Universal Language

Once when traveling to Mexico City on a quick business trip, I had had a day and a half of business meetings. They had gone fairly well, but by the time I had wrapped up the last meeting I was pressed for time to get to the airport. I had been kind of tense the whole time, just not on top of my game. After the last meeting I stopped to go to the bathroom before getting out on the street to catch a taxi. Dang, Aunt Mary sured picked an awful time to make a visit. In those days I didn't pay much attention to my cycle and so of course I was caught off guard by the surprise visit and was not prepared to deal with it.

So under the time crunch to get to the airport, I decided that I had better take time to get some supplies or things would be a total disgusting mess. It was hot out. I was tired. I was tense. The suitcase I was lugging was heavy. But luck was on my side as I spotted a farmacia across the street. I made my way over to it.

The pharmacy was small and after circling through it two times looking for the feminine products, I could not find what I needed. Finally, in desperation, I decided I better ask a clerk where to find them. All of a sudden I had a panic attack. I had forgotten the word I needed to ask for the specific product. So . . .what do you do in that case? You describe what you need. I hesitatingly began in my imperfect Spanish "?Se vende aqui esas cosas para mujeres que cuando sale la sangre se mete adentro . . ?" (Do you sell those things for women, that when they're bleeding, you insert inside . . .) I was feeling embarrased to be describing in such a personal manner, but what is a woman to do?

The clerk smiled and reached behind her. "Ay, tampones, cierto?" OMG, how could I have forgotten that the word in Spanish for tampon is tampon?? I laughed my way to the airport with that one!!!

Electrical eSpectacle

This past Tuesday I was invited to be a guest at a very high level strategic meeting because my old boss couldn't attend and he asked me to sit in as a representative on his behalf. The people in this meeting were from around the world and all at a v.p. or director level.

Our company is in the process of totally rebuilding their headquarters. They moved people out of one side of the old building and moved them to temporary quarters while they rebuilt that half of the building. Over the last month they have moved people back into that building. Since I work in the temporary location (and won't be moving back any time soon) I have only been on a walk-thru of the new building once and so am not very familiar with the new layout.

My first challenge of the day was finding the meeting. Since I wasn't directly invited to the meeting, I did not get an official meeting notice. I saw on some documentation that the meeting was going to be held in a specific location; the X.X. XXXXX location. Well, our company owns a building downtown by that name so that's where I thought the meeting was.

Not wanting to be late (and I am almost always late to things), I scrambled out of the house a good 15 minutes earlier than usual in order to make it on time. So I got down town and as soon as I pulled into the parking lot I noticed a lack of cars and a lack of hub-bub . . . uh, oh . . .I think I'm in the wrong place. But I better park and go in the building and check just in case. Darn, the signs that were posted for events taking place that day did not include this global meeting. By that time it was 10 mintues before the meeting was supposed to start.

That meant I had to get from down town to headquarters, figure out the parking situation at the new HQ building and which door to enter (since I had seen e-mails about certain entrances not being available yet), as well as finding the meeting room all in 10 short minutes. I didn't think it was possible but thought I'd go for it. Also, I suspected that the first 1/2 hour might be people just informally gathering and getting their coffee, bagels and fruit so I figured I'd scope it out to see if I could just kind of sneak in.

I got to HQ and found parking with no problem. Then I saw someone heading towards an entrance so I just followed them and that worked out good. Then I got myself to the 2nd floor. Since it was 7:00 a.m. there were only a few worker bees around. I ran into a guy I knew and just asked him if he happened to know where the global meeting was being held. He didn't but said he saw a bunch of important looking people going through "that door." So just when I was heading toward "that door" I happened to see the president of our company who was hoofing it at quite a pace toward "that door." Being the perceptive person that I am, I figured he was going to the global meeting (probably to head it) and so I scurried up behind him and followed him thinking even if I'm late I'm not really late if he hasn't opened the meeting up yet.

But not to worry, when we got to the meeting room, everyone was casually grazing at the breakfast troph before the official 7:30 a.m. kick off. Whew, that was a close one.

Where am I going with this story? Oh yeah, so I sat like a fly on the wall (knowing my place) and thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to sit with the execs and hear future strategy being discussed. When the portion of the meeting was done that I had been invitied to, I excused myself from the room, glanced at my watch and knew I had to hurry out to my next meeting which required driving back to the temporary building in which I am housed.

So, I was trotting rapidly along since again, I was late. I was in a world with my own thoughts, mulling over what I had just been exposed to as well as transitioning into the next meeting topic and thinking about what demands would be required of me. My head was down and I was just booking in the general direction of the door that I had entered the building through. I grabbed the door knob to twist and pull. It wasn't until that point that I glanced up. There, in bold letters, staring me in the face was a sign on the door that said "Electrical Closet!"

One minute I'm hob-knobbing with the global execs, the next I'm in an electrical closet!
If that won't keep a person humble, what will?

Boot trial

Last October I thought I needed a new pair of short brown boots so I went out and bought a fairly cute cheap pair that I thought would do the trick.

I wore them on and off over the past 5 months. I was really disappointed though. The right foot was comfortable but the left foot felt really tight. When I wore them to work at the beginning of the day it would only bother me a little bit, but by early afternoon the left foot would really really feel uncomfortable.

Usually when I buy shoes I only try on the right foot because that foot is a little bigger so it the shoe is comfortable on the right, it's comfortable on the left. So I thought it was really wierd that the left boot was tight. I even checked the size of the left to make sure it was a 7.5 and not a 7.0.

Then, a couple of weeks ago, on a day when I was wearing the dreaded boots, I got stuck in a bunch of bad traffic on the way home. It was stop and go and since my car is a stick shift there is no rest for your feet in that situation. Somehow or another, that stop and go driving really started making my left foot feel horribe and I couldn't stand to keep that boot on anymore. So I unzipped it and took it off but I left the right one on cause that one was O.K.

Well, when I finally got home I had to put the left boot back on in order to walk from the car to the door in the cold garage. When I was trying to put the boot back on kind of half way still in the car, I couldn't get my foot at a good angle and then it was like there was a flap or something inside my boot that wouldn't allow me to get my foot in all the way.

And that's when I made the shocking discovery .. . . . the plastic insert that they put inside shoes and boots in order to keep their shape before selling had been inside my boot during the whole 5 months that I had been wearing it. It was a humongous plastic form and it was even bent under in one spot where my foot had crushed it upward from months of wearing it.

Of course I shared the story with my co-workers who got a hardy laugh out of it, especially when I even showed them the plastic culprit to back up my story

Geez oh peet. I could hardly believe it. And guess what, that left boot is really alot more comfortable now.

Stylin' at work

Quite a few years ago when I was single parenting it, and always behind in everything, and always running and always late (o.k. single parenting is just an excuse because I'm still that way and single parenting no longer applies) I was dressing hurridly for work. It was the days when we still wore suits to work, none of this business casual stuff that we have today. I had a really nice tan and white light wool summer suit that put on that day. I threw on a pair of tan shoes to match.

It wasn't til I got to work and walked to my desk that I actually looked down at my feet and noticed I had on two completely different tan shoes. On the left foot was a plain tan pump, on the right foot was a real cool pump, two tone tan, with cute button adornments. Good thing the heel sizes must have been similar or it could have ended it disaster.

In true Rita form, wherever I went that day, I pointed out my different shoes to everyone. What a hoot.

Have any of you ever worn two completely different shoes to work? Did anyone notice?

Chill Pills

One day at work (quite a long time ago) I was involved in a stressful project. I was invited to attend yet one more meeting about whatever the very controversial subject was. I really can't even remember what the topic was. I could feel a headache coming on so I thought I would take some aspirin before the meeting to ward it off.

As I reached in my drawer, I grabbed a bottle of some kind of vitamin supplements instead. That gave me an idea. I took two of the honkin' big white smooth pills out, took a fine black perma-marker and scrawled "chill" on one and "pill" on the other and stuck them in my pocket.

Then I gulped down two aspirin and headed off for the meeting. As predicted, the meeting grew long, people began to lose patience, tempers were beginning to flare. Just as the heated discussions were reaching their crescendo, I reached into my pocket and tossed the tablets to the middle of the table. "Anyone want a chill pill" I asked?

Tension broke and the room filled with laughter. It's the best medicine, you know. It releases endorphins or something into your system. It turned out to be another good day at work!

Do Not Disturb

Today at work I had a lot of deadlines and I needed strict concentration to get through my tasks on time. My desk is in a fairly open area with a lot of traffic coming and going and a lot of noise. I could not escape to a conference room and shut the door for my needed peace because I needed the functionality of my dual monitors in able to do my job. It was just about noon when I had finished up with phone calls and was getting ready to hunker down.

I thought to myself "how am I going to let people know not to bother me please." I quickly found a piece of 81/2" x 11" paper and wrote "Do Not Disturb .. . please" on it and promptly reached awkwardly back and pinned it to the back of my sweater. I turned back toward my desk, hooked up my iPod and began to work feverishly away. In a little while as people were returning from lunch, I heard a few people chuckling and I heard a comment something like "only Rita." I smiled to myself and kept on working like a mad woman as the clock was ticking.

It wasn't until a couple of hours later that I turned around to ask my co-worker a technical question. He was seated at a table with a few other people having a little mini-meeting in the center of our work area. As I turned, my iPod got twisted up so I had to turn back toward my desk and untangle myself before I could address him with my question.

What to my surprise when I finally looked over there again . . .my co-workers, unbeknownst to me, had taken a picture of my back side with the sign hanging there. One of them had saved it as their screen saver and in the time that I had glance away to untagle my iPod they had displayed the picture up on our big screen monitor. Everybody roared with laughter when they saw my reaction to that picture. It was a great laugh. What a great tension reliever on a day that was fraught with stress. . . but I guess you probably had to be there to experience the true effect.