Black Rocket

Way back when, at the turn of the millenium, I was part of a big family called Genuity. As in all families, there were disagreements, triumphs, bitter fights, great friendships, and the bond of common goals and struggles. It was in a way, a coming of age, a rite of passage at a critical time. Though for me it only lasted three years, it seemed like much longer -they were after all, not regular years, but internet years, and events that would normally develop over months, took only weeks. We were all still riding the internet boom, and things happened fast. Not surprisingly, they also ended fast. The much anticipated crash was finally beginning to happen. Then came the coup de grace on 9/11. Three rounds of lay-offs later, there was no longer a "u" in Genuity, as the joke went -and a pink slip was my inspiration to migrate westward. A few months after that, Genuity was little more than a billion-dollar garage sale.

It is amazing how quickly time erodes the past. Today, while updating my resume, I decided to google Genuity. I had to dig deep to find any links, and then all I came up with were old IT news articles. It raises all sorts of existential questions when three out of four employers in your resume are little more than dust in the wind. If not for the few trinkets with Genuity lables I still have, I would be wondering if I had just imagined the whole thing.

When I found this link, I couldn't at first believe my eyes: that looks exactly like Black Rocket... -I thought to myself- could it be that somebody made a replica...!? No, wait! It is THE Black Rocket!! It is flying, flame shooting out of it, for real!!!! At first I started laughing, exhilarated, it was just too cool -then mixed feelings crept in. To see the icon of so much effort used as a toy, the remains of a previous life bought at some online auction for a few bucks...

Black Rocket was Genuity's prodigal son. Conceived by marketing, and suffered by the rest of us, its needs and wants extended to every corporate nook and cranny. To accomodate it, adjustments were required, processes expedited, trips made, people trained. Inevitably, we all developed feelings for it. When the first TV spots aired on prime-time, we would all proudly point at it and say to whoever would listen: "pretty cool, isn't it? -I worked on that", then launch into a monologue about our Network Services Platform, and how our stock would shoot straight up like a black rocket, or just show our Black Rocket tattoos -yes, I even had a fake tattoo in my arm, they used to pass them around at meetings -and was secretly proud of it, too.

Funny, even though the commercials were really cool, it somehow seemed like something was missing... the black rocket was just sitting there -it had a presence, they got that part right -but it didn't move. Nice to finally see it flying after all these years -as a rocket should.
Team Vatsaas, your next beer is on me.