It starts with a neck tie. Actually, it started long before the neck tie.

It probably had something to do with a steep decline of interest in my education, which was followed by a dive into lack of interest in anything at all. I didn’t start the new semester, I quit my job at the school newspaper and I started playing video games. I got really good at Call of Duty 4.

And all was well until one morning, while I was still in bed, I woke up at eleven o’clock and began staring at the ceiling. Don’t worry, there was no revelation of purpose or unifying of body and spirit to inspire me to a higher plane of existence. I actually just felt pretty shitty, you know, as a human being. So I called my brother in law, who works in a corporate office. I was ready to do pretty much anything really. I had even resigned myself to the point of working in a call center.

“Hey buddy,” he says. He’s a really nice person.

“Yeah, hey man. My dad was telling me you could maybe get me a job where you work. Do you think you could?”

“Well I could make a call but it’ll probably be a job in the call center. That’s where I started and it’s not too bad. You can move up pretty quick. Do you want me to call and find out?”

He’s been working here for almost five years. Pretty quick? Five years? But I didn’t care. I just needed something to do.

“Yeah, sure man, I mean thanks. I just need something to do,” I told him.

“Well let me find out and I’ll call you back.”

My Brother-in-Law called me back and said there was a job opening in his department. I interviewed waited about two weeks and got the job. So here I am, after a week and a half of sharing a desk with a guy, at my own desk. Waiting for a dude to come install some RAM on my dinosaur computer. I wish I was back in school.