My Birthday / Work Training

I dedicate a large amount of blog content to something I really don’t care about: Facebook Birthday Wall Posts. I never write on anyone’s wall for their birthday. Like not even members of my family. But every year I find it interesting the people that take the time to wish me a happy birthday.

My favorite is this guy named Ray. I used to do class work in the Ross Academic Center (the one for athletes). It was one of a few locations on central campus that had CAEN computers to hook up to the engineering network. The CAEN centers in the UGLI and Fishbowl were always packed, but the Academic Center had 3 CAEN machines in a private room that were never used because very few athletes are engineers. One time I went in there and this guy named Ray was in there as well. We talked for like twenty minutes while we were doing work. That was the entire extent of our interaction. The next day he friended me on Facebook. I accepted because I thought I might see him down there again, and I’m a friendly guy. But I didn’t ever see him again. Yet, every year without fail he wishes me a happy birthday.

I sometimes wonder how long he will keep it up. Like when I’m in my 40’s and my kids (assuming they’re not illiterate) ask me who is that “Ray” guy is who always wishes me happy birthday on the facebook machine. And I have to tell them the whole story of the 20 minutes we spent exchanging pleasantries in the basement of the academic center back in 2008.

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We have this online training class that we are required to take annually at work. It’s a training on anti-terrorism that tries to use real life scenarios. So imagine this: I am assigned to go to a conference in LA. On my flight there my plane gets hijacked by terrorists. After that happens I get followed by a strange van to the hotel. After I check in I go to a restaurant and where I am solicited by someone of the opposite gender for information. The next morning I go out to my rental car and find a grenade booby trapped under my car. At this point I still don’t consider saying “F it” and going home. Then that night someone claiming to be room service breaks into my hotel room and holds me at gun point. They then call me an imperialist. Then they hold me hostage overnight before the police come in and rescue me in the morning. It is only at this point do I decided that maybe the trip isn’t worth the hassle and go home. Talk about realistic training, because this happens to me like every time I travel.

Also, if you really want to have a bummer of a birthday try taking the annual training on human trafficking awareness. Because nothing ruins a perfectly good day like spending a few hours learning about people being kidnapped, abused, beaten, sold, prostituted and forced into being suicide bombers.