Subject: Technicalities Resent-From: staff.newyork@agency.com Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2000 10:54:14 -0400 From: "Mitch Golden" To: nystaff@agency.com, Molly Ker Technicalities August 30, 2000 *) Letters to the Editor I had thought that the last issue of Technicalities would be relatively uncontroversial, containing as it did nothing of very great import. Boy, was I sadly mistaken. I haven't seen so roundly castigated since I said that Molly Ker wasn't a geek. **) Amongst your co-workers are some who have not managed to grasp the full subtlety of English syntax, and many of these apparently thought that I had said that Eugenia Antipas was drunk. (Then there was one person who said she fully understood what I had said about Eugenia, she just loved _imagining_ Eugenia totally blotto.) Notwithstanding my clarification message, Eugenia asked for a "Get Out Of Technicalities Free" card, possession of which would entitle the bearer to a week without being mentioned in these missives. Unfortunately for her, we're fresh out. **) Tony Ward, seeing that I had sent out an e-mail correcting any misapprehensions about Eugenia, asked me to send one to dispel any unwarranted implications people may have taken about him. You may recall that I had said he was sober. **) Someone from the 10th floor took umbrage at my question as to whether I was being moved down there. This was hardly a way to earn the admiration of our new friends from i-traffic, I was told. (I have since gained a newfound respect for the 10th floor, after seeing the offices - with doors! - in which Bill Bloom, Phaedra Divras, and Ellen Saika are now sitting. Of course, nobody from the Tech department got one.) **) Someone in Woodbridge, having heard me call them nerds one time too many, is giving an Inspire U on "How to configure your e-mail filters not to receive Technicalities". **) Someone from i-traffic asked who I was and when I would be fired. These are the usual sorts of quibbles, and I take them in stride. After all, these people are only contesting my ability correctly to report straightforward issues of fact. Much more unnerving was when someone came up to me and said "Don't you know you don't have to go into the WC to take ecstasy?!" You see, this comment cuts to the heart of my insecurity. Here I am again, once more revealed as a fraud: geeky and, worse yet, old in AGENCY.COM/New York, the epicenter of coolness and youth. I told her that my original thought was "I wonder how many lines of coke have been done in this bathroom?", but I didn't want to seem old fashioned. "C'mon, don't you know that coke is back in?", was her reply. But it got worse. Later that same day another coworker said "Gohd. I can't believe you spent the party adopting a pose of disinterested detachment. That is _so_ 1980's. Don't you know we're all post-ironic now?" *) Another Clarification About Tony Ward Whatever you might have heard about Tony jumping in my arms during a brief dance late in the evening was true. However, please note that if in fact Tony has a non professional interest in anyone in the office, I am as far as I can tell not one of his targets. He and I were in fact simply making a sort of satiric commentary on a certain show then being put on by some i-traffic folks across the dance floor. (When I wrote up my notes on the party, I thought that this little episode was not worthy of comment. I write it up now only because I was asked about it so many times that I feel I need to remove any doubts about whether my own foibles are suitable fodder for Technicalities.) *) A Reunion So recently I saw someone walking around on 15, and he looked somehow familiar. I knew I knew him, but I just couldn't recall from where. After some while nervously looking sidelong at him and wracking my brain, I finally went up to him and asked the question. "Don't I know you from somewhere? Did we perhaps go to school together?" It was Ritesh.