Hold it, Buddy

There’s one more element from our office holiday decoration. The week before Christmas week, someone put a cardboard cutout of Buddy the Elf in our VP’s office, facing out through the glass wall. I’ll confess that the first time I saw it, I freaked out. It’s really creepy.

As it happened, the VP was out sick the first three days that thing loomed out, and when he got back, the first thing he did was move it out of his office. Then—like the garden gnome in Amélie—it just started wandering.

Someone put it in the office next to the VP’s; I suggested that the woman whose office that is wouldn’t appreciate having that creature looming over her, so it got moved out into the corridor, just around the corner and placed so you’d have no warning as you turned and ran into it on your way to the kitchen or the big conference room.

Well—I happened to see it coming from the kitchen, and I suggested to those closest to it (not that I was accusing them or anything) that it really wouldn’t be a good thing if it were left there, because it could seriously cause difficulties. So it got moved. And moved. And moved.

At one point, I came into my work area to find that someone had planted it directly behind my manager (who often stands to work). He took up the challenge, did a reccie and reported that people from Team Ginger were in a meeting away from their desks, so he relocated Buddy to the gingerbread house.

Well, that didn’t last long. The last day of that week, I came out of our work area at my usual speed (ramming) and practically ran into the damned thing, which was parked directly in front of my desk. (I couldn’t see because of all the West Texas trailer park Christmas wrapping.) The office pretty much cleared out, so I planted Buddy halfway between Teams Gruber and Ginger.

Those areas have been pretty vacant for the past couple of weeks. We’ll see what happens when people return next week.

Team spirit

While we’re still in the Christmas season (up until 6 January, in the Western Church), I’m going to share some pix of my office decked out for the holidays.

It started when one team put up a little decorated fake tree and some fairy lights on the table in the middle of their work space. The SVP took notice and announced at the weekly business unit call that the rest of us really ought to get with the program—she didn’t care what holiday theme we chose (“I’m fine with Festivus for the rest of us.”), but she really wanted to see what we’ve got.

Sadly, my team is geographically dispersed; there’s only my manager and me in this office, and he’s not into this kind of frivolity. But I got together with someone who sits in the same area on a Saturday. We hung strings of star lights from the ceiling, and covered the front of the area with gift wrapping. Frankly, it struck me as a West Texas trailer park Christmas, but by God it was colorful.

Well, that seemed to spur the original group (I’ll call them Team Ginger) to greater heights of creativity, and suddenly everyone was all over it. I knew shit was getting real when I saw several teams giving specifications for monitors to the facilities guy. Viz:

The group I’ll refer to as Team Gruber started out kind of slow. They jury-rigged a Raspberry Pi to the monitor that faces their work area, and for most of December it showed Li’l Bub (RIP) in front of the yule fire:

  

Then they hung up some lights (which I unaccountably do not have a photo of) and Christmas cat stickers, along with this:

There was also this solo effort by one of them—she pointed out to me that it’s meant to be a Christmas tree:

Complete with angel topper:

(They also had another tree.)

And their dinosaur was seasonably attired:

Other teams took a broader holiday view:

And made do with found materials:

This photo does not do justice to one group’s lights; I really liked them—looked like what you see down at the Marina for the parade of sailboats.

Others were more pedestrian, though festive, to be sure:

  

And then there was this nice try:

The SVP got into the act—she brought in the Pro from Dover (one of her kids) and hung lights and snow-sprayed the glass wall on her office. (No photo.)

But there were three exceptional efforts.

Team Enterprise boldly went where no one had gone before:

It included this galactic confection.

I was kind of surprised that the facilities guy wasn’t worried about fire hazards. (And I don’t know who’s going to pay December’s electric bill, but I hope someone warns them.) But as far as I know there were no incidents.

Team Ginger apparently pooled their not inconsiderable intellects after seeing the West Texas trailer park and upped the ante—I came across the office manager on her way to inspect the final product; she said the only thing she knew about it was a box of UPS delivery. But this is what they did:

The table in the center is what started everything out:

Another monitor put to use:

And here’s the special visitor who judged all the efforts:

Team Ginger won, of course, but my favorite was Team Gruber. From their somewhat small-scale and individual efforts (above), they built out the entire ecosystem of Die Hard:

(Yes, another monitor put to use.)

Complete with a real gingerbread Nakatomi Plaza tower, with flames and helicopter (I’m not kidding—it smelled wonderful, and I’m not even the world’s biggest fan of gingerbread):

Gingerbread house was spectacular, of course, but seriously—for execution of theme, Team Gruber has my heart.

But here’s what’s so interesting to me: I’ve never worked in a place that had quite so much fun during the holidays. And the collaboration that underpinned the creativity is breathtaking. Closest I’ve ever come was a cube-decorating contest about five jobs ago. And that was strictly every one for themselves—no team effort at all. This one was all about pooling ideas and effort.

I asked around—the OTT decorating was new. But I suspect there’ll be more of it come December.

Yippee-ki-yay!

Looking ahead

Dunno about you, but this is me, ready for 2020:

Well, okay, with this addition:

Happy New Year, all.

It's all happening at the zoo

Last week a friend and I went to the National Zoo for Zoo Lights—for the month of December, various corporations sponsor thousands of light displays at the zoo. This was the first time I’d been there since shortly after the first panda arrived in the last century—on short trip to DC that was one of my must-dos, seeing the panda. (I also went to the first club in the country that had male strippers. I much preferred the panda.)

Anyhow, my friend is a big fan of the zoo, and going at night, when I can’t see incarcerated animals, is about the best time for me. And it was quite a sight. I’m just gonna lay some pix out for you. The best things for me were the “animal lanterns”—lighted from the inside.

A couple of the animal lanterns moved.

One other highlight of that outing: as we were making our way to the exit, a toddler (in a stroller, maybe two-ish?) started screaming. Not crying, full-throated empty-your-lungs screaming. And the kid kept it up for at least 20 minutes—they followed us across Connecticut Avenue all the way to the Metro station. I have no words.

Gratitude Monday: turning it around

Today is the final Gratitude Monday of 2019. What a ride, eh?

A year ago all I could hold onto was that I’d discovered Pousse Rapière on my take-it-or-lose-it vacation. Because I was still working with the Clown Car, where I was ignored at best and disrespected at worst.

And then—I don’t quite know what happened, but I just started to turn things around. Perhaps something to do with scoping out the IT infrastructure the program would require—despite the Clown Car being collectively dismissive of what that represented—reawakened my sense of product management. Even though I’d been out of the field for nearly five years, it was like catching a scent that suddenly transports you back to a place where you were happy.

I began my job search more actively, including reaching out to people I didn’t know well, but who had offered help. I connected with someone who really energized me and gave me the #playingtowin construct. So that when the Clown Car organization announced they’d be laying me off due to lack of funding, I was so ready to move on.

I was reminded of Jesus telling the disciples to go forth and spread the Gospel, but “whosoever shall not receive your words, when ye depart out of that house or city, shake the dust off your feet.” Look—I have no delusions of grandeur, but if anyone had their ears closed to what they needed to know to get their program off the ground, it was this lot. And I definitely shook the dust off my feet when I walked out that door.

For perhaps the first time in my life, I waded into the job search with confidence, notwithstanding the challenge of moving into a new (and extremely competitive) field, and the fact that I was going to have to a lot of dot connecting if I wanted to be a product manager again. But I was open to it, and I ran that search like a military campaign. The stars, as they say, aligned: I now have my aspirational job with my aspirational company in my aspirational field. I work with people who are committed, supportive and welcoming; they make me want to do my best.

This year I have so much to be thankful for—all the people who helped and encouraged me, old friends and new; taking a fork in the road that I’d never thought I’d be able to see, much less travel. New things to learn; some things to teach. This year has been a gift to me, and I’m deeply grateful for it.