Saturday, May 3, 2008

Light

As I considered the middle aged man being wheeled out on a stretcher by the medical personnel I’d seen previously rushing into the office, I thought perhaps this was not the optimal harbinger of a good first day spent at the headquarters of my new company in San Jose, CA.

He was calm, his face splattered with bright red blood which had emanated from his rather prominent proboscis. I sat there in the lobby, patiently awaiting my first day of new hire training. I hoped this was not a common occurrence, or something indicative of the new culture I was about to be initiated into.

Training was something to which I had really been looking forward. Both because I have just moved not only to a new industry, but also a new customer base entirely.

My background in semiconductor technology is an asset for my current role selling Light Emitting Diodes (LED’s), mind you, but there is a tremendous amount for me to learn. Exactly what I was after, rebooting my career along with the rest of my life, but seriously uncomfortable nonetheless.

The other reason I was looking forward to the week was the chance to actually see the SUN and perhaps even feel warmth. Unfortunately, My Love could not accompany me so the nights would still be cold and lonely.

The other new hires and I were escorted into the conference room, our new home for the next three days. We were served Starbucks coffee, a good omen cancelling out the bloody faced dude. At least in my mind.

We were treated to a light show, the room being rigged with the best of our technology to show off to customers. Quite impressive. Blinding. But impressive. I’m getting used to having to squint to actually see the products my customers create with our LED’s. The standard process is for them to haul out some big hunk of metal and glass, turn off the lights in the conference room, point it straight into my face, and calmly announce, “Check that out.”

What I am typically checking out is a neck jerkingly blinding flash of light searing permanent spots into my corneas. “Nice, looks great,” I meekly reply wiping the protective tears from my now useless eyes.

I was in a good mood, for that week, though. Not just because of the training, but also because I was able to get out for a few runs and actually got some non-artificially generated light to shine on me.

I had been put up in a “Homewood Suites”, a low rise collection of suites housing the lonely business travelers. It was where I had stayed for my interview as well. As you recall from that blog, the suite is so big it pisses me off because it is basically the size of my apartment but with newer appliances and somebody cleans up every day.

One nice thing about my room this time was the flowering tree right outside my door, a picture of which I show here.

Beautiful fragrant life.

I did notice, however, that I had not scored a room sporting a kickin’ little patio, like my across the walkway neightbors:

Just think of all the fun I could have there.

The one thing I found disconcerting about my hotel room was the matching drapes and bedding. Now, the fact that not only the pattern but also the material is an exact match was the not the worst part. The trouble was that the pattern distinctly reminded me of a field of alien invaders staring down at me, waiting for me to fall asleep so they could invade me in some unpleasant way. Don’t just take my word for it, look at their wide unblinking eyes and imagine yourself trying to relax under their watchful gaze:



On my second morning, I sat in my hotel room “office”, sipped the free coffee from the lobby and read the USA Today. I noted the stock of Crocs had dropped $7.68 to $10.11 the day prior, having been as high as $75.21 a share previously. The newspaper accompanied this grim article with a representative picture of a pair of these shoes, adorned with a young lady’s name. It happened to be “Ashley”, and that seemed to fit perfectly.

After my morning coffee and elimination, I trotted out for my run. I had planned to blindly jog around and just trust the universe that I would find a good path.

The stupidity of this naïve plan hit me in the form of a bitterly cold, dark Californian morning.

I ventured, instead, to the exercise room. This would more accurately be described as the exercise closet.

Stepping onto the ancient, overworked, undermaintained treadmill, I noted the sign on the wall which read, “No food, drinks, or horseplay.”

Now, the horseplay, I’ll give them. But food and drinks? Hasn’t anybody heard of sports nutrition in this crap hole?

I sweated out a quick 3 miles and as the sun was rising, ventured outside.

I wound my way down the sidewalk, heading west towards the nearby airport. On the satellite Google map, I had noticed there was a river that way, and I wanted to explore it.

Along the sidewalk, there were a number of large rectangular sheets of plywood lying on the grass. Each was marked in florescent orange letters, “Open Hole”. Not really truth in advertizing since, of course, the very sign created a “Closed Hole”, if there really was a hole there at all (I didn’t check, and didn’t have my camera on me to record this incident).

Just a little way down, there it was, the Guadalupe River trail. Excellent, a running path along the river I had seen, I guess my plan was working out after all!

It was still a chilly morning, but the brilliant sun was up and the light was shining down upon me, slowly starting to defrost my Midwestern carcass.

I ran, fast, free. I was smiling, looking at the greening life on each side of the gravel path. Much of the life was weeds, I suppose, but it was green life nonetheless and not some snow covered asphalt and I was happy to see it! Besides, what are weeds but just really badass plants that have succeeded along their evolutionary path.

Anyway, I was smiling like a mad man and saying a cheerful good morning to anybody that passed. I’m sure I raised a few red flags, but luckily I looked harmless enough so people just let me be.

I ran and ran, and finally reached a busy, wide road. I looked at my watch and it had been exactly 15 minutes since I started. I had wanted to run for 30 minutes to compliment my treadmill time, so I was happy it worked out so nicely. (When I later plotted out my run on mapmyrun.com (can you say “anal retentive”), it worked out to a exact 4 miles. Excellent.)

As I ran, I was accompanied by the wide-body impossibly flying painted aluminum frames of various aircraft taking off and landing at San Jose International airport. I ran among them, free, although I, earthbound, could not sail as high. At least I was not full of 100 pissed off human beings. Just one, at the most.

I turned back, and sprinted home. Well, not actually home, but back to the free crappy breakfast and the aliens in my bedroom. The sun was now right in my eyes. I stared into it, blatantly disregarding years of advice and common sense. I wanted to feel the heat, the light, sear into my brain. I finally closed my eyes, but not too tightly. My vision turned bright red, I fantasized that the blood in my lids was being lit and I could make out the very veins themselves.

As I stumbled through the busy intersection back to my hotel, I once again questioned my own sanity.

I would question my sanity once again on the last evening of my trip. I had been a guest of excellent dinners all week, twice with large fun groups of people, and the evening prior with one of my friends from my old company who lives in the Valley.

The last night I found myself alone, and was happy for it as I had a 6AM departure flight and therefore would be rising at 4AM.

I decided, against by better judgment, to partake in the free dinner buffet hosted in the hotel lobby.

The calendar on my refrigerator declared that evening “Grilled Cheeseburger and Hot Dog Night”. I figured, hey, they had me at Cheeseburger. Throw in a Hot Dog, and I’m your man.

I was early, and decided to pour myself a free Bud Light from the tap into a small Styrofoam cup. That was so wrong on so many levels, but I really needed the drink and it was either that or a jelly jar glass of White Zin from the nameless carafe chilling in an ice bed beside the keg.

I ventured out to the pool, laid down on one of the chaise lounges, and proceeded to drink myself into that wonderful hazy state that, coupled with the bright sun beating down upon me, was as close the heaven as I was likely to get without My Love being there.

Alone for only awhile, I noticed a trickling of women coming into the pool area. The trickling soon became a veritable flood, and I was immersed in a sea of bad hair and inane conversation.

Apparently, this was some sort of convention. The snippets of speech I heard had to do with things like “I told her, if you just buy a few bottles from me, you’ll be coming back for a case soon anyway, and that really is a much better deal.” For all the discussion I heard, I couldn’t figure out what kind of nectar these ladies were peddling, but I assumed it was not the Bud Light I was currently enjoying (way too much, mind you).

The proprietor of the hotel, a large slowly moving man wearing suspenders not at all for the fashion statement but purely out of keep-your-pants-up necessity strolled out to the pool. This was his moment to shine. He had slaved over a hot grill making the food for that evening, and was now telling the assembled throng his bounty was ready to bestowed upon them.

I waited 20 minutes or so, still giddily soaking up the sun, and walked into the lobby.

I soon became aware that I was the only piece of meat in the lobby that evening, save for the grilled variety. The song, “Hungry Eyes” pierced my brain. Looking at you, I can’t disguise.

The line for the free salad bar, and the meat was astounding. The cacophony of the “bottles of whatever” discussions became overwhelming. It was all I could do to pour yet another cup of Bud Light and stagger back to the sanctuary of the pool.

I finally did get to eat that evening, a rather unimpressive hockey puck of meat on a bun, followed by a passable Frank. I guess the busses had finally come to pick up the matronly mob.

With that, I retreated to my room, the sun still glowing, backlighting my alien watchers, turned off the light, and went to sleep.

The specks of light still dancing in my corneas were like stars in the endless sky above.

(By the way, I found out later during a fabrication facility tour that the gentleman I had seen earlier being wheeled out of the office was an employee of our tour guide at the moment. He had suffered a seizure during a routine meeting, and repeatedly hit his face on the conference room table before his team could sedate him and call for help. He had already talked to his boss and was planning to return to work soon.)

2 comments:

Bettie K. said...

Question....was the seizure due staring into countless light bulbs? Is this considered one of your job perks?

Second....I guess you have never been up to our bedroom; I purchased the same bedspread/curtain ensemble from Linen's N' Things....

Third....If I ever do go back to work, I was thinking about peddling "liquid in bottles"; I bet, however, you would have thought those ladies were awesome if they were selling Redkin products :)

AMLite said...

Sarah!

So, my second post where I inadvertently rip you!

First of all, the Jeep. My rental is a stripped down metal box on wheels, nothing like your suburban cruiser! I got the cheap Jeep, baby.

Secondly, I haven't seen your bedroom so didn't know you had the Linen's N' Things package set. First of all, haven't you ever heard of Bed Bath & Beyond? Secondly (a nested First and Second!!!), I didn't mean to rip on all coordination in the bedroom, just these aliens were freaking me out!

I don't mind if the Drapes match the Comforter, girl friend!