails—developing a daily routine, learning the job, maybe making some new friends—and my hope was that the training could be a viable first step.

It didn’t take long to realize, though, that as far as first steps go, this was going to be a big one.