And Take Their Picture

A colleague arranged for us to conduct two job interviews at a Starbucks at YinKe Center, the same building we used to work in five years ago.  I can see the Starbucks in my mind and there is a green sign as I roll up but the place in the building where the café should be now has some other establishment in place.  Walking round to the south I find the spiffy new duplex that has replaced what I used to know. 

We sit there and talk to one gentleman.  And then another.  I can tell quickly it is unlikely to be fruitful.  I go downstairs to get my espresso and stay longer than I should, talking with another colleague on wechat, watching all the beautiful, young people walk out the office building, to find some lunch. 

Back at the interview, I notice an older woman in the corner staring at me.  I catch her eye again and I really would rather not.  She isn’t particularly attractive, I’m not looking for anything anyway.  It is simply an old fashioned annoyance.  There we go again.  Now she suddenly comes over out our table.  Well. Now I can see that she is actually much younger. “You’re were doing job interviews, right?  I am looking for work.”  I appreciate her gumption but we need a pre-sales engineer and we quickly discern that this is not her specialty.  I suggest that my colleague is just the man to talk to her, recommending that she make an appointment to do so.  My colleague flashes a hairy eyeball my direction.  And presently we politely try to suggest we’ll let her know if anything appropriate comes up.  

When I leave I grab my back pack.  The straps are now so short.  I adjust them.  Outside I bid my colleague farewell and adjust the other strap, only to realize I’ve left Starbucks with the wrong black back pack.  Not cool.  Trying not to panic I return upstairs and find my bag.  No one else seems to be missing one.  Odd.  I lay the wrong one down, under the table. 

Later I walk through the plaza of the southern section of Taikoo Li.  What are all these horrible older men and a few older woman doing photographing all the young woman with enormous forty pound phallic lenses?  Do they get paid for these real-life, girly snaps?  There has to be some business angle on all this.  It isn’t just for their pleasure, but rather to sell to people who produce cheap pleasure.  I decide to walk up to one and then another and take their picture, which elicits some grunts.   I haven’t proven anything.

The place where I get my contact lenses is across the plaza and they fix my younger one’s glasses frames for free, which strikes me as particularly old fashioned and kind.   Now it's time to head home.  

Friday 3/30/18