flying free
So the dreaded All-Hands meeting was today. As you may imagine, I'm ecstatic that it's over.
I started out about 3 minutes late, and got to work 20 minutes late because the train in front of mine had mechanical problems and we were stuck in a tunnel behind it for that long.
When I got to work, my cube was covered in food. 2 bags of chips filled the spare chair. The desk held a box of brownies, strawberries, a box of cookie squares, and 2 liter bottles of pop. There was a cake on my printer, and another cake on my own chair. I stuck my bags of salad in the fridge, and Annette told me she had a tray of pumpkin bars in the fridge for me too.
I went up to check on the room/bring stuff up and found out that facilities had misunderstood my request for 10 rows and gave me '12'--6 on two sides of an aisle (that is required for fire safety). So i called them desperately saying MY MEETING IS IN HALF AN HOUR AND I NEED MORE CHAIRS. I'M GONNA GO PULL CHAIRS UP. SEND HELP. and they were like 'there's no one here to send right now, but when I got up there next time (might as well take another load of food and drink up), there were two people pulling out more chairs and tables for me.
There was desperate carting of everything upstairs. I'd planned to finish food set-up during the meeting itself because I didn't want the salad sitting out for an hour and a half, and the pizza wasn't arriving until 11:30ish anyway.
Cue technical difficulties. Though I tested all the equipment yesterday, today with 19 other parties on the line, the phone didn't want to work, and we couldn't find the mic at first (it was the actual mic, which is what i thought, but they couldn't seem to hear us the first time we tried that idk) and then it turned itself off at one point (well, more likely Linda D bumped the on/off switch with her hand adjusting it to her very impressive height) and for a while the computer screen was randomly flashing and i thought omg why couldn't the building have collapsed? and contemplated crawling under the podium and never coming out. lol.
Joan was a doll (lol though possibly she wouldn't like that metaphor) and handed Desi's award to Nancy (not nancy b) to bring up before she left to pick up the pizza. Nancy was also on top of things and handed it off to Linda D before the thing started. I was too busy panicking about the fact that the PHONE DIDN'T WORK to even remember it until halfway through the meeting.
Mel, Joan, Sandi and Sandra were all very helpful and wonderful and finished food set-up as I ended up being tied up with running powerpoints for presenters. It was also weird how we started half the meeting being way ahead, and then suddenly we were behind and went overtime. idk how these things happen. And i spent the day in heels because it was pouring this morning and my water proof shoe options are high heels and higher heels. The heels actually weren't bad, but the hose choice (a patterned fishnet number) was unwise with the shoes, because by the end of a day of running around carrying bottles of soda and moving tables and standing through every single presentation meant the little attractive pattern was doing its best to cut its way permanently into the soles of my feet. tomorrow = flat shoes! and fluffy socks. very fluffy.
Everyone else kept saying it went really well. I did my best to hide my :\ face.
After, it was a bit like 'wait you expect me to work now? But I did manage to pull out mostly productiveness for the next couple of hours before going to the OCSE happy hour. I happened to be leaving the building at the same time as a group of my coworkers (incl. billie, desi, and julie. there was one other person....whose name i don't remember, who telecommutes from San Diego). The drinks weren't free, but the food was and except for the meatballs, it was good. The stuffed mushrooms were mostly veggies and good, and the hot spinach-artichoke dip, well, it's making my mouth water now. I chitchatted with various people for about an hour, and hour and 20 minutes and then i cut out early to go get off my feet.
as a reward, i get to sleep in tomorrow. Well, ok, actually my excel class starts tomorrow, so i'll take the class and then go in to work after that. I'll have to make up the commute time in the evenings, but hey. half an hour extra of sleep is half an hour extra and i am not turning my nose up. and i took home a plate of brownies. (stillesprite, if you see this before tomorrow, would you like me to bring you a brownie?)
funny story: everything got me in such a state this morning that I ended up sticking my cellphone in the fridge along with the salad stuff. I'd stuck it in my bag to go through the metal detector because it always sets it off, and completely forgot and just stuck the whole bag in the fridge. Mel and Sandi found it when they were setting up lunch. XD
i had a few other (offsite) people introduce themselves to me today. Andy stopped to say he'd heard good things about me and to welcome me to the company (he's the manager for the financial end of the project). Ruth C told me I wasn't allowed to tell them but that she'd heard that Linda D and Nancy B were both very impressed with me and pleased with my work. Linda D's the fed in charge of my company's contract, so that is very good news (which i hope will translate into a raise come july XD. i won't hold my breath, but i will keep my fingers crossed)
in other news. I think I just need to budget myself more money for food. doing it won't kill me, and the fact that even though i shop for sales, i can't hit below my target probably just means that my target is unreasonable.
I started out about 3 minutes late, and got to work 20 minutes late because the train in front of mine had mechanical problems and we were stuck in a tunnel behind it for that long.
When I got to work, my cube was covered in food. 2 bags of chips filled the spare chair. The desk held a box of brownies, strawberries, a box of cookie squares, and 2 liter bottles of pop. There was a cake on my printer, and another cake on my own chair. I stuck my bags of salad in the fridge, and Annette told me she had a tray of pumpkin bars in the fridge for me too.
I went up to check on the room/bring stuff up and found out that facilities had misunderstood my request for 10 rows and gave me '12'--6 on two sides of an aisle (that is required for fire safety). So i called them desperately saying MY MEETING IS IN HALF AN HOUR AND I NEED MORE CHAIRS. I'M GONNA GO PULL CHAIRS UP. SEND HELP. and they were like 'there's no one here to send right now, but when I got up there next time (might as well take another load of food and drink up), there were two people pulling out more chairs and tables for me.
There was desperate carting of everything upstairs. I'd planned to finish food set-up during the meeting itself because I didn't want the salad sitting out for an hour and a half, and the pizza wasn't arriving until 11:30ish anyway.
Cue technical difficulties. Though I tested all the equipment yesterday, today with 19 other parties on the line, the phone didn't want to work, and we couldn't find the mic at first (it was the actual mic, which is what i thought, but they couldn't seem to hear us the first time we tried that idk) and then it turned itself off at one point (well, more likely Linda D bumped the on/off switch with her hand adjusting it to her very impressive height) and for a while the computer screen was randomly flashing and i thought omg why couldn't the building have collapsed? and contemplated crawling under the podium and never coming out. lol.
Joan was a doll (lol though possibly she wouldn't like that metaphor) and handed Desi's award to Nancy (not nancy b) to bring up before she left to pick up the pizza. Nancy was also on top of things and handed it off to Linda D before the thing started. I was too busy panicking about the fact that the PHONE DIDN'T WORK to even remember it until halfway through the meeting.
Mel, Joan, Sandi and Sandra were all very helpful and wonderful and finished food set-up as I ended up being tied up with running powerpoints for presenters. It was also weird how we started half the meeting being way ahead, and then suddenly we were behind and went overtime. idk how these things happen. And i spent the day in heels because it was pouring this morning and my water proof shoe options are high heels and higher heels. The heels actually weren't bad, but the hose choice (a patterned fishnet number) was unwise with the shoes, because by the end of a day of running around carrying bottles of soda and moving tables and standing through every single presentation meant the little attractive pattern was doing its best to cut its way permanently into the soles of my feet. tomorrow = flat shoes! and fluffy socks. very fluffy.
Everyone else kept saying it went really well. I did my best to hide my :\ face.
After, it was a bit like 'wait you expect me to work now? But I did manage to pull out mostly productiveness for the next couple of hours before going to the OCSE happy hour. I happened to be leaving the building at the same time as a group of my coworkers (incl. billie, desi, and julie. there was one other person....whose name i don't remember, who telecommutes from San Diego). The drinks weren't free, but the food was and except for the meatballs, it was good. The stuffed mushrooms were mostly veggies and good, and the hot spinach-artichoke dip, well, it's making my mouth water now. I chitchatted with various people for about an hour, and hour and 20 minutes and then i cut out early to go get off my feet.
as a reward, i get to sleep in tomorrow. Well, ok, actually my excel class starts tomorrow, so i'll take the class and then go in to work after that. I'll have to make up the commute time in the evenings, but hey. half an hour extra of sleep is half an hour extra and i am not turning my nose up. and i took home a plate of brownies. (stillesprite, if you see this before tomorrow, would you like me to bring you a brownie?)
funny story: everything got me in such a state this morning that I ended up sticking my cellphone in the fridge along with the salad stuff. I'd stuck it in my bag to go through the metal detector because it always sets it off, and completely forgot and just stuck the whole bag in the fridge. Mel and Sandi found it when they were setting up lunch. XD
i had a few other (offsite) people introduce themselves to me today. Andy stopped to say he'd heard good things about me and to welcome me to the company (he's the manager for the financial end of the project). Ruth C told me I wasn't allowed to tell them but that she'd heard that Linda D and Nancy B were both very impressed with me and pleased with my work. Linda D's the fed in charge of my company's contract, so that is very good news (which i hope will translate into a raise come july XD. i won't hold my breath, but i will keep my fingers crossed)
in other news. I think I just need to budget myself more money for food. doing it won't kill me, and the fact that even though i shop for sales, i can't hit below my target probably just means that my target is unreasonable.