Happy Hour
A five letter word for cheese. “Swiss” That was too easy Jeremy thought as he penciled in the w and the last s. Instead of working the crossword puzzle he should be looking through the classifieds. Unemployment sucked but it wasn’t new territory for Jeremy who had worked at several startups that quickly closed shop once the funding ran out. The last one didn’t even make it to launch. This business was brutal but luckily Jeremy always seemed to find work when he really needed it. Jeremy had come a long way from his web development boot camp. With each new job came a new software stack. Jeremy was able to gain all sorts of knowledge from building applications to deploying them. Heck he had even been in charge of security at one stint.
But this latest unemployment streak has been going on for six months. He had done some freelancing gigs and had some savings that were running low. Jeremy’s emergency fund was nearly depleted and with web development ever evolving it was hard to find clients.
Jeremy put down the newspaper to check his watch. Half past nine. Mark is late. He is probably finishing up his shift. Jeremy was both annoyed and jealous. Annoyed he had to wait for his friend and jealous he had a job. Jeremy glanced up from checking his watch to see Mark was finally heading to the car.
“Took you long enough.” Jeremy greeted his friend.
“Sorry, man.” Mark said. “I appreciate the ride. What a day though. There was another Happy Hour. That’s the third one this week and they always run longer than planned.”
“Happy hour?” Jeremy asked.
“Yeah. Every week there is at least one held here. The employees usually wind up wasted and spending a lot of the company’s money. The restaurant makes a killing and they extra pay so it makes it worth our while. At this rate I will have my motorcycle paid off in six months.”
“Will it be out of the shop by then?” Jeremy couldn’t help but to poke fun after all this beauty of a bike had spent more time in the shop than on the road.
“Har har.” Mark retorted. Eh, a weak comeback. Jeremy thought Mark had better in him. “I work next Wednesday and that should be the last time I need a ride.”
Jeremy dropped Mark off at his apartment and then drove five blocks to his apartment. The place was beginning to look bare. Last week Jeremy sold his Xbox and his collection of games. He turned on the TV and enjoyed watching network television maybe for the last time as he had a buyer for the TV coming tomorrow.
Thank goodness the newspaper was only 50 cents when Jeremy had to buy it which wasn’t often. Jeremy knew of a local hotel that gave out complimentary copies and one of his buddies worked there and would give him one.
A four letter word for cook. Bake. An easy one. Jeremy filled it in as he felt a sense of deja vu as he sat waiting for Mark. It had been 20 minutes and all the easy clues were solved. Jeremy decided to go in and wait at the restaurant bar. It was one of those rare occasions where Jeremy had worn a suit as he had an interview beforehand. Inside would feel much better than sitting in a warm car.
Jeremy sat on a barstool and was the only person in the room. Mark had mentioned that this time of day was very slow as people hadn’t left work yet. It was approaching 4:30 and soon the 5pm crowd would be rolling in. Jeremy hoped to be home long before then.
The television was on a recast of last night’s football game. He had watched it live but it beat the view of the parking lot. Ten more minutes passed and still no sign of Mark. Really, Jeremy began to wonder, what is taking him so long?
Another person entered the restaurant bar and sat relatively close to Jeremy. Obviously a businessman in a three-piece suit and a briefcase. He must have noticed Jeremy watching the game.
“Some game last night.” the businessman said. “Came down to the last thirty seconds.”
“Yeah it was an unbelievable ending.” Jeremy said, “
After a few more minutes of chatting, Jeremy introduced himself.
“I’m Ben. Nice to meet you.” Ben seemed to recognize a couple of other people who entered the restaurant. It appeared he was meeting them.
“Are you done here at the bar and want to join us?” It seemed Mark was taking forever so why not continue this conversation over a bite to eat? Jeremy hesitated thinking of the extra money but decided that he would let Mark treat him even if Mark didn’t know it yet.
They all headed to a room off the bar with tables, chairs, and the beginnings of a buffet. Jeremy couldn’t tell if the staff were tearing it down or putting it up. After meeting the other two guys, Jim and Tom, the four sat down. A waiter approached to get their drink orders.
“Helluva day, huh? I tell you if one thing went wrong everything went wrong.”
“Yeah, support was crazy too. Of course it is always like that after a major release. It seems we fix issues and then just make more. That is the risk of supporting someone else’s shitty software.”
Jeremy nodded in agreement. These guys must all work together and come here to blow off steam. Jeremy didn’t mind the shop talk but it just made him think of his own non-employment situation which ironically made him want to drink. Good thing he had a beer.
After ten minutes, some more people entered the room - one even pulled up a chair to join them.
“Wow the early birds. Heh. I’m not surprised. It seems just like those IT slackers who cut out of work early.” “Cut out early my ass! Last night we worked until midnight while you were probably home yanking off wondering why you can’t keep a girlfriend.”
Jeremy could tell by the reactions that this was ‘normal office talk’ and nobody took it seriously. However he was beginning to wonder why all of these guys were here at the same place. He didn’t think about it too much as he had really missed having office friends.
The new guy, Adam, turned to Jeremy and introduced himself.
“Oh you got a new guy among you? I’m Adam - head of IT. These guys love me. Can’t you tell?” Adam reminded Jeremy of his last company’s CTO (Chief Technology Officer). Adam was casually dressed and unshaven.
“Yeah this is Jeremy. I found him waiting in the bar.” Ben said.
“So Jeremy, tell me what you think of Sea Turtle?”
Jeremy had heard of Sea Turtle. It was another startup but had actually taken off with their software that made deployment to the cloud fast and easy. “Well from what I know it’s a great product as it removes a lot of the boilerplate techno-garbage that bogs down software deployment. But the problem is that once you are dependent on it, you learn just how limiting it can be. Teams spend more time researching workarounds, so all that time it saves you is lost. In fact you may actually spend more time making it fit your needs.” Sea Turtle was the last software that Jeremy had worked on. In this city, it was king as it was made right up the road. So a lot of companies got steep discounts for implementing the system.
“Yes you’re right. This is exactly what our analysts are seeing. It is something we have been discussing just moving to another solution. But I’m sure you IT guys have talked about that ‘till you’re blue in the face.” Adam said.
“With Jeremy aboard you know this may be the time to move forward with installing a new system. Have a proposal on my desk by the end of next week. Nothing too fancy. I would like each of your top five recommendations. Now I’m going to go grab a plate. You know these After Hours events, the food is the first thing to run out.”
Oh Shit! It just hit Jeremy what was happening here. This is a business get together and not just some guys asking him to have a drink. They think he works there. And not only that he has an assignment.
“So Jeremy, where is your office? Most of IT is on the 3rd floor but with all the expansions they have been putting some of the new hires on the fifth. Don’t tell me you got stuck up there in no man’s land?”
Jeremy should come clean. It’s all a big misunderstanding. He can get out of this now before anything else happens. He’ll pay for the beer, leave, and go find his friend Mark. OR Jeremy could go to work Monday.
“Yeah, the fifth floor. It’s really a ghost town up there.”
