June 3rd

I have spent the last 7 hours reading, talking, munching, smiling, traipsing, and yawning. None of the above was significantly related to working here at the #1 company in the world. I blazed a path through my daily allotment of labor in three quarters of one hour and since then I have oscillated between Fiesta and Siesta mode.

I inexcusably and unknowingly took part in a team building experience this morning. During the mid-morning hours, when I was just hitting my “looking busy/sexy while doing nothing” stride, my neighbors spontaneously combusted into conversation. The catalysts for this cataclysmic event were severe malnutrition of actual work, colorful commentary from the mouth of Johnny C, and the untested but dynamic social skills of yours truly. Sadly, Erica made the mistake of strolling by during the infant stages of the volcano, and, in the end, was the most severely burned.

The spark was the topic of violence in video games. Johnny C. filled us in on all the gory details; how you can beat, stab, run over, spray with bullets, whip, or curse passersby in the video game Grand Theft Auto IV. He’s never played, but all those who have are condemned to lifeguard the fiery puddles of not-Heaven, according to him. Through some clever twist of words which I am yet to completely interpret, he was able to blame Erica for these egregious acts – presumably because she is majoring in Digital Media.

John was in full plumage, flaunting his true feathers and claiming his son had “soft hands,” when some older gentleman came by and insinuated that John liked Martha Stewart and owned one of her baking aprons. Third generation Italians, apparently, don’t like to be emasculated, and John went to get his lunch two hours early (9:30am.) With the devil’s favorite advocate off to eat, the woman across from John’s desk grilled Erica and I on our backgrounds, with a flagrant emphasis on our outdoor skills. I lived up to her standards, being from Colorado, but the same can’t be said for Erica. I awkwardly tried to ask if anyone had ever heard of the parasitic bacterium that can take over a rat’s brain and control its functions (making it attracted to the smell of cats), but it came out wrong and I just sounded like an idiot. After my attempt, the conversation smoldered, finally dying; unarguable proof that I’ve got skillz that killz – both conversations and the dreams of the young.

I took a post-lunch walk around Chrysler with my only Indian in-mate, Sachin. We were successful in wasting the better part of an hour and avoiding socially relevant thoughts.

What do a teenage plankton’s diary and a Chrysler’s business plan have in common? Both dwell on how hard it is to survive at the bottom of the food chain -- and how unfair it is that life’s raspberry sundaes are doled out only to relevant members of society.