Staff Meetings - The Story of My Life

Today we had another staff meeting. I love staff meetings because they give me a chance to get away from my desk and there’s always some kind of unidentified cafeteria food that they call “catering”. I’m right next to the conference room, so I usually get first wind of any really good fruit spread and first pick of the drinks.

One of my favorite co-workers is the one I work the most with. He’s from Guadalajara or some place like that and talks with an accent. I call him guy-with-an-accent. But I have a strong suspicion that he might be gay. Which is actually great, because when you work closely with someone of the opposite sex, it’s good not to have any tension at all. He’s also one of the snazziest dress people I know too. He always looks like he’s walked straight out of a J Crew ad and has completely mastered the three quarter sleeve roll-up better than any man I know. He actually dresses better than me, which sometime makes me mad because I have not only tried to become the least productive person in the office, I also aspire to become the best dressed. And I was well on my way for a while, probably because I’m the youngest person and one of the few office workers who can fit into clothes from Banana Republic. So people would walk by me and say “You look nice today,” and I’d feel great, but then they’d walk a little further and I’d hear “Whoa! Guy-with-an-accent, that’s a fabulous shirt!” Damn him. I think I’m gonna put chewing gum in his chair.

Much of our office is fashionable challenged. One woman in particular, whose role and title I haven’t quite figured out yet, but who has a really nice office and always manages to squirm into my lunches out with the manager for no apparent reason. Really, on my “welcome lunch” she just sort of appeared at the stool next to me and my manager at a restaurant and ate lunch with us, but didn’t introduce herself or say a word. But anyway, she’s generally regarded as the craziest dressed person. She has some weird fashion sense where she goes for really bright colors that don’t really match. Every now and then she’ll manage an outfit that slightly matches and as I pass her in the halls I’ll think “Yes! We have a winner! Someone finally turned on the lights while they were getting dressed!” And in those moments I can’t help but be a little proud of her. But today, at a presentation about liquefied natural gas (insert joke here), I sat behind her. I suddenly noticed that she was wearing a jacket that was apparently too small, because she had a giant rip down the back seam! I thought about pulling her aside and letting her know, and perhaps adding, “and while we’re at it, you do know that bright green and fuchsia don’t match, right?” But then the thought crossed my mind that maybe this was all part of her weird fashion “look” and that it would be totally rude to imply that a rip in a jacket wasn’t cool. However, I’m a little excited by the fact that when she gets home tonight and takes the jacket off, she’ll have to figure out how many people saw her like this.

But back to guy-with-an-accent. Last month was his turn to be the guest speaker at our monthly meeting. See, at every monthly meeting, after the usually office house cleaning and discussion of who’s doing their work and who isn’t (during which I keep a low profile) someone is picked to tell their life story. Literally. They get like 10 minutes to tell everything that’s happened to them up till now. It’s usually like “I was born with a calculator in my hand and became an accountant here, then moved here and became a different kind of accountant…“ It goes on like this for days. So last month was guy-with-an-accent’s turn. Everyone was all excited to hear about his life and, for me, most importantly, to hear the answer to the nagging question “what’s with the accent?” He started to tell us about how he got some nerd accounting job in America and that’s what got him his citizenship and there was apparently dancing in the street in his hometown or some shit like that. I also came to learn that in Mexico, you have like 14 names. You take your mom’s maiden name, your dad’s last name, and about four others for good measure. Our manager insisted that he recite his full name to us. I could have hit her with my stale dinner roll. He proceeded to take the next 15 minutes to say every Hispanic name I’ve ever heard, and by the time he was to Juanita, I tuned out. I think he was just making them up as he went along. But my co-workers were mesmerized, as though they were looking at some strange animal in the zoo that they couldn’t quite understand and desperately want to just poke with a stick.

So anyway, after that marathon, we all filed back out of the conference room and the biography ended there. Or so I thought. All around the office people were buzzing with conversation about guy-with-the-accent’s amazing life story. They made it sound like he’d swum into San Diego harbor on a raft made of popsicle sticks, wearing a barrel or something. Hmm... not many struggling immigrants I know shop at the Armani Exchange and have Louis Vuitton wallets. People were getting very worked up about it, dropping by his cubicle to give him a pat on the back and try to speak to him in his native tongue. “Hola guy-with-accent! Como esta?” But sure, I guess his story was awe-inspiring. If awe-inspiring means managing to distract me from the fly buzzing around the room for a few minutes. But actually I’m really beginning to like guy-with-an-accent. He’s become my friend who I can exchange puzzled looks with during a meeting, or pass funny notes to about the person who’s talking. I can do all this with someone who I can happily consider my well-dressed, gay office friend.

So today’s “featured speaker” is the laugh-loud girl. I’ve mentioned her in my previous blogs. She seems very exciting about revealing her life to the whole office over cafeteria food. But more power to her. She’s been wandering around the office giving people a preview, telling everyone “It’s not going to be too exciting because I’m leaving out ages 17-25!” She then proceeds to cackle loudly. Now, I’m sure in your day, laughs-loud-girl, you had a grand old time and met many the odd fellow, winning him over with your ungodly laugh. However, I have trouble believing that anyone with your penchant for animal print blouses, white nylons, and inexplicably frizzy hair would ever have a “wild” story to tell. So I’m betting this one’s gonna be a snooze fest.

I can’t wait until the day I get to tell my story at a meeting. I think I’m gonna make stuff up. Cause really, it wouldn’t be very exciting to hear “I was born, not to long ago, grew up, played it safe, and now I’m here sharing cold cafeteria food with you people! Pass the rice pilaf, please?” People are so intrigued with other peoples lives that I think it’d be fun to just have fun with it. Then I’d have people stopping by my cube afterwards being like “I had no idea you traveled the world with a champion water-skiing team! And how you spent the summer before college de-clawing blind koalas? That’s just great Heather!”