Working the Weekend

We had a crazy weekend! We had a bunch of meetings scheduled, starting Friday evening. Some of it was team-building stuff that was fun so I guess it could have been worse. At least they weren't conference calls!

Friday was the first team-building meeting. The place where Boss 1 has her swimming lessons has a night once a month or so where you can just come and use the pool. Boss 1 had me sign us all up. So Boss 1, Boss 2, Mr. Co-Worker, and I all went together (we carpooled!) and spent an hour and a half just hanging out in the pool. Has your work ever done that? It was really nice and kind of relaxing. I hadn't been swimming for years! And Boss 2, who had only ever been swimming once, was a little nervous at first but wound up having a great time.

Then on Saturday, we had an exhibition downtown. That didn't turn out to be what we were expecting. It was more just a festival, but it was really fun, and again, we all went together. Int he afternoon, Boss 1 had a meeting with some folks from her daytime office. The Saturday things overlapped, but we made it to both with time for lunch in between.

Then Sunday Boss 1 and I had an appointment with one of our temps. That one was catered!

Whew! We were all super busy. Did you ever think you'd be waiting for Monday morning so you could take a break?

Morning Meeting

Almost every morning, Boss 2 and I meet for a one-on-one. We review literature on topics like teamwork and skill-building and vocabulary and problem solving and even appearance and do team-building exercises in a quiet environment. This morning, we read about perseverance and listened to music. Boss 2 usually takes a siesta afterward. I like that I work with bosses who take rests when they need to.

Boss 1's Afternoons

Boss 1 is taking some personal enrichment courses a couple of afternoons a week, and I have been really very impressed with how quickly she is becoming Enriched.

She has taken up swimming, but not in the way your boss might take it up for exercise and whatever. She had never had swimming lessons before this! She's only been going for a few months and has already impressed her instructor with how quickly she is picking it up. I understand her father is a great swimmer and even swam competitively when he was younger so maybe she comes by it naturally. At first I thought she was just interested in it because it meant getting a new swim suit, but she seems to genuinely enjoy it and is really proud of herself.

The other course she is taking is an art course. She seems to have a real talent for that too.

It makes me want to take some courses. If I could ever find a time I wasn't needed at work...

"HRH PSP"

Someone complained that HRH PSP is "too hard of a name to remember and it’s not a very clear identifier" so I'm going to tell you what it stands for and maybe that will help.

It stands for Her Royal Highness Princess Sparkle Pants and you can find her here:

http://www.princesssparklepants.blogspot.com/

Co-Worker Doesn't Get It

I sent Mr. Co-Worker a link to my blog to see what he thought and he said, "I dunno. I didn't get it. What's all that 'Boss 2' stuff about? What is that?" I told him who Boss 1 and Boss 2 are, but I still don't think he got it.

He needs to read the Premier Post I did on 4/11/07 called "The Best Job EVER." Right? Jeez!

Also, I thought of another reason this job is the BEST: No conference calls!

Boss 2's Big Project

Finally!

Boss 2 has been working on a big project for a couple of months now. She's been working on it practically every waking minute and getting everyone to help her. And yesterday she had a huge breakthrough and it's mostly finished. She's got some fine tuning and finishing touches left to do, but the bulk of the work is finished. And when she finally finished it, it was all her own work so she's pretty proud of herself. I've got to say, I am too and so should you be.

Duh!

So I got all excited yesterday thinking about how, if I could talk PSP into driving up for Boss 2's annual review, she could stay at one of our temps' apartment because the temp is usually somewhere else on the weekend, and it wouldn't cost PSP anything and I'd even clean it so that the tub wasn't full of mildew if she needed to use it (it's gross - seriously!). I even started writing an email, and then I remembered that our temps were probably planning on coming to the annual review (that's how we do reviews around here) and would be staying at their own apartment, and if PSP stayed there she would have to stay with them and, well, that would be weird! She would probably be more comfortable staying in my garage - seriously!

Annual Reviews

Boss 2's annual review is coming up in a little over a month. I love annual reviews around here. Since I love them so much, I get to plan them and even do the baking. I think we'll have balloons and angel food cake this time.

Mr. Co-Worker had his review a couple of weeks ago. It went really well, but when I was shopping for the ingredients to make his dessert (he likes cherry pie), I couldn't find tart cherries. I asked Boss 2 what she thought, if he'd rather have a blueberry pie made with fresh berries or if he'd want cherry pie made with canned pie filling. Boss 2 thought my Co-Worker impression was pretty good. We thought if we asked him he'd say, "I dunno. I like cherry pie." So I bought the pie filling and made a cherry pie and while we were eating it, we asked him which he would have chosen if he'd had the chance, and you know what he said? He said, "I dunno. I like cherry." I was so close!

Like Cutting Teeth!

Boss 2 kept me and Mr. Co-Worker working late the other night. She's all bothered by this big project she's been working on and feels better if we're bothered by it too. She'd be quiet in her office for half-an-hour or so, then she'd call for one or both of us to come help her. She eventually gave it up for the night, but she's not finished. We're all just waiting for The Big Breakthrough that we know is coming some day soon.

Boss 2 sounds like a pain to work for, doesn't she? She's really not. She's just one of those people who sometimes needs a lot of attention and care. She's actually very outgoing and funny and sweet when she's not worried about something. Yesterday afternoon we took a walk together, and we passed a fountain outside the library downtown. She apparently loves fountains because she stopped and spent a long time just watching it. Then a little farther along, we saw a helicopter, and she made a point of showing it to me. I like how aware she is of the interesting things. Sometimes I forget to look around but she reminds me when we're together.

My bosses are the reason I took this job.

Lunch

So Boss 2 asked me to get her lunch the other day, and she let me pick what it was. She has food restrictions, you know, can't eat certain things. So I thought about those when I picked out her lunch and got something I thought she'd like. Apparently I messed up, though, because she took one bite and spit it out! Jeez! A simple "no thank you" would have worked. Talk about childish tantrums! At least she didn't gag.

Why My New Job Is Better than My Other Jobs

1. I don't have to stand in the stairwell during fire drills because I can't go down 13 flights of stairs because...
2. I don't have fire drills. Also...
3. I don't have to worry if the firemen are going to be able to get up to the 13th floor and rescue me if there is a fire because my new office doesn't have a 13th floor.
4. I don't have to deal with complaining clients about things I can't control (except for the one lady who keeps calling and insisting my phone number is her phone number and then arguing when I remind her that it can't be both hers and mine).
5. There is a birdfeeder out back with real birds!
6. Annual reviews around here usually involve some kind of dessert and balloons.
7. My bosses are really sweet and great at what they do.

One thing that's not better about it is that I hardly ever go out to lunch anymore.

Off-Site Meeting (probably part 1)

Boss 1's daytime office has scheduled an offsite meeting in a couple of weeks and they asked me to go along. Woo hoo!

All I Wanted Was an ATM!

On the way back from dropping Boss 1 off at her daytime office this morning, I needed to stop and get some petty cash to pay for parking this afternoon. I didn't have the ATM card for the account I should take the money from so of course I passed three branches of that bank. I also passed at least four other banks where we don't have an account. I did have my debit card for my personal account, which is at a bank that claims to have ATMs everywhere, but this apparently isn't true because I only passed one and that was because I came back the long way just to go by it. Since I had my card, I stopped so I wouldn't have to go out later. After I put in my PIN, though, guess what! There was no money! I don't mean I didn't have any money in my account. I mean there was no money in the ATM! Can they do that? My only choices were to check my account balance or make a deposit. Since I didn't want to do either of those things, I said, "Tsk!" and glared at the ATM, both effective actions, I'm sure, and got back in my car to find that some lady had all but parked me in. She wasn't parked directly behind me so I couldn't back out at all, but she was parked just right (and not in a parking spot by the way) that I had to back past her before I could go anywhere. I hope she wanted to get cash too but couldn't! Stoopid Laydee!

Mommy's Nintendo

When I was in college, I had a friend who was pregnant, we'll call her HRH PSP. Since we were in college, we were still pretty young and lived at home and everything. She had a Nintendo, one of the original ones, and it was still a little cool so that should tell you how long ago this was. Before the baby was born we were talking one day and I asked PSP if she was going to give the baby her Nintendo when he was old enough and she said that she wasn't - it was hers. We decided that she would just tell him, no, he couldn't have it because it was Mommy's Nintendo.

Then we decided that might be a good name for an all-girl band, but that hasn't happened yet.

Bad Mood

This morning, Boss 2 is in a bad mood! All she has done is scream at everyone. Then I stepped on her finger (don't ask), and that just made her scream more, even after I apologized. She's better now, just staring out the window. I'm thinking about suggesting a siesta.

The Best Job EVER

Almost a year ago, I left my job with the biggest bank in the world, a move which apparently went unnoticed in Big Bank Land. But it was the most rewarding thing I ever did. Now I have the best job ever (as I said in the title). I had to take a BIG paycut, but I have two bosses, one part-time/full-time co-worker, and a handfull of temps who help out whenever we need them.

My bosses are a lot younger than I am, but they're great to work for most of the time. I have a ton of autonomy, and since, as with most jobs, I know more than they do, they usually do things my way. They don't always agree with me. Sometimes they throw sort of childish tantrums, but they know I'm right and eventually give in.

My co-worker, like I said, is part-time and full-time. What I mean by that is that he's only actually at work part of the time because he has another job too, but when he's not here, he's still working for us, you know? He's great! I even took him with me on vacation recently. It was really a working vacation, and he took over some of the stinky tasks so I could actually enjoy some time to myself. The nice thing about where we went was that there were a bunch of people there who were really interested in my job and also wanted to help out so he got a break too.