WB:CO episode 2

Well, I'm feeling a little burnt out so I'm gonna post this short speech i wrote and presented as part of the attachment program i was doing for school.
I'll try to write more next week, don't want to disappoint my readers, all one of you.

IA presentation :Reflection

Just a mere six fleeting months ago, the prospects of having to work as an intern for the Industrial Attachment program, plunged me into a dark, gloomy pit of despair without a change of clean underwear. And the floor of the pit was rather damp so that was a very uncomfortable situation for me.

You see, my dearests, I have long had this little thought in my head that if I were to somehow become forced by circumstance to take up a desk job, that that would be the end of me. Of course, I did not mean that it would be the mortal end of me, but rather the intellectual, idealistic, hopeful me would most certainly slowly shrivel up like a scrotum in a cool breeze to form a singularity of depression, drugs and cheap whores.

So when the Industrial Attachment officially ended last Friday and instead of feeling joyous, emancipated, vindicated and relief, I felt the slight twinge of longing, like the pulling of heart strings I didn’t know I had, that accompanies premature goodbyes. The tinge of sourness at the base of the tongue, the lump in the throat, the heaviness in the stomach, coupled with the lilting melancholic atmosphere of John Denver’s “Leaving on a Jet Plane” and when the horns and strings kick in that’s when the bus comes to take me away and in cinematic slow motion as it pulls away, I turn to take one last look at the place I just spent working at for six months, the song builds to a crescendo. Fade to black.

[take dramatic pause]

So what caused this apostasy? Could it be because my supervisor treated me to a pizza farewell lunch? That explains the heaviness in the stomach. Could it be that my principles are worth less than a couple of slices and a few chicken wings? Could it be that I have somehow unknowingly become the company’s bitch?

Nay, if the industrial attachment taught me anything it is that everything I suspected about what some people call the ‘working world’, the ‘real world’ or the ‘rat race’, if you will, was all very and utterly right on target. Long, cold, boring days spent in a sterile environment, hopeless and gray, everything you do is in an automated, zombie like fashion.

No, those faint tuggings were not on heart strings, they were the dust and cobwebs accreted on my atrophied heart, vainly clinging on to what had become familiar.

So it was familiarity that was the cause of my embarrassingly maudlin farewell. And it was familiarity that was also what I feared the most, it is like being with crazy bondage fetishists, its all fun and games until she takes out her secret stash of razorblades, lighters and knives and you realise too late that you can’t escape because she has tied you to the bed. That was a painful lesson, I won't soon forget.

It sneaks up on you.
One day, you’re a 20-something, bright eyed, vivacious, go-getter with the world at your feet, the next moment you’re deep into your 40s, still stuck at the same job for the last 12 years, with a wife that is totally not what you expected to end up with when you said ‘til death do us part’ and four boisterous, annoying black holes of time and money your wife insists you call your children.

That is not to say that my experience in the company was a living hell, far from it. The people were nice enough, then again most people usually are. But I am thankful that I was assigned to my supervisor, he was the only one who seemed to take time out from work to check on my progress and explain various things happening in the workplace. Oh dear, is my effeminate side showing again, I do apologise. And I’m not just saying that to ingratiate myself to him, he’s not even here.

Now on to lessons. What have I learnt from the experience? The value of a dollar? How to put on the appearance of being productive? The importance of diligence? Or perhaps even *gasp* Company Secrets?
In terms of relevance to my course of study I cannot honestly say that I have learnt much of great value. Nacelles were barely even touched on in our modules. However if one insisted, on the threat of forceful kick to the groin, I suppose I could posit that I gained some insight to how a nacelle is repaired.

In summary, the Industrial Attachment program wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, although it really only served to reaffirm my suspicions about the ‘working life’.
To quote Jim Halpert, “If this was my career, I’d have to throw myself in front of a train.”