Friday, February 08, 2008

Carpe Diem, Dude

"Hello."

"Hello. You must be Mr. Jones. Please, have a seat."

"Thank you."

"Can I get you something to drink? A cup of coffee maybe?"

"No, no thanks. I'm fine."

"Well, Mr. Jones, what brings you in this morning?"

"I think I need a career change."

"Yes, of course. You know that's very common now days. A lot of people your age arrive at a certain point in their lives, having worked to buy a home and raise a family, and with the children gone and the mortgage almost paid they start to wonder if there isn't something more to life. Something more rewarding or personally fulfilling."

"I'm not married."

"Divorced?"

"No, nothing like that. You see I was downsized last year and..."

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that."

"No, it's ok. I found a new job. But the thing is, I'm still doing the same thing, you know. It's a different company but it's still the same old thing, and I'm just starting to wonder if..."

"Sure, I understand. You want to know what color is your parachute."

"Huh?"

"That's just an expression. It means..."

"I didn't know parachutes came in colors."

"Well that's an interesting point. The fact is that parachutes come in all sorts of colors. We just have to find out what color yours is."

"I don't know. Red?"

"No, that's not what I...tell you what, let's start off by finding out a little bit more about yourself. When you're not working what do you like to do?"

"Sleep."

"Besides sleep, I mean. Do you like to play sports, or work on cars, or something like that, or perhaps you're more the creative type."

"I like sports, I guess."

"Oh, that's good. What sorts of sports do you play?"

"Play? No, I meant I like to watch sports. I'm too out of shape to play sports."

"Do you golf? Fish?"

"I like to eat fish, but I don't catch them. In fact, I'd really rather not watch my food squirm and die before I put it in mouth. I takes away my appetite, you know?"

"And you don't golf?"

"I hate golf."

"Ok, so what do you like to do? C'mon Mr. Jones, there must be something?"

"The truth is I already know what I want to do."

"You do? What's that?"

"I want to be a geek."

"A geek? You mean with computers and things like that?"

"Yes."

"Well, ok, that should be no problem. There are plenty of jobs out there in computers these days. Are you looking for something in IT or MIS perhaps?"

"No. not that kind of geek. Believe me, if it's 3:00 in the morning and Mary in Accounting's printer won't print, I DO NOT want to be the person she calls to get the thing working again. You know what I'm saying."

"Yes, but really Mr. Jones, you're not giving me very much to..."

"I want to be a geek. Like those ones in the movies. You know. The ones that can just walk into someone's office and type a few keys on the keyboard and suddenly have access to all of his classified documents and the schematics to secret CIA facilities in the desert, or can walk into a building and press a few keys on a keypad and disable all the alarms and open all the security doors and cut off all outside communications. I want to be one of those kind of geeks. The problme is that I don't know where you go to learn all that stuff. That's why I'm here. I was hoping you could help me."

"Tell me something Mr. Jones. Do you watch a lot of TV?"

"Not really."

"I think maybe..."

"I want a job like Chloe's. You know Chloe on '24'. I want to sit at my computer and control satellites and deploy police cars and break into government facilities and stuff like that. That would be such a cool job."

"And highly illegal, I might add."

"Well that's the whole point, isn't it. I mean who's to say where we draw the line. Maybe sometimes the ends do indeed justify the means."

"You seem like a detail oriented person, Mr. Jones. Perhaps you might like to try accounting instead."

"Can I tell you a secret?"

"No, please don't Mr. Jones. I'd rather you didn't."

"You know that Chloe - the on on TV. I think she's hot."

"Really? Well that's an interesting detail we can add to your file. But back to the business at hand. What I need from you is ..."

"You don't think I'm serious do you? Well I am. I've been to trade schools. You know like Heald and University of Phoenix, but they don't offer any courses I need. Sure, PHP and XML and things like that, but nothing about disabling building security or decrypting classified documents."

"Mr. Jones, I'm sorry but I just don't know what I can do for you. You seem to have some peculiar career goals in mind and I just..."

"You lied."

"I what?"

"You lied."

"Now wait a minute. I'm sure I never..."

"Your ad in the paper said you could help me find the path to happiness and be whatever it is I wanted to be."

"And I can, it's just that I'm not sure if...by that, I mean I don't think you really understand what...the truth is Mr. Jones, if we're going to find out your true path to happiness then you're going to have to start being a little more realistic, that's all."

"You sound just like my father. When I was a kid he used to tell me to never let anyone or anything stop me from reaching my goals, to never say never. He'd say 'Son, remember you can be anything you want to be.' So one day I told him 'Dad, I think I'd like to be Jesus Christ, the Son of God.' and then after that we stopped having our heart-to-heart talks. Then all of a sudden one day he took me to a special doctor and made me promise I'd never tell anyone I'd been there, and we never talked about being anything I want to be ever again. It was lie, what he said, wasn't it? It was all a great, big lie."

"No it's not a lie. You can be whatever you want to be, but within reason of course."

"In other words, it's true that you can be whatever it is you want to be, but realistically speaking you'll probabaly end up sitting in some cubicle just like everybody else."

"No, Mr. Jones. Please don't be discouraged. I'm sure that..."

"Look, you asked me what color my parachute was. Well, that's my parachute."

(pause)

"You're right. You're absolutely right. Ok, let's get started then. If I remember correctly you said you wanted to be a geek, but not the kind of geek that fixes people's printers. You want to be a geek of danger and mystery. Is that right?"

"Yes, exactly."

"Do you have any experience? I mean I'm not sure what sort of qualifications you need to be a geek, but what's your background. Do you have any kind of 'geek cred'?"

"Well I keep my pockets stuffed full of electronic gadgets everywhere I go, and even though my house is full of cabinets and drawers and boxes stuffed with every conceivable kind of electronic cable, connector, switch and whatever else you can possibly think of, it seems I never find the partcular cable or connector I'm looking for when I really need it."

"That's certainly a start. Anything else?"

"Well, I have poor nutrition habits, no fashion sense, and really lousy taste in art, books and music."

"Great. It certainly sounds like you're off to a solid start. Now there's just the question of where to get your training. Have you given any thought to that?"

"Yeah, well I think organized crime would probably have the sort of position I'm looking for. They always seem to need a geek or two when they commit heinous acts."

"You're right. I bet there are plenty of criminal organization's around that would be eager to take on an intern or some kind of entry-level geek."

"What kind of organizations?"

"I don't know. Latin American drug cartels, Caribbean money launderers, East Coast crime families, Congress. Have you thought about relocating to Washington DC?"

"Then you think I can really do this?"

"If that's what you want. If that's what you really want. Here, let me play this CD for you. Climb every mountain, cross every stream. Follow every rainbow, until..."

"Life is so full isn't it? Such a rich pageant."

"You see that. When you came in here you were feeling all stuck in a rut, and now look at you. How do you feel now?"

"Great. I really think I'm ready. I think I'm finally ready to let go of the past and become the geek I was always meant to be."

"You see. You just needed was a little encouragement, that's all. Is there anything else I can do for you?"

"No, you've been a great help, and listen...if I do break into a computer someday and steal all kinds of personal information, well...I just hope it isn't yours.I wanted you to know that."

"That's sweet. Thank you. And good luck with your new career."

"No, thank you."

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