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« on: December 19, 2010, 07:52:55 PM »
Title: @the water cooler
Excuse me, can I get a drink?
Oh, oops, sorry. You new here? I’m Orin.
Denton Arthur.
Wait, what? Are you serious? No way. Ha.
Huh?
Nothing, I’m just trying to estimate how many towels your gonna get at the company Christmas party…
Ummmm…yeah….still confused.
Don’t worry about it. You’ll catch up. So, how long you been here and what do you do for us, Dentarthurdent?
Um, I’m a linguist, started yesterday. Doing some translation work, but man, I gotta say I feel like I’m drowning already…
What!? Oh, man that’s rich. They got Denton Arthur to work on the Babel Fish project! No way. Superman has really outdone himself this time. Wow!
Superman? What?
Oh, sorry, Charles Kent in HR- you know, C. Kent? Clark Kent? Yeah, beyond that he does the work of like five guys around here, in on all sorts of projects. He’s a real Superman. Wicked sense of humor and irony too.
Oh, I get it.
I thought that there was no way that he would outdo hiring Jordo Harold to work on the green diode emitters. Anyway, I just moved from the deep-sea lab Atlantis, and now I’m working in the Physics Development department working with plasma. People shift around quite a bit here, you could say it’s a pretty ‘fluid’ working environment….get it? Fluid? Plasma?
Yeah, I got it.
Anyway, this place is great. I came out here right out of school, and man, I learned more in six months than I did in all my years of graduate work. And I’m not just talking work experience, earning a living type of knowledge. I’m talking “We’re gonna need a bigger boat!” type stuff. The best advice I can give you is to stay swimming on the surface until you can hold your own, ‘cause there’s some scary stuff floating around down in the lower currents.
I think I’m noticing that. I worked some uber-top secret NSA stuff before this, and this place blows them out of the water for secrecy. And I have no idea what some of this stuff means in English, how am I s’posed to translate it?
Yeah, I remember starting out- sometimes it was enough to make me wish I’d taken the bluepill.
Ah, I know that one- “The Matrix” right?
See, you’re getting’ it.
So, um, I’ve been wanting to ask this, but things were so closemouthed when I interviewed- what does this place do anyway? You’ve mentioned all these different projects; my own workload seems completely random. It’s like I’m translating for a robotics company, a glass manufacturer, a physicist convention, and a comic book store all rolled into one.
Oh, you just wait ‘til October rolls around again with Dress-up Fridays, it’s like freakin’ ComiCon in here. But, yeah, this place has a lot of crazy stuff goin’ on. In some ways, the Boss seems to want a deliberate Bruce Wayne-meets-Isaac Asimov type feel to the work.
Yeah, you lost me again…
Well, a lot of the stuff we do ends up working to catch bad guys. Surveillance and Armor Tech does a lot of military and police contracts. But then there’s the Miniaturization Department, and the Trade Nuclear Technology Systems. We keep joking that their gonna blow themselves up…TNT Systems and all…
Hmmm…do I really want to be working for a company like this?
Oh, don’t worry. It’s all completely safe. The place you should really be wary of is the Chaos Department. I haven’t even wanted to get my feet wet in that place. You ever see “The Abyss”?
No.
Yeah, you’ll probably want to start a list of books and movies to see. It’s almost a necessity to understanding this place. The unwritten motto is: “Bringing Sci Fi to Life.” It’s not technically a company. For tax purposes or something, it was established as a foundation, perpetually endowed. Do yourself a favor and kick Asimov’s Foundation Series to the top of that reading list. It will give you some flavor for what this place is about. Some people around here think that Asimov himself started this place. Personally, I think the Boss just has a penchant for keeping the Sci Fi theme.
Wow, that’s gotta be a rich endowment to afford what their paying me.
Yeah, they do pretty well here. It’s kinda odd though, because some things get patented and sold, but other things we develop don’t ever leave the compound, aren’t showed to anyone, and just seem to see the dusty side of a shelf as far as most of us can tell. And those are some of the neatest toys we make.
That seems weird.
Yeah, tell me about it. The weirdest part is that sometimes, people around here recognize the stuff they’ve developed out in the real world, but they know it hasn’t been sold to anyone. For instance, John who works with me now in plasma stuff- you remember last year that ferry that sank in the Red Sea with like 500 people on board?
Oh, yeah the one in the middle of the storm that sank completely before anyone could get out?
Yup, they showed some footage on the news and John says he recognized the burn and weld pattern of the cuts in the hull they had to make to get everyone out. It was very distinctive to the Lucas project he worked on.
What, you mean, like Star Wars and Lightsabers and junk?
The guy who headed the project is named Lucas. But weird coincidence, no?
Yeah, seems fishy. You sure this isn’t some sort of development plant to equip all the Justice League or something? I mean, you don’t have Wonder Woman’s invisible jet around here do, you?
Ha! If we did and I knew about it, I’d demand a ride instead of a Christmas bonus. But who really knows? It’s all so hush hush. You know you can’t talk about any of this outside right? Can’t even mention this place exists. It’s in the contract and they actually have some tech to enforce it. Mind wipes or something.
Yeah, wondered about that, but they're probably just overly worried about industrial espionage or something. I mean, c'mon, how do you not talk about what you do with people?
Pretty much I’ve resorted to devolving into advanced physics jargon when anyone asks me what I do. Usually they just go glaze-eyed and move the conversation somewhere else.
Yeah, no idea what I’m gonna say. How do you cope with the “mum’s the word”?
The only thing I’ve thought of is gabbing about what goes on with coworkers at the water cooler. Anyway, good luck, Dentarthurdent.
Ok, um, thanks. We’ll see ya around.
--REW