I Miss Being Impressive

On job titles, burnout, and not having a clean answer anymore.

2012. Winter. Chicago, IL.

It’s 10pm on a Saturday night and I’m out with my gays in Boystown. Sidetrack, obviously.

I’m wearing some J.Crew relics from my college years as a retail gay. I’m sporting my beard as a means to look my age as best I can. My 27-year-old face is giving… 22.

The bar is loud. Music videos stream on hundreds of TVs throughout the multi-room maze of men. Gaggles of gays scream gossip to one another over the music or scream the lyrics to Rihanna’s latest chart-topping hit.

In between my friends’ and my own agenda of cracking jokes, singing, gossiping, and cackling, we agree to go in pairs and do a few “fruit loops” through the bar. I get a fresh gin and tonic, squeeze in the lime, lick my fingers, and I’m ready.

We enter the third room and inevitably run into friends-of-friends — enough of a connection to strike up a group conversation. All five of us subtly peacock with our liquid encouragement in hand.

I do a little diddy and make a quick joke about whatever song is projected on every screen around us. The cute, older (read: 35-year-old) coiffed one smiles — impressed — and replies with a joke of his own.

Smiles. Eyes. Internal, knowing nods.

We talk about how long we’ve lived in Chicago, which neighborhood we’re in, and then, naturally:

“So, what do you do?”

“I work at Google.”

I let it hang.

Yeah. That Google. THE Google. Here in Chicago. I’m not just funny, dude — I’m a baller. I’m going places.

I don’t bother answering what I do, which was the original question. I answer exactly where I work. I know what matters. I know where this is going.

I’m solid. I’m certain.

The conversation and flirtation move into the next bar and into the night. We discuss other things before our dance-floor makeout, but I know the one-two punch of humor and my impressive job gave me the in.

I was interesting. I was making it.

—

2015. Winter again. Three years later. San Francisco, CA.

“David?”

“Yeah, Jim?”

I’m getting in and Uber right outside my walkup on 20th Street, on the edge of Dolores Park. The twinkling city of San Francisco and the Bay Bridge stretch outward — the reason my street gets shut down often for commercial and movie shoots.

“That’s me! How’s it going?”

Shuts door. Reaches for seatbelt.

“Going well, thanks. You?”

“Another Saturday night in the beautiful Bay! So, we’re going to 1534 Harrison?”

“That’s right. Thank you.”

Small talk ensues. I am overly polite (reasons for which can (and will) be uncovered in another essay).

Jim was born and raised in the Bay. Lives in Daly City now. Knows these streets well.

I tell him I moved here from Chicago three years ago. That I love it here — especially for the queer community — and that it might be the most beautiful place on earth.

He compliments my fragrance. I tell him what it is and where to find it. He says he’ll write it down after the ride.

Then comes: “So, what do you do for work?”

Damnit. We’re still seven minutes away. I knew he was going to ask.

I tense up. I chew my Trident Original gum. I look out the window past the café where the shuttle picks me up and drops me off every day.

“I work at Google.”

Shuttle hatred has gripped the city. The buses have become the symbol of tech taking over — rising rents, traffic, resentment, street disrepair.

“Ahh, yeah. Everyone seems to work for Google these days, man,” he says, seeming disappointed.

What I don’t tell him on this short ride:

• My tech job gave me shingles last fall. At 29. From stress and overwork.

• I’m a salaried employee and I work all weekend, in-person, to lead the team selling Google Glass “to the world.”

• I’m paid just enough to afford rent. In a shared apartment. With one bathroom. I’m nearly 30. My roommate’s 35.

I’ve done amazing work. I love the people I work alongside.

But I’m fucking tired.

And uncertain.

And worn down.

I’m a dime-a-dozen in a city full of young gays like myself. On dates, guys ask what team I’m on and whether I know their friend, Trevor.

I don’t.

But I’ve probably scoped him on the shuttle.

“I work at Google” isn’t a reveal. It’s a category. I’m one of “those.” And I can be swapped out anytime.

—

2026. Winter again. Twelve years later. Arcosanti, AZ.

Monday morning. Sun is rising in central Arizona.

I approach my husband, Bruno, in the Ceramic Apse. I see that he’s talking to an 80-year-old woman dressed in her daily ceramic-making outfit: beanie, leopard print cardigan, apron, smocks. She looks cool AF.

We made a last-minute decision to get away for the weekend. We’ve been spending ours up at Bruno’s late parents’ house, sorting through an entire life — their entire life — readying it for an estate sale. It’s as emotionally, mentally, and physically draining as you’d imagine.

So I quietly join them. Smile. Small talk.

She finds out Bruno is a photographer who runs his own perfume brand. She lights up. She used to take portraits. She hates perfume and when women come on tours she can smell them and wants to vomit. Cool.

She’s been working here nearly 30 years. She can’t imagine doing anything else. She makes the tiles. She works seven days a week, three hours a day. It works. For her.

Then she turns to me.

“So, what is it that you do in Tucson?”

I take a breath.

Time to explain.

I don’t work at Google anymore. Or Salesforce.

The question isn’t what I used to do.

It’s what I do now.

I tend the garden.

I feed the cat.

I do the laundry.

I pay the bills.

I go on daily walks.

A frog, boiling in my belly, wants to jump out of my throat.

“I recently started my own thing,” I say, “where I work as a consultant helping artists and small businesses add in strategy and organization.”

It sounds rehearsed. Slightly detached from my own mouth.

Then I add that I worked in tech for over fifteen years, got burned out, and left.

That part lands. She nods.

I give her something solid. A past tense with weight.

An easier placement for me: the husband of the perfumer who used to work in tech and is still recovering from burnout.

It occurs to me later that I don’t just lack an elevator pitch.

I don’t have a sentence yet that makes me feel certain.

—

“What do you do?” is a worthy question. And it warrants a worthy response; whether being asked by a hip 80yr old ceramicist or a love-seeking tech gay in his late 20s.

I used to answer it with a company - to varying results.

Most recently, I answered it with a season. And in a jumbled, fumbling way.

It’s less efficient and creates more confusion than clarity for the question-asker. But it’s the most honest version I can get to right now.