Death by Penguin
May. 7th, 2009 05:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xylieSo as a disclaimer the mood is really uneven here, I'm still working on how to balance that out.
Christian was AWOL, a battered git tutorial book on his desk. There are certain things I'd like to leave behind to loved ones before I disappear from the world forever, a tutorial on git isn't one of them. In fact, there several other version control systems I might take with me to the grave, but git was causing me a certain amount of annoyance that day and it hasn't risen in my esteem since.
Designed by Linus Torvalds, the Lord of Linux himself, git seemed at the hell bent on destroying what was left of my fragile hold sanity. EmbeddedSys, our small and equally fragile startup had just switched over from CVS, wholesale and without a thought as to how I was going to handle integrating 150 or so odd images from our user manual into a system that wanted to make them different files each time I changed so much as the shading.
Christian had been my lifeline until that point. Eternally neat and precise, our senior support engineer was working the weekend not because he had to, but because he didn't trust the rest of us to survive without him when he left with his wife on vacation on Monday. You wouldn't really guess he came from the land of the 35 hour work week or the month-long office shutdown. But then from my few years at Metacorp, I had very strong opinions on anyone who transferred in from France.
There are things to every job that no one tells you, you just find them out for yourself. When Bobby asked me to join him at EmbeddedSys, I gladly dumped everything I was doing and headed out into the world of start-ups. I was tired of the ID badges, the fancy gyms I never had the time to use, and the endless bickering of co-workers over whether to use "appears" or "displays."
Bobby never told me about the dope den, it was just something I had found on my own. Our CEO and founder Red McMullin, got the building for a deal. A real deal. No one else wanted it as it was an old silicon manufacturing warehouse, but Red liked the view of the back bay and the proximity to his old hotdog stand. And so we were in Redwood City, with a view of a thousand other nice, shiny buildings, and our own loading dock.
And dope den. The center of the building had a completely dark room, which reminded me more of an obuliette than I wanted to admit. You had to pass through it to reach yet another light-deprived room that had probably served as some sort of storage. Now it stored two couches and any number of Red's old bandmates who wanted to smoke out.
Christian, an avid smoker, usually took his breaks outside, but it was a cold and miserable day even for Redwood City, and I wondered if just maybe he had found the dope den an acceptable alternative. One cigarette, even the rather pungent ones Christian adored, would probably go unnoticed in there.
Cursing Bobby, I pushed my way through the dark doors and stepped into the room. My eyes took a long time to adjust, but what I saw just wouldn't register in my brain. In the "groovy" blue-black lights of the dope den, lay Christian on the couch. Something was wrong, horribly horribly wrong. And then it hit me. Knife in the shoulder blades.
I ran, through both sets of doors, out into the open air, cold and miserable as it was and I gasped. It was then it hit me. I was outside the building. No keycard, no keys, no purse, no phone.
The guys were probably playing a joke and laughing at me. Great. Nice. It's hard enough to be one of two girls in the entire company, aside from the admin. But now I was an idiot who couldn't use git and locked herself out of the building. Christian was probably laughing with Dave or Mitch at how easily I frightened.
Walked up to the door to bang on it, when I realized that perhaps all I needed to do was wait for them to open up and start laughing. It would be bad, but then it would be over. It's not like I wanted to go back to MetaCorp. And I could always get them back. Tinfoil over everything in their cubes, that sort of thing.
But no one was laughing. No photos. No "I have this on YouTube" which would have been a slight comfort. As it was starting to rain.
Our building as it turns out, has no gutters. Another one of Red's "deals" realized. Feeling somewhat concerned and yet also humiliated, I wandered off down the street towards Casi's. Casi's used to be called Casablanca until some studio or other decided the name was copyrighted. Casablanca the dive bar became Casi's Mexican Sports bar, replete with a Futbol Goat mascot. I'm not sure about the goat, but in the year since I've joined EmbeddedSys, I've enjoyed the change considerably. It's one of Red's favorite places, after the hotdog stand of course.
Casi's didn't actually have a pay phone any more, but Jo was working the bar and she let me borrow the phone. Jo's fairly handsome for 36 and has been married for the last few years to a beautiful woman, as she always says, but I know she let me have the phone because she's sweet on me. Something we've never said, and I don't care to open up. I was grateful for the use of the phone.
Bobby's advice in no uncertain terms was to wait there for him. Apparently police being involved was the last thing Red would want. Probably just a prank. If he hadn't been at yet another losing Giants game, maybe he would have been thinking clearer, but at the time he had other priorities and I wasn't one of them.
He did, however call up the intern Max, who ran most of our IT stuff and needed to check on the downloads server anyway, wake him up at 2PM in the afternoon, and get him to pick me up from Casi's. Jo talked us both in to beers (strictly bought with my ID) and by the time I headed back with Max to retrieve my things, I was sure everything was going to be all right. No need to panic.
But I did panic as soon as we were back inside. Christian's car was still parked at work, but there was no one in the building. Max, reluctant to spend even one Saturday of his winter break chained to a server, was perfectly willing to check out the dope den for me, but no one was there. He thought the whole thing was pretty funny, but I didn't. I grabbed what I had, thanked Max and headed home. Whatever bizarre games Christian was playing he could do it to someone else.
Christian was AWOL, a battered git tutorial book on his desk. There are certain things I'd like to leave behind to loved ones before I disappear from the world forever, a tutorial on git isn't one of them. In fact, there several other version control systems I might take with me to the grave, but git was causing me a certain amount of annoyance that day and it hasn't risen in my esteem since.
Designed by Linus Torvalds, the Lord of Linux himself, git seemed at the hell bent on destroying what was left of my fragile hold sanity. EmbeddedSys, our small and equally fragile startup had just switched over from CVS, wholesale and without a thought as to how I was going to handle integrating 150 or so odd images from our user manual into a system that wanted to make them different files each time I changed so much as the shading.
Christian had been my lifeline until that point. Eternally neat and precise, our senior support engineer was working the weekend not because he had to, but because he didn't trust the rest of us to survive without him when he left with his wife on vacation on Monday. You wouldn't really guess he came from the land of the 35 hour work week or the month-long office shutdown. But then from my few years at Metacorp, I had very strong opinions on anyone who transferred in from France.
There are things to every job that no one tells you, you just find them out for yourself. When Bobby asked me to join him at EmbeddedSys, I gladly dumped everything I was doing and headed out into the world of start-ups. I was tired of the ID badges, the fancy gyms I never had the time to use, and the endless bickering of co-workers over whether to use "appears" or "displays."
Bobby never told me about the dope den, it was just something I had found on my own. Our CEO and founder Red McMullin, got the building for a deal. A real deal. No one else wanted it as it was an old silicon manufacturing warehouse, but Red liked the view of the back bay and the proximity to his old hotdog stand. And so we were in Redwood City, with a view of a thousand other nice, shiny buildings, and our own loading dock.
And dope den. The center of the building had a completely dark room, which reminded me more of an obuliette than I wanted to admit. You had to pass through it to reach yet another light-deprived room that had probably served as some sort of storage. Now it stored two couches and any number of Red's old bandmates who wanted to smoke out.
Christian, an avid smoker, usually took his breaks outside, but it was a cold and miserable day even for Redwood City, and I wondered if just maybe he had found the dope den an acceptable alternative. One cigarette, even the rather pungent ones Christian adored, would probably go unnoticed in there.
Cursing Bobby, I pushed my way through the dark doors and stepped into the room. My eyes took a long time to adjust, but what I saw just wouldn't register in my brain. In the "groovy" blue-black lights of the dope den, lay Christian on the couch. Something was wrong, horribly horribly wrong. And then it hit me. Knife in the shoulder blades.
I ran, through both sets of doors, out into the open air, cold and miserable as it was and I gasped. It was then it hit me. I was outside the building. No keycard, no keys, no purse, no phone.
The guys were probably playing a joke and laughing at me. Great. Nice. It's hard enough to be one of two girls in the entire company, aside from the admin. But now I was an idiot who couldn't use git and locked herself out of the building. Christian was probably laughing with Dave or Mitch at how easily I frightened.
Walked up to the door to bang on it, when I realized that perhaps all I needed to do was wait for them to open up and start laughing. It would be bad, but then it would be over. It's not like I wanted to go back to MetaCorp. And I could always get them back. Tinfoil over everything in their cubes, that sort of thing.
But no one was laughing. No photos. No "I have this on YouTube" which would have been a slight comfort. As it was starting to rain.
Our building as it turns out, has no gutters. Another one of Red's "deals" realized. Feeling somewhat concerned and yet also humiliated, I wandered off down the street towards Casi's. Casi's used to be called Casablanca until some studio or other decided the name was copyrighted. Casablanca the dive bar became Casi's Mexican Sports bar, replete with a Futbol Goat mascot. I'm not sure about the goat, but in the year since I've joined EmbeddedSys, I've enjoyed the change considerably. It's one of Red's favorite places, after the hotdog stand of course.
Casi's didn't actually have a pay phone any more, but Jo was working the bar and she let me borrow the phone. Jo's fairly handsome for 36 and has been married for the last few years to a beautiful woman, as she always says, but I know she let me have the phone because she's sweet on me. Something we've never said, and I don't care to open up. I was grateful for the use of the phone.
Bobby's advice in no uncertain terms was to wait there for him. Apparently police being involved was the last thing Red would want. Probably just a prank. If he hadn't been at yet another losing Giants game, maybe he would have been thinking clearer, but at the time he had other priorities and I wasn't one of them.
He did, however call up the intern Max, who ran most of our IT stuff and needed to check on the downloads server anyway, wake him up at 2PM in the afternoon, and get him to pick me up from Casi's. Jo talked us both in to beers (strictly bought with my ID) and by the time I headed back with Max to retrieve my things, I was sure everything was going to be all right. No need to panic.
But I did panic as soon as we were back inside. Christian's car was still parked at work, but there was no one in the building. Max, reluctant to spend even one Saturday of his winter break chained to a server, was perfectly willing to check out the dope den for me, but no one was there. He thought the whole thing was pretty funny, but I didn't. I grabbed what I had, thanked Max and headed home. Whatever bizarre games Christian was playing he could do it to someone else.
