Tripod: Messages from the Staff

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spurred me to work here on the bargain table at Barnes & Noble, and since <a href="../../../www_subdomain/tripod/staff/editorial-html/anchor_randy.html">Randy</a> is clamoring for my next Letter from Tripod (okay, he's not really clamoring, he just wants it on his desk on time so he can work his editorial magic on it), I decided that I'll make a valiant attempt to write this letter in (almost) the style of <b><tt>Microserfs</tt></b> by Douglas Coupland.<p> I am <a href="mailto:christina@tripod.com">Christina</a>, a Membership Assistant here at Tripod. I don't often make a habit of plagiarizing another writer's style or work, but in this case, since it's technically a salute of sorts, I'll make an exception. If  as the characters in the book discuss  my life were turned into seven Jeopardy categories, they would be:<p> <ol> <li> Angels <li> Interpersonal Relationships on the X Files <li> Epcot Center <li> Cats and Dogs <li> Myth, Folklore, and Children's Literature <li> Broadway Musicals <li> Group Dynamics in a Virtual Setting</ol><br> About two months ago, I asked my fellow Tripodians what their "dream Jeopardy" categories would be, and if you're particularly nosey about what they said, you can <a href="../../../www_subdomain/tripod/letters/morechris3.html">click here</a>.<p> <b><tt>Microserfs</tt></b> really is the reason I started working at Tripod. I fell in love with the book  the quirky characters, the alternative work environment, the general sense of "finding a life," as it were. Wouldn't it be neat, I thought, to work with other people my own age, in an exciting, upward-moving medium, with a company that's destined to go places? So  I came to work at Tripod, and discovered that I'd walked into the rough draft that Douglas Coupland probably never new existed (probably because Tripod didn't exist in its current form when the book was first published, let alone conceptualized. Details, details...).<p> This is a list of frightening almost-similarities between the Microserfs and the friendly Webserfs at Tripod: <table border="0" cellspacing="8" cellpadding="8"> <tr><td><b>Microserfs</b> <ul> <li>Start-up software company staffed largely by young, hip, beautiful people who want to get a life. Kinda like the cast of "Friends." <li>Has office space decorated with Legos. <li>Female characters band together and form cyberfeminist group "Chyx." <li>Have two office gerbils, "Look" and "Feel." <li>Characters obsessed with "flat foods." <li>Former "Microserfs" watch foreign films (subtitles require less attention span). <li>Has a sensitive, perceptive narrator trying to write a journal.</ul></td> <td><b>Tripod</b> <ul> <li>Start up Internet-based company staffed largely by young, hip, beautiful people (though they'd deny every adjective) many of whom seem to have lives. Online documentation compares them to the cast of "Friends." <li>Has office space dressed up with metal bordering resembling an Erector set kit. <li>Female staffers gather together and periodically debate definition of feminism. <li>Has an office cat, "Trixie Tripawed," and office baby <a href="/">Hannah Claire Merrill</a>. <li>Staffers addicted to "Squeeze," a soft drink native to the Berkshires. <li>Current Tripodians watch foreign films (subtitles are optional). <li>Has a somewhat harried Membership Assistant trying to write a Letter from Tripod.</ul> </td></tr> </table><p> I was going to launch into a description of how the various Tripodians do seem to resemble the characters in the book, but decided that since most of the staff hasn't read the book, it's quite likely that a good number of the people who read this won't be familiar with it, either (though all of the above parties certainly should check it out). It should be enough to say that the quirkiness and endearing qualities of Douglas Coupland's imaginary people really can't hold a candle to the quirky, endearing qualities of real people. The former Microserfs had a genius, a health freak philosopher, a sensitive '90s man, a bitter cynic, a capitalist, and a smattering of others. We've got all of those and then some, including skaters, artists, francophiles, daddies, mommies-to-be, and ping pong addicts. <p> Of course, the people in the book also had all sorts of lovely adventures from page to page, and real life doesn't often oblige by scheduling anecdotal events on a daily basis  but still, when you work with a group of people who are more believable characters than any imaginary people could be, every day can be a bit of an adventure. <p>Tripodians break their legs playing football at a company party, and take the day off work to go snowboarding down Mount Greylock. They own one-eyed dogs and bring them into work. They program by day and write music and novels and poetry at night. They turn their company rec room into "Café Tripod." They pretend to pierce their noses and wonder if people will notice (note: most didn't). Some have more body art than Dennis Rodman  almost. Being that truth really is stranger than fiction, it would, I think, make a lovely book  if the ongoing exploits of the Tripod world weren't already chronicled in the weekly Insider, which (hopefully) won't have a neatly-wrapped-up final chapter anytime soon.<p> Unlike this letter.<p> <p> <ul> Bye now!<br> ~<a href="/">Chris</a> :) (8/29/97) </ul> <br><p> <hr width="330"> <p> <center>Read more "Letters from Tripod" in the <a href="../../../www_subdomain/tripod/letters/archive.html">archive</a>.</center> <p> <hr width="330"> </blockquote> <br> </td> </tr> </table> </td> </tr> </table> </body>