Dogbert’s Whip

My new job requires me to sit in front of four computer monitors (three 29-inch flat screens and a laptop) for twelve straight hours. Well, almost. Minus the amount of time that I spend taking a leak (or sometimes, a crap), eating frequent snacks in the dining area, loading data tapes, and folding paper plots, I would say that my butt has gotten a bit flatter now than I spend so much time sitting and staring.

Human nature dictates that one is bound to get bored and exhausted from working long hours. While endless munching of anything junk and gulping of anything carbonated could provide temporary reprieve, there is one thing that can handily make or break the dreary work mood. And that, my friends, is music.

Our group’s server, which is hidden from view behind my laptop, is a repository of MP3 folders. Stashed within the server’s drive K are 21,000 songs that cover all musical genres. We actually have everything from “13^th Floor Elevators” to “ZZ Top.” Siggy, my boss, mentioned that the MP3’s were compiled from years ago; that’s why the collection has now grown to its present number.

While music has certainly helped I and my workmates cope with the long work hours, we have been persistently annoyed by one problem whenever we play our MP3’s. Since the files were copied to the hard drive by different sources at various times, the music is not uniformly amplified. Thus, every song sounds differently even if the volume settings remained the same. This bug has led to frequent volume adjustments by people seated near the server, which obviously happens to be me for the most part.

Fortunately, Siggy came up with a program that would normalize all our MP3’s. However, it would take at least two days to run over 21,000 songs. Anxious over the prospect of dead silence for the next 48 hours, we rummaged every audio CD that we could find and played them one after the other in a portable player.

One of the CD’s in rotation is a compilation of tunes from the 70’s. It quickly became my favorite since it has funky songs like “Dirty White Boy” by Foreigner and a couple of Bob Marley standards. But what really grabbed my attention is a song that I’ve been familiar with since I was a kid, and has heard over and over in a many karaoke bars and soundtracks: Desperado by The Eagles. 

It’s strange that I developed a sudden liking for Desperado. I’ve heard the song a countless times already in the past but never gave it much attention. It’s probably because Desperado has always struck me as a rather sad and depressing song (why, obviously). Even Karen Carpenter, who succumbed to complications from her mental demons, had a version of this song.

One plausible reason why I suddenly like this song is that I’ve grown older now, and I could probably relate to the message of the lyrics. After listening to Desperado for about a dozen times in my last shift, I found myself talking back to the song at one point. I only made mental notes, of course, but I still found it rather weird. But then again, I can’t really blame myself. It’s my first time to be this far away from home and I’m not exactly having a smooth transition here.

Desperado, why don’t you come to your senses?
You been out ridin’ fences for so long now
Oh, you’re a hard one; I know that you got your reasons
These things that are pleasin’ you can hurt you somehow

I’m also probably in a phase they call the mid-20’s life crisis. People suffering from this phase may realize that hanging out for all-nighters will start losing its appeal, and somehow, overpriced coffee in paper cups and a good laugh with pals can pass off as a “gimmick.” They also begin panicking that their savings accounts only contain four digits, and actually think of otherwise alien words such as “future” and “security.”

Desperado, oh, you ain’t gettin’ no younger
Your pain and your hunger, they’re drivin’ you home
And freedom, oh freedom well, that’s just some people talkin’
Your prison is walking through this world all alone

The worst thing about the mid-20’s life crisis is that being single and alone is starting to become unbearably lonely. I guess it’s a normal thing since a considerable portion of your peers have started building their own families. It’s either that or they’re blissfully engaged. And it also doesn’t help if friends and kin keep pestering you with questions like: “So who are you with at the moment?” and “When do you intend to settle down?”

Desperado, why don’t you come to your senses?
Come down from your fences, open the gate
It may be rainin’, but there’s a rainbow above you
You better let somebody love you, before it’s too late

Now that’s one great piece of advice if only life would just stop being too complicated.

This entry was posted on Friday, March 24th, 2006 at 8:46 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.