(Warning: Quotidian) 

Last night I returned from a company-wide meeting in Atlanta; I've been at the company for two months as an intern. While dinner was nice and the Holiday Inn Express gave me superhuman abilities, I'm ragged from introducing myself and going the motions of the same polite conversations 30 times in 3 hours. The whole where did you go to school, are you married, any kids routine. And the jokes, the ridiculous jokes that aren't even remotely funny, the  type of joke the person telling doesn't even think is funny.

Ok, Moses. You're the new guy, so company tradition means you've got to perform either a song or a dance for us. Which is it gonna be? A song or a dance? 

This is my third job in the last three years. No, I haven't been fired for stapler theft or violating the non-fraternization policy with Edna from accounting. My rapid succesion of employment results from a positive, from going back to school to improve my lot in life. But this also means I'm bound to go through this process a few more times in the near future. Christ on a candycane, being the new guy is getting fucking old.

Don't get me wrong, I like making new friends. Well, sort of. I suppose I mean I like having friends, and at some point I guess you've got to meet them. But while office friends may become real friends, they certainly don't start that way, especially when you find yourself on the bottom of the ladder.

My problem is a crippling phobia of self-definition. I'm not my favorite bands, or bars, or my alma mater. I'm certainly not the car I drive, although I may be equally as in need of a wash sometimes. I'm not the jokes or funny stories I tell; I'm not what's on my resume, or my hobbies, or even my political inclinations.

I simply am. Like everyone else, the real "me" is the person who emerges when I stop paying attention, when I'm not trying to define myself.

And this is nothing mind-blowing or LSD level insightful. It's as cliche as it gets. But when I'm in a situation where I know people are sizing me up, are analyzing my every word for materials with which to construct their understanding of me, I freeze. It happens everytime I start something new, be it a new class, or job, or 3 month bid at the state pen.

For a long time in every new situation, I keep quiet, polite, and soft-spoken. If you think about it, it's a pretty logical strategy. Hold your cards until you get a feeling for the game. And if I'm forced to define myself at work, obviously I'm going to define myself as a good, responsible employee. So when folks go out for a drinks, I'll have a beer, but not three or four. When people tell funny stories about, say college life, I hold my tongue, worried that perhaps my stories cross the line.

But since people by nature are desperate to define eachother, I become this new cautious self I've been acting out for safety. I get pigeon holed as the boring, conservative guy. In a place like South Carolina, officemates are even likely to assume I'm a fairly hardcore Christian. No matter what I do, I can't evade this horrid game of "who are you". I play by not playing at all.

The hope is that, after a while, I ease up. My work speaks for itself and become free to have a personality outside of it. I stop worrying so much, forget myself, and through this forgetting actually act like myself. Hopefully I'm a likeable guy. I like to think I am. Likeable that is. Nevermind.

Anyway, I know that this process is likely to play out this way. In the past it's always worked out. I suppose I'm just tired of doing it over and over. I'd bet if other people are like me, then half the reason they stay in jobs and towns they hate is that they're plain tired of going through the whole new guy routine.

So yesterday, at the company meeting, I ventured a little joke with the others.

Ok, Moses. You're the new guy, so company tradition means you've got to perform either a song or a dance for us. Which is it gonna be? A song or a dance? 

Actually, I did bring some of my poems with me.

Crickets.

Too soon?