It is your average conference room. Long oval table. Profusion of gray upholstered chairs. Gray carpet. Gray everything.
I am sitting on one of the long sides of the table, facing a gentleman across. He is a study in brown -- shaggy sandy hair, brown shirt, brown horn rimmed glasses. He is not the only one I invited for the meeting. The other gentleman is late. Or MIA. We don't know. We had decided to start the meeting without him because we don't know whether he is going to make it.
Oh he does, although it is more of an entry. He is a tall, lanky gentleman with Spanish good looks. He stops at the entrance and announces, "I will sit by the lady!" And walks to my side of the table, pulls up a chair next to me and sits down, even as his colleague is going, "Of course! You must! Heh heh!"
The man next to me shrugs and says in heavily accented English, "You know - to help her," and turns and flashes his pearly whites at me. (He is one of the shoulder-touchers I mentioned in my previous e-mail.)
I am giving a great impression of a guppy by now. Not because I am unfamiliar with flirtation. I am just not used to it in corporate America. Hell, I have read official policy on McKinsey's Intranet about how "the firm" frowns upon fraternization at work place.
While I am still doing my share of "Heh heh!", he walks up to the board, draws a crappy diagram and starts explaining some pointless concept with great gravitas. The meeting proceeds with "don't scare the poor lady," etc. etc. from my handsome charmer.
I frown and frown until I hit on an epiphany. Hell, these are marketing people! I am doing a project with the marketing team. Of course they are all reasonably good looking, very charming, talk mile-a-minute of crap, and are openly flirtatious! That's how they treat their ad agencies. And that's where they have pegged me.
Oh well, lucky me!
I need to urge TIS sales people to sell more to such fun people, rather than to those fuddy-duddies in the training department. The people I usually meet are so crashingly boring that it makes me weep.
The admin person at office is trying to integrate me. She is talking about team lunches. She claims that she has talked to my program manager (the good looking one I mentioned in my previous e-mail, not the aforementioned Spaniard) to invite me home. Mommy!
I am happy to inform you that I have figured out my way in this labyrinth. However, my one mishap seems to have made the headlines. I was walking back from lunch on Friday when I encountered a group of sharply dressed people walking towards me. Suddenly, the lady who seemed like the queen bee calls out to me, "Hello Priya! You are in the correct floor and walking in the correct direction! Looks like you have figured it out!" She breezes past while I am still doing my "Heh heh!" (I seem to be doing a lot of it nowadays). I then realize that it is the VP Marketing I was briefly introduced to the other day. Phew!
I am feeling much better. Today was the first drug free day. Not even the rescue inhaler was employed. I am left with a slight wheeze, inability to laugh (needs too much lung capacity which I don't have yet), and an occasional cough.
Spring is all around me. A lot of trees and shrubs are blooming, although there still some trees that haven't greened yet. The birds are very busy and vocal. There is a nest on the tree right outside my door. Of course, I picked up my camera and roamed around the property on Saturday morning, although it was freezing. Caught all sorts of colorful birds, including the Cardinal. It is one of the most stunning birds I have seen. If you have not done it yet, go to my FB profile for the pics. Discovered that the 385-acre Chicago Botanical Garden is 3.5 miles from my hotel. That would be subject for another e-mail, some other day.
I finally got myself a subscription to Netflix. I am on a two-week free trial period with unlimited, watch-all-you-can paradise. I squandered it all this weekend on a litany of feel good rom-com movies. It must be my illness and jet lag, but I feel that I can't handle anything deep or cerebral right now.
Anyway, that's it from me now. Auf wiedersehen!
I am sitting on one of the long sides of the table, facing a gentleman across. He is a study in brown -- shaggy sandy hair, brown shirt, brown horn rimmed glasses. He is not the only one I invited for the meeting. The other gentleman is late. Or MIA. We don't know. We had decided to start the meeting without him because we don't know whether he is going to make it.
Oh he does, although it is more of an entry. He is a tall, lanky gentleman with Spanish good looks. He stops at the entrance and announces, "I will sit by the lady!" And walks to my side of the table, pulls up a chair next to me and sits down, even as his colleague is going, "Of course! You must! Heh heh!"
The man next to me shrugs and says in heavily accented English, "You know - to help her," and turns and flashes his pearly whites at me. (He is one of the shoulder-touchers I mentioned in my previous e-mail.)
I am giving a great impression of a guppy by now. Not because I am unfamiliar with flirtation. I am just not used to it in corporate America. Hell, I have read official policy on McKinsey's Intranet about how "the firm" frowns upon fraternization at work place.
While I am still doing my share of "Heh heh!", he walks up to the board, draws a crappy diagram and starts explaining some pointless concept with great gravitas. The meeting proceeds with "don't scare the poor lady," etc. etc. from my handsome charmer.
I frown and frown until I hit on an epiphany. Hell, these are marketing people! I am doing a project with the marketing team. Of course they are all reasonably good looking, very charming, talk mile-a-minute of crap, and are openly flirtatious! That's how they treat their ad agencies. And that's where they have pegged me.
Oh well, lucky me!
I need to urge TIS sales people to sell more to such fun people, rather than to those fuddy-duddies in the training department. The people I usually meet are so crashingly boring that it makes me weep.
The admin person at office is trying to integrate me. She is talking about team lunches. She claims that she has talked to my program manager (the good looking one I mentioned in my previous e-mail, not the aforementioned Spaniard) to invite me home. Mommy!
I am happy to inform you that I have figured out my way in this labyrinth. However, my one mishap seems to have made the headlines. I was walking back from lunch on Friday when I encountered a group of sharply dressed people walking towards me. Suddenly, the lady who seemed like the queen bee calls out to me, "Hello Priya! You are in the correct floor and walking in the correct direction! Looks like you have figured it out!" She breezes past while I am still doing my "Heh heh!" (I seem to be doing a lot of it nowadays). I then realize that it is the VP Marketing I was briefly introduced to the other day. Phew!
I am feeling much better. Today was the first drug free day. Not even the rescue inhaler was employed. I am left with a slight wheeze, inability to laugh (needs too much lung capacity which I don't have yet), and an occasional cough.
Spring is all around me. A lot of trees and shrubs are blooming, although there still some trees that haven't greened yet. The birds are very busy and vocal. There is a nest on the tree right outside my door. Of course, I picked up my camera and roamed around the property on Saturday morning, although it was freezing. Caught all sorts of colorful birds, including the Cardinal. It is one of the most stunning birds I have seen. If you have not done it yet, go to my FB profile for the pics. Discovered that the 385-acre Chicago Botanical Garden is 3.5 miles from my hotel. That would be subject for another e-mail, some other day.
I finally got myself a subscription to Netflix. I am on a two-week free trial period with unlimited, watch-all-you-can paradise. I squandered it all this weekend on a litany of feel good rom-com movies. It must be my illness and jet lag, but I feel that I can't handle anything deep or cerebral right now.
Anyway, that's it from me now. Auf wiedersehen!
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