The Mural

So there is a giant white board in Melissa's office, and since I am a frequenter of Melissa's office, I often leave little notes, messages or pictures on the white board.

One day, in the spirit of summertime and out of a desperate longing for vacation, I drew a pair of palm trees. The next day I added some water, and then the next day the sunshine. And then every other day or so when I walked by I added something else. Until eventually I turned Melissa's white board into a full on mural beach scene out of a spring break movie...



It's the little things that make going to work so much fun.

Management Dinner

So every year (maybe every quarter, I'm not clear on this yet), the IT department has a meeting with all of the Managers, Directors, VP's and Project Managers to talk about the projects for the past quarter and what the different groups have accomplished, and then to talk about what we'll be working on in the next quarter.

Afterwards, there is always an event of some kind, which is kept a secret until the meeting is over and we depart. One they had drinks at Chelsea Piers and then dinner on a boat as it went around Manhattan. This year however, we were taken to the Culinary Institute of Education, where we split into groups and we were instructed by Master Chefs as we made dinner together. this scene was complete with white aprons and white paper chefs hats.

I got a kick out of watching all of my work friends in such a different setting. Some people were clearly comfortable in front of the stove, while others stuck to whisking salad dressing or chopping vegetables instead.

Amir wasn't afraid to stir the chocolate sauce:


Mike, Mark and Melissa managed the brussel sprouts:


My boss Lawrence, chops some mean parsley:


I made dessert!:



Darn Melissa for being the only person on the planet who actually looks cute in those hats:


How many IT people does it take to make dinner?:


Cesar (our Sr. VP), Brooke, Melissa, Me, Mark (our VP):


After cooking, we enjoyed the fantastic food. I like my bosses, Lawrence and Mark, so I sat with them:



As the girls of the department, we like to stick together. Brooke, Melissa and Me:

Perks

There are some fun little perks to working for a very large company (like 86,000 employees large). Here are some that I've experience this week:

1) I had a meeting in one of our offices in Brooklyn yesterday. This particular office is off the beaten path and a little difficult to get to, so they ordered a car service for me. Black sedan from my front door to the office and back. Totally beats riding the subway.

2) Melissa signed up and got tickets to the Time Warner screening of "Nights in Rodanthe." So last night we got to see the flick for free in the private screening room on the 10th floor of the Time Warner Center on Columbus Circle. Totally beats paying $13 to see it at the AMC in Times Square.

3) You should have seen the view from the conference room at the office in Brooklyn. It's directly across the east river with a postcard perfect view of the Empire State Building and the Chrysler building. I would have taken a picture, but it would have been a little awkward. I'll be back there again, so maybe next time.

4) Conversations like this:

Boss: "When are you leaving for Utah?"

Me: "Tonight, my flight leaves JFK at 7:30"

Boss: "Oh, you're leaving tonight? Well go ahead and take off whenever you need to then. You want to leave around 3?"

Me: "I was thinking I should leave by 4... is that ok?"

Boss: "Of course! Have a good time."

... I'm just saying, I have a former employer who would have had an epileptic seizure if I had asked to leave at 4.


5) I'm kind of writing this blog post from my desk at work right now... no big deal.

Awesome.