Men (& Women) at Work

At the rate of sounding like a broken record, I must once again let the world know (or the 4 people reading this blog entry) how much I love my job and the people I work with. I can't get over how extremely blessed and fortunate I am. These are people that I not only like to work with but I would actually be friends with them and hang out with them beyond the 8-5 daily grind. Oh wait, I already do that. Friends with co-workers. . .what a concept. Why didn't I try this sooner? Oh wait, it's because people were mean to me and 20 years older than me with kids. (You can blame the extreme over-use of the phrase "oh wait" and "oh by the way" on my boss. He extremely over-uses it during the day and in e-mails.)

And to think, I had doubts about taking the dang thing because it was in an "off campus" building. (Hello, snob?) Back in "the day", "off campus" was a derragatory term. It basically meant you weren't in a department that was important enough to the company to warrant a space by the lake. It meant that someone thought it was OK for you to trek half a mile if you wanted to see anyone else in the company. It meant playing Frogger with your life as you try to cross one of 2 major roads. So let's recap, if you were off campus you were an unimportant, overweight peon that the company didn't care about if you were to get run over on your way to a meeting.

Oh how the tides have turned. I'm not saying that it's now uncool to be on campus. That is definitely not the case. 4th floorers are still more important than 3rd floorers (in the eyes of the 4th floorers) but in my case - our case - we're off campus because we need to be away from people. If people want to meet with us, then they must trek the half mile, avoid semis & soccer moms and meet one of us at the door because you need a badge and key to get to us. It kind of makes me feel like Princess Daisy in the old school Super Mario Bros. The rest of the world must get by Bowser and the lake of fire to come to our conference room.

Even if I hand-picked my group, I would not change a thing. . .OK, maybe one thing, but then again, no, maybe not. (That's why I could never be a director. Can't make a decision to save my life - not even when it comes to rhetorical questions.) Not only do I work with the hardest-working, funniest, creative, loving people but I have the best seat in the room! I've never had that. I've always sat in the "temp" seat which is always out by the front since it's like a a yearly revolving doors for admins. But now I'm right smack dab in the middle. If I could have planned the seating chart, I would have drawn it up exactly how it is now. I would not change a thing. Which begs the question again: how the heck am I so freakin' lucky? Seriously. I'm already dreading when I have to leave. I'm going to cry like. . .well, like me. Now whether that's in June or August, that's up to God (and the admission counselors.) I really feel like someone said: here is a million dollars, and oh, because I'm so generous or because you're so cool, I'm going to give you ten million more. Except, no one really said that, otherwise I'd be blogging about the beaches of Maldives while sitting in a hammock in Maldives. (Did you know a plane ticket there starts at $3500? Let's see, if I put away $20 a week, I'll have a ticket saved up by. . .no sense in calculating that one. I plan on marrying into money anyway, so it's really not an issue.)

It's amazing how your entire attitude and heart change when you genuinely care for people and are part of a group that wants to succeed. (or have been told, "succeed or get fired".) I don't mind being the coffee person (as long as it's not everyday). Heck, I can even tell you everybody's "usuals": Grande non-fat latte, Venti non-fat white mocha, Venti regular coffee w/half & half and a little bit of brown sugar, Grande americano w/a 1.5 second pour of non-fat milk & 3 sugars, Venti regular coffee w/lots of room for half & half and 1 splenda, 16 oz Diet Mt. Dew and another 16 oz Diet Mt. Dew. Who thought I would ever not mind making copies? I tell you, a genuine thank you goes a long way. Tomorrow will definitely be a bonding day for us. Everyone is coming in their scrubs so we can pimp out our place for the President's walk thru on Monday. That's fine with me because I know there will be loud music, way too much laughing and some of my favorite peeps present.