Part Five (5): Back to School

I keep seeing all these ads for Back to School sales and specials and I must admit I felt pretty nostalgic and a good bit depressed when I think about all these lucky bastards that get to return to college this semester. After I got over myself, I started thinking about what I actually learned in a classroom at UMD (go Terps) that would benefit me in my work experience I've had so far in the "real world". After carefully evaluating my corporate responsibilities I think it can be said I could do everything I've done since graduation with the assistance of three courses. Three.

1. Microsoft Office 101

2. Not Getting Fired 101

3. Corporate Role Playing 101

The reason for the 101 level is because when you enter the corporate world, you're forced to vaguely apply the principles and knowledge you've gained in college and begin anew as a student of corporate reality and start to slowly forget the corporate illusion they teach you in the classroom. V-lookup, CTRL+C - CTRL+V, Pivot tables, Forward, Reply All, Apply animation...this is the language you hear in your head throughout the day to the point where it infiltrates your dreams. On top of that you have corporate brown nosers and yes-men who's victims are oftentimes delusional higher-ups who cling to their roles like crackfiends. God forbid you misstep and do anything to degrade their title or paygrade. Paygrade... too bad the pay for these retards never reflects their work if they were to be graded on it. The final lesson is that most salaried corporate employees perform just at the level not to be fired, or do what is necessary to create the illusion they are model employees. Not Getting Fired 101 would teach to always have a work-related document (excel sheet, powerpoint presentation, proposal) you're supposed to be working on while you're really reading ESPN and checking Fantasy Football stats. The final exam would consist of having a quick ALT+Tab finger and the ability to look frustrated in whatever bullshit document you're pretending to fret over.

Everything else you learn in the corporate world is by experience. As much as we can pretend to be an advanced civilization, the corporate world is indeed a jungle. In the jungle, experience is the ultimate teacher. You can't use a fucking textbook to kill a gorilla.

Part Four (4): The Sharktank and the Thinker

I've recently left my old post and have taken the role of a Regional Account Manager for a major firm that manufactures and distributes routing equipment worldwide. I am now in the "Northern Virginia" area. This place is known as a shark-tank, along with your major metropolitan business hubs (New York, LA, Chicago, etc.) They call these places shark-tanks because of the species that thrive in these environments. Salesmen. Upon my arrival I've discovered that in corporate america there are two types of people: Buyers and Sellers. The problem with buyers is that they're general push-overs that couldn't see a sales pitch if it had them by the short and curlys. The problem with sellers; good salesmen, is they're ALWAYS selling. This trait is simultaneously their shining ability and their most treacherous trait. The good ones are so used to being a "sales guy" 8-10 hours a day that it becomes an extension of their personality. They get so used to gaining success with a sales techniques that soon they're selling everything. Why they can't give you money for bills, why they forgot their anniversary gift, why you should "come back to my place for a nightcap", etc. In popular media a sales guy is always depicted as some greasy looking guy with a tweed jacket, suspicious looking mustache, and cheesy smile. Minus the jacket, EVERYONE in my office fits this profile. Like the great white shark, these mother fuckers have never had to evolve. The same techniques work the same as they used to, and regular ass people fall victim to them everyday. Casualties of swimming in the shark tank.

On a more positive note, I've also started working on the side for this gentleman by the name of John Latham. He's been making money off the internet since he was in college and made his first $5 million selling one of his websites to a media conglomerate his first year out of school.

Now, I find it necessary to study successful people in business if you yourself want to fit in with this increasingly growing group of individuals. This group consists of those that have decided that a door with no handle is surely not one that needs to be opened, and have opened their own doors, windows, and fire exits to succeed in business by unconventional means. I first met John at Sequoia in Georgetown on the waterfront. It was 4th of July and I was getting drunk on my friend Steve's boat in the Potomac. John was in the next boat, if you want to call it that. It was more like a luxury apartment that floats. We started throwing drinks back with him and his friends and I was amazed to learn that this guy was only twenty-fucking-six years old. So, to quickly summarize, he's a year older than me and has a larger net worth than most people will ever see in their life. He's a really friendly guy, very engaging in conversation and a charmer with the ladies. The main things about John are... the guy never talks business outside of business, and he never says anything about business until its final. I asked him about this the other day when I was at his office after my normal work hours sending e-mails and helping him with proposals. He said "There are two types of people in business, those that talk about business all the time, and those that think about business all the time. The problem with talkers is, because they want to talk business all the time, they oftentimes find themselves talking about things prematurely or making shit up to fill the gaps so they can keep talking. All this talking leads to little action, and therefore, lots of hype with no results. Although I rarely talk business outside of work, I'm CONSTANTLY thinking about it. I'm always evaluating ideas and strategies, all the time. When I'm talking to a girl at the bar, I'm simultaneously thinking about an exit strategy for this new website I've invested in. Everyone's looking for the next great idea. If you're a talker, and you have one, chances are you won't be the sole owner for very long."

Part Three (3): Virtual Reality

I've been removed from college for two-years now. Two-years of the "real world" and "working on my career". The problem is, these terms are a total joke. All I'm trying to do right now is make a quick dollar and get to the point where I can have the college life without classes. I don't know about your college experience, but mine entailed video games, cereal and ramen noodles, random hookups with girls I regretted most of the time, smoking weed, sleeping, and watching countless hours of Comedy Central and HBO. Now, the only thing I want in life is to have that lifestyle, but with some luxury. I know there are those of you who want more out of life than this. You wish to change the world or invent a product that can make John Q. Consumer's and Jane R. Homebody's lives better. Ultimately, if you are a college graduate who is at a shit-job (that you hate) running numbers (you don't care about) for a boss you never see (unless you fuck up), your goal is luxury; removal from your existence into a higher plane of living. Who wouldn't want it, besides some idealists whose religious or moral mindsets implore them to do otherwise? Enter the internet, a seemingly infinite supplier of opportunity to those that don't have it, or very limited access otherwise. It takes the proverbial "door with no handle" and literally blows the mother fucker down special forces style. Who needs corporate ladders when the web can provide elevators. Who needs rungs to climb when you can push a button and just as easily, if not faster, and with coffee in hand get to the same place? Finally, the corporate structure in America has changed from bricks and mortars to clicks and borders, and there's nothing the big machines can do about it. MySpace, YouTube, Facebook, CollegeHumor...these sites have created young millionaires that would probably be in Accounting or Processing of some larger firm. Instead they get to work in sweatpants in front of the TV. In my opinion, the goal of a luxury-enhance college lifestyle may be physically out of reach, but I can sure as hell double-click it.

Part Two (2): The Sexual Investment

A majority of us go through the week with the same thought going on in our head. This little thought is the idea that drives us through the constant idiocies of the workplace that we find ourselves subject to. "One day I'm going to start my own business and work for myself." Everyone has an idea, a 5-year plan, 10-year plan, buddies with "connections" that can get their future fortune 500 company started. The problem with plans that involve time, however, is time often has other plans. Since there are few of us that actually want to risk the guaranteed salary, the 401K, the benefits, the comfort in the fact that we can rely on someone else to keep the work coming in, we simply bide our time and countdown until it's Friday. The weekend is different things to different people. Most 20-something, college-grads in the DC-Metro area are on the same train come Friday night. This train, of course, is alcohol. Alcohol is the train that takes me from my doldrum 9-5 weekly existence into a blurry place of drunken stupor. Everyone has a preference of what kind of drunk they prefer. For those that visit the establishments of Adams Morgan and Georgetown, the general preference appears to be time-travel, out of body experience drunk. This particular state of mind, allows the participant to be only aware of certain basic sensory perceptions and that seems to be it. You walk in the club, bar, pub, what-have-you, and first thing you notice is the smell. Chanel 5, Polo Black, Versace Red Jeans, Curve... The chosen musks of the hunters and the prey. Combined with sweat and alcohol-soaked barmats, it's a lot for a nose to take in. You hear music, but if you've done your job right, you won't remember what songs were playing the next day, or the presence of music at all. You just remember there was someone grinding with you in the dark, you don't even remember what their face looks like, unless you happen to catch it the next morning (this can be a good or a bad thing). Wingmen and motherhens are in full force. Taking the dufs (designated ugly friend) and calling the bluffs, respectively. This is the game. There is no benefit come Monday morning. You're wallet and liver are that much weaker, so what is the point? Sexual investment. Every night in a bar on the weekend is a sexual investment. You invest money in clothing and drinks, negotiate through conversation, and see if you can earn a return. It's a drunken business proposition, and as long as you can sell the client what they are looking for, you're going to make a deal. However, like the office, business dominance is determined through appearances. I have a buddy that took a girl home the other night under the guise he was a medical doctor for the Washington Redskins. He was under the impression she was attractive. Once she was under him, he realized this impression was incorrect. Looks like she was the better salesman of the two.

Part One (1): The Door With No Handle

Monday. Monday is that swift kick in the nuts reminding you of the money you don't have, and the fact you have to slave away at a job you hate in order for you to pay for the grossely overpriced large quantities of booze put on your credit card at some bar over the weekend. It's the start of another 40-60 hours of yes, sir, no, sir, three-bags full, sirs that you administer out of your gritted teeth to some asinine fool in a suit and tie. You, standing there with the same apparel, appear to want to emulate this simpleton due to corporate restrictions of what you can or cannot wear. Business casual is never that. Nothing is casual in business. I make the same 45 minute drive from Maryland into DC down the beltway. I get to work and park in my assigned spot and walk to the same damn elevator. Corporate elevators are interesting, it is the closest proximity you can be to someone for an extended period of time while desparately trying not to make eye contact as to avoid an asinine conversation. Everyone in the elevator, however, does the full body scan of the others in order to distinguish who amonst the group seems to be the dominant individual. Dominance in the business world is determined by monetary wealth, or the appearance of it, and nothing else. Fuck what you've learned about being a good person, or being in shape. I examine the fat balding guy next to me: pin-stripe suit, textured shirt with french cuffs, what appears to be expensive cufflinks resting on a Rolex, clean-ass shoes that probably didn't touch anything but the floormat of some BMW, Benz, or Maserati this morning, blackberry in hand. The blackberry, of course, is to inform all that see it that electronic mail correspondence is so important to this man and those that are sending it to him that he must be able to reply at any point in time. This man was one of the dominant individuals in the elevator. Too bad his ass would be dinner if humans determined dominance like animals did. Shit, his ass would probably still be dinner if he rolled into the wrong part of Southeast DC in that aforementioned car. Isn't all of Southeast DC "the wrong part"? Anyway, you step off the elevator on your designated floor. Same coffee, same "hello"s to the people you pass in the hallways. Same path to the same cubicle to sit in the same chair and fill out the same reports. Cattle have more choice of direction than we do. Our moments of grandeur and accomplishment arrive with the completion of a document that has no meaning or importance to our daily lives. Close of business, Action-items, return on investment, CC, AR, Legal, interoffice communications; this is the language of the corporate stooge. This is the communicae of individuals that were bright enough to go to college and expand their minds, yet were not passionate enough about that expansion to allow themselves to be hammered back down into order-following drones. This is the life of those on the proverbial ladder. A ladder that leads right into a door with no handle.