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true or false: i like tall women.
[american psychiatric evaluation, question #54]
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-Third day at new job. Median age, twenty-seven. Fights break out over Star Trek trivia, Labrynth extras. I can't remember what Labrynth is. (Movie? Video game? Both?) Everybody has a great Batman impersonation. I wonder where I was when every single male my age was learning how to do that. Warm office, bright windows. The boss is in Israel and there's a bottle of Jack Daniels three-quarters empty on a Magento programmer's desk. By five, the graphic designers are slurring their TLAs (three-letter acronyms) and monologuing about how they saved Gotham City.
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Small desk, empty except for my laptop and lunch. I've never had a desk and I don't know what to put on it. Pictures? Figurines? Artfully folded crosswords? I arrange my oranges three in a row, and call it good. How do you feel about writing up this contract? he asks me, and I shift an orange over an inch. If I make it here a week, I'll bring a pencil cup.
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It's my third day, and in those moments when no one knows what to do with me I write SEO-rich content for websites I've never heard of. I become an expert mechanic or dance instructor. I blog about whitewater rafting, transmission maintenance, Magento programming, seed saving. How about a post on winterizing your vehicle? they say, and I Google it because I come from a place without winter. What's trending in wallpaper? they ask, and I Google it because my parents tore down the rooster wallpaper in our kitchen when I was seven and never spoke of it again.
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In this office I'm the new girl who can't figure out the phone lines, but on the Web I'm an expert in anything they ask me to be. It's 11 a.m. and I'm John, a Denver metro area mechanic. After lunch I'm Erin, the up-and-coming interior designer who favors whimsical wallpaper borders. And at five I'm Kate, the woman who can't figure out why so many people don't seem to understand what they create, and wonders whether she's becoming one of them.
