Mickey time once more

When I was 19, I got my first real corporate I.T. job; I did it the old fashioned way – responding to want ads in the newspaper, pounding the pavement, and knocking on doors. The main thing I learned from the search is that a lot of temp agencies are scams that try to charge applicants for “training” and “access to exclusive networking opportunities”. But through a combination of being broke and stubborn, I didn’t take the bait. Instead, I learned the Ins and Outs of the scam, which seemed to include the same trivia about Microsoft Word & Wordperfect key commands and the same typing test (“in the final analysis, precise typing is a sign of organized thinking…”) such that when I arrived at national temp agency chain and took the same test, then another one for basic Window 3.1 skills… I looked like an all star and they placed me in the office of the VP of IT operations for a major finance company. I followed her around all summer as her executive assistant. She swore a lot and smoked a lot but also really knew mainframes and telecommunications and when I describe my career as the summer job that never ended, this is one of the starting points.

This was the first time in my life where I got up every morning before 6am, put on a suit and hiked to the train to get to work by 8. This was the first time I really made my own money and acted like a grown up and got treated like one. But before I did that in earnest… I used part of my first paycheck to get a watch from a street vendor. It was a knock off of this…

I just found this watch at an antique store, a place reserved forsaken and forgotten relics. About a year after I got my original Mickey Mouse watch, the quartz died and the jeweler said “junk! Forget it.” But it wasn’t and I couldn’t. I made it to work on time every day with the watch and then I took the watch with me on my next adventure.

For years I had it in the back of my mind to get another one, but I wanted it to be serendipitous and a deal. Today it was.

When I used to wear the watch, if some asked me what time it was I’d say “Mickey says its____” and laugh to myself. I called this “Mickey Times” which is objectively not as funny as I thought, but what the hell… it was me tweaking the nose of the pressure to lose my sense of humor. I still resist this pressure – sometimes better than other times; and other times are Mickey time.