Working World

They didn't tell me how much stuff I was going to need. They taught me a lot in school, like how to build a finite state automaton, how to program in five different languages, how to make a resume, how to kick ass at a job interview, even how to shoot an M-16 Rifle. What I wish they would've said was "Save your money. You're going to need a computer desk, and a couple lamps, which cost way more than you think they will, and you'll need a cheese grater, and a toilet brush, and ..." and then handed me a little booklet with the average price of all the stuff I'd need with everything totaled at the bottom.

I think I would've eaten less pizza in school had I have known.

I get up in the morning every day at 8:10am. I only have a 15 minute drive to work, and I still feel I need every minute of sleep I can get. In fact, being late to work is only second to getting what I feel is enough sleep. This was my mantra all through college, and I don't see any reason to change it yet. Breakfast, shaving, underpants, all are optional.

I work all day long, 9 to 5, and I drive home through construction-laden streets packed to overflowing with white suburban middle-class mediocrity. I drive what I feel is a fancy car, a 2001 Celica with that sporty new body style that says "I wish I had enough money to buy a car that performs like this one looks like it should perform, but I don't so I have this one." I still have an edge to my driving style, which means I drive like an idiot, but I feel this living-on-the-edge-but-not-really behavior sets me just a little bit apart from the rest of the herd. After all, the predators pick off the slow and sickly, right? Stupid cops and their "radar".

I don't have any time anymore. And yet I have all the time in the world. Strange how that works out. I don't have to do anything at night that I don't want to, like homework or club meetings or any of that. But then again, I never get to be home in the daytime again. Weekends, holidays, and sick days are the only times when I'll get to really see the sun. The little daylight I have left at the end of the work day is spent inside making dinner or wishing there wasn't so much somewhat-interesting stuff on TV to keep me inside.

I feel fulfillment in my job. I'm doing better than most of the people I know, who seem to be a lot more in danger from the current tech economy than I am. I just started, and I'm starry-eyed with excitement about starting my career. I'm getting more money than I ever dreamed of, and still I have to buy all this stuff. My legs are falling asleep because the computer's still on the floor. There's stuff all over the apartment that used to live in drawers, but I don't have any drawers anymore. I actually do have a few drawers but I can't decide what deserves to be in them the most of all of this junk, so they're still empty.

Seems like the more I buy, the emptier those drawers look.

Maybe once I get that computer desk things will start looking up...