The Even Greater Tokyo Region

Magneto

My 3 month hiatus from working came to an end this morning. I was finally awarded with a tax number, and within no time, I was offered a test day on-the-job trial at a company named "Magneto". (Excuse my lame TV references. I personally never watched the X-Men series, although I did read the comic books that came my way.)

So, nompany which makes titanium diodes. Or was it annodes? Is there a difference? What are they anyway? They sound like delicious. Or were they the names of two of the Cosby kids? An internet search explained it to me, and yet, I didn't understand a thing. All I know is, it apparently has something to do with electricity and receivers.
I don't know if the latest Magneto, Sir Ian McKellen, knows anything about diodes or annodes, but he sure knows about receiving.

I do, however know a little bit about titanium. I first heard about this wonder-substance from an after school cartoon that used to be on TV. It was called "Extreme Dinosaurs", and it was the most bad-ass cartoon ever. It was about four dinosaurs who are heroes and fight against an evil T-Rex with a robotic jaw and his hench-velocaraptors. It was part of the early 90's Dinosaur Craze, along with Denver the Last Dinosaur. You know, "he's a friend and a whole lot more". Yes, Denver had a very memorable theme tune, but the theme tune for the Extreme Dinosaurs was 100 times cooler than Denver the Last Dinosaur. Take one minute out of your day to watch this.


"Fossilize 'em!"

Now tell me that isn't totally Bad-ass! Oh man. Freaking awesome. I can't describe the feelings of awesomeness that glow from this video like a good radiation, you know the ones that give you superpowers.

So anyway, the point of me mentioning the Extreme Dinosaurs, apart from highlighting the awesomeness, is that they were amazingly strong. I mean, of course they were, they were dinosaurs. And not the wussy types of dinos like Denver, or E.T. No, these Dino's would tear through walls rather than open a door. (Except, I remember one of them being a bit of a computer nerd in an unnecessary attempt at character development). So, these dinosaurs could tear through absolutely anything. Anything, except titanium. I swear, every single episode, one or all four Extreme Dinosaurs would be trapped in a room or be put in shackles, and you would here these epic lines:

"IT'S TITANIUM. I CAN'T BREAK IT!"

I had no idea what titanium was, but I knew then, that it was an awesome material. The TV show, unfortunately did not last very long, so the next thing I heard about titanium was years later that titanium golf clubs became the most sought-after target for burglars. Haha, take that golf!

So, when the temp-agency said they might have some menial labour job for me that involved the words "Magneto" and "titanium", how could a straight man say no? I'm glad you agree with me. They had me at "titanium.

So, I biked to the factory this morning and they had no idea who I was and why I came. I explained to them that I was sent by the temp-agency, which might have been from the future, or the past. I got led through the factory and I was sat down in a cafeteria for 90 minutes while someone went to make some calls, presumably with diodes. Now that I think of it, this sitting down might have been part of the test-day. I just sat and drank coffee.

Then, a big-wig came into the room. Wow. Just wow. A slick straight talker with winky smile. He gave me a quick explanation of what the company does, although he strangely skipped the part about telepathy and dinos. I didn't understand what he wanted me to do, although he emphasised that it was "Not unimportant work". This just got more and more promising.

Then, I got given a white lab-coat and latex gloves, and met some of the people in the painting department. And it wasn't just any paint, it was titanium paint! Was I aiding in the making of materials to finally capture the Extreme Dinosaurs? I mean, I presume that the evil velociraptors didnt produce their own evil contraptions since they have those foetus-like arms.

My responisiblity in the factory was assisting in the painting of boringly shaped pieces of metal. But the painting of titanium was very complicated, and I wasn't allowed anywhere near a paint roller. My task, all day, was taking pieces of circular metal off a rack and placing it on the table. Then, once my superior painted it, I could place it back onto the rack. Life is beautiful, isn't it? Life, death, seasons. Always coming back to where you began.

After lunchtime, I started to question everything around me. I hadn't seen one flying piece of metal, or one dinosaur. Also, with how carefully I was supposed to treat the titanium paint coating, I even started to question the strength of the Extreme Dinosaurs. You could damage titanium with a dead rodent. Why couldn't the Extreme Dinosaurs break it? It didn't make sense!
The ghost of Stegz and T-bone told me something was amiss...

There was only one logical explanation, it wasn't really titanium paint, and this had nothing to do with dinosaurs. It was a clever front. For all I know, we were making nuclear weapons for North Korea. I looked around me, the lab coats, people working obeintly on nondescript objects... I had just watched James Bond, Golden Eye the night before, and I could picture James Bond blowing the entire facility back to the iron(curtain)age. And I couldn't be angry at him. I was fair game in my lab-coat.

At the end of the day, the big-wig came back and asked me into his office. At this stage, I had not decided to not take the job. We sat down, and he talked, looked me in the eye, and this is what he said:


He gave me the "It's not you, it's me" speech! Apparently my resume was sent through, and he was discouraged that I had received an education and might have learned to question things. And that maybe this job didn't suit my personality. Maybe he was right to let me go. If after one day of work, I can get so paranoid and fanciful, maybe this wasn't the job for me.