A Lesson in Humility

What a chance encounter with a DOGE employee taught me about my shortcomings.

“I like your fit, bro. What do you do?”

I had just stepped out of a karaoke bar to grab some air. I was wearing an off-white safari blazer for my friend’s birthday, so I probably looked foppishly out of place in filthy drunken Adams Morgan a little after 1AM.

Was the guy making a pass at me? I probably took a defensive step back.

He was holding a joint, wearing all black, eyes slits, sunglasses on his forehead. Seemed taller than me. California vibe, I thought.

“I work for a newspaper.”

“Journalist?”

“Yeah, sort of…”

“Journalist, huh? What do you think of DOGE?”

Loaded question. I went from feeling unwelcomely hit-upon to feeling put on the spot.

“Well, I’ll tell you what. I think they’re being ruthlessly effective at taking a sledgehammer to the beast that runs this town,” I said.

“Yeah, I sort of work for the federal government now,” my interlocutor interrupted, grinning, confirming my suspicions. “And man, it’s really tough. People are losing their jobs, really smart people, folks who know a whole lot more than me…”

“Brutal,” I said, shaking my head. Still, I felt like I had to finish my unpleasant contrarian point — to a DOGE employee, no less. “But you know, anyone who says that there’s a better way than this to reform bureaucracies — I’m not sure they’re right.” I paused, a bit uncomfortable with myself. “But yeah, there’s an awful lot of destruction happening…”

“Yeah man,” the DOGE bro said, taking a pull off his joint.

At that moment, a man staggered up to us. He had blood on his face — not like open wounds oozing blood, but fresh cuts. In the street light it was hard to tell just how fresh.

“Can you guys tell me, how do I get to Massachusetts Avenue from here?”

I again probably took a defensive step back. The sight of a bloodied man stumbling around Adams Morgan doesn’t exactly phase me any more, but it still makes me nervous.

“Yeah, just keep going straight down 18th, it’s a fair bit. But you’ll get there,” I said, feeling like I’d done my good deed for the night.

“Bro, what happened to your face?” asked my DOGE buddy.

“Awww, I got in a fight last night. Some guy stepped to my girl,” the bloodied guy said, shuffling his feet.

“Did your girl welcome the guy stepping to her?” DOGE bro asked.

“Naw, she didn’t, and me and my friend got in his face, and yeah…” he trailed off. At this point, I noticed the bloodied guy was kind of young.

“How come you don’t know where you are? Don’t you have your phone?” DOGE bro continued the interrogation.

“It ran out of power. I also lost my AirPods at the bar back there, and I couldn’t find them,” the bloodied kid answered.

“Bro, you gotta get your shit together. You gotta get a routine, always know where your stuff is. Phone, AirPods, keys, wallet…” DOGE bro instructed, tapping various pockets on his own jacket in quick succession as he listed the items.

“How old are you, bro?”

“I’m 23.”

“For real, bro?”

“Yeah, I’m 23. My birthday was two days ago, March 24th.”

“Bro, you don’t have to lie to us, we’re not cops. He’s a journalist. You’re not 23, and the 24th is two days from now, not two days ago.”

“OK, yeah, I’m 20…”

DOGE bro now softened his tone.

“Bro, I hate to pull the age card on you, I’m not that old, but you gotta get it together. Don’t get in dumb fights because some girl’s playing games. Don’t let your phone go dead. This is a big bad city, bro, you gotta watch out for yourself. Where you from?”

“Raleigh… Yeah, I know…” the kid fumbled.

But he was smiling. “Hey man, I… I really appreciate all of this. Thank you.”

“You good, bro?”

“Yeah, I’m good,” the kid said, and hugged the DOGE bro.

“Be safe,” I said uncomfortably, shaking the kid’s hand before he walked off.

The whole exchange was such a whirlwind that at the moment, I could only quietly smile to myself. A bit later, the full force of it hit me.

It’s as if the whole thing was choreographed to teach me some humility, and to point out to me just how closed off I am to people. In my mind, my interlocutor had gone from gay to threatening tech zealot in the blink of an eye — when in fact he turned out to have more empathy for the damage he was doing to people than I did. And when confronted by a young man clearly in some distress, I wrote him off as a threatening drunk while the DOGE bro connected, doing his best to channel Jordan Peterson for him. Maybe there’s a lesson there for us all here, to not fall into Trump’s trap of grotesquely caricaturing the other side, to try to remember that human beings are complex and multifaceted, and worthy of our attention…

But there was no time for any of this to hit me because my night was not yet over.

Two other dudes walked up, leering in this uncomfortable way, and shook DOGE bro’s hand.

“Who’s this guy?”

“He’s a journalist,” DOGE bro answered.

“Editor, really…” I said under my breath.

“Journalist? Prove it!” said the leering man.

“I can’t, don’t have my cards on me,” I answered.

“Ask him any question, he’ll answer,” DOGE bro helpfully suggested.

“You ever astral project?” the leering man asked.

“Nope!”

“You ever have sleep paralysis?”

“Nope!”

“Bro, I did!” the DOGE bro piped up again. “Me and my girlfriend were learning about it on YouTube, and then like two days later, I had it. I was lying in bed, my eyes wide open, and then I saw that the snowboard I had propped up at the foot my bed had turned into a demon. And then I remembered that to get out of sleep paralysis, you have to wiggle — wiggle out. So I started wiggling my toes, and then my ankles, and then my knees… You’ve just gotta keep moving to get out of it…”

“OK, gentlemen, I’ve gotta go. My friends are waiting for me inside the karaoke place,” I said.

“Awright bro,” DOGE bro said, shaking my hand.

“Never change,” he added as I walked away.

I suppose I never will.

And no, I never did get his name — or confirm that he worked for DOGE for that matter. But then again, I’m no journalist.

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