And another really long (and old) post
Yet again, something I wrote in Word, but never took the time to post. I believe it's a continuation on my Adventure in NY, at my H.O. for training this past November. Spoiler alert - it includes a brief crush on a co-worker. :: blush ::
I cut... it's really long. Total stream of consciousness. Have I ever mentioned I wanted to be an English Major and one day dream of being a famous writer? I guess this is my practice.
So the work trip ended up not being as bad as Thursday made it feel like it would. Friday started early but not too early, I had to be ready by 9:30. A good thing since I was up so very late the night before, first because I just stayed up late and second because someone in a nearby room had their TV turned up too loud and it kept me up. I had all of Friday morning sort of open. We drove to the Home Office where we immediately went to the Cafeteria in the building to get some much needed coffee. The cafeteria services the whole building and sells all sorts of things. While looking around there we ran into someone from our IT Dept. who guessed that we were the visiting IT Girls and invited us up to the office where we could have free coffee. (I wasn’t so sure about free, since most office coffee is terrible, but it actually was very good)
We found an empty office, set our stuff down, got ourselves some coffee and set about to meeting the rest of the team. We all had an assignment to interview one of our co-workers so that we could then introduce them to the team, a get-to-know-you sort of exercise, so I was looking for my victim and in doing so, got to meet quite a few people. My interviewee was busy with some work so I told him where I was hanging out and asked him to come find me when he was done.
Our team is really diverse, it’s pretty great. We have people not only from all over the country, but also people from India, South America, Asia and somewhere in the Middle East - Pakistan maybe? So we have Christians, Muslims, Hindu, etc. It was pretty cool. In total there are about 37 of us. A good sized group - especially when you consider we are the IT Dept. for all of the LLS, including all 60 something of our chapters in the US and Canada. I don’t know how many employees that is but it must be a lot.
Around 12 we went downstairs to the cafeteria again to grab some lunch. I had a turkey club-type sandwich, it was extremely good. That place would be dangerous for me, I would spend so much money there if I worked in that building! They even do breakfast, but not for lunch, much to my disappointment. Embarrasingly though, I’d made a mistake about someone’s identity and felt pretty dumb. Our head of IT, his name is “Paul” (let’s say), and I’ve never met Paul. Earlier in the day though I met “George”, and George seemed to be sort of in charge.
He walked around the dept. with a definite air of confidence and in-charge-ness. And though he was introduced to me as George, I heard in my head - Paul. So I thought he was the Boss Boss. Like the head guy. I remember thinking, Gee he seems really young! But in IT, age really isn’t a factor so I didn’t think on it long.
I went up to George, thinking he was actually Paul, and said something to him about the difficulty they had hiring me (my office didn’t want to let me go). He seemed a little lost. I said something else, and he still seemed not to know what I meant but he sort of nodded and just gently extricated himself from the conversation. I knew something was wrong but couldn’t figure out what. I thought - Maybe he doesn’t realize who I am? Who knows. So I walk over and I sit with him and a few others to eat, he’s very much an Alpha within the group (and not bad looking either) but I’m pretty quiet, feeling a little out of sorts. Just before 12:30 we head up to a conference room for our 1st meeting of the weekend.
In the conference room I sit next to someone on the far end of the table near the white screen. There was no chair where I sat so I dragged one over and said; Do you mind if I sit here? The guy next to me hesitated at first, and then said it was fine. Then he said, You must be “Andoriah”? I said Yup! And shook his hand. He then got up and started addressing the group, telling them to sit down, we’d start shortly, etc. This was Paul. Oops.
I felt like such a git. Paul started moving around behind me to get to the screen so I moved the chair and went and sat against the wall with one of my new co-workers on my little team. I asked her; If that’s Paul, who is that other guy we were sitting with? She tells me, Oh, that’s George. Duh. As soon as she said it I knew that he was introduced as George, and couldn’t figure out why I spent all morning thinking he was Paul! Later I confessed to him about it and we laughed. He was very nice, didn’t make me feel dumb or anything, which I appreciated.
This is probably getting pretty boring for you, Reader, so I will end it here and continue in another posting, so you can read at your leisure.
I cut... it's really long. Total stream of consciousness. Have I ever mentioned I wanted to be an English Major and one day dream of being a famous writer? I guess this is my practice.
So the work trip ended up not being as bad as Thursday made it feel like it would. Friday started early but not too early, I had to be ready by 9:30. A good thing since I was up so very late the night before, first because I just stayed up late and second because someone in a nearby room had their TV turned up too loud and it kept me up. I had all of Friday morning sort of open. We drove to the Home Office where we immediately went to the Cafeteria in the building to get some much needed coffee. The cafeteria services the whole building and sells all sorts of things. While looking around there we ran into someone from our IT Dept. who guessed that we were the visiting IT Girls and invited us up to the office where we could have free coffee. (I wasn’t so sure about free, since most office coffee is terrible, but it actually was very good)
We found an empty office, set our stuff down, got ourselves some coffee and set about to meeting the rest of the team. We all had an assignment to interview one of our co-workers so that we could then introduce them to the team, a get-to-know-you sort of exercise, so I was looking for my victim and in doing so, got to meet quite a few people. My interviewee was busy with some work so I told him where I was hanging out and asked him to come find me when he was done.
Our team is really diverse, it’s pretty great. We have people not only from all over the country, but also people from India, South America, Asia and somewhere in the Middle East - Pakistan maybe? So we have Christians, Muslims, Hindu, etc. It was pretty cool. In total there are about 37 of us. A good sized group - especially when you consider we are the IT Dept. for all of the LLS, including all 60 something of our chapters in the US and Canada. I don’t know how many employees that is but it must be a lot.
Around 12 we went downstairs to the cafeteria again to grab some lunch. I had a turkey club-type sandwich, it was extremely good. That place would be dangerous for me, I would spend so much money there if I worked in that building! They even do breakfast, but not for lunch, much to my disappointment. Embarrasingly though, I’d made a mistake about someone’s identity and felt pretty dumb. Our head of IT, his name is “Paul” (let’s say), and I’ve never met Paul. Earlier in the day though I met “George”, and George seemed to be sort of in charge.
He walked around the dept. with a definite air of confidence and in-charge-ness. And though he was introduced to me as George, I heard in my head - Paul. So I thought he was the Boss Boss. Like the head guy. I remember thinking, Gee he seems really young! But in IT, age really isn’t a factor so I didn’t think on it long.
I went up to George, thinking he was actually Paul, and said something to him about the difficulty they had hiring me (my office didn’t want to let me go). He seemed a little lost. I said something else, and he still seemed not to know what I meant but he sort of nodded and just gently extricated himself from the conversation. I knew something was wrong but couldn’t figure out what. I thought - Maybe he doesn’t realize who I am? Who knows. So I walk over and I sit with him and a few others to eat, he’s very much an Alpha within the group (and not bad looking either) but I’m pretty quiet, feeling a little out of sorts. Just before 12:30 we head up to a conference room for our 1st meeting of the weekend.
In the conference room I sit next to someone on the far end of the table near the white screen. There was no chair where I sat so I dragged one over and said; Do you mind if I sit here? The guy next to me hesitated at first, and then said it was fine. Then he said, You must be “Andoriah”? I said Yup! And shook his hand. He then got up and started addressing the group, telling them to sit down, we’d start shortly, etc. This was Paul. Oops.
I felt like such a git. Paul started moving around behind me to get to the screen so I moved the chair and went and sat against the wall with one of my new co-workers on my little team. I asked her; If that’s Paul, who is that other guy we were sitting with? She tells me, Oh, that’s George. Duh. As soon as she said it I knew that he was introduced as George, and couldn’t figure out why I spent all morning thinking he was Paul! Later I confessed to him about it and we laughed. He was very nice, didn’t make me feel dumb or anything, which I appreciated.
This is probably getting pretty boring for you, Reader, so I will end it here and continue in another posting, so you can read at your leisure.