My first day started with me calling my friend in Denmark, named M, and chatting with him as I departed. I threw the phone on to the side seat, because I didnt want to hold the phone while driving, and put him on stereo. I drove up to a local burger king to get a croissant and driving up to the base. This was my first job out of college, and I was quite excited to get started in IT. I drove up to the base gate and the first thing I was introduced to was a series of lanes, similar to a street ticket box, and out walks this man with a shotgun strapped around his body. A few feet away I see two other marines with shotguns standing in the street accepting people by, and a bit further down is a machine gun.

It didn't help that this was the moment that M, while on phone stereo, decided to yell "BOMB! BOMB! BOMB!" over and over. The marine looks at the phone I had lying on the side seat, then at me. Pretty much confirming he heard it, but wasn't going to immediately react.

M has a sick sense of humor. I share it, most of the time. This was NOT one of those times. I promptly hung up the call. I looked to the marine and explained, "Hello, I'm R, I'm here to meet with Boss for a job?" (I will not share my bosses name. I'll just call him Boss.)

"Do you have a CAC?" He asked.

"I- uh. A what?" I asked back.

"CAC. You need one to get on base." He explained.

The moment was a bit much for me. I had a line building up behind me and there was no way to back up. Ahead of me was a fair bit of weaponry and a base I needed a key to get into. And there was myself missing said key. and my friend (ex friend now) had just been doing possibly the stupidiest stunt on his life for a laugh. I probably looked like a deer in headlights.

"Okay." He continued. "Can I see your driver license then?" I handed it to him. "Who did you say your employer is again?" I answered him. "Stand by a moment."

The marine stepped away, entered his booth, and made a phone call. After a moment he nodded and stepped back out to me. 

He handed me my driver license and said, "You're good to go. Just stay with your employer while on base until you get your CAC so he can vouch for you."

"Oh, thank you!" I gasped. Not wanting to waste his time further, I hit the gas, but also not too hard. Just at a nice, normal, speed. 

I had called my boss before coming to know where to go, but I had some trouble finding the building I was told to look for anyway because half the buildings in the base, as it turns out, look the same! "Brick building" and "near the entrance" is extremely helpful when military aren't exactly trying to go for extravagant architecture and just build something functional. I spent something like fifteen minutes being lost before I called Boss again and got him to take me step by step to the building with directions. I had been close, it turns out, but needed to go a bit further.

I entered in and found the room in particular to be restrained by a combination lock to a double-door. There is incoherent yelling on the other side. I knock.

The yelling immediately shifts into a chorus of human barking. Not by one, not by two, but by a room full of people all barking like dogs.

"SHUT THE **** UP!" A man booms and the room quiets down, somewhat. It instead returns to the previous state of yelling. The door opens and a man sees me. "R, right?" I nod. He says, "I'm Boss. Come on in."

I step in. Immediately twenty sets of eyes from across the room lock on me and someone goes "FRESH MEAT!"

"Don't mind them." Boss says. "They're harmless."

The lay out of the room was a room full of cubicles as you would expect from any lifeless corporation that Neo wanted to escape from. Except, they all removed the top half of the walls so the walls only go up to about shoulder level when you are sitting down. Very wide open spaces for twenty people who choose, rather than be forced, to sit close together. In the corner is a proper private cubicle, the Boss's office.

Boss begins the introduction, which was rather short, but can be summarized as such: My first time on base naturally would not have a CAC, but in the future I will need one, so his first task with me is to procure me one. It turns out there is an office at the entrance for people who don't have CACs, such as delivery/food drivers, family of people who work on base, people who forget their CACs, or people who don't have to begin with, and I knew none of this. He was my Boss, but he also did not have power to fire me, so I didn't need to worry. It was up to people higher up on the contract to fire us, and Boss was extremely lenient. He understood this was a beginner position in IT and wanted us to have as much experience and mistakes as possible to get through. I will be assigned to, and learn from, seniors in my office, and if I am here long enough, do the same for others.

There was one thing though: Do not write scripts with stupid names, such as 'Make America Great Again', 'Terminator', 'Happy Birthday', 'Star-Spangled Banner', or anything else that wasn't an explicit idea of what the script does.

I asked, "I understand, I was taught not to do that in college."

There have been a history of viruses and malware with names like that. It is basic scripting knowledge to never make a name that doesn't correspond to the function of the script in some way.

"Good." Boss nodded. "I don't care to be interrogated by the CTU again. I will have your back no matter how much you screw up, but if you get me interrogated, then you and I will need to have a talk." 

CTU means Counter Terrorist Unit. Think the show 24.

"Oh, yes." He explained further. "I tell you all this because-" He raises his voice to be heard across the room "J! Actually did pull that shit and I had to explain why he is a dumbass!" In the background people laughed.

There wasn't much more for now, and he sent me out to mingle. He threw me to the wolves.

Immediately the twenty-or-so men noticed me, but continued the conversation. J showed me where there was a computer and seat available. As I got settled in and familiar with where I would be sitting for the unknown future, I noticed the conversation around me was... interesting.

They were arguing, vehemently, loudly, and with a fair bit of hot-blood cursing, as to what was the most efficient way of surviving a zombie apocalypse. I was dumbfounded. 

After another five minutes, Boss storms out of his room angry. Everyone shuts up and looks at him while he glares across all of us slowly.

"Shut up!" He yells. "THAT IS NOT HOW YOU DO IT!" He then explained quickly the proper way to survive a zombie apocalypse. "SO THERE!" And he stomped back to his office.

Everyone looked between each other. A guy to the side, named F, smirked and said, "Well da boss done showed you idiots up!"

And the two in the middle of it who had been arguing the loudest returned to yelling at each other while everyone else egged them on or laughed.