A Brave New Job

We're being taught how to write and how to speak.

"Never say we would crush the competition, we have only the utmost respect for our competitors..."

The desks of the hall form a large semi-circle and we're all seated quietly, each clutching an identical bookbag, a gift from our new employer. We also each have a laptop, a shirt...

"And now it is time for lunch," the orientation lead smiles and leads the 20 of us to a cafeteria. We're all the people who began work on this day, they call us a class.

"Ribs or salmon?" the cafeteria employee asks me.

I stare at him blankly before finally managing an "uhhh."

The employee looks concerned, "You know...if you don't like..."

"Oh no! I like!"

***

It's a few weeks later and another smiling cafeteria worker is holding a lobster claw in a pair of serving tongs. I'm immediately struck with the realization that I have no idea how to eat this item and that I will be figuring it out in front of a large number of coworkers.

"It's ok," I tell her, "I have enough food, no thanks."

***

"You're so lucky," my friends told me.

"Is it true they feed you three meals a day?"

"Is it true they do your laundry?"

***

I roomed with a bunch of people from this place briefly years ago. Their refrigerator was eerily empty save the bunny food which contented Carne. I worked for the feds, she worked for something similar, and we use to talk about how the way our other housemates were so dependent on their workplace was a little creepy.

One of these housemates, Sharpie, fell off his bike and skinned his arm. The company nurse fixed him up, but he wore the bandage in the shower. Seconds later he came running out of the bathroom in a towel talking clutching his burning injury.

Carne and I laughed at him for wearing his bandage in the shower and expecting any differently. He laughed too once we pointed it out, "you know, I use to know that."

"They all drink some hardcore kool-aid over there," Carne shook her head, "bet you it's something they put in the water."

I laugh, "So that is what the cafeterias are for..."

***

The sign above the ribs says they were cooked in molasses. The meat is tender and falls off the bones, and a touch sweet. I assume that's from the molasses, though I have never had anything like this before so I wouldn't know for sure.

"You'll never be far from food," the orientation lead tells me, "we have snack kitchens..."

***

"Don't you think this is all a little excessive?" Giraffe asks me.

"Yeah, but it is how it is around here I guess."

***

I'm sitting at an awards dinner, courtesy of the feds, earlier this year. Sys's dad is sitting nearby and laughing with us.

"I wonder sometimes," I said, "if I could just hop from company to company on crazy employee benefits and just outrun the rate of reality catching up to these places and them realizing it isn't affordable."

His dad throws back his head and roars, "You missed out on the real chance for that, kid. This is nothing compared to how it was in the 90's."

***

"It's just like A Brave New World," Giraffe said.

"Isn't that about some crazy dystopia where everybody is oppressed?"

"Well yes, but it's completely voluntary and they are all happy."

"Then home come are they oppressed?"

"The book talks about that a lot."

"What?"

***

I'm walking through the halls for what turned out to be my final interview. A perky HR lady is asking me my least favourite interview question.

"And do you have any questions for me?"

My eyes clutch the walls, searching frantically for something which will make me sound smart yet curious.

"You changed the brand of juice in these refrigerators since I was here last, didn't you?"

"Oh," she smiles, "Yes, well we have panels here which study things like this, and if they changed it I suppose that means that the new one is healthier."

There is a brief an awkward pause where the HR woman innocently smiles, and then adds, "You really do learn something new every day here."

***

"When you start work," Doug said, gesturing to the Torii building, "We'll miss you."

"I don't understand."

"Well you'll never leave work there. You'll never come here anymore."

"That's silly."

"Well, why would you want to leave?"

***

I sat down and looked back at the mental list of things I wanted when I was homeless and compare them to the things I want now. While I still want a car and maybe a boyfriend or some other form of social ties to this place, pretty much everything else has been taken care of: food, shelter, medical insurance, free time, and respect for my work. I find it odd to realize that the list is a lot shorter but I am not a much happier person, in fact in some ways the optimism afforded to me when I was homeless of rapidly becoming un-homeless and general excitement probably meant I was happier then in my day-to-day life then than I am now.

***

"Because our world is not the same as Othello's world. You can't make flivvers without steel–and you can't make tragedies without social instability. The world's stable now. People are happy; they get what they want, and they never want what they can't get. They're well off; they're safe; they're never ill... they're so conditioned that they practically can't help behaving as they ought to behave."

The Savage was silent for a little. "All the same," he insisted obstinately, "Othello's good, Othello's better than those feelies."

"Of course it is," the Controller agreed. "But that's the price we have to pay for stability. You've got to choose between happiness and what people used to call high art. We've sacrificed the high art. We have the feelies and the scent organ instead..."

The Savage shook his head. "It all seems to me quite horrible."

"Of course it does. Actual happiness always looks pretty squalid in comparison with the over-compensations for misery. And, of course, stability isn't nearly so spectacular as instability. And being contented has none of the glamour of a good fight against misfortune, none of the picturesqueness of a struggle with temptation, or a fatal overthrow by passion or doubt. Happiness is never grand..."

"But I like the inconveniences."

"We don't," said the Controller. "We prefer to do things comfortably."

"But I don't want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin."

"In fact," said Mustapha Mond, "you're claiming the right to be unhappy."

"All right then," said the Savage defiantly, "I'm claiming the right to be unhappy."

A Brave New World, Chapters 16-17

"You're still coming here," Doug smiled.

"Yeah. I think it's not good for me to spend all my time there."

Google Suggest

So, many of you have probably noticed by now that when you type a query into the Google homepage it will suggest queries to you to complete your search. While I'm not sure of the exact algorithm...knowing Google it is probably based on what users type. This means that some of them are curiously insightful and some are just flatly terrifying.

I have, for your amusement, collected a sample of sample query beginnings and the suggested query results.

As you might guess, this isn't probably very safe for work.

"Is it wrong"

• Is it wrong to sleep with your cousin
• Is it wrong to sleep with your step dad after your mom dies
• Is it wrong to sleep with your sister
  
• Is it wrong to like your cousin
• Is it wrong to live together before marriage
  
• Is it wrong to question God
• Is it wrong to be bi
• Is it wrong to cheat
  
• Is it wrong to be strong
• Is it wrong for a Christian to get a tattoo
  

"Is it true that"

• Is it true that the world is going to end in 2012
• Is it true that your heart stops when you sneeze
• Is it true that Miley Cyrus is pregnant
• Is it true that the world will end in 2012
• Is it true that if you die in your dreams you die in real life
• Is it true that when you sneeze somebody is talking about you
• Is it true that lady gaga is a man
• Is it true that robert patterson proposed to kristian stewart
  
• Is it true that if you don't use it you lose it
• Is it true that Rhianna gave Chris Brown herpes

Is there

• Is there anyway I can get this popular guy to get me pregnant
• Is there a god

(What the fuck? Did things really just show up in that order?)

How should

• How should I cut my hair
• How should I get a haircut
• How should a condom fit
• How should a suit fit
• How should we then live
• How should I do my hair
• How should a bra fit
• How should the intergral in Gauss' law be evaluated
• How should I cut my hair quiz

(One of these things is not like the others...)

How can I stop my wife

• From divorcing me

There was actually only one result for that one...

Nice girls

• Nice girls don't get the corner office
• Nice girls finish last
• Nice girls don't have fangs
• Nice girls don't explode
• Nice girls don't get rich
• Nice girls don't date dead men
• Nice girls swallow lyrics
• Nice girls don't change the world
• Nice girls finish fat
• Nice girls images

Why does

• Why does my eye twitch
• Why does my vag smell
• Why does asparagus make my urine smell funny
• Why does poop float
• Why does love always feel like a battlefield
• Why does ice float
• Why does my dog eat poop
• Why does Kim Zolciak wear a wig
• Why does hair turn gray
• Why does google have two l's

Thanks for tuning into this week's edition of "the world's got issues."

Edit: turns out there is a whole website for this stuff: http://autocompleteme.com/

Peter Pan

Its Saturday morning at my grandma's house. She only has probably five or six movies for children, but her version of Peter Pan the musical is the newest so we're watching that again. Mary Martin is bouncing through the woods singing while the lost boys echo her. Issac is on the couch near me singing and dancing along.

"I won't grow up!"

("I won't grow up!")

"I don't want to wear a tie,"

("I don't want to wear a tie,")

"Or a serious expression,"

(Or a serious expression,")

"In the middle of July."

("In the middle of July.")

"And if it means I must prepare,
To shoulder burdens with a worried air,
I'll never grow up,
Never grow up,
Never grow uuuuup..."

I was extremely young at that time and decided that day that I would never grow up either. I was completely determined.

Our parents were painting the house and so my brother and I were sharing the guest bedroom for the time being. As my mother tucked us in I explained to her that I would be leaving to go live with Peter Pan in a few years. I needed to wait a few years so I could always be a cool older kid and able to use tools and know enough to be really useful in Neverland, but I did need to go even though I would miss everybody very much.

"I see," my mother said, "and when will you go?"

"When I'm 13 I'll prop the window open with a stick and Peter Pan will know it is time for me to leave." I said. 13 seemed unimaginably old at that time, and it was about the age some of the older lost boys were to my knowledge. Thinking on it for a moment I asked, "When do children become adults?"

"When they turn 18."

"Ah, so I'll go right before then I guess."

The next day I selected an appropriate stick from the yard to hold the window open and brought it inside. No use in not being prepared and all.

I thought vaguely of my intentions once when I was 13 and again when I turned 16 and laughed on both occasions. On the eve of my 18th birthday I looked out the window to see a fallen tree branch in my yard. The whole question was framed a little differently in my mind then, as the thought of running away from home was never too far from the horizon.

***

At 14 we can work, at 16 we can drive. At 17 we can see R rated movies. At 18 we can smoke, buy porn, sign papers, vote, and die for our country. At 21 we can toast its victory. At 25 car rentals and many forms of insurance begin treating you as an adult, and at 35 you can run for president. When are we grown up?

***

"So," the same grandma asked, "You're 10 today, a whole two digits! How do you feel?"

My grandma asked me this question every year she saw me for my birthday. The answer was always the same.

"Erm...about the same as I did yesterday."

When I was young this statement made me nervous. Birthdays were suppose to be days of change, but I never felt my growth or maturity was so cleanly marked by the strict regiment of the Gregorian calendar. To be honest, I'm not totally sure it does now either.

***

The train leads to a monorail to a plane to a subway and up an escalator to a bus platform where Ginger is waiting for me. He looks different, even only after not seeing him for five months, in a way I can not quite put my finger on. I think I have changed too.

I hold our spot in line for the bus while he goes to get water. He returns and hands me mine.

"How much do I owe you for this?" In undergrad this was an important question.

Ginger shrugs, "Forget it, we're both adults with jobs, a few dollars between friends does not matter."

The eagerness to catch up spills right into the line for the bus and before I know it we're gathering stares and glares as I joke with Ginger about being homeless and the various other adventures which have filled the past 5 months.

***

In the course of this life I have had a great many encounters with a great many people who have been concerned with matters of consequence. I have lived a great deal among grown-ups. I have seen them intimately, close at hand. And that hasn't much improved my opinion of them. ... I would bring myself down to his level. I would talk to him about bridge, and golf, and politics, and neckties. And the grown-up would be greatly pleased to have met such a sensible man.

The Little Prince Chapter 1 by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

***

"Did I ever tell you," I'm still laughing with Ginger, "about the time a policeman tried to throw me out of a tree for supposedly being drunk?"

The man in front of us and the man in front of him are increasingly gaining credibility with one another by taking turns glaring at us less and less subtly.

The bus engine shudders on, and all of our faces snap to look at it. A young man dressed in green is painted on the side above the bus logo of "Peter Pan." I grin and the lyrics from the television set in my grandmother's house so long ago echo back to me

If growing up means it would be
Beneath my dignity to climb a tree
I'll never grow up
Never grow up...

I suppose I found how to live in Neverland after all.

The outside world can keep its matters of consequence.

Engineer Logic

"We're having a party tonight," Giraffe says, "We need to swing by a thrift store for a piece of Ginger's costume, do you have yours?"

"Erm, I will shortly?"

Fifteen dollars later I'm wandering the house as The Cat in the Hat. A significantly larger number of dollars later we are leaving the liquor store ready for a Halloween party.

It began as very excellent party but, for whatever reason, a shocking number of people there did not understand their alcohol limits. Soon people are clustering around toilets, sinks, bathtubs, trash cans, and other receptacles depositing a wide variety of dinner items. The effect cascades, with first one party-goer kowtowing the porcelain throne and then others, either smelling the offering or perhaps just out of sympathy, following suit. The air is filled with the sound of people retching and spewing.

This party is officially not any fun anymore.

I am standing in the kitchen, realizing that the only people currently not throwing up are the hosts, Ginger, and myself.

Sam stands up from the sink, which he has hung to with a death grip for some time, and carefully wipes his mouth. "I feel better," he says.

"Yeah," I said, "well, I think you had a little too much..."

Sam turns to another male who is also clutching the sink, "Go on," he says, "just do it, you'll feel a lot better."

His sinkside companion adds to the mess. I lean over and begin running the water to reduce the smell.

"I do feel better," the second sinkclutcher agrees.

"Throwing up," Sam reasoned, "makes us feel better."

This is where you can tell the difference between a highly inebriated engineer or scientist and a highly inebriated sane person. The sane person might accept this fact, drink some water, and go to sleep. The engineer needs to analyze this data and use it to extrapolate greater patterns.

"If we throw up again," Sam pondered, "We will feel even better!"

"Uhh....no I..."

My words fall upon deaf ears as both boys simultaneously lean over the sink and jam their fingers down their throats. The behavior spreads like wildfire until a large number of party-goers are trying to follow the completely logical assumed data pattern. I'm left standing in a kitchen witnessing another round of retching.

"Pika," Sam calls, "you're sober!" I'm not, but it seems a silly argument.

"You need to go to the store and get us some Ipecac."

"No." We're already reenacting Family Guy here.

"Aww, come on, you want us to feel better right?"

"Uh... I don't think..."

Our disjointed argument continues for some time. Neither side is really making a coherent point, and after enough wasted time I simply leave the room. In Giraffe's bedroom another party sufferer is adding his vomit to a bowl which already contains contributions from two other people and an unfortunate mouse. There comes a point where things get bizarre enough that I feel like my grip on reality is slacking. The kitchen posse eventually realizes that nobody threw up throughout the entire debate and a relatively not-ill party member looks up from a chess board.

"You guys seem good, who wants to do shots?"

Sam and his compatriot look at each other for a second and then simultaneously hurl into the sink at the thought.

With ideas this good, who needs Ipecac anyway?