Ladies and gentlemen, this week we are going to take a ride in the O’Connor DeLorean, which is a 1999 Nissan Altima that has 168,762  miles, and embarrsingly enough, a Dave Matthews Band bumper sticker. I have been digging through my old writings, notes, and illegible ramblings and came across a piece I wrote about my first day of work in the “real world.” I got a good laugh from reading it, so I decided to revamp it a bit and share it with you all. So take my hand, and let’s get jiggy with it back to 1998, when boy bands ruled the charts, the Internet was still a baby, and cell phones were only for rich people and drug dealers.

I will be the first person to admit that at age 22, I just was not ready for the corporate world. I spent the entire summer of 1998 living in a dumpy rental property in Sea Isle City, New Jersey working in a liquor store and bartending. My afternoons were spent skateboarding or hanging out on the beach, and my nights were spent at the bars, drinking 5 dollar Miller Lite bottles, listening to cover bands play the same 8 songs, and avoiding fistfights with surly suburban Philadelphia dudes who went to high schools with some kind of papal title in the name like Archbishop or Cardinal.

I felt rushed into getting a job — for some reason, I thought that come September, I had to be wearing a suit to work, drinking overpriced coffee, and laughing at the Dilbert cartoon strip. The economy was rocking at the time and nobody I knew was having a hard time getting a job, so there wasn’t any true urgency. I totally should have gone straight to grad school, or traveled, or at least taken some not-so-serious job. At this point my career aspirations were based solely on the Andrew McCarthy character in Weekend at Bernie’s. I wanted to be loose, fun loving, and carefree, where I would buddy up with a go-getter to help me climb the corporate ladder. Bottom line, I shouldn’t have jumped into the business world with no transition at all. Instead, I left the shore late Sunday night to wake up for work on Monday morning.   

The morning of my first day of work, I woke up with the harsh realization that I had to go to work. I wasn’t able to go to the beach, take an afternoon catnap, or even marvel at the hilarious antics that only a guest on the Jerry Springer could provide. I wouldn’t be in shorts and a t-shirt serving beer and blackberry brandy to all the local Sea Isle blue collar drunks. No, I would be in a shirt and tie, and tied to a desk all day. Then again, the first day was orientation, so it probably wouldn’t be all that bad.

Well, first order of business was getting dressed. Since I was fresh out of college and spent the entire summer at the shore, I was broke and couldn’t afford a suit. I had to borrow one from my dad because I spent all my money on booze, mini-golf, and CDs that summer. My father wasn’t his normal Jesus Christ-like self in lending me a suit. He wasn’t about to give me one of his nice ones; instead, he reached into an area of his closet he hadn’t been to since the Reagan administration.

The suit was grayish, and looked pretty rough from the obvious years it had seen. It wasn’t quite plaid, but it wasn’t quite flannel. It had an odd texture to it, since it was old world craftsmanship but the old world was 1972. The thing probably could have gotten you laid in the 70’s, but now it should have been laid to rest on the back of a corpse not on a 22 year old dude on his first day of work. I accompanied the suit with a crisp white shirt and classic red power tie ready to take on the world like the next Donnie Trump. There I was, a short, pudgy red-faced nervous kid wearing a “power tie.” I bet even the janitors were laughing at me that day.

Next mission was driving down to the thriving metropolis of Wilmington, DE (or as my friend Jojo refers to it “Philadelphia Jr.”), home of tax free shopping, credit card companies, and chemicals. Ten minutes into the trip I realized my almost hour commute each way was going to be a mistake. Soon I arrived at my destination, took a deep breath, threw the suit coat on and sauntered into the building.  At the door, I was greeted by an enthusiastic dude with a great smile and even better attitude who boomed “welcome to orientation!” that almost knocked me over.  He was accompanied by a very pretty girl who had a plastic smile. I shook both their hands, stammered out a hello and wandered into the building.  

When I got in, I scanned the room for a guy who I went to college with that was starting the same day. He wasn’t here yet, so I got stuck sharing donuts and awkward conversation with fellow new employees. Everyone seemed so tense and nervous, as if we all thought we were being closely watched on camera by upper management. “Fire the blond kid, that’s his third donut!” The guy I knew got there, so we exchanged pleasantries and I felt a million times more comfortable, but then they announced we would all be splitting up into groups. My group was an Indian guy in a suit arguably worse than mine, a guy who was from Zimbabwe and very twitchy, and a cute and outgoing Italian girl.

The dog and pony show started, and the two women running it had to be overdosing on Prozac because I have never seen two more happy and chipper people in my life. We were told the history of the company and that everyone that was there in the beginning now has zillions of dollars and their own Caribbean island and rub elbows with P. Diddy and Bill Gates. Then we learned about the CEO who was apparently akin to Jesus Christ, and resided in a jewel encrusted floating palace in the sky. And in so many words, we were told to bow solemnly in his presence and to never dare make eye contact with him under any circumstance.

Next, they told us about the benefits and I have to admit, the place had insane benefits. At the time, that didn’t mean much to a single 22-year-old guy, but looking back, those benefits were awesome. The Indian guy was getting extremely hot in the pants about the benefits; it was like he won the lottery and kept joyfully muttering indecipherable words and shaking back and forth. The man from Zimbabwe, on the other hand, sat there in a daze. It was at the point that I was almost certain that he didn’t understand the English language whatsoever. This was because he looked lost and confused all morning, and answered or responded “yes”, “no”, “thank you”, or a mix of the three to everything.

Finally we got to the portion of the day where we play “Get to Know you” or as I refer to it “Prove You Aren’t a Robot” or “I Actually Have a Life Outside of Here”. I didn’t take this part seriously at all, and had fun with my responses. They asked us what our favorite movie was, and my response of “Teen Wolf” got a nice chuckle from the crowd. I was so impressed to discover that the people in the room had a sense of humor that I loosened up considerably after that. By the way, the Zimbabwe guy’s answer was a film called “Yes, No, Thank You”.

Then we had the always mandatory corporate team building project to tackle. They gave us a handful of Legos, no instructions, and told us we had to make a plane.  It was a comical disaster –- the Indian guy assumed the role of Head Lego Mechanic, Project Manager, Boss, and Lovable Screw-Up. He kept trying to put the propeller under the plane while the Zimbabwe guy kept insisting “NO, NO, NO!”  I am proud to say that we came in dead last and never put the plane together correctly.

The day came to an end, and it went much better than I thought it would. I looked forward to getting to do my actual job and meeting all the people I would be working with. My friend and I went to a nice little bar and talked about our day over a few drinks. Soon we would be like the hotshot suits at the bar, with twinges of gray in their hair, swinging around their scotch and martinis, then getting in a luxury sports car and heading home to a gargantuan house  in a development called something like Hunter’s Chase to the wife and 2.5 children. Looking back now, I was so foolishly full of ambition, hope, and hot air. 

Now, at age 35, I am happy to say I love working in a university setting. And consider myself to be a very loving father, have an awesome girlfriend, family, and friends, and I have skills to pay the bills (just barely). But I still skateboard, listen to hip hop music much more than a 35-year-old should, and have been pining for a Playstation 3. I don’t think I will ever act my age, but ain’t life grand!

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