a means to an end - overwhelmed in the land of mao pt.1

a little over a year and a half ago, i got a job doing something not befitting a person of my educational background - a quality assurance analyst position with metlife. i'm not dumb, but i was in no position to get this job. with very little computer experience, having not taken a single real computer class in college - i did take a microsoft office class freshman year, booya - and no real idea what quality assurance was in the first place (i looked it up in the dictionary before the interview), i owe it to a good friend of mine, der grossman chucky d, for getting my foot in the door. but i'm not dumb; i still had to nail two interviews, and of course did so convincingly. this job was the best that came my way after moving away from boulder. it was the highest paying job as well, and what do you know, i got to work with my best friend at the same time. i accepted the job with open arms.

i began the job unqualified, but i found out quickly the job was not difficult. i was a pawn, had absolutely zero input on projects and little on strategy, but i was also 24, so whatever. after a while, i realized i dislike staring at a computer screen for 8 hours a day, but as it turns out, i got to work with a bunch of really cool people, so this job was totally doable. you also have to remember that a job is exactly that - a job. it was something to do during the day. it provided money. it provided records. records like radiohead's ok computer, beta band ep's, deloused in the comatorium, neutral milk hotel's in the aeroplane over the sea, and led zeppelin's physical graffiti. but it became more than that; it became a means to an end.

and what does a job end with? a beer on the last day? think bigger. getting the afternoon off on the last day? way better. vacation! and when you're taking care of your parent's house while they're living abroad, you're able to save up for a most excellent vacation. on that note, since you've mooched off your parents this long, why not mooch a little further by visiting them and letting them pay for almost everything?

side not: i wasn't the only one doing the mooching. they didn't want to sell the house, so in exchange for me living at the house rent free, i had to maintain it so that my parents would have a place to come back to when they're done living it up in beijing. doesn't sound like a bad trade off for me, but do you think i like living in littleton? that town is flat out boring. i'm serious. it's an hour away from boulder, 30 minutes from denver, 45 from golden, 30 minutes farther from the ski slopes, has zero hiking paths, zero breweries, zero coffeeshops (starbucks doesn't count), and i only have one good friend that lives near me. but i do have a neighborhood pool...

when metlife decided to stop hiring contractors on site (aka in the usa), and started hiring them offshore (aka india), i knew my days would be limited. so i discussed some ideas with my bro and his now fiance, and together we agreed on a time to come out to china to visit the 'rents, and when ev went back to his comfy newsanchor position in lubbock texas, i would stay in the land of yao ming a while longer. then i thought to myself, patches is teaching english in ho chi minh city; i outta make one trip into two and go visit him as well. after a lengthy discussion with both eric and the parents, a two month trip was booked.

my assumption was correct; shortly after metlife "extended" our contract from the end of june through the end of the year, they promptly let go about half the contractors in about a two week span. i was not one of them, because the projects i was working on were huge and required my assistance. luckily i was not let go before i quit. when i left, our group was down from 10 (i think) to only 5.

a week after quiting, my bro and his fiance flew in from texas, and the next morning, we were gone. unfortunately you aren't beamed there; it was a shitty plethora of planes and airplane food. the flight alone from minneapolis to tokyo was a ludicrous 12 hours. why the hell we went from denver to minneapolis and not a west coast city is beyond me. after leaving friday morning early, we finally arrived in beijing saturday night.

beijing has 16 million people. and i couldn't understand a single one of them...