New Job

Sorry I’ve been negligent about the old blog lately. I had a kinda weird couple weeks. Mostly because I changed jobs. 

Bam! HamannEggs plot twist!

I won’t bore you with the myriad of reasons I switched. I am excited about the new move and hope this will be the last time you hear of me switching jobs for a long, long time. Because the little crystal in my hand is going to light up any day now and I’ll have to be Renewed from advertising (“Logan’s Run” – 1976).

I don’t love switching jobs. Figuring out the coffee situation, followed closely by figuring out the bathroom situation.  Plus I have to go through the whole process of selecting and viciously beating a weak inmate in the yard.

As much as I dislike changing jobs, Luca hates it a thousand times more. As we were discussing this move as a family, Luca was the lone dissenter. Often bursting into tears at the mere mention of me moving literally 3 blocks down Lake street to do the exact same job.

At night, I would lay with him in his bunk and try to both calm his nerves and figure out the core of his beef with the move. After several hundred “I just don’t like it” responses, I came to discover his real issue boiled down to…

Interior design.

He liked the way my previous agency looked. It was a cool place with bean bags and nerf guns and wacky junk on people’s desks. As a result, it made his father seem cool. 

I assured him my new office would have just as much curated whimsy. I promised him a whole world of knickknacks and funky posters and inside jokes taped to cubicles. But he wasn’t convinced.

In the days leading up to my new gig, Luca did his best to be supportive. By asking me if I was nervous every seven minutes. “Are you nervous, Daddy? Are you nervous? Are you more excited or more nervous? Daddy? Are you feeling nervous?”

“I am now!” I snapped. 

On my first day, I took several digital photos of our super cool office to ease Luca’s anxiety. And my own. The giant eight ball that looks like it crashed into a wall. The “F*ck Yeah” spelled in balloon letters in the kitchen. The inspirational/scary messages painted in huge black letters everywhere.

But then I saw it: The Coke machine. One of those things you find at the movies where you can choose from a million different flavors and fill your cup and fill it again and again until you have the most glorious Diabetes ever.

When I showed this to Luca, his eyes lit up. “You. Have. The. Greatest. Job. EVER!”

Instead of the constant “Are you nervous?” refrain, Luca now asks, “When can I see the Coke machine?”