After two weeks at my new job (I am a research analyst now--although the duties are quite similar to those of a layout lackey), I felt reasonably comfortable in my new digs. But, as usually happens in close-nit offices, the moral of the general populace was not the highest. Before I started working the staff had to do its job a full-time staffer low. So everyone had to do extra work to cover for the fact that the new guy (me) was not there. Or maybe it was more that the person I replaced left quite a while before the company hired a replacement (also me).

Whatever the actual circumstances were, the bottom line was this: people were not happy. The workers were not happy. This, to me, was nothing new.

At my old job, we were continually working with fewer people than necessary. And a lot of us weren't getting paid enough to work under those conditions. Which, to be really quick and nasty about it, was why I left. There's nothing more exasperating than doing your job and someone else's--even if that someone else doesn't exist.

So two weeks into my new job, I got a surprise. Well, it wasn't just me who got the surprise, but the whole office. Our second-in-command scheduled an outing. And not only was it an outing, but it was a paid outing because we were doing it on company time. Needless to say, we were all quite giddy.

Laser Tag and bumper cars. After a quick look at the new company web site, we all jumped in our cars (or car pools) and rode down the block (okay, it was a few miles down the block, but whatever) to the Hinkle Family Fun Center west wing. The west wing was the part with laser tag and bumper cars. The east wing has putt-putt golf and other attractions. But, being the greatly desensitized not-as-youthful-as-we-once-were office hounds that we are, we wanted to shoot each other. Maybe even kill each other--but not for real. Just for fun.

After a lot of waiting (our boss was late), we were instructed as to the rules of the shoot-em-up. The main one being "don't run." Our young instructor told us that if we ran, we would be laughed at and thrown out of the game. And since none of us wanted to be laughed at, we agreed. Suited up and ready to go, all we had to do was choose teams. Since there are actual teams in the office (to promote a sense of place, I think), using these already sanctioned groups was one suggestion. But eventually, we went with the boys against the girls. The girls had seven and the boys had six (there were a couple people out sick--they didn't get no fun). Since us boys were men, we figured we could handle the handicap of being one man down.

As I quickly learned, there are two simple things necessary to do well at laser tag. First off, shoot early and often. Don't worry so much about aiming (there are laser sights that project a red beam at your target) as much as rapid firing. Our young instructor told us the guns were semi-automatic, which means as soon as you let go of the trigger you can shoot again. Not an Uzi, but pretty close. And secondly, keep moving. It's really hard to hit a moving target, even with those laser sights.

The first game was won overwhelmingly by the boys. Three of us garnered point scores of 2000 or more (the point system is strange, as points are given and taken away depending on how many times you are hit and how many other people you actually kill). One of the girls--an 18-year-old intern--got the best score, somewhere in the neighborhood of 3000. But she was about the only girl who scored positive points.

The second time around, the girls were ready for us. A little more strategy and less "everyone for themselves." The boys still won--but by less than a 1000 points this time. And I got a high score. But the intern, who kicked our butts the first round, kicked us even harder the second time around. She scored 7100 and personally hit me 14 times to my 1 kill on her.

But the scores didn't really matter, and by the time we got our run on the new fangled bumper cars (which rode like tanks, were round and had huge rubber air bumpers around them), we were all much happier about our work place. Which was the goal of the boss guys, I'm sure.

Matt Worley fired over 1200 shots in 1200 seconds. Not bad for a guy who's never fired a real gun.