Serving time

This summer I had my very first real official office job. I worked in the Public Relation department, doing logistics for the press events of the MTL Jazz Festival. I had worked as a PA in a production company before and had worked for many other organizations doing PR as a publicist but none were structured enough to require the daily visit to the lunchroom.

Though in my teen years I had never really been a victim of the High School lunch room hierarchy which is portrayed in most typical American movies, times had changed and I was for the first time about to get a taste of it. Many of my co-workers who would soon become close friends, approached me during the first week inviting me to join in. From what I could notice from my quick investigative visits, the men and women would share their weekends, the latest news, celebrity gossip etc. Needless to say I was perplexed. Though I would consider myself a social butterfly, I by no means felt comfortable sharing my weekends with my new co-workers (though that would later change). My weekends seemed rather extravagant in contrast with those of my new co-workers.

After one awkward attempt at joining one of my co-worker's tables, I made moves. I tried to start my own table.. Let's just say I was ambitious. Alain, the mail guy was the only one to join in, I'd later learn he was one of the coolest of them all. He turned out to be a serious anarchist punk, may I remind you he was probably at least 40. By the end of the summer I had him hooked to Trapped Under Ice and No Warning. I would e-mail him through our work e-mail some myspace links to bands I thought he might enjoy and I'd receive weekly e-mail updates of the things that he liked or didn't like. Some of the common lines were

"ASTI C'EST HARD CA MAN" aka "That's hard man that's hard"
"SHIT MAN, CA C'EST DU VRAI NEW YORK MAN, DONT MESS AROUND DU VRAI NEW YORK" "shit man, that's real ny ..."
"CA C'EST POUR LES MOUMOUNES. UNE GUITAR C'EST PAS FAIT POUR DANSER MAN" "that's for sissys. guitars aren't made to dance"

He shared some of his old biohazard records with me and gave me some of his band's demos.
He would sometimes even send me photos of hardcore related things but nothing was written along with the e-mail. Too cool! That summer ended up being life changing and probably one of the best experiences of my life. Some of the people that sat in that lunchroom became mentors and great friends. Though most of our friendships developed out of the lunch room, the lunchroom is truly a place where people can connect over food. 

Point being, great things happen in the lunchroom. Everyone has to serve their time. Granted I didn't spend much time in there but the time that was spent was okay. I decided to name this blog serving time in the lunchroom because this is a medium for me to share what the usual 9 to 5'er would most likely share in the lunchroom. So here it is...