RETURN TO THE BAY STATE

MASSACHUSETTS

My parent's were happier than anyone about my employment status - a good, seemingly cushy job at a big, money making local tech outfit.  I didn't get rich, but I made more than my share as a 25 year old.  So I cashed checks, bought paint, drank beer, and traveled to Europe.  I even was sent to live and work in Ireland for a year at the height of the tech bubble.  At one point, I had over $250,000 in stock options, which I always found laughable.  My dad yelled at me when I showed him the slip of paper and told him 1) they're overvalued, and 2) I won't be around long enough to collect any money.  I think I actually saw three years of his life escape his body right before my eyes.  Of course, no one predicted the type of fall in stock price, and those options never would never rise over the value of that single sheet of printed paper.

Work, as easy to complain about it, wasn't all that bad.  I made sleek little charts and graphs detailing product performance, learned a bunch of really geeky business terms (of which I don't remember any), and looked at the whole affair as a big game involving big personalities.  Luckily, I got along and liked most everyone I worked with, reveled in everyone's foibles and usually was able to make people smile once in a while even on those Fridays when people were getting laid off.   When I started, I was a mac user who had never used Windows in my life.  On my first day, I looked for the coolest guy in the office and he taught me how to double click.  I wore ties from thrift stores to work, and cheerfully worked through hangover after hangover waiting for the next time I would be able to use my passport. 

Of course, my jet set lifestyle didn't set well with everyone.  My brother was especially jealous, having worked hard through school to earn his degree, saw his wayward art school graduate brother make money with ease and travel the world while doing it.  My uncle would write stories and poems for birthdays and Christmas about my good fortune, one of which had about 10 different meanings for the word EMC: Even Michael's Collecting was one of them.  Now that I barely make 1/4 of the money I made there, most of those complaints have stopped.

I never honestly thought I'd stay as long as I did, the corporate life was full of rigors I would never have imagined or encountered ever.  One of my co-workers joked in front of his young daughter that 'one day, Michael will be Vice President'.  She immediately scoffed at the thought, and blurted out, "Vice President???  He's not even the Vice President's Secretary!!!'  If she only knew how right she was.

I always wanted to write a book of my experiences, but three years later I feel too far removed to remember all the little specifics that would've knocked The DaVinci Code off the bestseller's list.  And so it is, three years later, my cube hasn't changed much, the corkboard was faded with the squares of all the little news clippings and funny little pictures I posted and left behind.  Most of the people I worked with were gone now, some victims of the fallout from the collapse of the tech industry after 9/11, others moved on to other departments.  Still, the cubes remained, and the eerie quiet that permeated the grey world started to freak me out.   There was a palpable grim frustration among the survivors, who remember the old days of high priced stocks, tickets to ballgames and corporate trips across the globe. 

Since I took a voluntary layoff and three months severance pay, I now make a quarter of what I did in a good year.  I've dropped out of the rat race completely now, going so far now as to eschew even the thought of getting a job as an alternative to being flat broke all the time.  I'm a painter now, and I'll live and die by the brush.  Once the market rebounds, maybe all those stock options will be put to good use by those hearty survivors decorating their plush new homes with nice new art and then we all can be happy again.