My high school graduation song was called “Graduation,” by an artist known as Vitamin C.
I know... it's so original.
I have to admit that I groaned when it was announced that my graduating class**1 had chosen it by "popular vote" (wherein the popular kids voted and the rest of us let them). The song was cliché, it was preppy and it was a montage of stereotypical high school moments that stereotypical high school types could relate to. Although it set my eyes to rolling about my brainpan, it was an understandable choice for my classmates to sing as they vied for attention on what would probably be the only day of scholastic achievement in their Podunk lives.**2
And so, realizing that this would not be my only day of scholastic achievement, I set my distate aside and learned the damn song.
On graduation day, I stood up and sang:
“And so we talked all night about the rest of our lives:
Where we’re gonna be when we turn twenty-five
I keep thinking times will never change
I keep on thinking things will always be the same.”
I got the experience over with, and I scampered out those swinging double doors. I left my Alma Mater behind me and didn't stop for even a moment. In fact, I didn't even bother to remember Graduation Day as my fifth high school reunion tootled past.**3
I graduated high school in 2005. That was eight years ago this past June. And I haven't wasted time reflecting on it since that day.
But the start of the school year echoed with unsettled resonation in my belly this year.
This is my second autumn during which I haven’t headed back to school. It’s noteable to me now because my most recent alma mater stands between my new home and my workplace: I drive right by it twice a day now, so the increased student activity this week caught my eye (and threw off my commuting schedule).
Last year, it knocked my socks off simply to be part of the world of graduates - I reveled in the new-to-me world of working full weeks (and even time-and-a-half overtime, instead of just extra straight time when I should have been studying) during what had been scholastic semesters. I could keep reading for fun well into the autumn when the weather got cooler and I wanted to stay inside with fresh applesauce and a fun chick lit. I didn't have to abandon my sitcoms in favor of an evening session with Developmental Psychology or Algebra for Almost-Idiots.
This year, it took a sturdier revelation than The Beginning of The School Year to rattle my hosiery. Sure, the fall semester was the catalyst... but that only set in motion the real focus of my unease.
This year, I am 25 years old.
I have survived for one quarter of a century.
I have met all of the biological markers (16 = car; 18 = graduation; 21 = drinking; etc) that society imposed.
I have a beautiful home, a wonderful man to share it with, gainful employment and reasonable health.
I'm officially on my life's path.
No more "I'll get there..."
No more "Next Steps..."
I'm there.
This year, I am the personification of That Future Self that we sang about on Graduation Day.
I mean, of course I've done oodles. But What I Expected and What Came to Pass are two different pictures entirely.
Did I know then that - just weeks before my freshman semester began - I would abandon the college into which I had been accepted in favor of living at home and commuting to the local Technical Institute instead?
No.
Did I know then that I would decide that my first degree wasn't what I wanted to practice for the rest of my life, smack dab in the middle of my final course for that very degree?
No.
Did I know then that the boyfriend I had only just met would propose?
Well... I hoped. Every girl hopes that her high school boyfriend will propose. But I didn't know.
And I certainly didn't know that I would choose to finally leave him less than two years after that proposal and accept that Mister Available - especially Mister Available-In-High-School - is almost never Mister Right.
Nor did I know that Mister Right would mosey into my world just a few months later, right when I had decided that hope didn't have a place in my world anymore.
(Mister Right tried to hide his Right-ness behind exhaustion and Pennsic grime. It didn't work. I found him anyway.)
So it seems the song was right to ask those seemingly pointless questions.
If High School Me had seen a snapshot of me today and had to guess what was behind my future smile, would she have known my story?
Not even a little.
High School Me thought she was destined for an easy, artsy path.
I expected I would become the next interior decorator on Trading Spaces.
I would make oodles of money and my high-school boyfriend would jump at the opportunity to marry me.
I would start producing babies with rapidfire speed, and would seamlessly transform to a successful stay-at-home Mom who kept a fabulously tidy house, fabuolusly tidy children and a fabulously tidy relationship with their father - all while writing childrens' books and poetry out of our guest bedroom/office and making more than I had earned working full time(plus) in the "working world."
High School Me wouldn't have anticipated that I would be hired on in small business eighteen months after high school graduation, that I would sit idly by as the company sold out to a faceless corporation, or that I would continue my toils therein as I approached my seventh anniversary of employment despite my languishing creativity.
High School Me would have been heartbroken to know that my father would never see me march to Pomp and Circumstance again, although he would hug me tight on the day that I finished my Associate's coursework just three short months before he passed away.
High School Me's eyes would have widened questioningly to find my name to be on the paperwork for my first home alongside Mister Amazingness's, and that my signature reflected my birth name instead of a married name. And she would have been confused to find that the third resident was a quadruped instead of a toddler.
But most of all...
High School Me would have passed out cold at the idea that my journals and notepads spent years boxed up and collecting dust. She would have cuffed me to find how poorly I had treated my artistic potential. And she would have walked out of the room when she realized that I allowed writing to fall not just from my list of priorities, but out of my life completely.
Maybe it was the English papers that made me feel so literate in High School. The final years of schooling offer options for Creative Writing instead of just book reports, so no doubt the newfound freedom of my pen felt like fresh air beneath my atrophied wings.
But after high school, writing fell out of my favor.
College got in the way.
Work got in the way.
Life got in the way.
And you know what?
I just sat there and let them.
I knew it wasn't right - I had a couple of journals I would dive half-heartedly into on occasion, typically when things seemed darkest. I would have literary diarrhea, purging whatever was bothering me, and then turning back to "real life" and letting the negativity (and, admittedly, the positivity too - writing isn't only for the brokenhearted...) fester until I popped again.
I knew it wasn't right, but I didn't have time, energy or inclination to make it better.
It was on May 23 in the eleventh iteration of two-thousand that I published my first blog post. I had been free of my broken engagement for almost a full year, and had just completed my second (and final of the immediately-planned) college degree. I was looking for a new creative endeavor, and my neverending tirade against my co-workers and celebrations of my new relationship on my favorite social media site prompted me to start something more organized. The blog just seemed right.
I wrote in that first post that "I never intended for [my corporate position] to be a long-term employment situation. I finished one college career and began another, and still found myself toiling diligently behind the same desk and within the same maze of cubicles as months drifted by in a haze. A few years, experiences, and misunderstandings later, I have changed positions within the company, and the company has changed beneath me. I have grown and changed myself, becoming a very different person from the girl who began with this company so long ago."
I was quite serious.
Corporate shackles weren't how High School Me envisioned my future self, especially at the relatively young age of 25.
In recent years I've come to see them more as golden handcuffs; my distaste with corporate employment overshadowed by my fondness for reliably paying my bills and having a little money left over to live comfortably with Boyfriend of Amazingness, enjoy our hobbies and support my family.
My scholastic revelation this year has led to a serious consideration, though.
What's stopping me from pursuing a career in writing, as I so desperately wish to do?
Of course, the immediate answer is money. Writing doesn't pay. Published works are what pay. And significant time must be spent writing before publicity is gained, and even then publicity does not immediately equate with wealth and riches... which makes tossing aside the handcuffs in favor of my laptop and a lawnchair an irresponsible option.
Irresponsibility just isn't my bag.
Recently, with the purchase of our new home and the introduction of our new four-legged youngun, Boyfriend of Amazingness and I have settled into a wonderful routine of domesticity. Which makes it all the more important for me to get up in the morning and go to work, so that this lifestyle that I so enjoy may continue well into our future together.
But it also makes it all the more difficult.
With a beautiful home, a snuggly Young Master and a loving Boyfriend of Amazingness inside, dragging myself out the door just to pay the bills each day breaks my heart just a little more deeply.
"I could be writing," I think to myself as I drive in to work.
"I could be brainstorming," I consider as I stare blankly at my computer.
"I could be plotting," I sigh as I reach for the ringing phone.
But Could Be didn't get me to my two-hundredth blog post, did it?
Could Be whispered gently that perhaps it was time to put aside the status-quo and reach for something better.
Could Be persuaded me that there were more fitting options.
It worked when I graduated high school and made my way into college.
It worked when I started my blog and finally embraced my creativity.
It worked when we moved out of our apartment and into our beautiful home, committing to one another with our signatures and a dance in our not-yet-moved-into kitchen.
In time, I'm hoping it will work for me again.
Two-double-zero blog posts, my ReaderFriends. Thank you for indulging my whims, catching my tears and sharing my sparkles.
It is my fondest hope that we can forge onward into two hundred more, that the sunshine will far outweigh the grey and that there will always be something shiny to share.
**Sunny Smiles**
**1 Note: Not MY class – just the class I graduated with. My class didn’t graduate until a year later.
**2 I’m not being snippy. I grew up in a Podunk town and went to a Podunk school where there was legitimate concern every year whether all of the seniors would march on graduation day. Moving on to college wasn’t often an option that was taken. Graduating from college was even less likely. There’s a reason I fought tooth and nail to get out early.
**3 Another side-effect of not being "part" of your graduating class, and instead graduating with a group of students a year your senior: They don't think about inviting you to the reunions. And your own class doesn't invite you, because you didn't graduate with them. I suppose it's probably fortunate that I didn't leave any lingering marks upon my high school - Otherwise I'd have to go to homecoming or something.
Showing posts with label thanks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label thanks. Show all posts
Monday, September 9, 2013
Thursday, November 29, 2012
Pay It Forward...
Or, How Sunny is Like A Solar Powered Daisy-Toy.
About a year ago, work was going through some pretty serious upheaval.
We were getting ready to move to a new office.
(Yeah. That was a year ago. I know... time flies.)
We were feeling pretty bedraggled as an office unit - We had lost just short of half of our workforce to layoffs and voluntary resignments due to salary freezes.
We were tired, we were beat down, and we wanted to hole up and eat cookies for the winter like fat little bears.
Which is why it became so important for me, at the Reception desk, to keep a smile planted firmly on my face.
I was more than a phone answerer (although my cohorts would never admit it). I was a custodian... a sticker-giver-outer... a therapist... and a positivity coach.
I was feeling pretty well used up.
At the same time this was happening, businesses were flocking through our doors with offers for services they could offer at the new building.
And sometimes they gave us presents.
(We called them presents, because then you can accept them. You can't keep them if they're bribes. It's in the handbook.)
One of these presents was a little solar powered plastic daisy toy.
The idea is simple - the little daisy in the little pot is run on perpetual motion generated by the sun.
(Okay... maybe it's not simple, and I just strung together words that I thought sounded intelligent enough to make it seem as though I knew what I was talking about.)
Anyway, when it's sunny outside and the little daisy can see the light, it dances.
And when it's dark, it peters out. It tries to keep wiggling for a little while, but eventually it runs out of energy and just can't keep going.
Recently, I dug my little plastic daisy toy out of the last box I had left to unpack from a drawer I had forgotten I stashed stuff in when we moved. As it was sitting in the drawer, it was wonky and pathetic. It listed sadly to the left and didn't move at all.
But as soon as I retrieved it and set it on my shelf...
It started to twitch.
And then it got a little wiggle.
And while it's got a hitch in its getalong now, it's still trying to dance for me.
It's a pretty inspirational little piece of machinery. So eager to please, if you only give it just a little attention and don't leave it forgotten in the bottom of a drawer next to a cup of fourteen-month-old Halloween candy.**1
And it made me think.
I don't take a whole lot of encouragement to be positive.
Just enough to make me feel as though my efforts aren't totally wasted.
So I got a little pep in my mosey today when one of the higher-ups here in the office sent me a note about how my positive attitude had helped her through a moment of accidental grouchiness.
And I bet I'm not the only one who feels this way. (How's that for self importance... My head's growing loftier by the minute.)
So let me share this moment with you, ReaderFriends:
When I'm feeling low...
Lower than the floor...
And I think that I don't have a chance...
(No. Not going there. There's no coming back from Vin Diesel doing the Panda Dance, and we cannot risk losing this pep-sharing moment.)
When I'm having a particularly dreary day, it always lifts my spirits to see that readers from around the world are enjoying the words I'm putting out there.
Even when I think it's just Boyfriend of Amazingness and my Mom who are doing the reading... I know it's not. Because neither of them are in Germany. Or in Brazil. Or anywhere else in the whole wide world that readers have pinged Dear EngineerFriend from.
Even when I don't have the time, the energy or the creative razzle-dazzle to pull together something new for you... You're still here. Checking in, seeing what there is to see and leaving your mark on my page.
And that brightens my day.
Thank you for being here, ReaderFriend. It's wonderful to have you around.
**1 Yes. I ate it. Don't judge.
About a year ago, work was going through some pretty serious upheaval.
We were getting ready to move to a new office.
(Yeah. That was a year ago. I know... time flies.)
We were feeling pretty bedraggled as an office unit - We had lost just short of half of our workforce to layoffs and voluntary resignments due to salary freezes.
We were tired, we were beat down, and we wanted to hole up and eat cookies for the winter like fat little bears.
Which is why it became so important for me, at the Reception desk, to keep a smile planted firmly on my face.
I was more than a phone answerer (although my cohorts would never admit it). I was a custodian... a sticker-giver-outer... a therapist... and a positivity coach.
I was feeling pretty well used up.
At the same time this was happening, businesses were flocking through our doors with offers for services they could offer at the new building.
And sometimes they gave us presents.
(We called them presents, because then you can accept them. You can't keep them if they're bribes. It's in the handbook.)
One of these presents was a little solar powered plastic daisy toy.
The idea is simple - the little daisy in the little pot is run on perpetual motion generated by the sun.
(Okay... maybe it's not simple, and I just strung together words that I thought sounded intelligent enough to make it seem as though I knew what I was talking about.)
Anyway, when it's sunny outside and the little daisy can see the light, it dances.
And when it's dark, it peters out. It tries to keep wiggling for a little while, but eventually it runs out of energy and just can't keep going.
Recently, I dug my little plastic daisy toy out of the last box I had left to unpack from a drawer I had forgotten I stashed stuff in when we moved. As it was sitting in the drawer, it was wonky and pathetic. It listed sadly to the left and didn't move at all.
But as soon as I retrieved it and set it on my shelf...
It started to twitch.
And then it got a little wiggle.
And while it's got a hitch in its getalong now, it's still trying to dance for me.
It's a pretty inspirational little piece of machinery. So eager to please, if you only give it just a little attention and don't leave it forgotten in the bottom of a drawer next to a cup of fourteen-month-old Halloween candy.**1
And it made me think.
I don't take a whole lot of encouragement to be positive.
Just enough to make me feel as though my efforts aren't totally wasted.
So I got a little pep in my mosey today when one of the higher-ups here in the office sent me a note about how my positive attitude had helped her through a moment of accidental grouchiness.
And I bet I'm not the only one who feels this way. (How's that for self importance... My head's growing loftier by the minute.)
So let me share this moment with you, ReaderFriends:
When I'm feeling low...
Lower than the floor...
And I think that I don't have a chance...
(No. Not going there. There's no coming back from Vin Diesel doing the Panda Dance, and we cannot risk losing this pep-sharing moment.)
When I'm having a particularly dreary day, it always lifts my spirits to see that readers from around the world are enjoying the words I'm putting out there.
Even when I think it's just Boyfriend of Amazingness and my Mom who are doing the reading... I know it's not. Because neither of them are in Germany. Or in Brazil. Or anywhere else in the whole wide world that readers have pinged Dear EngineerFriend from.
Even when I don't have the time, the energy or the creative razzle-dazzle to pull together something new for you... You're still here. Checking in, seeing what there is to see and leaving your mark on my page.
And that brightens my day.
Thank you for being here, ReaderFriend. It's wonderful to have you around.
**1 Yes. I ate it. Don't judge.
Tuesday, November 20, 2012
List It
Ten Things Sunny is Thankful For This Holiday Season
1. The opportunity to share her daily trials, triumphs and trivialities with a caring hoarde such as yourselves.
2. The opportunity to shake my shiny groove thang in so many fabulous ways.
3. The love and support of an Amazing Boyfriend who chose me for who I am now, instead of who I was or who I can be.
4. The compassion and understanding of a family that knows I really was born this way.
5. A job that affords me enough luxury to keep me comfortable, but still humble.
6. Friends who make amazing food and patiently teach me how to share in their idea of fun.
7. Pretty stars to look at when I gaze upward at night.
8. Little children who remind me to always keep wondering.
9. Snuggles.
10. Pie.
Happy Thanksgiving, ReaderFriends! Safe travels to those who do, warm thoughts to those who don't, and a hepaing helping of Thank You to everyone... with a side of gravy.
1. The opportunity to share her daily trials, triumphs and trivialities with a caring hoarde such as yourselves.
2. The opportunity to shake my shiny groove thang in so many fabulous ways.
3. The love and support of an Amazing Boyfriend who chose me for who I am now, instead of who I was or who I can be.
4. The compassion and understanding of a family that knows I really was born this way.
5. A job that affords me enough luxury to keep me comfortable, but still humble.
6. Friends who make amazing food and patiently teach me how to share in their idea of fun.
7. Pretty stars to look at when I gaze upward at night.
8. Little children who remind me to always keep wondering.
9. Snuggles.
10. Pie.
Happy Thanksgiving, ReaderFriends! Safe travels to those who do, warm thoughts to those who don't, and a hepaing helping of Thank You to everyone... with a side of gravy.
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
Happy Blogiversary!
Let there be Singing! Let there be Cake! LET THERE BE PREZZIES!
Seriously. I accept anything except livestock.
Today is the one year anniversary of the launching of this blog!
A lot has happened in a year.
A year ago, I was a recent college graduate. With 12 months of post-grad work experience under my belt now, I can call myself a "Seasoned Professional" and ask for extra tall heaps of dollars in my paycheck.** I can lord my amazingness over the indigenous peoples herein, and sometimes they even let me get away with it. Mostly not, but you know. Sometimes.
A year ago, I was in a totally different office building. I have moved "Downtown" (which is, ironically, north of my previous location by almost ten miles) and into the heart of the most city-esque location I've had the pleasure of frequenting. It was a massive feat, the accomplishment of which left me feeling very proud.
A year ago, I was in a totally different work position. I answered phones, answered questions and answered to the whims of a very disgruntled people. Today I work for a team (seriously - they all get along and everything) of professionals (they only cuss when they really mean it) that actually enjoy having me around (they even tell me so) and stuff. So it's kind of fabulous.
Yeah. Uber changes. All over the place.
But how to celebrate all this change?
That, my ReaderFriends, is the question.
I considered everything.
No, seriously... Everything.
I thought about doing a sojourn through the archives. That is... if one can really call one year of backlogged blog posts an archive. But we're feeling ballsy, so that's exactly what we'll call it. However, archive dives on the anniversary seems like a cop-out. Lots of people do it. So I think we'll pass.
I thought about setting up a new layout and instituting it today. But then I started looking at the layout and how much it sucked, so I changed it right away (last week). And then said a little silent thank you in my head - and a not-so-silent one from my back porch - to everyone who put up with that icky, nonsensical layout of yore for almost-a-whole-year-minus-a-
I thought about making myself a cake, but that just seemed self-congratulatory. And I didn't want to fill up on cake in case you got me something else that was more delicious. So I didn't do that either.
I thought about doing a photo montage, or drawing pictures of how awesome the last year has been.
It wasn't ideal.
 |
| I kind of suck at art. |
I even thought about finishing that damned NaNoWriMo book. (See how desperate I was to please you, ReaderFriend?) But then I laughed at myself. Funny, Sunny. You're a basket full of chuckles, you are. That half-finished monstrosity is going to stay that way until long after I've gone back to the dirt from which I came.
So my point here is that I wasted a lot of time. Oodles and oodles of time. And I didn't come up with anything.
But then I thought to myself,"Self, what keeps these ReaderFriends coming by day after day?"
No, seriously. My writing capability is all but nil. There must be something here that keeps bringing you back around like a rat after morphine-laced water.
And then it dawned on me:
You're not in this for the babbly fluff.
You're in it because you are someone, or know someone, or psychic-ly connect with someone who deals with this sort of phenomenon semi-regularly.
(All The Vague was thoroughly implemented for that sentence. I'm kind of proud.)
You're here because somewhere in your life, there is an EngineerFriend (or a socially challenged someone not unlike an EngineerFriend).
(On the off chance that you ARE an EngineerFriend and you're looking to use my information to avoid social snafus of your own... I commend you. And would like to send you one of our anniversary stickers.**1)
So you aren't hear to read a long drawn out blurb about my day - You're here to commiserate, and to seek solace in the idea that you aren't alone in your dealings with this highly-educated-but-most-
That, we can do.
DEAR ENGINEERFRIEND,
Thank you for providing another year's worth of fodder for my imagination. Thank you for "forgetting" to refill the coffee pot, commenting awkwardly on my attire, fouling up my evenings and weekends with your ill-timed project requests and for generally being a pain in my posterior. Because as much as I complain, I would be a pitiful nothing without you.
Well... Relatively speaking. I will never be as pitiful as an EngineerFriend without coffee.
Respectfully (For Real This Time...),
Sunny Smiles
And so, without further ado, we celebrate! Here's to you, here's to me, and here's to another fantastic year!
All these thanks and more to everyone around the world who has made this a fabulous year in SunnyLand.
It's so special to have my voice heard, and to share the Smiles when they cross my path.
(See, that wasn't so bad.)
Now, lets forge boldy onward into a new era of Adventures!
**I said ask for... Not get. Employer is not stoopid.
**1 They exist. Really! Or, at least, they will. If anyone actually wants one.**2
**2 Dammit, now I want one for myself.
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Montage
I am sorry for the sustained radio silence. I have been fighting a cold, and have been having to take care of some unsightly work during my lunchtimes at work. Which is totally bumming me out.
I promise, I'm trying to find something clever to say. It'll come, eventually.
In the meantime... Thank you for checking in. I do appreciate you.
Meanwhile, here is a photo montage of my life of late, which have absolutely nothing to do with EngineerFriends:
 |
| Because coworkers deserve a warning for these things. |
 |
| Boyfriend of Amazingness built this. And I helped. |
 |
| This was my lunch. The herbivores didn't stand a chance. |
 |
| I made this. Boyfriend picked the button. We = A Good Team. |
 |
| I am now a bespectacled personage. They're purple. |
Be well, ReaderFriends.
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
I Scream, You Scream...
HURRAY!
As you can tell, today is not Monday. It's not even Tuesday, in fact, but *Wednesday*, and the first opportunity this week I've had to be clever in your direction.
'Such a busy girl!' You might be saying. (Or you might be eating your Popsicle and wondering when in the world I'll get to my point...)
Anyway.
Today, as I celebrate the ultimate demise of my least favorite project so far in my employment here, I consider all of the projects still left on my plate for the rest of the afternoon.
I have to finish my invoices. (Neverending project, I tell you. Someday I'm going to drown in a sea of red ink, and they're just going to watch me float away.)
I have to clean up the untidiness that has taken over my desk. (The only thing stopping the Red Ink Flood is the sea of paperwork sopping it up.)
I have to do the actual *billable* work that is sitting next to my keyboard, staring at me longingly... Calling to me with its pretty Defense Logistics Agency logos and big words like "Task Deficiency."
But that's not what's keeping me the busiest today.
No, not even the call of actually making the company money can lure me from my current project...
Once a month, my dear company holds a Status Meeting. It mostly concerns large numbers, mesmerizing (if not morbid-looking) graphs and the ever-popular "State of the Office" address which involves such crowd-pleasing talking points as "Core working group" and "Overall billability..." not to mention our beloved moments of health and safety. It's always a thriller, I'm telling you.
But, despite the riveting nature of the information at these affairs, we sometimes have trouble getting attendance to the level at which it should be. A wonder, I know, considering the material... But nonetheless, that's the way it works. So we resort to a low-life, underhanded scheme to coerce WorkerFriends into the meeting room...
Bribery.
Usually in the form of food.
Now anyone who works in an office can tell you the magical nature of food within a corporate environment. It's mind-boggling how a tray of muffins or a jar of lollipops can be depleted without seeing a soul in an hour-long period. (It's true. Set a box of muffins on your desk when you're working at it, and it will last all day. Set it out and go to a 9:00 meeting, and you'll come back to a desk covered in nothing but crumbs. The sneakiness is what makes me giggle - As if being caught munching happily on a treat is tantamount to treason within a cubicle maze. "No! I don't eat at work!" And they toddle back to their seats, where the food will inevitably drift directly to their posteriors... But that's a subject for a different post. Perhaps you could check out http://dearengineerfriend.
But this wasn't just food.
This... was ice cream.
Yes, for this month's Monthly Meeting I managed to wrangle the head honchos into agreeing to an ice cream social for our beloved troopers.
Which was met with a resounding chorus of... wait for it... nonchalance.
Yes, the EngineerFriends I had worked so hard for barely seemed excited at all for the prospective frozen treats.
Eliciting responses for flavors was like pulling teeth. First, I got blank stares. My second response got a chorus of "whatever you get will be fine..."s and by then, I had had about enough. I was going to get Ice Cream, damnit, and they were going to *like* it!
So I bummed a head honcho's credit card (totally liberating feeling... Keep it under $65, and they don't even ask for your signature...) and bought four gallons of ice cream and a basketful of sprinkles and sauces. I toddled back to the office and immediately began rallying my troopers.
"Are you excited for the ice creamy goodness today?" I would ask.
"Oh... sure." was the response at 9:15 this morning.
"Oh! Kind of!" was the response at 10:40.
"Oooh! That's right!" was the response at 12:10.
And finally, at 1:30 this afternoon, I was approached with this whisper of a thought, bordering slightly on hushed concern:
"Will we be eating the ice cream soon?"
With a smile, I said of course, and that there was a small basket of candy bars in the kitchen to tide anyone over who would simply faint at waiting for a whole hour and a half more before the ice cream was produced for consumption.
There will, of course, be some downfalls to this highlight-of-my-week. As I set up at 2:45 for the meeting to begin at 3:00, there will be those who straggle into the kitchen and insist that their bellies cannot wait a moment longer. There will be those who arrive at 3:20 and grumble that the good choices are gone, that what IS there is melted and that they really don't like ice cream at all. But for now... I remain hopeful.
Which was met with a resounding chorus of... wait for it... nonchalance.
Yes, the EngineerFriends I had worked so hard for barely seemed excited at all for the prospective frozen treats.
Eliciting responses for flavors was like pulling teeth. First, I got blank stares. My second response got a chorus of "whatever you get will be fine..."s and by then, I had had about enough. I was going to get Ice Cream, damnit, and they were going to *like* it!
So I bummed a head honcho's credit card (totally liberating feeling... Keep it under $65, and they don't even ask for your signature...) and bought four gallons of ice cream and a basketful of sprinkles and sauces. I toddled back to the office and immediately began rallying my troopers.
"Are you excited for the ice creamy goodness today?" I would ask.
"Oh... sure." was the response at 9:15 this morning.
"Oh! Kind of!" was the response at 10:40.
"Oooh! That's right!" was the response at 12:10.
And finally, at 1:30 this afternoon, I was approached with this whisper of a thought, bordering slightly on hushed concern:
"Will we be eating the ice cream soon?"
With a smile, I said of course, and that there was a small basket of candy bars in the kitchen to tide anyone over who would simply faint at waiting for a whole hour and a half more before the ice cream was produced for consumption.
There will, of course, be some downfalls to this highlight-of-my-week. As I set up at 2:45 for the meeting to begin at 3:00, there will be those who straggle into the kitchen and insist that their bellies cannot wait a moment longer. There will be those who arrive at 3:20 and grumble that the good choices are gone, that what IS there is melted and that they really don't like ice cream at all. But for now... I remain hopeful.
And for now, they just called my name in the lunchroom. Perhaps I should go see what's going on. Sweet afternoons, my ReaderFriends.
**Note: They thanked me! They actually *thanked* me!! For my thought, and my hard work, and my orchestration of this delightful afternoon... Right out in the open, in front of God'N'Everybody... That was weird. Kind... but weird.
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