Where you been?

I started a new job yesterday, but it was the most comfortable first day ever. There weren't any awkward moments at the water cooler. I didn't have to wander around wondering where the copy machine or the restroom was located, before sheepishly introducing myself to one of my new co-workers and asking for assistance, being forced to endure some small talk and a "welcome aboard" or a "glad to have you here", and a "don't hesitate to ask me if you need anything at all". I sat in my new cubicle and worked, hardly being interrupted at all by somebody returning from the breakroom to ask me some generic questions about what I'm working on, or what my job responsibilities are going to be.

Today, I didn't at all feel like a 5 year old kid going to day 2 of kindergarten, wishing that my mother wouldn't drive away and leave me here and hoping that the other kids will be nice and let me play with them. It felt more like day 502 than day 2. It was as if I went home on Friday May 2, 2003, and over the weekend the calendar fast forwarded to November 15, 2007. You see...I've worked with all but 2 of these folks before. Everybody's first day at a new job should be this comfortable. You know how you feel when you go back to your parents' house and feel as though you can still navigate your way in the dark from the front door all the way to your room at the back of the house without ever bumping your shin on anything nor allowing the floorboards to creak since you've memorized each spot, and can contort your body like Baron Francois Toulour in Ocean's 12 dodging the laser beamed alarm system, to ensure that nary a creak awakens your mother and unleashes her wrath upon you.

It was exciting to see people making copies, sending faxes, and just...moving around with a sense of purpose! (This was in sharp contrast with the company I just left that, on a good day, resembled a mausoleum; correction a recently raided mausoleum with its scattered remains littering the walkways). Where there was talk of gloom and doom, now there is optimism and promise. Laughter and productivity have replaced the whispering and apathy.

In the Fresh Prince dream sequence version of my departure from that last company, my CEO and other execs would be clad in knee length rabbit coats,gators,feather adorned fedoras and struttin around with canes held by hands with pinky rings giving this narration as I clean out my desk and head for the door:


http://video.music.yahoo.com/up/music/music/?rn=1301797&vid=44407339&stationId=&curl=http%3A%2F%2Fsearch.music.yahoo.com%2Fsearch%2F%3Fm%3Dall%26p%3Dinternational%2Bplayer%2527s%2Banthem

Spaceships don't come equipped with rearview mirrors, they dip...as quick as they can the atmosphere is narr..shoot the moon, like a preemi out the womb..reconsider...don't do it..read some liter-ture on the subject...you know we got yo' back like chiro-prac-tic...too soon...keep yo' heart 3 stacks...keep yo heart...