First Days
Originally written on Wednesday 06.20.2001
I’m sitting in the lobby of the computer company where I am to be employed. I was supposed to meet my manager in the lobby of this building about 30 minutes ago. Despite the assurances by the orientation facilitator that my manager would be informed of our initial meeting, as has been the case far too frequently, I am the victim of continuing logistic confusion. This is just great. Another frustration after days filled w/ frustration. Yesterday and the day before I suffered through punishingly dull corporate orientation. Save for the corporate overview, which I found to be challenging and interesting, the orientation reeked more of junior high than a class appropriate for college students and those w/ master’s degrees. It is surely a test of will to survive a day in a windowless room bathed in throbbing fluorescent light while being bombarded by PowerPoint slide after PowerPoint slide. I have heard that some companies are banning PowerPoint in their meetings. Now I see why. It seems that PowerPoint encourages presenters to be as verbose and flashy as possible rather than distill the information down to its most essential concepts.
The other aspect of this whole endeavor that is terribly frustrating is the fact that my long time friend, colleague and traveling partner, Josh, takes to the corporate environment like a fish to water. He’s very good at what he does, not just on the technical side but also in terms of fitting into the corporate culture. I find myself being drawn into a competition with him, partially through his goading, but mostly because of my personality. I hope that some day I learn to bow out of competitions that don’t really matter to me. But dammit, I want to be the best at everything. As I get older and realize how often I’m going to have to settle at being pretty good, or decent I become more and more frightened. I feel as though I should have found my niche, my calling by now. Well, I’m pretty sure that my niche is not working for an enormous, multinational computer corporation.
There are things that make me forget about the less pleasant things in life, however. I went to a show last night at this little club downtown called Emo’s. The show featured River City High, Benjamin, and The Julianna Theory. Besides having a really solid lineup, it was an early show which is always good if one has to work the following morning. Benjamin played first and they were very good, but not astoundingly memorable. So, I’m going to talk about the other two bands instead. Richmond, VA rockers River City High played next. Despite the fact that they play through central PA with some frequency, I had not seen the band until last summer in Austin. They were quite good, but this time they were even better. The crowd was larger, and despite the heat more energized. This worked well because River City High is a band that exudes energy. They seem to have a great deal of fun playing their music and they play a style of post-punk rock and roll that is jubulant and without pretense. It has the energy of punk rock along with tight pop melodies. They also manage to throw in some irresistable guitar hooks and a certain degree of 70s and 80s guitar rockness that makes them a joy to see when they play out. Their full length out this fall will be eagerly awaited. It was strange going to this show and standing near the front because I was surrounded by kids who seemed much younger than me. Sheesh, I’m only 20 and already I feel like a grandfather. It was encouraging seeing young people, their peers no doubt belly up amongst ‘nsync and crazy town, listening to some music with some real soul. Its cool to see girls going to the shows, not reluctantly on the arm of their boyfriends but because they like it. The Julianna Theory played next. I had seen them before as well when they played a truncated set on a fall evening in Columbus. Though they were good, at the time they seemed tired. This show took their set to a different level. The Austin kids who go to shows seem so much more excited to see bands than the Columbus kids and I think that makes the difference in terms of performance quality. The J. Theory worked through a tight set, mostly songs off their latest release, Emotion is Dead that kept building and building to increasing heights of intensity. I was excited that they seemed excited to be playing. So, I had a really good time at the show. I guess even if work gets boring and things with Josh grow tired, the shows will make this summer worthwhile.