Saying Yes to a Liar

Posted on May 28, 2003 in Book of Days Silicon Valley Sorrow & Regret

Note: This is part of a series based on exercises from A Writer’s Book of Days. It’s something of a rebellion against the Friday Five and similar tupperware content memes.

Today’s topic: Write about a time someone said yes.

It was because I sent him a thank you letter for the interview that I got the job. To tell the truth, I was suspicious. He told me stuff about the computers that I didn’t quite believe. That they ran a CPM-like operating system that was a lot like MS-DOS, that CPM still lived, and that it had a future. I chose to write the thank you note as the job books recommended for the simple reason that he had given me an interview and I ought to show some gratitude. I took out a sheaf of the special paper I reserved for personal notes and a pen; and I put down my appreciation for his time.

I followed up with a phone call. He told me that he’d filled the position but he had another, more specialized one, more suited to my talents — as a computer operator — that he’d been dreaming of for a long time. I’d be using their “state-of-the-art” (state-of-the-dying-art) computers — which turned out to be Morrows, Osbornes, and a boiler plate kludge that had its own operating system like no other in the world. None of them could use the programs written for the others.

He said ‘yes’ to me and I took the job because in four months I was going to be marrying Lynn. I did not want to be shaking hands on my wedding day and saying, when they asked what I did, “I’m unemployed”. My mother gossiped about grooms like that and I could see her whiten as she stood in the receiving line listening to me say that.

So I took the job, I said ‘yes’ to him and I entered hell for four years — from 1988 to 1992. I took it because and only because I needed a job that would last longer than the string of temporary positions I’d surfed through. I chose a certain paycheck, pointless meetings, empty hours, poorly defined tasks, and an insane executive vice president — called the Evil One by by the stuttering acid-wrecked ex-Chico boy who worked in the materials warehouse — who liked to upset the concentration of people who were doing their jobs by calling them in for long, impromptu meetings in chairs that squared my butt into painful corners. He said ‘yes’ and I said ‘yes’ and taking that rutted road made all the difference. For four years of actual work and several more of therapy.

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Tomorrow’ topic/prompt: Before I was born.