Work Stories: Episode 42: CODern Warfare

Previously on Work Stories, I told all of you about the pirate guy and his family.  They hung around in our lobby for a little while on two different nights doing things that I wrote down last week.  Moving right along, this week I will tell you about something that isn’t the pirate guy.  What will I tell you about?  I’m not sure yet.  Wait, I’ve got it!

I’m going to continue with things that happened at the museum that I’m currently working at.  Why?  It’s because these are the freshest memories in my mind.  It’s easier for me to recall things that happened at the job I’m still at than at jobs I had five or six years ago.  That makes sense, right?  I mean, if something just happened last week, compared to seven years ago, you would remember last week much more vividly.  That’s why so many of my stories are from my current job.  Not to mention that my current job has a lot more of the weird things happening.  Anyway, onto the story.

I get asked a lot of strange questions at work.  They vary from the obvious things like “Where is the falls?” (You can see it from our lobby) or “Where is the wax museum?” (It’s directly across the street) or “Is this ____?” (There is a sign directly behind me saying what it is).  Sometimes I get stranger questions like “Do you know all of the facts in your museum?” or “How can I get to the mall in Toronto?” or “Do you live here?”  That last one might not seem strange, but the way people ask it makes it seem like they want to know if I live where all of the tourist attraction stuff is, instead of in the actual residential areas.

The other day, I was at work when a kid came up to me and asked a question I had never heard before.  First, he asked me about the museum.  “What is this?”  “It’s a museum.”  “So what can we do inside?” “There’s things to look at, some games, and it’s all about what our name is.”  No, I didn’t actually talk as vague as that.  I just don’t want to give too much information about my work away.  Some of you might already know where I work, but others don’t.  I don’t want to be that open with everyone.  At least, not at this point in time.  After the little bit of talk that I have with anybody who is curious about our museum, this twelve year old kid asked the question that I hadn’t heard before.

“Is there any place around here where they have Call of Duty tournaments?”

I have never had that question asked before, and I don’t think I will ever have that question asked again.  No, there are no places around my work that have Call of Duty tournaments.  I’m not sure why there would be.  It seems like it would be a waste of money.  The new games tend to get released in the off-season for tourism.  So the lace having the tournament would have to buy up all of the new installments of the franchise during that time.  The televisions would all have to be upgraded.  The systems, depending on years, would also have to be upgraded.  All for one franchise of games.  And our tourist season is about four months long.  So for eight months, the equipment would sit there, unused.  There wouldn’t be enough people to hold tournaments.

This might sound crazy to anyone out there who likes the Call of Duty games.  You might think there are enough people interested that it would be a good investment.  You might think that people would come during the winter just for the tournaments.  I disagree wholeheartedly.

When this twelve year old asked if there was a place for Call of Duty tournaments around there, I had to hold in my laughter.  It isn’t a feasible asset in my mind.  While I held in my laughter, the kid started to talk about how good he was at Call of Duty.  My jaw almost dropped out of shock.  There was a twelve year old kid telling me about his Call of Duty standing, and it wasn’t on the internet!  I never expected this in a million years.

I talked about this very briefly on Twitter the day that it happened.  Someone told me that I should have teabagged the kid and put him in his place.  Two things about that.  First, that would get me arrested for abusing a child.  I don’t want that at all.  I like not being under the watchful eye of the police at all times.  Second, this was a kid actually talking face-to-face with someone, which isn’t something you see too much these days.  With video game headsets, cell phones, and an internet connection, people don’t talk as much anymore.  We write, we type, we yell during online games, but there is less real conversation going on.  I might find what the kid is saying to be hilariously ridiculous, but I still appreciate that he’s trying to converse.

This message was brought to you by me.

That’s this week’s Work Story.  I wrote more than I thought I would about it, but I was doing my tangential rambling thing, so I guess that explains it.  Next week I’ll have something else for you.  I don’t know what it will be, but I know I will have it.

Until then, service guarantees citizenship.