I had finished up a tour with the new company—new-ish because I seemed already to be familiar with the place and know many of the people there, maybe they were a local customer—and got to join former colleague Steven Xie as he was preparing for his entry exam. The administer was a gruff American who wasn’t capable of accommodating his applicant’s language and personality nor cared to, and told him he’d dock his score if he wouldn’t “shut the fuck up” and said a single thing while taking it. After hearing Steven repeat that abrasive instruction without the least bit of sarcasm, I stayed to help him refrain from outburst while he retrieved five small fish out of a tank with his choice of available tools, a shovel with a flexible scoop. His future department teammates gathered afterward to congratulate him, going so far as to wear T-shirts with Chinese characters on them, which I am sure made him feel as welcome as one might surrounded by smiling people adorned with halves of words. (One had five on his and claimed it spelled his name.) All employees were rounded up for a slideshow presentation and I took the opportunity to bring it up with the mostly-Asian Accounting girls, who nodded in embarrassment. The projector looked 8mm and the initial picture was tiny, then spread across a messy wall; my test was to save the movie to digital and insert some captions. After the screening, I was handed what appeared to be a VHS cassette and was confident in my ability to accomplish the task, even if I was no professional like in that recent Netflix casualty; would my old rig with a USB dongle and Microsoft Photos be enough?
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