The Real World (DOG EAR)
The Real World (DOG EAR)
ecades ago, a friend of mine worked at TRW. At the time they had a pretty pompous ad – something like “TRW – what does it stand for?” My friend laughed at this and said “Three Random Words”. But he also noted that, right out of college, it meant “The Real World”.
The Real World.
No more drinking every night. No more philosophic debates late into the wee hours. No more D&D. No more showing up for class only if you wanted to.
The Real World was a small cubicle. Be-in-by times. Crummy coffee. Deadlines you didn’t agree to. Unfair, inhuman and even screaming little Spacely bosses. Incomes that lay flat while the corporate fat cats cash in.
Yeah, the real world.
So when I read a manly military book about a CEO whose company produces drones, it’s a little disingenuous where (besides everyone being sexy as hell), he runs his company from a cabin out in the middle of nowhere. His department heads all have crazy-cool work environments (one works barefoot in a beach-front lab, another combines his work with his love of surfing). I haven’t been introduced to his rank-n-file employees yet (I guess that would be too much of a labor-relations angle).
So I guess it’s just male-adventure-porn, that you can be rich, powerful and successful and live a carefree life as a CEO. Just like female-relationship-porn is a time-travelling woman who finds the only polite and virginial Scot in all of the eighteenth century. There is a suspension of belief, the thought that the world can be perfect (even amidst a fictional struggle the hero/heroine will most certainly win).
Yeah, it’s an okay read. But I much more prefer books where of coffee is bad, the hours long, and your workmates imperfect. You know. The Real World.