November 20, 2014
Marx once said, "I don't want to belong to any club that will accept people like me as a member..."
As a spring chicken I used to fancy being a rebel, taking such maxims to heart, cultivating an anti-establishment intellect. But as I grow older and purportedly wiser (I’m celebrating my 17th anniversary of my 30th birthday on Saturday, as my pal Chris Sorgie would wryly say) I'll admit that I do use Facebook (in)frequently, if only to feed the need to (re)connect.
Which is why, I must admit that I envy the camaraderie that is harbored by a couple of the more youthful teams in my department. This jolly band of Millennials is seemingly often doing something cheerful together.
Last week, it was taking pictures for something or other (and making a lot of gleeful noise in the hallway) and then going out together for happy hour; today it is another potluck being held right outside my office door in the communal pantry.
I do envy their youthful fraternization. Oddly, my team is never invited. Perhaps, it is not so odd.
We are a motley crew of GenXrs led by a baby boomer. So, perhaps it is merely a reflection of our own weathered temperament, abetted by cynicism, and a lack of enthusiasm and energy.
As an interesting aside, I stepped into the kitchen to get some tea and jokingly commented on the tin trays of food being prepped for the conference room banquet, "Oh wow, what treats have you brought me...?" A colleague half my age from the social media team alarmingly replied, "It's a turkey potluck. Don't eat it, it’s only for our 'department.'"
Duly warned, I restrained myself from correcting her, knowing she had erred, as we all do, when taken by surprise and are prodded to suddenly fend off vultures. She had meant division, for I am part of her department.
Nonetheless, I realize that my team has never been considered the warmest group to work with, so being banned from the feast should not surprise me.
However, this does not bode well for my wake, the sandwich generation, especially when you consider that 80 million Millennials are beginning to squeeze us out of jobs and siphoning the income that is being used to support them, our children, and their grandparents.
That all said, at their age, at former jobs, I too reveled and commingled as they do now. Perhaps than, this is merely a reflection of who I am now, where I am, at the bottom of the inverse bell curve of happiness, the center stage of my fifth age:
...And then, the justice,
In fair round belly, with a good capon lined,
With eyes severe, and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws, and modern instances,
And so he plays his part.
Albeit the bard’s wisdom is now 412 years old, it still rings quite true.
This morning I took selfies of my round belly (reminding myself not to place them in the cloud) to inspire my own personal renaissance of regular exercise and austerity, in another desperate attempt to whittle down the remnants of comfort and excess (i.e. a good capon lined) by enduring a month of no carbs and waddling thru the line at the salad bar.
As of late, I am also quite apt to pontificate and wax wise (as I am doing now).
And to ward off the grey that hovers (and grows), I whimsically opted to not comb and gel my hair back today. Rather, the bangs dangle over the cul-de-sac, a nod and a wink to my carefree prep school days.
And so, I play my part.
