I got the job
It’s at a nice little firm in downtown Chicago where I will complete the final stage of my transmutation into total yuppie-ness, if all goes according to plan.
I’m already halfway a yuppie — I’m a proud owner a Gmail account, I think that Arcade Fire is a good band, and I bleed Cubbie blue — but because a majority of my time will be spent in the city, I have full reason to believe that you’ll be seeing me go “yup, yup, and away” this summer. We’re talking happy hours full of micro-brewed beer, wearing khakis five days a week instead of once every six months, and actually wanting to have sushi for lunch every day. We’re talking about speedwalking out of Union Station with a cellphone to my ear.
We’re talking Starbucks every morning, where I’ll learn that a “macchiato” is something you can buy there — not the last name of the actor who played Daniel LaRusso in The Karate Kid.
Oh, and the job itself is something I’m looking forward to as well. The people at the firm are very pleasant and laid back, and the work that I’m going to be doing will be both stimulating and challenging enough that I’ll never need to take a nap on the job ever again.
I’ll explain. At one of my internships from a few years ago, I was more bored than American Idol judges on Wednesday nights. I just never had any work to do. And even when they gave me assignments that weren’t simple bullshit work, they still were’t significant enough to motivate me at all. Tired of feigning productivity like the other useless interns at that company (all everyone really did, anyway, was chat on AIM Express while cautiously keeping their mouse cursors on the minimize button just in case a manager happened to come by), I made the best of that situation by taking naps. At work.
You name it, I slept there. The bathroom stall. Slumped in my chair with my back turned to the rest of my coworkers. In my car in the parking lot during my lunch break. Under an empty cubicle desk. Yes, a cubicle desk — one time when I was walking around the building looking for new places to take naps in, I saw a vacant cubicle and crawled under the desk to nap for a good, refreshing hour.
Not only was I naive and stupid, but the company was so large and complex that I could seriously disappear for hours at a time and no one would notice, or even care. Remember M. Night Shyamalan’s blockbuster movie Signs? When it opened that summer, I caught the noon show and made a three-hour lunch break out of it. After taking my time getting back to my office in the late afternoon, there were no emails in my Outlook inbox waiting for me, no voicemails, no furious managers, no nothing. No one knew I was gone. No one even knew who I was, I’m willing to bet.
This time around will be different. I’ve got lots of projects to get my hands dirty with and keep me honest, and I’m actually also very interested in what I’m doing this time. This is the kind of gig where I know my role will be pretty important and meaningful.
Like everything else in my personal life, I’ll keep the details about my job extremely vague. I’m not writing anything on here that could get me dooced (although, if my prior internship napping confessions come back to haunt me, so be it). My plans this summer are to work hard, learn a lot, and become a yuppie. No naps for me, sir. One thing though: if no one at work is looking, I’ll still have to keep my Cubs Gameday window open to keep track of the live scores.
With my mouse cursor on the minimize button, of course.
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23 Comments
Congrats on the job, but I'm a little surprised about the stuff you wrote here. It was funny, but I think also a little risky to let the skeletons in the closet loose about your napping at your old job.
Good work on getting the job, and the site reshuffle looks great.
A legitimate concern, Ryan, and something I thought hard about for a few minutes before I committed myself to writing this post, but then I realized that 90% of the content on this site would already meet the disapproval of any employer. I don't think my boss would like to know that I've documented my slaughtering of a slug, or that I've gotten pulled over for speeding over 100 MPH, or that my penis used to be black, or that I make fun of poor old Asian ladies and their accents, or whatever.
The operative word here, Ryan, is "secret".
As long as I don't go to my boss' office and shout GO TO ILL-NOISE.COM FOR A GOOD LAUGH, I think I should be fine.
congrats, man. you might also want to learn how to use Alt+Tab to switch windows quickly instead of having to worry about the minimize button.
ooo, great idea (alt+tab)...congrats pete, your the hottest!
Yes, very nice, ALT+TAB will come in handy when I'm playing minesweeper at the office...
Well, they could simply put your name in Google.
Yeah, and hopefully they would just see this guy's site and be done with it.
Hey pete!
I heard that you will also be paid handsomely. Congratz man, you deserve it!! Now, its my turn to get a job.
Two things:
1. Yuppies don't really know much about Arcade Fire. That band still pretty much is for music fiends.
2. I can't believe how far Arcade Fire have dropped for me. I loved "Funeral" on the first listen, and many, many listens after, but it doesn't have much staying power for me. And if you want to be ahead of the game, apparently Artic Monkeys and Silver Jews are the new Arcade Fire, but I haven't been really impressed from what I heard. The new Built to Spill, on the other hand...ooh, I love it; guitar greatness!
Oh yeah, congrats. By the end of the summer, you'll have an idea if you want to be a writer or an actuary. You can't really go wrong, either way.
Dan, you give yuppies so little "credit", if that's the only way to put it. Who else, other than weird college kids majoring in theatre, listens to Death Cab or the Yeah Yeah Yeahs or whatever? Modern yuppies pride themselves on having the best iPod playlist within a 20 mile radius, with bands that no one's ever heard of. They tend to think that they are the only people in the world that have ever heard that Ted Leo cover of Kelly Clarkson's "Since U Been Gone".
As far as I've seen, today's yuppie equates downloading "rare" music for their perfect playlist to the grown-up version of collecting baseball cards and showing the best ones off to friends during recess. It's an ego thing.
I liked Artic Monkeys when I first heard them, but the indie station here in Champaign plays them like once every 30 minutes so I've gotten sick of them.
The yuppies and other urban professionals I know don't do that; maybe it's a geographical thing and people here are just out of the loop. I think yuppies will seek the "unheard" bands on major labels, like Death Cab, but it's music die-hards that are going to the independent shops to get Ted Leo *albums*, not singles, and niche singles at that.
Fwiw, I was listening to Ted Leo the day my nephew was born, so they'll always be memorable to me.
your pop references make me gag
My friend was saying.. the best way to take naps at work and get away with it is to say "Amen" right before you open your eyes. That way, anyone who happens to look will think you took a 10 min prayer.
Congrats! :)
Congratulations on your upcoming internship/job! :~) When will you be leaving for Chi? Mid May? Late May?
Oh hey Dan... Built to Spill is playing at the Metro tonight. You should've made a visit to Chicago
Congrats!! success is on your side, always. ^__^
Hey man,
It's going to be a great summer. I'm excited about entering the "real world" as well. Let's make sure we'll have a beer together at Naperville bars to watch the Cubs this summer.
Serious congrats on the job.
I always take pause before posting anything job related as well since I've gotten email after email after email of concerned people who were convinced that I was never going to get a job because I like to write about poo on the internet.
Honestly, as long as you don't start talking about taking naps at your current position, I don't see how they'd think that you're anything but witty. (and it's probably not a great idea to write about taking naps at your current position while you're at work)
People are just too paranoid sometimes. Lighten up people, it's only your livelihood.
yea congrats again on the job, but i've done the train into chicago for the last 3 years, its no fun either, you'll learn to sleep on the train, and probably learn you wont sleep well while on the train, specially the burlington.
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