The Aerie
Well of course THAT was too good to last! Yep, it took only two days for me to be moved from the Very Nice Ordinary Cube that I was assigned to the Shelf Against the Wall off the Aisle cube where I have move tomorrow. Can't let the contractors get all uppity and start thinking that they're as good as regular employees now...
Yeah, it's not like this original cube is any great shakes. It only has those crappy four-foot walls that say "Privacy, Schmivacy;" its storage space is limited, and the only way to sit that fits my personal Feng Shui is facing out towards the aisle. Nevertheless it has ample shelf space and plenty of surface to spread out on. As of tomorrow I'm confined to an 18"X36" surface, with my ass hanging out for passersby to bump into.
This will certainly enhance my productivity and general satisfaction!
Not to be a total whiner, it is kind of entertaining working here at Buy More. A gigantically successful company, it has some of the arrogance and energy of a 1990's Dot-Com, including video games and pool tables in the atrium lounge area, an absurdly large food service, and big special events and giveaways.
Today's was "Hispanic Day," celebrating not merely Hispanic culture, but the rollout of Buy More stores to much of Central America over the next few years. There was food (which I belatedly discovered after buying a dreadful, dreadful gyro from the cafeteria), music, drawings for flat-panel TVs and cameras, and giveaways of CDs and DVDs. I ended up with "Ivy Queen: Flashback," but I haven't listened to it yet or watched its DVD.
I was afraid this morning when I left that I was going to have to build an ark if I kept working here, but the sun came out around 10:00 a.m., bringing an end to days of gray, dreary weather. At least until winter sets in.
Also, I measured the distance from home to work along a likely bike route and found it would be about 12 miles one-way. That's a bit much for me, but maybe I'll try biking it Friday and see what happens. One idea that I had was to take my bike on the Light Rail line down to the Mall of America and then bike over from there. It would probably cut the distance in half, but riding the light rail kind of kills the whole "reducing the carbon footprint" point of it, to say nothing of the whole "getting some exercise" point.
And of course there aren't going to be a lot of days where I can afford to spend two hours in transit.
Last night was fun! We went to see Kevin Kling reading from his new book. Kevin Kling serves as an example of perseverance: having grown up with a withered left arm, he crippled his right arm in a near-fatal motorcycle accident a few years ago. With only about 30% of an uninjured person's arm function remaining, he has nonetheless continued his already successful career as a writer and radio personality. His stories were hilarious, both due to his writing as well as his capture of Minnesota colloquialisms. His "training phrase" for learning Minnesotan is "Ain't no way I'm payin' a whole dollar for a corn muffin dat's half dough." Draw the O's out and flatten the A's and you too may be qualified to 'walk among us' as he put it.
Topping off the fun, I was parking the car when Ruth and Laurie climbed out of their vehicle up the street. Ruth is a friend who used to go to our church; Laurie was the contractor who finished our upstairs bathroom and bedroom last year. They have an on-again-off-again relationship which is currently on-again. They sat in front of us and we all got to have a nice chat before the show started. One of Ruth's neighbors was a member of the musical group accompanying Kevin Kling, "Brass Messengers." All in all a fun evening that served as a reminder of what a small town Minnesota really is.
Posted by Albatross at October 3, 2007 2:49 PM | TrackBack