Hotshot Designer
Mark Twain put it best when he wrote, “rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated.”
It’s a warm summer morning in 1992, birdies all a’chirp. My first real job after college is at college, where they’ll be paying me for a change. (And mostly in change.) Finally, I’m a graphic designer!
After meeting my manager and her assistant, she passes me my first official project. I respectfully take the manila folder of specifications to the empty designer’s room. I sit before the yellowing Macintosh Classic computer, push the On button, and wait. Patiently I admire the tall collegiate windows (my windows!) which open out onto stately evergreens, gently wafting o’er a quiet street. And wait. The warm sun rises lazily, like an elderly beagle from the sidewalk. And wait. Somewhere out beyond Earth’s sun, infinite miles away, a star is born. Then another. And Lo, the computer desktop doest appear. I aim the mouse, double-click Adobe PageMaker, and—
“Pa-bang!!!”
Loud gunshot, here in the room?! I’ve been shot! I’ve been shot! I yelp, rolling back in my chair. Gasp! And gasp! And gasp some more! After what seems like an hour I recognize this as evidence of breathing. Life, sweet life.
“What the—?”
I look up (hair, arms and even eyes akimbo) to see my new boss and her assistant standing at the doorway, startled. She asks, “Why is the computer on fire?”
There is smoke wafting from the back of the Mac. Flames. The computer’s been shot! Someone shot the Classic.
“The thing’s on fire. It must have blown a circuit or a vacuum tube,” she says, unplugging it from the electrical outlet. “Let me see here... that musta caused the noise...”
Her inspection of the machine calms me. Slowly I examine my personhood for blood, a bullet hole, entry and exit wounds. None are found. Not one. It was all a sound misunderstanding. I’ve not been shot. I’ve not been shot! It is then I notice them looking intently at me and what I have wrought in eight minutes of alone-time. My first hour on the job and my first creation: an incendiary device.
It’s a warm summer morning in 1992, birdies all a’chirp. My first real job after college is at college, where they’ll be paying me for a change. (And mostly in change.) Finally, I’m a graphic designer!
After meeting my manager and her assistant, she passes me my first official project. I respectfully take the manila folder of specifications to the empty designer’s room. I sit before the yellowing Macintosh Classic computer, push the On button, and wait. Patiently I admire the tall collegiate windows (my windows!) which open out onto stately evergreens, gently wafting o’er a quiet street. And wait. The warm sun rises lazily, like an elderly beagle from the sidewalk. And wait. Somewhere out beyond Earth’s sun, infinite miles away, a star is born. Then another. And Lo, the computer desktop doest appear. I aim the mouse, double-click Adobe PageMaker, and—
“Pa-bang!!!”
Loud gunshot, here in the room?! I’ve been shot! I’ve been shot! I yelp, rolling back in my chair. Gasp! And gasp! And gasp some more! After what seems like an hour I recognize this as evidence of breathing. Life, sweet life.
“What the—?”
I look up (hair, arms and even eyes akimbo) to see my new boss and her assistant standing at the doorway, startled. She asks, “Why is the computer on fire?”
There is smoke wafting from the back of the Mac. Flames. The computer’s been shot! Someone shot the Classic.
“The thing’s on fire. It must have blown a circuit or a vacuum tube,” she says, unplugging it from the electrical outlet. “Let me see here... that musta caused the noise...”
Her inspection of the machine calms me. Slowly I examine my personhood for blood, a bullet hole, entry and exit wounds. None are found. Not one. It was all a sound misunderstanding. I’ve not been shot. I’ve not been shot! It is then I notice them looking intently at me and what I have wrought in eight minutes of alone-time. My first hour on the job and my first creation: an incendiary device.
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