17
Sep
2009
NFL WEEK TWO “LOCKS” by Librarian/Receptionist Jenny Silver
Hello, readers:
I’ll be getting to my “locks of the week” later in the column, but first things first: I should introduce myself. My name is Jenny Silver. I’m 23 years old, I live in a single apartment in Culver City, CA, and hold down two jobs to pay back the vicious school loans I’ve accrued since 2005 (NOTE: I’m 8 credits short of my degree in Women’s Studies at The New School, but taking time off right now to focus on work. Were I studying full-time, you can bet I wouldn’t have time to assemble a weekly “pro-football column,” etc., etc.).
MY FIRST JOB: I’m an assistant librarian at a middle school in West Los Angeles. It’s a 15-hour-a-week position that allows me plenty of free time to read in-stock books about subjects that interest me, and (covertly) work on my first novel, which sits at 243 pages (in four notebooks, which I keep on my person at all times).
MY SECOND JOB: For the other 25 hours a week, I answer phones at a mid-sized private investigative agency on Pico Boulevard near Century City. Hired by the agency’s lead P.I.s (I’ll call them Bert and Ernie for the purpose of this column–not their real names, but appropriate), I was brought on to handle “light reception work.” Truth be told, I do my share of miscellaneous work–namely getting lunch for “B&E.” Every day, at 12:30 p.m., I steer the company car west down Pico to The Apple Pan. My esteemed bosses order the same thing always, in one massive batch: three hickory burgers, three steakburgers, two slices of pie, and two black coffees to go. The cook at Apple Pan, Jackie (a man), doesn’t say a word, and doesn’t need to. I walk in and Jackie nods, prepares the same food as yesterday, stuffs it all in a paper sack, and adds it to our “tab.” Ernie did some sort of work for Jackie a while back. Lunch has been free ever since.
Here's a picture of the burgers at Apple Pan. I pick up a bag of them each day for my bosses. Slices of pie, too.
SIDENOTE: I am currently reading a three-volume set of books about the I-formation offense. Because I work at a middle school, it is rudimentary reading, but I’m learning a lot. Volume One focuses heavily on the birth and earliest use of the formation under VMI’s Tom Nugent in the mid-1950s. Volume Two is co-written by two students who played on John McKay‘s ’62 national title team at USC–a team that blasted opponents with the I attack on a week-to-week basis. I haven’t read Volume Three yet.
Back to the job. Our office works with another P.I. outfit in Manhattan. I’m not entirely sure of the relationship (I’ve only been answering phones here since June), but we’ve done work—and continue to do work—for Major League Baseball and the NFL. I know this because my duties include transcription of wiretaps and the gathering of special (classified) memos. As it was told to me, since the NFL players’ strike in ‘82, the league office has diligently monitored (via wire and, more recently, GPS surveillance) every coaching staff in the league. I, personally, have no memory of the players’ strike (I wasn’t even born until 1986), but it must have irritated the wrong guys.
UPSHOT: Our office was recently brought on by the NFL to help with this rather large effort. We currently staff a team of 15 P.I.s to cull, sort, and produce data for a slew of “consultants” at the league office—hundreds of pages per day. We FedEx our reports every evening.
MORE FROM JENNY AFTER THE JUMP
