Mostly Cloudy

Chapter 2

I was surprised not to hear any more on the topic of my career for a few days and wondered if I might have actually side-stepped the nannying, or at least postponed it for a while.

I hadn’t.

I learned this quite emphatically on arrival at Ben and Beth’s for their traditional Friday night shindig. I learned it about as subtly as a bunny rabbit learns about freight trains. It turned out that the traditional Friday night shindig was not so traditional. I was to be the guest of honour. Like a surprise party, only not a nice surprise. As I entered the apartment I was faced with our usual group of friends, all staring back at me from beneath an eight foot banner proclaiming ‘Intervention’ in big red letters. The banner also featured some stencilled butterflies, which I thought was a nice touch – Ben’s two nieces had clearly had a hand in the creative interpretation.

‘This is An Intervention,’ Beth pointed out.

In case you aren’t aware – this is a thing in the US. One of the country’s less likeable things – somewhere between their so-called chocolate and the NRA.

‘No shit,’ I confirmed and high-tailed it back out the door.

‘Get your butt back in here, Brit,’ called Beth. And yes, she really did call me Brit. Before I knew it I was being dragged back into the room by the arm, door firmly bolted behind me.

‘Stand there,’ Beth said, man-handling me into position before returning to her own, centre-stage under the banner.

‘As I was saying, this is An Intervention.’ I rolled my eyes. ‘We all think that you should stop wasting your abilities serving coffee –’

‘And making coffee,’ I protested ironically.

‘Okay, we all think you should stop wasting your abilities making and serving coffee at Jovaa; and get a real job at a tech company in the valley.’ I was speechless for a moment and Beth filled the silence with an attempt to soften the deal. ‘It can be a start-up or an established firm. Either’s fine.’

‘Gee thanks for the option,’ I said. I stepped into the room and dumped the beer I was carrying onto the coffee table. ‘I’m not entirely sure what the protocol is at these events. Do we have some kind of debate now, or can I just start drinking beer?’

The tension broke into laugher and chatter. They didn’t mean any harm, I knew that, but I wasn’t going to bear my soul in front of a crowd.

All of Ben and Beth’s friends – now gradually edging into the classification of Our Friends – were young and techie. It was best that way. They didn’t integrate well into the rest of society. In fact, that’s not true, of course. Sure, the stereotypical geek doesn’t interface so well with others, but Silicon Valley doesn’t hire those kind of geeks. The guys round here are as equally blessed with socio-personal skills as they are with technical ones. They could probably get by in just about any profession they were dropped into. Indeed most of them are polymaths. Almost everyone I’d met in this setting excelled in at least one other domain beside their career.

Take Dan, standing suavely over by the cheese-plant. He’s CTO at Traffic Nights Media and is a world class ultimate Frisbee player. As, of course, is his wife.

Freddie, currently chatting up Cynthia over a Flaming Volcano, is a pretty useful BMX-er. I know that sounds kind of immature, but watch him do a full 720 degree back-flip and you might think differently.

Cynthia, by-the-way, works at Lucas Arts. She is a national record holding free-diver and concert level pianist – as one is.

Me … I make coffee.