:: On the trappings of stability ::

Wednesday, December 10, 2003

Not sure how this slipped by me, but I just realized that last Friday marked two years since the first day at my current job. Tomorrow I'll attend my third holiday party, and next Thursday is the third group holiday lunch I've organized.

When I went to Comdex last year (photos here), I struck up a conversation with the man sitting next to me on the shuttle bus between the hotel and the convention center. Comdex has been around for a while (though its venerability may be in jeopardy - lately it's been going downhill, or so I am told) and whenever two or more conventioneers start chatting, the interlocutors will eventually reminisce about Comdexes of yore. Nobody waxes nostalgic over conventions better, except maybe for aged politicians getting one last chuckle over how they stuck it to those hippies back in '68 at Chicago. Boy, they don't make 'em like Dailey anymore, huh?

Our shuttle bus-driver's shortcut had landed us in the thick of Strip traffic, baking in the Las Vegas sun, and, our small talk exhausted, the man started down the obligatory path of wistfulness.

"Naw, don't get me wrong, it's still big, but nothing like two, three years ago. I remember we tried to book a hotel three months in advance, and every place in the city was sold out. And if you think this traffic is bad... How many've you been to so far?"

I debated with myself. Having been there for a few days at that point, I'd absorbed enough anecdotes and fond second-hand memories, whether through direct conversation or the involuntary eavesdropping that tends to accompany 80 dB speech, that I easily could have convinced a grand jury of my attending each and every one of the past 6 assemblages, complete with a hilarious (and instructive) recounting of the relative merits and faults of the all-you-can-eat buffets at each major hotel/casino in town. By comparison, duping the man next to me would have been a cake walk. It was early however, and the specter of standing in a booth all day was becoming more and more oppressive. I relented to my lethargy, and went with the path of least resistance: honesty.

"One," I mumbled, feigning sheepishness.

"This is your first time here? God," came the reply, his eyes no longer focusing on me, "I remember my first time." He re-attenuated upon the young man before him and stuck out his hand "Congratulations."

With an almost nauseous jolt, the man beside me ceased to be just another drone trolling the temporary aisles for business and PR. A temporal mirror of potential sat before me, the ghost of Comdex future. The handshake I managed to reciprocate weekly seemed an initiation into a fraternity of the repetitive; a cult of the grand and unabashed acknowledgement, nay, resigned acceptance of cyclical impotence and the pursuit of treading water. This was Miracle-Gro to the qualm orchard in my mind (what?). The doubt trees, their fruit hanging heavy on the branches, were ready for the harvesting that would press their bounty into reservation cider (there is a special circle of hell set aside for metaphors this egregious, and I will see some of you there). More lucidly put, I felt old and headed in an unappealing direction, so I began to freak out.

It's been a little over a year since then, and my fears have been assuaged a little, mostly because I work with people who don't make it seem like their careers are as Sisyphean as my inner pessimist would have me believe. But now I'm beginning to have encountered all this thrice, and I keep thinking back to that weathered middle-manager on the bus. It doesn't help that my job-a-versary coincides with the holiday season, which exacerbates the contemplativeness tenfold.

Mmm... qualm pie.

Posted by morland @ 11:57 PM

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