The Grid

I woke up the other morning to my fiance and our friend watching Tron: Legacy on Blu-Ray. I had seen the original Tron while visiting Jay's sister and her family in California over Thanksgiving break. I remember not enjoying it very much. Granted we were playing Sequence at the same time and there were constant interruptions from sleepy children wandering down the stairs, rubbing their eyes saying "Moooommyyy..."

Legacy was fantastic. Visually stunning and of course, Daft Punk's presence made it much more appealing to me than the original which is lacking in any interesting musical score. Last night I went back to watch the original (also on Blu-Ray) and once I got through the "80's-tastic" format and focused on it, I enjoyed it much more.



So much so that it has infiltrated how I look at some of the things I do, say, for example, my job in retail. Check it out:

I work at a chain department store, let's call it Flarget. It is surprisingly easy to superimpose The Grid in Tron (either the original or Legacy) to the physical and mental set-up of a sales floor job.

Identity disc: Name tag

Color-coded uniform: Red shirt and khaki pants

Lightcycle: Shopping cart

Master Control Program / CLU: Whatever manager may be "messing with your whole zen thing, man"

Dumont: Fitting room operator

"Water" / Source of nutrition: Free PB and J sandwiches in the breakroom

The Grid: The Physical Sales Floor / "The Racetrack"

"The Games" between programs: Interaction between team members and guests (not all the time...but there are times, oh there are times)

There are endless other lines to be drawn between the Tron universe and Flarget, but that's enough for me to get over the fact that I actually have to work tonight, the first time in three days where I was really enjoying high points of productivity.