I made a call on a major software company with a colleague yesterday. We were just feeling them out on their use of subcontractors, and as part of my campaign to run my battered Rolodex into the ground, was exploiting all my old contacts and colleagues, intending to exploit them to the most practiable manner possible on my way to retirement. It is not important to identify the precise firm involved, since one of my pals is there, and the tour of the office was more impressive than the meeting itself.

The company had started it’s outreach from Silicon Valley some years before with a facility in the Reston area with all the other IT-startups, but decided to relocate to the much tonier confines of Georgetown just off K Street, or Lobbyist Heaven, as it is known locally.

I rode to the meeting with my associate, who was dressed in a crisp poplin suit with a starched shirt and neatly-tied foulard. I had warned the new firm that I would wear a bow-tie and jacket if we were talking to the Government, but otherwise, I was going 100% Aloha attire. I was a little uncomfortable that I was underdressed.

I need not have been concerned. We took the elevator up the the floor that the company rents and were processed by security on iPads mounted to the reception desk. When our Point of Contact arrived to take us in hand, I was both relieved and a little startled. I thought I was making a statement. My pal was attire in rumpled cargo shorts, a t-shirt and hoodie. The dress code was about the same for everyone in the office. Average age? 27?

Free food- all kinds of snacks on racks, and a buffet laid out on steam table at official lunchtime.

There is plenty of other entrees in the freezers for those all-night coding sessions.

A Kegerator for that crucial morning draft beer. Foosball tables, natch, and onsite barber for those urgent tonsorial repairs when you do not have time to leave the office. The bar suite with heavy paneling and real booze is an attention grabber, as are the “nap rooms,” with beds and sheets (I immediately thought of the complete set of applications for the workers).

I was knocked out. Their corporate lawyers are called Ninjas, and yes, they wear black jumpsuits. They are suing the Army over some perceived slight, which naturally I support.

I further thought that the dot.com thing was over, but apparently not. The young people turn over regularly- three years at the company makes you an old timer, hence the perks to try to retain talent. My pal is 44, and at that advanced age, one of the most senior guys in the office, at least chronologically. I marveled at the whole thing. I have been working in the wrong line of business, apparently, or perhaps the lesson is that I should have learned a skill somewhere along the way. Anyway, it was an experience quite unlike I have elsewhere in business or the military.

By the time I got home, it was almost too late to get to The Front Page, where there was a Moscow Mule promotion in progress, sponsored by the local Smirnov Distributor. Emily was the sales rep for an outfit called “Diageo,” or I should provide her job description from her card: “On Premise Activation Specialist.”

I will say so!

She walked into the bar, bold as brass, and ordered twenty Moscow Mules, that delightful ginger-beer-and-Smirnov concoction served in the ultra-cool signature copper mugs. I assumed it was some office social getting off to a start with a bang, but as you know, the word “assume” makes an “ass” of “you and me.” By the time I figured out that she was performing an on-premise activation before our very eyes, I had a Mule and what was left of my vodka-and-diet tonic in front of me, free of charge. Apparently she had provided the copper mugs earlier in the day, and in exchange for the largesse, there is going to be a $5 Mule as the specialty Happy Hour drink on Wednesdays. Things sort of got out of hand after that, with a voluble young man joining in with JPeter and Jon-Without’s conversation, and it turned out he was an IT specialist who got out of the Navy as a first class petty officer and paid more in taxes the previous year than his parents had made in net annual income. It was a no brainer, and I thought of all this generation of people smart on systems and nwetworks and code, and how they jump from one thing to another based on how good the food is at the company canteen, and whether there is really a decent barber on staff.

Which brings me around to the whole Nueske’s recipe thing. I have talked about them before, since Chanteuse Mary and Old Jim had introduced me to the subject in Las Vegas. “The Beluga of Bacon!” exclaimed Mary, and naturally I bought some, and now I am in cheerful conversation with one of the Nueske grand-daughters. Most recently it was about the excellence of their natural casing wieners- best I have tasted- and the consequent barrage of advertising from them. I don’t mind, and so long as we are doing product placement here, after several Smirnov Moscow Mules, I was hungry and in the mood to test drive some recipes as the summer comes to an end and the time comes around to cook nourishing soups and savory stews.

I surveyed the larder and decided I had enough to try to assemble the latest recipe from Tanya Nueske. I am thinking with new potatoes, green onions and dill fresh from the garden. And the right bacon and perhaps a dash of Smirnov to enable the cooking process….

Copyright 2016 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com