This Week

So, this week started with my beloved boss announcing his resignation. I don't yet have words for this - I'm one of those blessed few who really like my boss, my job, going to work on Monday morning. So I spent the rest of the week with my peers mourning our collective loss, dealing with my personal fears and preparing for the worst.

Just then, while I'm wasting company time by checking friends blogs and personal e-mails, I get a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity... and guess what!

I have a ticket to the Presidential Inauguration!

Seriously - slogging my way through microeconomics (and thanks to all who tolerated me through that) paid off - it's my professor who had the extra ticket and offered it and my timing was right and I never do spontaneous things like this and, anyway, I'm flying to DC Monday morning! I'm so looking forward to being part of this historical event. I was remembering election night and seeing that sea of people in Chicago who were so jubilant and hopeful - I want to be part of that on Tuesday! And don't I have the most wonderful husband who encouraged me to go without him!

So stay tuned - I promise to keep y'all updated and will take lots of pictures. And I have information just in on google talk from a classmate that Union Station is selling Barack Obama flip-flops! They'll be all the rage on the Cape this summer, I'm sure!

It's not every day

So I met this really interesting person the other day.

I was helping my work-friend, Jenny, who is a recruiter (employment kind, not army kind). She asked me to do a first interview with a candidate for employment, because his application showed he was from India and she's not particularly culturally-diverse-comfortable, so wanted me to meet with him first. She thinks I'm more patient with accents.

This man wasn't applying for any position in particular - he knows he has a language barrier, so he's looking for any job that would have him. So I asked him the most open-ended job related question I know: what kind of work do you really like to do? In a zillion years I would never had been prepared for the answer.

This kind gentleman asked me how much time I had to meet with him. When I invited him to take as long as he liked, he began to explain to me his lifelong goal - he wants to create a worldwide organization to, as he put it, "spread humanism all around the world." He drew the organizational chart for me -explaining the three types of help (physical help, financial help and knowledge help), and how he intended to get all this to happen. He then explained that he comes from a family that thinks his goal means he is lazy and doesn't want to do real work, so he'd like to work for our housekeeping department, please.

As we ended our meeting, he thanked me graciously for listening to him and told me that, whether we offered him employment or not, I should feel welcome to stay in touch with him, in case I ever needed help from him.

I'm glad Jenny asked me to cover this one for her. She might have thought he was nuts. It's possible that he is a little... but he's going to be great for our organization. He starts Monday.