ICYMI: I just passed the 25th anniversary of my first day at Turner Broadcasting, my first “real”* job
*This term is so silly, like the work that I did serving people chicken or delivering drugs for a pharmacy or ringing up people’s items improperly at Caldor** somehow isn’t real work. And that the people who do these things aren’t really working. As any actor will tell you, “work is work”
**To say that I was bad at my job ringing people’s items up at Caldor is such an understatement that I’m not even sure how to clarify it other than to say that they tracked people’s scanning percentage as an incentive (the person with the highest scanning percentage won some kind of prize). The average was somewhere around 97%. Good was 95%. Terrible was 90%. I was routinely in the 80s. Needless to say, I didn’t last long. There’s a whole chapter about this in my upcoming book (estimated date of completion June 2032)
As I’ve stated before, I try not to dwell on the past too much, but this type of milestone always gets me thinking a bit. 25 years is a long time. Frankly, in my head, I’m still 25 years old, so it’s hard to fathom how I’ve been alive for so long, much less gainfully employed.
Old is a funny thing. My parents actually laugh when I refer to myself as old, not only because I’m not old, but also because they are. And that’s not a dig - I know people like to soften the notion of aging by calling themselves older but at this point my parents have both exceeded the average life expectancy of an American of their respective genders. Empirically speaking, they’re old. That comes with a lot of things: perspective, risk aversion, arthritis, you name it. And not to go too deep into generational shit, but my parents having been born at or near the end of WWII, are also part of a generation that seems to have amplified all of the qualities of being young and being old and cast a gigantic shadow over the last 60 years of history in a way that my generation almost certainly won’t.
As usual, I’m off track.
I think the point that I’m clumsily trying to make is that if you’re around long enough, your experience becomes a part of who you are. I’ve been so fortunate in my career to have amazing managers and mentors to help guide and educate me about what it means to be professional, how to do a job, how to have pride in the job you do and follow through on the things you promise. What your word means. Things like that. I’ve been lucky enough to be around really smart and talented people who’ve shown me what real leadership looks like. And of course, I’ve been to all manner of places and events that I’d never dreamed of attending when I was a spritely young buck growing up in Rockland County, NY.
25 years ago, I sat at a desk and found ways to get advertising onto websites. People walked to that desk, put a piece of paper in a tray (my “inbox”) that told me what and how much to put into a system and I did it. That was my job. Sometimes, there were bagels. Occasionally, we had cake for someone’s birthday. Frequently, we went out after work. I wore a tie.
Today, I sit at a desk in my house and I effectively do the same thing, but without any paper or in-person meetings. And no tie. Pretty wild. More efficient. Slightly less contact with the outside world, but you can’t have everything.
And that’s the last 25 years. What about the next 25?* Again, 25 years is a long time, but I think we’re getting a peek at how people will view the world with things like Apple VisionPro and Meta Ray-Bans. Personally, it seems insane to me that people would want to look through glasses that they wear 24/7 to augment reality in some way or to film a POV video of them shoving pasta into their mouths - but it’s really no different than me busting out my phone to find out how old Charo is* when I’m watching an old episode of The Love Boat. Imagine walking down the street and looking at a store or a restaurant and without wondering, up pops the hours of operation and the menu, as well as a link to make a reservation. Pretty wild and marginally time-saving!
*I may have told this story already, but I took a class called “History of the Future” when I was a freshman in college. I won’t go too deep here, but the important part is that in my memory, he played the song “In the Year 2525” by Zager and Evans before every single class. And man, by year 6565, some shit has gone down. Also, 10/10 for Zager’s goatee
**This is a subject of great debate. Charo has very notably sown deep confusion about her what her actual age is, which good for her. I find it difficult to believe she’s only 73 as she claims, if only because she’s been around for a million years, but she’s made it so difficult to figure out the truth that the world may never know. UNSOLVED MYSTERIES
But, and hear me out on this, to some extent the notion of augmented reality is another step in the direction of different realities. And that’s a bit concerning to me. It wasn’t so long ago that we all at least had basic agreement about the veracity of certain things. If you’re augmenting your reality in a way that wildly diverges from mine, we’re naturally not just going to develop different opinions but different versions of the premises that we think make those opinions valid. I find it difficult to see how anything like that can be bridged. It starts to get a little depressing from here, so I’m going to stop.
I don’t know what my job will be like in 25 years. I certainly have no idea what the world will look like in 25 years. If I’m lucky, I’ll be retired on a ranch in Montana somewhere and this ranch will take care of itself because I don’t have the first clue on how to maintain a ranch.
I was sitting here trying to think of a little postscript for this issue. And I started thinking about the fact that this is a leap year and then I thought about the movie Leap Year and then I thought about driving to see Leap Year. And then I thought about Interstate Highways. And then I thought about how the Interstate Highway System is a miracle. And then I thought about train of thought. And then I thought about the hotel in an active train station that I stayed in Monday night. And then I remembered I got very little sleep. And then I figured that’s why none of this makes sense.
That’s it for this week. Until next week, friends.
Great minds think alike, Geoff… In my mind I’m perpetually 27 as well. Thanks for the validation! And no Charo is definitely not 73. …Unless I’m definitely 27. ;)