This Weekend: A list.

Pro: Friday was the beginning of my new summer hours at work! June-August, we can leave at 3:00 p.m. on Fridays. Wahoo!
Con: My garage door opener stopped working, so I was locked in my garage until the maintenance guy could come let me out.

Con: I got a $145 ticket at 7:30 a.m. on Sunday for making a U-turn that I honestly thought was completely legal. I wouldn’t have even been awake at that hour except that I was on my way to Starbucks so I could make it to my volunteer gig (race monitor at the 3rd Annual Race for CARRA) and stay awake.
Pro: The people at Starbucks felt so bad for me after watching the whole thing that they gave me my coffee for free.

Con: I had to get up at 7 a.m. after a full night of drinking for my friend Jim’s 30th birthday.
Pro: I wasn’t even hungover and I got to spend 2 hours on the waterfront on a beautiful morning.

Pro: Yesterday was a beautiful day. Jim, Alex, Brian and I spent it by the pool, drinking the flat beer left from Saturday’s keg.
Con: I have some weird tan lines from the shirt I was wearing. Not going to look too good with the spaghetti strap dress I’m wearing to a wedding this coming Saturday.

Con: Our apartment is a mess.
Pro: Brian is STAYING! He can clean it up!

Over the last week, I’ve run into four people that I used to work with at The Company (one I really, REALLY wish I hadn’t seen. Apparently five months wasn’t long enough apart). And of course they’re all very nice and they each asked how I’ve been and whether I like my new job. One of them even asked what life’s like on The Outside. I was with Kara at the time, so we started chatting about the things we liked and didn’t like about our new jobs. (Note, The Plastics all used to work at The Company as well, so I guess that number should really be seven instead of four, but I actually SCHEDULE the times I see them. The others were totally random).

Kara and I both decided that we’re much happier at our new jobs (Duh.), but that we’re also really glad we worked at The Company. Namely, because we met so many cool people there. We both are now in industries that we are passionate about (me: helping sick kids. her: drinking alcohol) and we work for great organizations, but our coworkers could never measure up to the ones we left at The Company. For instance, my coworkers at The Foundation are almost exclusively female, married, and older than I am. At The Company, I worked with mostly twentysomething single people. Now, the other Foundationeers are definitely cool and usually down for a happy hour, as long as it’s scheduled at least a week in advance, but they don’t do much on the weekends because they have husbands and mortgages and maybe kids.

I also told the guy who asked about The Outside that I had been at my new job for 3 months before I learned how to check my work email from home. And that when I finally did it, it was because I actually cared, not because I was afraid of what might be happening. His mind was totally blown.

It is strange, though, working with people who are at different places in their lives. One of my coworkers, Traci, always asks me what I did last night. She says things like, “Tell me about your fabulous single life! What did you do last night?” To which I usually respond with things like, “Well, I went to happy hour at this place on the East Side and then went home and watched 30 Rock on my DVR. It was a Tuesday, Trace.”

And then there was the work happy hour we had a few weeks ago on a Friday. We went to Bettie Ford’s, because they have $2 beers and awesome $3 food options AND their happy hour goes until 9:00. The bad part is they don’t open until 5:00, so we can’t leave work early with the excuse that we need to go reserve a table. But it’s pretty sweet to be the only group in the bar and have the Wii all to yourselves. Anyway, when we get there, Tessa, who is 8 months pregnant and married, says, “So, Meg, is this place cool? Is this a popular place for people to go?” I responded with, “Yeah, Mom. All the cool kids hang out here these days.” I mean, really?

And then we threw a baby shower for Tessa last Wednesday. It was a great time, but I was the only single person there (as always) and one of the few who hadn’t had any children. I learned more about pregnancy in an hour than I ever, EVER wanted to know. It was so horrible that I actually had a nightmare that I was pregnant the next night. Seriously.

So, Kara and I have found a happy medium hanging out with our very nice, funny, interesting coworkers during the day, doing things that we enjoy, and then going out with people we used to work with in the evenings. Other than the occasional awkward conversation or horrible pregnancy nightmare, it seems to be going quite well.

Remember that book? Alex and Ben and I were talking about our favorite kids books last night at my new favorite brewery (which also happens to be right across from the bowling alley) and Alex said Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day was one of his favorites. Mostly because of the main character’s name. (Ben and I had a lot of way better books on our lists, like Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and Sneeches.)

This is the first sentence of the ATHNGVBD book:

“I went to sleep with gum in my mouth and now there’s gum in my hair and when I got out of bed this morning I tripped on the skateboard and by mistake I dropped my sweater in the sink while the water was running and I could tell it was going to be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.”

If I rewrote this book to be about my day today, it would start something like this:

“I went to bed after a couple of beers and couldn’t get out of bed this morning and when I put on my only clean work outfit my sweater had a huge stain on it and I couldn’t find anything else to wear and I didn’t have time to eat breakfast or get coffee and it was clearly going to be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.”

The rest of the book would go on to describe how everyone at work kept asking me if I was feeling okay because I didn’t have any makeup on and I looked like I was still asleep, and how I messed up for the first time at my new job, while also discovering that my boss’ boss is a complete and total back-stabbing nutjob. It would expressly note that everything at work decided to go wrong between 4:45 and 5:45 p.m., which forced me to stay late at work and therefore miss my climbing date with Ben, which was the one thing I was looking forward to today. Then when I got home, all I wanted to do was go for a walk by the river, when I realized that both of my walking friends (Casey and Liesl) moved away.

I don’t know what I’d do without Full Sail Top Sail Imperial Porter and Thin Mints.

So after my day full of kitchy old women yesterday, here’s a good story about a crazy old man that volunteers with The Foundation.

We have a volunteer who serves on one of our committees who we’ll call Hal. Hal is probably 70 years old, stands about 6’2″, and is a LARGE man with white hair. Not fat, mind you, just big. He has had at least a couple of strokes, and you can tell by the way he slurs all his words. Not to mention he yells all the time. Needless to say, he’s a character.

So, I had to call Hal today to see if he was planning on attending our committee meeting tomorrow, and this is how the call went.

Hal: HELLO?
Me: Hi Hal, it’s Megan from The Foundation.
Hal: OH HI MEGAN! HOW ARE YOU?
Me: I’m doing pretty well. How about yourself?
Hal: WELL, I HAVEN’T HAD SEX IN THREE WEEKS, MEGAN, BUT OTHER THAN THAT I’M FUCKIN’ FINE.
Me: (Speechless)

After I composed myself a few minutes later, I finally asked him if he was planning on coming to the meeting, but I still giggled intermittently throughout the rest of the phone call. The worst part was when I had to ask if his wife (who’s also on our committee) would be attending even though he said he couldn’t make it.

I attended an event this morning for work. It was the annual spring brunch fundraiser for The Foundation that a grassroots group of women puts on every year. I had been sort of looking forward to this event, even though it was on a Sunday and was in the Couv, because I was not in charge (I was actually invited to attend), my ticket was free, the food had to be good, and because there was a silent auction involved and I secretly knew I would love checking out all the tacky shit that these women would bid on.

There were some significant complications with this event, mainly because I was somehow elected as the person who needed to teach the ladies who were running the brunch how technology works. This is not the point of this post, though, so suffice to say that grown-ups hate change. They cannot get past the concept of how much they hate change in order to see how much it actually simplifies things. This frustrates me to no small degree. Particularly when they pull out their iPhones while I’m talking to them.

Anyway, I was totally thwarted by Daylight Savings Time this morning, so I arrived to the brunch late, still half asleep, and criminally uncaffeinated. I didn’t exactly feel up to schmoozing with a table full of women who have more money than they know what to do with, but I sucked it up, put on my happy face, made conversation, and was a delightful guest. However, by the end I was totally bitter. You can only hear things like, “Dear, that sweater is just darling.” and “Look at those curls – Is your hair naturally curly?” so many times before you want a stiff drink. (Side note – For the most part, people with naturally curly hair do not particularly enjoy being asked if the curl is natural. This is usually for one of two reasons. Either they have insanely curly hair like my friend from college who used to say things like, “Of course I was born with this hair. No one has done this to themselves on purpose since 1985.” Or they are like me and have completely unevenly curly hair and don’t particularly like it. Usually when people ask me if my hair is naturally curly, I feel like they’re saying it doesn’t look like I took the time to fix it that morning. Which is true. No need to call me out, though.)

So, one of these women was chatting with me this morning and clearly had run out of things to say. There was an awkward pause for a while and then she said, “So, what do you like to do in your free time, Megan?”

I didn’t know what to say.

It’s a completely normal and innocent question, but I couldn’t figure out how to answer it. I mean, how do I spend my free time? I bowl, I drink beer, I read, I play rock band with my friends, I go to happy hour, I watch TV, I go shopping, and I blog. I’m pretty sure NONE of those were appropriate answers at the time. At that very moment, I wished I had played the harp since I was five, or really enjoyed running triathlons, or maybe even collected Rubik’s cubes. I just wished I had something remotely interesting to say. And I didn’t. So I said that I liked to go hiking and I really enjoyed music. Which was even worse. Then the woman to my left started asking me if I played an instrument or just… enjoyed listening to music (she said these last four words very slowly). And the woman who originally asked the question started talking about how boring she thought hiking was. And I really had nothing to say.

Have I really made it 25 years without coming up with any interesting and truthful answer to the question of how I spend my free time?

I gave my first tour of the hospital yesterday. We give tours to school groups from around the state that are doing fundraising events for the hospital. They get to leave school for a day, come into Portland, get a tour to learn more about what their money goes towards, and then take the tram. Normally, an employee is supposed to shadow 3-4 tours before actually giving one themself, but since one of the girls in the office was sick the other day, I was the only one to give a tour. At this point I’d only been on one and pretty much had no idea what I was doing. I figured it’d be okay, until I walked into the room of high school kids and saw a bunch of very tall teenage boys staring back at me. I looked at Tessa, who said, “Oh, I didn’t tell you it was a basketball team?” Anyway, it went okay, except for when one of them asked me what stem-cell transplants were and I had to wing it. And I got lost at one point and had to ask a nurse where to go. Apparently I was a good sport, though, because one of the boys gave me a t-shirt at the end. Thanks, buddy.

My brother left for India yesterday. He’s going to be there for three months, hanging out with my cousin, her husband, and their new baby. Oh, and volunteering at a hospital. I’m assuming he had a layover in Singapore, though, because I got an email from him this morning entitled “Singapore = hot.” The body of the message said, “More later.”

Trying to plan a birthday celebration. Potentially either a string of brewery tours or a pub crawl. Any other fantastic ideas? I really wanted to get a party bus but it turns out they’re sort of expensive.

The last few days I’ve been testing out showering at night to save time in the morning.  It’s been great in the morning, too.  I have plenty of time to get ready, eat breakfast, make tea, and get to work.  However, it turns out showering in the morning is what wakes me up. I’m not entirely convinced my eyes fully opened the last couple days until at least 11 AM.  I may be up, but to say I’m awake is a damned lie.

Last but not least, the comments my friends have been leaving on my Mexico pictures have made my day(s). Particularly when Emily translated the Sol billboard.

I know that no job is perfect. I know there will always be something about my workplace I’d like to change, but I can safely say that this is the best job I’ve ever had. (Not that I have much experience, but it’s really great).

Reasons I love my new job (after week 1):

1. People at The Foundation really care about what they do. I don’t just mean they take pride in their work (which is great in itself) but they believe in the mission of The Foundation and believe that they are all working together to create something that benefits everyone. Also, my Board members are people with extra time and/or money on their hands that would like to use those resources for a good cause. This is very different from my former Board of Directors experience.

2. Bagel Fridays. Every other week my boss gets us free bagels and we go to Starbucks.

3. Casual Fridays. Jeans once a week. Boo-ya.

4. Last Friday, which happened to be Casual Friday AND Bagel Friday, my boss put a bottle of vodka on my desk and said, “Here’s your signing bonus.”

5. I get to work downtown AND WALK TO WORK!

6. My first week on the job, my coworkers invited me to a Bowl-O-Rama party they were planning that coming Saturday which was followed by a bourbon tasting at my boss’ house. Unfortunately, I was scheduled for Ben and Rayne’s birthday party, but I seriously considered bringing the party to the bourbon.

7.  More than 2 weeks vacation.  And holidays like MLK Day off.

8.  Free tram rides.

Every time I leave the apartment to go out and Brian stays in, he yells after me, “Make good choices!” Saturday night was no exception. And what did I do? I drank too much and forgot what he told me. Usually when I say I made bad decisions, just like this time, it involves a boy. In fact, one time this summer I came into the office on a Monday and my friend Jen asked me what I ended up doing the previous Saturday night. I responded awkwardly, “Oh, you know. Got drunk and made bad decisions.” To which she replied, “Oh yeah? What was his name?” Funny thing is, it was the same boy that time as it was this time. And every time in between.

Anyway, Saturday night was my very last work function at The Company. And there was an open bar. Highlights of the evening included Jason showing up in a fedora, Jess trying to set up one of her friends with one of our coworkers, all of us finding out that two of our coworkers are seeing each other AND that our ambiguously gay coworker thinks he’s straight, and my personal favorite, Todd putting on his ugly Christmas sweater over his shirt (under the tie) to let Kara know he was ready to go to the next party.

One thing that was made overwhelmingly clear to me was that what I’m going to miss from this job after this week are the people.

My team

My ladies

I have made the most amazing friends through this job. Sometimes I think it’s because when a group of people goes through a horrible experience together, they form an intense bond. Other times, I think I just got insanely lucky and found a company that employed a bunch of great people I love hanging out with. The sad thing is that everyone here spends so much time working that when someone leaves, it’s hard to keep in touch. Working together makes it so much easier. Hopefully my weekly happy hour date with Kara, Jess, and Julie will help. But there are so many other people that have made every day here hilarious and entertaining. One time, we paid Caleb a dollar to eat the biggest piece of chocolate we’d ever seen. Once, Jess dared me to walk in circles around the atrium until somebody noticed. One time, HR yelled at Kara for putting up a gigantic Pizza Schmizza poster at her desk that said, “A Slice of Pizza and a Beer for $1. ‘Cause that’s how we roll.” Last year when it snowed, we all went outside and had a snowball fight in our work clothes. One time, we covered my boss’ desk in over 400 post-it notes for her birthday. Last summer, during the company picnic, Julie, Jess, Veronica and I snuck into the vault and ate Sno-Cones spiked with Tequila. And I can’t even begin to list all the debauchery I’ve been involved in on work trips.

Leaving this job is a good thing for me to do, but there is no way I will ever find a place with so many awesome people again. I’m already trying to figure out which one of my friends will still be employed here next December so I can convince them to invite me to the Holiday Party.

1. 11 days until Christmas.
2. 17 days until 2008.
3. 1 day (!) until the company holiday party.
4. 5 days left in the office.
5. 7 days until my last day.
6. 21 days until Mexico.
7. 4 days until my SECOND INTERVIEW!!!

It’s hard to come up with things to write about when my days are so insanely boring. Being at this hotel in California is sort of like purgatory. They feed me to keep me alive, but I can’t leave and I have to spend all of my time with the same people. I sleep in a room on the 8th floor, the walk down to the 5th floor (because the elevators are broken) and spend all day in the Hospitality Suite. I eat lunch from a buffet in the atrium and count the minutes until our cookie break at 2 PM. The most exciting part of my day so far has been that our coffee station still had some English Breakfast tea bags left when I got there. I shit you not.

So, I spend all day on my computer, looking for things to entertain me. I thought I would take this opportunity to share some of my favorite websites from this week with you:

1. Elf Yourself. Enjoy.

2. From my cousin Emily in Spain: Dancing turkeys.

3. From Jason, the Scandina-phile: Kiss a Scandinavian. My favorite part is the names it suggests for your Scandinavian. Mine’s named Frøya.

4. Microsoft shuts down Santa for talking dirty.

5. SantaCon 2007 Check out the pictures from last year.

And I’m spent. If anyone has anything else I could do to kill time, let me know. And now, back to my tea.