On the fifth floor of this building was a series of unfinished offices and open spaces. In the widest open space were easily 60 black padded chairs arranged in rows facing a big screen, which showed the Oregon State versus Ohio State football game in luscious detail. To the right, cafeteria style tables and chairs took up much of the rest of the space. Another huge screen also showed the football game. Smaller flat panel television screens hung from the ceiling, all showing the game. The place reminded me of a gym: The only thing missing were the rows of treadmills and perky people in spandex.
The space was vast. Black windows on the left looked down into the atrium of the lobby. Windows on two other sides looked out on the lights of Portland's downtown freeways and bridges. I imagine the view is spectacular during the day. At night it was just a dark blur of lights. Or maybe it was my eyes.
A couple guys greeted me in a friendly fashion and rushed away to fiddle with the microphones at the lectern. “Food is on the way!” Sure enough, food arrived shortly. I parked myself in an out of the way place and tried to figure out which screen to watch.
A young woman came up to me and greeted me as if she knew me.
“How are you!” she exclaimed.
“Good, good, and you?” I replied, frantically going through my mental Rolodex, which is as slow as a real-life Rolodex.
“Who are you with now?” she asked.
I assumed she meant who was I working for, not if I was in a relationship. “I'm not sure you know me. I'm a freelance researcher.”
She looked flustered so I continued on, “What do you do?”
“I'm in data science,” she said belligerently. “I own my own company.” I wondered if she was belligerent because she was short.
“Oh, how nice,” I said. “What does your company do?”
“We help companies bla bla bla with their bla bla bla and then bla bla bla.”
I'm pretty sure it only seemed like she was saying gibberish. “Isn't that something,” I said.
“We just opened last year,” she said defensively.
“Oh, where are you located?”
“We are working from home right now,” she said though tight lips.
“No worries,” I reassured her.
“There are only three of us,” she admitted reluctantly.
“You gotta start somewhere,” I said encouragingly as she pretended to see someone she knew and rushed away. Whoa. Did I just meet a failure? It's hard to know sometimes. I turned back to the screens in front of me, examining each in turn in a futile hope that one might be showing something other than young athletes in helmets and tight pants running up and down a green field, then attacking each other and falling over in writhing clumps.
A little further along the wall where I was leaning tensely, I realized there was an actual built-in bar where people could get free wine and craft-brew. A crowd of people were milling there, talking and watching the game. Of course, I avoided it all.
An older guy with long gray hair and a gray beard walked past from the direction of the elevators, nodding to me as he went past. A few minutes later, he was back, carrying a glass of what looked like water. No color, no bubbles. He was thin and wore Levis and glasses, like me. I stood up straighter.
“You look smart,” he said as he approached me without quite looking me in the eye.
“Looks can be deceiving,” I said inanely, thinking to myself, Why did I say that? Major fail!
“Looks are only deceiving to the easily deceived,” he said and then nodded at the television screen hanging above us. “Do you pay attention to this stuff?”
“What, the game?” I gaped, still trying to figure out if I had been insulted.
“Stupid past time,” he muttered, although I wasn't sure he meant the football game or the networking.
I stared at him in confusion. He still wasn't looking at me.
“What's your name?” he demanded.
“Carol.”
“Martin.” No handshakes. No nods, but I guess it was an exchange of sorts.
One of the organizers ran past and waved at us.
“Winds of change,” Martin mumbled.
“What change?” I asked.
“Every moment is new,” he said. A moment later he drifted away.
I moved in the opposite direction and found a spot at a table with an unimpeded view of the game. I pulled out my journal and jotted down a few notes, because I knew that later I would be updating my blog, and I would forget these special, surreal moments as they blended into a bizarre timeout from reality.
People are always interesting when you get them talking. Besides the belligerent spitfire shortstuff startup and the hippie throwback, I met a lovely young woman who recruits for the software industry and a fascinating woman who, as a local representative of the National Transportation Safety Board, investigates local aviation accidents. Wow! How cool is that?
Unfortunately, the show started before I got a chance to ask her more questions. An hour and a half later, I slunk out before the thing was over, bludgeoned by bad PowerPoints and worse speakers, and went home to find out the Ducks were toast. Welcome to FailPDX!
