PowerPoint

As a newcomer to Shanghai I’m frequently engaged in the idle chit-chat, get to know me and assess my worth as a human being conversations that I usually find so intolerable. After “What’s your name again?” and “Where are you from?” comes the question most people really want answered: “What do you do?”

Obviously I know why everyone asks. It’s the same reason I ask. You can’t tell anything about a person regarding education, wealth, social status and potential for upward mobility by inconsequential information like someone’s name and hometown. The initial indicator of social status both real and imagined will always be “What do you do?”

In the past I’ve tried making light of it by giving some outlandish job: “I’m the star of ‘Garfield On Ice.’” “I’m a professional ear model.” Or my favorite, “I’m a hobo!” The problem with this is sometimes people believe you, and 100% of the time no one thinks you’re funny.

Since I have one of those esoteric, touchy-feely new economy jobs (it’s about synergy! And insights! And insightful synergies!!!), I invariably dodge the inevitable “what do you do” question with a rather lame response. “I work in advertising.”

Telling people you work in advertising is like telling people you’re from Minneapolis – it’s a statement that’s neither terrifically interesting nor dreadfully boring. It’s the quintessential compromise job for people who “kinda want to do something sort of creative,” but certainly don’t want to “starve.” This means that on the scale of professional impressiveness I’m somewhere between Nelson Mandela and Paulie Shore’s personal assistant.

But to be honest: What do I really do? All day? Every day?

I do Powerpoint.

For those of you who have been on Mars in a cave with your eyes shut and your fingers in your ears, PowerPoint is Microsoft’s presentation software. It’s the glue that binds global corporate commerce together. Millions of people use it every day to bore millions of other people with charts, graphs and bullet points.

The past 8 years of my life have been spent sitting in front of this digital taskmaster creating “decks” about “strategies” that are invariably “breakthrough” or at least “cutting-edge” to create “value.” I then present these decks-about-breakthrough-cutting-edge-strategies-that-create-value to various clients. People either agree or disagree. Decisions are made. Decisions mean more decks and the process starts over -- inevitable as the tide or migrating birds or the sun rising or worm turning or any other stuff that’s inevitable.

It’s the perfect circle of corporate life.

I don’t mean to completely diminish my work. The problems we solve are sometimes (albeit rarely) intellectually engaging. My job has allowed me to do something I love which is to travel, think about the way people live and occasionally wear jeans to work. I usually get to go home at a reasonable hour. It provides a decent standard of living without having to be a lawyer.

But it will always be a compromise. I just don’t know for what, with whom or why.

Maybe I should just go to law school.