employablog

I has been looking for a job, and applying to medical schools and interviewing for both.

Now I have both.

But before this whole process began, I had scruff, and more importantly, I had hair like a Roman statue.  Long curly flowing locks, highlited by the sun into a golden-brown explosion of curls.  It was sexy, and less homosexual that it sounds.  And moreso, I liked having long hair, a lot.  And I don’t like having a beard, but the option of toying around is a grand option to have.

That said, I started my new job on Monday.  It is for real.  It is in an office, and I have magnetic ID tags on a boing belt clip that is infinitely fun to play with in the elevator.  The office I work at, it’s really an office, there are even pregnant women who work there.

Pregnant women are nothing new, nor is the fact that they too have jobs.  But suddenly becoming a coworker who has coffee breaks with pregnant women, I mean, that’s the real world.  I’m finally old enough to know people who are pregnant on purpose.  Before now, my exposure to pregnancy in peer was those bad girls in high school.

But now, now I’m really doing it.  And now that I’m in it, I’m growing out my hair.

For the previous four years, the few of my high school friends who wound up on the East Coast for school (including, of course, Employee Too), met in Boston or NYC to hold a Thanksgiving away from home. “It’s cheaper,” we said. Well, it was cheaper than flying home but I don’t think that’s why we did it that first year, and it’s probably not why we kept doing it all through college. It is definitely not why we gathered in Employee Too’s converted warehouse loft apartment in Brooklyn this weekend, as most of us are now holding down pretty respectable jobs.

These Thanksgivings are epic; they are grown up and immature, drunken and philosophical, warm and complicated. I am continually amazed by my friends from home and the relationships we’ve been able to maintain. There are some guys who know my entire history, and whose whole histories I know. We get together to keep ourselves updated on the twists and turns of each other’s lives, so as not to lose track of the narrative. It’s what make these Thanksgivings so important.

I’m sure at some point we’re not going to be able to hold these annual Thanksgiving reunions… other obligations will almost have to interfere. But I hope they don’t interfere anytime soon because the past five Late-Novembers have been incredible.

At least when the time comes that we are responsible for our own Thanksgivings with our own families, we are going to have a pretty significant head start on the rest of our peers who spent their early-twenties dutifully trekking home to their parents or their girlfriend’s parents or whoever most people have Thanksgiving with. We’ve got three pretty successful Turkeys under our belt, an amazing stuffing recipe, vegetarian know-how and well-honed sense of how much wine to buy. When the time comes, I will be sad and ready.

5:55 PM — Brendan is choking down the last of his plate. Employee One is recumbent in bed (non-responsive; potentially dead). David has accidentally spackled a floorcrack with a wayward blob of stuffing. Employee Too is delirious with food (or potentially, just himself - who can tell?). The Visa Halftime show ™ features Carrie Underwood. The dark side of Thanksgiving has reared its ugly, indigestive head.

Thank god pie goes in a separate stomach.

5:20 PM — fox football celebrates the holiday with a robot turkey that dances about the scoreboard before commercial breaks. some may think it’s to make turkey tough like football. but i think it a look into the future, when we all become robots and eat robot turkeys that robocook themselves. for now, while i am still bionic free, real turkey tastes real good.

4:58 PM — As our future immunologist, Charlie is worried about the potential for E coli infection. Something about undercooked breasts and whatnot. As a psuedo-vegetarian, Employee One is unconcerned. We’ll see how smug he looks when he realizes how delicious the gravy is.

4:51 PM — It’s a Thanksgiving miracle! We are putting on the finishing touches. The turkey is not dry (thanks mom!), the stuffing is delicious, Employee One’s chickenless pot pie is bubbling over, the salad is dressed, the wine is open, the pies are en route from Jersey, the gnocchi is simmering and the Dallas game is on the slingbox. I am proud about what this says about our professionalism.

4:03 PM — Is it too early for wine?

First, that looks like my hand, but it’s actually Employee One’s. Don’t ask.

Second, it’s definitely not too early for wine. Let’s hope it’s not too late.

3:35 PM — I’m surprised this hasn’t been mentioned. But there are rorcharch “boob” drawings painted on the loft’s steamed window pains. Steamed from the heat of fresh baked T-day turkey.

That was almost a haiku.

3:11 PM — We heard that the turkey is supposed to be at 160º throughout before it is edible. We don’t have a thermometer, so we are going to eyeball it. I’d say we’re at about 130º.

2:17 PM — So young. So professional.

2:11 PM — An unexpected guest arrives at the apartment . . . it appears to be the first female guest of Thanksgiving, here to steal our pie crusts. Ryan holds down the domesticity while the rest of us pretend to watch the football game on the wall. How did it get on the wall? It was epic - more that tale in time. Stay tuned . . .

1:58 PM — An added benefit of working in a restaurant that Employee Too didn’t mention was getting awesome recipe advice from the chef. Our stuffing is delicious.

1:54 PM — The turkey went in about two hours ago. Employee Too just made the call to put foil on the bird, so as to prevent burning. So far so good.

1:50 PM — We have just decided we are going to live-blog Thanksgiving. Nice.

This weekend almost all of my best friends from college returned to Boston for the big football game. Though we’ve only been graduates for five months, the weekend had the feel of a massive reunion. We traded stories of our glorious college days as if they happened years ago, and made pilgrimages to the old haunts like they were our ancestral homelands. In the mornings, we “slept in” until 9:30, when everyone’s body woke them up out of a newly-formed habit.

Everyone kept talking about how much they missed Boston. Obviously the experience was different for me - I haven’t had a chance to develop nostalgia because I never left. I didn’t feel sentimental until I put my last friend on the Red Line back to the airport. Then it hit me that the previous three days had been temporary, that this weekend wasn’t the beginning of another semester with all my friends, only a reunion. Probably the last one for a while.

With vague promises to visit cities scattered across the country, we all hugged and said goodbye and I walked home to do the dishes.

Everyone should work in a restaurant, you learn important things there.  As someone recently pointed out *probably Joel* struggle is more interesting.  It’s better to write about, it’s better to read about and hell, it’s perspective.  So, delving into my recent food service experience, in the first of many parts, I’m going to tell you about Jesus.

Jesus, pronounced “Hey, soos!,” stands just over five feet tall, and he does not have an easy life.  He works over 60 hours a week, often 18-hour shifts just to scrape by doing the shit work at my restaurant.  He walked to the border with his friend Felix, also a dishwasher (and also very, very small) over the course of a few weeks.  They were starving, but they made it.  And then they came to the United States.  Felix has a bit of a harder time than Jesus because apart from the blessed name, he also speaks an indigenous language, being fluent in neither English nor Spanish.

Jesus wears a red Yankees cap to work every day, and has a smile that stretches all across his face.  He has a slightly high pitched face, and really, is just an adorable little guy.  But he is 43-years old, and does not have an easy life.  He has children back in Mexico.  Once I wrote a script in English for him to go and buy an international phone card at the bodega, during which I realized, that I can write better in Spanish than he can.  Not as a matter of pride nor showmanship, but this poor guy never got a decent go, even in his native country.

Today Jesus showed up in his red cap, as always, but he was also wearing a smart button-down short sleeve shirt, with good pastels and stripes.

“Que guapo!” I told him, to which Jesus told me that today was an important day.  I knew, because yesterday, he opened his wallet and showed me a tiny scrap of paper with a name and a number: Elena, and we’ll go 555 … from there.

“Ella habla Español y Inglés, y solo cuesta trienta dolares,” Jesus me dijo.

“She speaks Spanish and English and only costs 30 dollars,” Jesus told me.

And even though era comprando amor para una noche, Jesus still dressed like it was his first date, and confessed to be just as nervous as he left work to go meet Mary Magdalene.

Last week’s trip to Dallas was not just a trip to Dallas. It was also the beginning of an epic challenge. And not just any epic challenge. No, this epic challenge has a name — the American Airlines Platinum Elite Challenge. At stake: Platinum Elite status on America’s largest airline. The terms: fly 10,000 miles in three months, and receive an automatic one-year status upgrade (a feat that normally would take a year of sustained devotion: 35,000 miles).

Now, I’m not sure what exactly Platinum Elite status gets you (it’s something about first-class upgrades, security line bypasses and access to those weird lounge things with the frosted glass that I used to walk past without a second glass on my way to Hudson News or the bathroom or whatever). But I’m always up for a challenge, and this is one I think I can win. Last week’s trip to Dallas knocked off 3000 miles, but since we flew first class I got credit for an extra .5 points per mile, bringing the total up to 4500. This week, I am in Tampa, adding another 2000 miles. The week after Thanksgiving the plan is to fly to Southern California, which should pretty well knock the 10,000 mile challenge out of the park, and all in under one month. That’s not even including the trips to Washington, Oregon and Indiana on the horizon.

Add it all up and I become Platinum Elite, a celebrated lifevest for a gasping airline industry.

But what does it all mean (besides the obvious: that this man’s life has a degree of sadness to it that isn’t palpable exactly, but is close enough to the surface that he needs some sort of superficial affirmation that he isn’t throwing it all away waiting in terminals)? I mean, what does platinum even look like? Is it better than diamonds? How come it’s not Diamond Elite? That actually sounds like a cool name for an American Gladiator…

My point is this. In less than three weeks, I am going to be Elite. Platinum Elite.

Ok, that’s not really a point, but it is a fact. And this fact is going to enable me to say non-sentences like “Excuse me Miss, but I’m Platinum Elite…” and have wonderful things lavished upon me. At least I hope. Because otherwise, all this travel sure could get a man down.

Nine to five … ten to six.  Even though I am busier than I have ever really been before, for the first time the ‘work’ is stuck in its own zone.  It isn’t allowed out of it’s time relegation, and if it rears it’s stinky little head, I beat it back with a broomstick.

Which nearly just happened.  I consolidated my jobs.  Like, loans, per se, jobs can pile up, and I was nearing four or five.

Research Assistant

Waitor / Manager

MCAT Teacher

MCAT Curriculum Writer

MCAT Tutor

And then there are my writing projects.  Needless to say, I was stressed.

But then, I started pooling them.  Three of said jobs are for one company, so I X-ed one before it began (MCAT teacher) and got officially signed up for the tutoring job very, very, very part-time.

The waitor job is going to only live on Sunday brunch once the MCAT writing job starts, and the health study should be ending in the next few weeks.  My life really was one of those shifty puzzles.  And like, say, a shifty puzzle, or, more realistically the New York Times crossword, the solution feels damn good.

Now, when I get home from work and the gym, I am home.  I can watch moves, I can paint, I can play guitar.

All this can, comes from the fact that when I get home, I’m there man, I’m there.

The Dallas “Metroplex” is not like any city I’ve seen. The airport is easily the size of Boston itself, and that is just a preview of the spectacle to come. No matter where one drives, a skyline looms somewhere in the distance. At first, I thought it was the same skyline; presumably downtown Dallas. But as my boss and I traveled further and further across the vast swath of Northern Texas over which the city splays, it became clear that every skyline was its own city.

I use the term city loosely, because in fact these consolidated clusters of corporate construction were created prior to the needs of the communities they serve, built across dozens of acres with more of an eye towards the future of the business’ expanding empires than the subtleties of urban design. Like plastic flowers in a dry dusty vase, these skylines sit indifferent to the typically life-sustaining urban features like apartment buildings, taxis, grocery stores and corner delis.

Beginning in the morning, these cities suck in their collective gut and draw to them people from all corners of the Metroplex. At 5pm, Dallas undoes its belt and the people flow back to their homes on impossibly large highways under impossibly stark sunsets. Caught in the ebb and flow are large number of the young analysts in the business and financial services industry, of which I am now a part.

It was in this flow that I discovered the Dallas Rule: on any given weeknight, at least one of my dozen-or-so friends in the consulting and finance industry is in Dallas. The implications are that no matter what you’re working on, every night in Dallas has the potential to be epic.

The catch to this rule is that most of the time you would never even know that your former roommate might be sleeping four rooms down at the Westin, since it’s not like we’re checking in with each other every time we travel. Unless it comes up some other way, you’re never going to find out that they were there when you were.

This week, the stars aligned and one of my best friends from college not only was in Dallas (which, as i have demonstrated, is not actually a large coincidence, given the Dallas Rule), but we also knew of each other’s presence and were able to sneak an extra night in at the tail of our business trips. It was thus that we found ourselves in a Pro Bass Shop, shopping for camouflage hats to wear to the Texas Stampede Rodeo and out in to the streets of the “real” City of Dallas.

Suffice to say, I spent a week in Dallas last night.

In a little over two weeks, I’m going to be wearing business casual.  We all do it, we all do it plenty whether or not we’re going to a job, but this instance will be for a job.

After finishing all my interviews for this job, I felt pretty good about myself, I took a black and tan up on the roof of my new place, looked across the East River and took stock, looking across at all of Manhattan splayed out in front of me.

I used to watch the cars drive by across Lake Calhoun at night.  Now I do the same, looking across the river at the cars speeding up and down the FDR.  And now, I am in a different place.  Coming to New York can make you feel like an immigrant even if you are from this country, and even if you’ve spent a fair chunk of time there.  And if you spend about half of each work day speaking in Spanish rather than English, well, that doesn’t make you feel any less foreign.

But I made my dent in this city.  Each day, furiously flailing toward progress or some semblance there of, my arms have been sore, but I never stopped.  And now, in just over two weeks, I start writing Kaplan’s MCAT review content.  And who better to do it than me?  I’m going to be a surgeon, it’s set, my deposit for med school is literally in the mail, and going back to my roof, it feels pretty good.

In college I’d freaked.  What now, what after?

Financial independence, har har.

But now I’m there.  When people on the street ask me for money, I’m no longer inches away from breaking down and showing them just how poor I am.

Hell, now I can even afford to the gym I just joined.

For a long time I scoffed at the idea of Daylight Savings. Or, more precisely, at the idea of going off of Daylight Savings. If saving daylight is the goal, shouldn’t we keep it all year long?

But now, the time at which the sun sets is really not that important to me: I will be in the office whether the sun goes down at 4pm (as it will shortly be doing here in Boston), at 5pm, at 6pm, at 7pm and most likely at 8pm too. For the first time in my life, the time at which the sun rises is more important.

The only chance I have to experience actual daylight is in the mornings, before work, when I decide to go for a run. This had been progressively more and more difficult as sunrise kept creeping later and later. The ranks of the morning joggers had been dwindling, the layers of clothing required increasing.

But now that we aren’t saving daylight anymore, I have a chance. When the alarm goes off at 6:30, the sun is just peaking over the harbor, ready to softly light the paths along the Esplanade of the Charles River with a faded and cool yellow-blue glow that is the daily secret of the ambitious young professionals who meet there to fight the wind, cold and quiet to reclaim some daylight.

At the very least, the end of daylight savings has delayed my inevitable purchase of an over-priced and under-used gym membership for at least four weeks. And for that, daylight savings time, I salute you. And I owe you $85.