avatarGinger Bangs

Summary

Two helicopter pilots, one a disillusioned biologist, engage in the mundane task of counting waterfowl, reflecting on their unfulfilled career aspirations and the absurdity of their job.

Abstract

The narrative follows two helicopter pilots, the narrator and Max, who are conducting a waterfowl census for Lands and Forestry. Max, who has a background in biology, uses an electronic clipboard to categorize the birds they encounter. The job is monotonous and seemingly pointless, leading to reflections on the futility of their work and the irony of their situations. Max, in particular, laments his sixteen years of university education that led to this dead-end job. The pilots' interactions are filled with dark humor, as they joke about the helicopter's ability to stay airborne and the irony of their task, which sometimes results in the accidental killing of the birds they are meant to count. The story is a wry commentary on the nature of work and the expectations versus reality of career paths.

Opinions

  • The narrator and Max seem to view their job as meaningless and devoid of any real future, indicative of a sense of disillusionment with their careers.
  • There is a clear sense of irony in Max's extensive education in biology leading to a job that neither utilizes nor respects his expertise.
  • The pilots have a cynical view of the bureaucratic nature of their work, with bird counts being analyzed by others years later, which they perceive as a cycle of futility.
  • The narrator attempts to lighten the mood by making jokes about bird augury and the helicopter's role in bird mortality, suggesting a coping mechanism for dealing with job dissatisfaction.
  • Max's existential musings reveal a deep-seated regret and a feeling of being trapped in a career that did not meet his expectations.
  • The story conveys a sense of camaraderie between the two pilots, as they share in the absurdity of their task and find moments of humor and connection despite their shared predicament.
Sometimes all you can do is to just keep on moving forward, flying on blind faith and doing your level best to forget about it. (Wikimedia Commons — Public Domain)

Roto-Powered Auger Hogging Copter-Chopper

We’ve all had jobs like these two guys. Jobs without any kind of future. If you’re looking for a wry, ironic slice of life — this is the story!

I’m a helicopter pilot for Lands and Forestry. Right now I am part of a waterfowl census. That fellow sitting beside me is named Max. I’ve heard his story now for at least seven times, and the story hasn’t got any better with all the times he’s told it to me.

Max went to university off-and-on for sixteen years studying biology and now his job is counting waterfowl on what is basically an electronic clipboard. Don’t ask me how the gadget works. He hits the buttons and it keeps a record that somebody with a goddamn government grant will stare at and study on before punching the numbers into their own version of a bird counter and in ten years from now some other Max in some other university will spend sixteen years trying to make sense out of all that bird shit, before flunking out and winding up in a dead end job like this one.

Hell.

I don’t even know what keeps this helicopter in the air.

I just fly the fucking thing.

A helicopter is a great way to count waterfowl, because if you run into a flock you can hover just long enough while Max gets his tally straight.

That’s what the two of us do.

Max has got his electronic clipboard that a committee full of computer programmers put together for the lowest bid and then sold it to the department that Max and I work for. So I fly the helicopter while Max tracks the birds we see, marking them down by category and as he does so the little electronic clipboard gadget categorizes the birds into Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, and Species.

That’s right.

Max and I are paid to get our ducks in a row.

The only problem is that sometimes you run into a flock.

Running into a flock of birds with a helicopter usually winds up sounding somewhere along the lines of this.

Whir-whir-whir-chop/chop/chop!

“That’s one,” I said. “Mark it down. I think that is what some folks call a blue teal flapper. They’re awfully rare.”

“Rarer now by one less bird,” Max replied. “And besides, it was a cross-eyed mallard,” Max replied. “And because we just ran into it I reckon that makes it negative one.”

“You got a point,” I said.

Whir-whir-whir-chop/chop/chop!

“That’s negative two,” I said. “I’m pretty sure that was a long-legged numbnuts.”

“It was a black tailed spleen,” Max said. “They’re a rare and endangered species. Can’t you be a little more careful where you aim this helicopter?”

“He flew into me,” I pointed out. “It was natural selection. Besides, I figure that he had a kind of a suicidal look about his eyes.”

Max just grunted.

“What’s the point, anyway?” Max asked.

Oh shit.

Here we go again.

Max was about to get all existential on me. I’d heard this rant more times than I’d heard about Max’s failed ventures in university. I give him two more sentences and he’ll be going on and on about how he could have been somebody if he’d only had the chance.

Fuck that for a bad piece of chicken.

I decided to do my best to head him off.

“You can learn a lot from birds,” I said. “The early Romans used to tell the future by the color of a bird’s liver. They had fellows who specialized in that skill. Kind of like staring into a crystal ball, only a little bloodier.”

“Augers,” Max said.

“What’s that?” I asked, thinking that he’d got a feather up his nose and had maybe sneezed.

“They called them augers,” Max explained. “Those old Romans who swore they could tell the future. They’d cut out the entrails of different birds and read the future in them.”

“No kidding,” I said. “I worked with one of those once.”

“One of what?” Max asked.

“A hogger,” I said. “I worked with one in a factory, making Swedish furniture out of plywood and particle board. We had all the machines lined up so that the chunks and sawdust and all manner of wood-crud would fall onto a rolling belt that lead to a big old wood hogger. It’d shred the boards into sawdust which then got funneled into a big old boiler that’d burn the sawdust and heat the factory. They called it a wood hogger.”

Whir-whir-whir-chop/chop/chop!

“There goes another flock,” Max said.

“Yup,” I agreed. “Keep an eye out for any random bird livers you see falling by. See if you can see tell the future from it.”

“I don’t need any bird guts to see our future,” Max said. “Ten years from now you and I are still going to be up here, counting copter-killed cockerels.”

“True that,” I agreed.

Whir-whir-whir, chop/chop/chop.

“Man,” I said, with a low whistle. “Just look at all them feathers.”

“There is an awful lot of them,” Max agreed.

“I wish I had a garbage bag with me to collect all of those feathers in. You know I’ve needed a brand new feather pillow for a while.”

“Wouldn’t catching them in a pillowcase do a better job of it?” Max asked. “I mean, and then all you’d have to do is gather them up.”

“Point taken,” I said. “I’ll be sure to bring along a pillow case next time we’re up here.”

“It would kind of like doing the whole job in one fell swoop.” Max added.

“Nice one,” I said. “How long did you take to think that one up?”

Whir-whir-whir-chop/chop/chop.

“There’s another one down.”

And then, in a moment of absolute total Technicolor synchronicity Max and I began simultaneously humming that Queen classic “Another One Bites The Dust”.

While I flew into one more damned flock of birds.

Might as well have been a flock of angels.

Sometimes all you can do is to just keep on moving forward, flying on blind faith and doing your level best to forget about it.

So how was your day?

So, what was the worst job you’ve ever worked at?

Let me know in the comments below.

Hi! My name’s Ginger Bangs. I’m new here in Medium. Please follow me. I promise you I will not bite. At least not unless you want me to.

And — if you enjoy what I’ve been writing how about buying me a cup of coffee? I like mine tall, dark and strong!

AND — CLICK THIS LINK if you’d like to become a full member of Medium and read everything on the platform for $5 a month. The membership fee directly supports me and the other writers you read.

You better go and read another story of mine before I start passing out the collection plate.

Fiction
Humor
Irony
Funny
Short Story
Recommended from ReadMedium