What do you do?

Initech seems far away now. It’s nearly capable of being romanticized. It seems a long time ago, but that is just the experience fattening that silly goose, time. The jarred nerves from corporate life are rebuilding. Gradually that little kid is starting to show up a little more often. I notice small changes in me. Changes from being further removed from the captains of modern business or changes from being closer to something else, I don’t know. And, yet, as far as I may be from making pushpin designs in the soft fabric walls of a cubicle, it returns to me each day, an undeniable piece of my personal history.

People love to ask questions and want lovable answers. They want to know, it helps them. Helps them identify. Helps them talk. Talk helps them feel there somehow, alive somehow. ‘What do you do?’ They love the ring, the tone, the sound, the rhythm of the words as they bubble out of their mouths, ‘What do you do?’

What do I do when? Now? Then? Next? I want to ignore the question. Pretend I never heard it. Act like I have no intention of answering. It means nothing, really, what do I do? But it’s important for one reason or another and I know I will answer. I want to say ‘I’m an escort.’, ‘I’m a hand model.’, ‘I work for the witness protection program as a location scout.’, ‘I’m in the witness protection program’. But these are not the truths and in my own pursuit of the truth or something that feels a little honest, I am compelled to give the straight answer. And I am lost for words.

How do you say I did all these things and each one has a title but I never really was any one of those things and I really don’t do any of that anymore I hope? How do you give them enough so that the innocuous conversation starter what do you do doesn’t turn to seed-pulp in an instant. Some words have bad effects; corporate, technology, information technology, sales, education programs, nausea, glaze-over, All the words have their shortcomings, so I tell them honestly of my jack of all trade nature with the best title I can muster. ‘I’m the Prime Minister of the United States living in exile in Canada.’

They chuckle. They want to talk politics. I refuse. They forget about what I do because for now, I make funny. They want to talk politics – politics are funny. I refuse. They want to talk about the US and Americans and dirty little things. I refuse. They remember and ask ‘What do you do?’

Are we not the culmination of our experiences? Our lives are shaped each day by what we do, our actions. Once they occur they become what we’ve done. We hand people things and ring them up at cash registers. We make fittings that will be examined by experts. We write emails that make something happen which causes a little more or a little less stress. We screw up, we sit in meetings, we work weekends, we show up late, we win awards. Things we’ve done. In polite conversation they turn to what we do. But in polite conversation we don’t want to know what someone has done. We don’t want to know the details of a TPS report. We want to have some way to move the conversation along, share something interesting for a change. We want to meet escorts and drug dealers and witness protection program scouts and presidents and kings and prime ministers.

What do I do? For now, I hope. I hope for sun and more rain to cool it off. I hope to never experience dehydration again. I hope my flip-flops don’t blow out. I hope if my flip flops do blow out I wont hum Margaritaville while I hobble over the hill. I hope to meet more interesting people who after a day we will hug and be comfortable with our shared honesty. I hope for another text message to make me feel like the luckiest person alive. I hope someday the notes and the watching will come together into something interesting that helps someone making pushpin designs in a cubicle somewhere live a slightly better or happier or sillier life. That’s what I do. I hope.