Who doesn’t like fun? Personally, I’ve always believed that someone needed to put the “fun” back into work. I guess that for most of my professional career I’ve been that someone; wouldn’t you much rather go to “funwork” or “workfun” than just plain old “work?”
Today, I tried to get both of my guides finalized. It was a mad dash to get them through the approval process. So, first thing this morning, I sent email to the three people I needed to approve the guides to make them cognizant of that fact.
Within 10 minutes, I had an email from one of the engineers who needed to approve both guides. He lives in Turkey, which I thought was cool. He comes to the corporate headquarters for a few weeks every now and then.
The first time I met him, I said, “It’s really cool that you live in Turkey.” He looked at me strangely. I could tell he probably didn’t think it was cool that I lived in Massachusetts and thought I was a bit odd, but he smiled keeping those unspoken thoughts to himself.
I had asked him a question only yesterday in which I probably only reaffirmed his opinion that I was a bit goofy; I wondered about the naming of a particular file. I prefaced it by saying, “I’m just asking so I can tell my 7-year-old daughter that I learned something new today; we compare notes at the end of every day.” Given he was in Turkey, working US hours, he responded to me quicker than engineers who only sat 10 yards away from me.
He replied with a smiley face. He then said, “It describes the target system architecture. X86 is the traditional CPU architecture that uses the Intel X86 series instruction set. It has two flavors: 32 bit and 64 bit. And this stands for the length of each instruction.” Then he said, “May be you should just tell her that it signifies Intel compatible 64 bit CPU architecture.”
I knew Iz would never go for all that by saying, “I think the minute I mention Intel compatible that she’ll look at me funny, and then tell me about how she learned how to find more treasure for Mario.” He responded by saying that his children were only 3 and 2, and he was light years away from 7. I then warned him about 7-year-old girls with their 186 questions a day and the constant brain-numbing questions like “Is it raining in Florida?”
Anyway, after I sent out my email notifying him that I’d need his approval, he sent me an email that said, “I could not find the approval form in my inbox. Did I miss it?” I replied, “Oh, I'm going to send it out in a minute. That was just your "10-minute warning" message so to speak.”
He replied with, “Duh.”
I then replied with “No duh! I could see where my email might be confusing. I just wanted to make sure everyone knew that they could not cut out of work at 3pm today to lounge by the pool with one of those fruity umbrella drinks, because I need signatures.” I sent out my approval email for the first guide; true to form, within 10 minutes he approved it. I replied with, “Thanks. You’re only one more approval away from sipping that fruity umbrella drink by the pool!”
By 2pm today, after I just received some late comments on my other guide, I knew my guides weren’t going out the door today; that’s why they invented Monday, right? At 4pm, I sent my User Guide out for review; my approval from Turkey arrived in under 10 minutes. My approvals from the US were nowhere to be found when I left work at 5pm.
I emailed the engineer in Turkey to thank him. I said, “Happy weekend!” I included this picture.
He replied, “You too. A little late for the drink though. I am 7 hours ahead.” I forgot about that whole time zone issue. This was probably because he seemed closer than the engineers I could throw a paper cup at.
I said, “Oh, that’s a good time zone point; then, you have two make-believe options. 1) There’s only fruit juice in it, so you can drink it now. 2) There’s vodka in it, so you can put it in the refrigerator and save it for happy hour tomorrow.” He replied, “I will pick the fruit juice now.” I replied, “Okay, but I just wanted to let you know that for Version 3.0 approval, you will be getting the pool that goes with that drink!”
Some people go to work totally seriously; that’s okay, especially if you’re an auditor and you like Siberia. I think work is best when you accomplish things with intermittent laughter. Oddly enough, I do believe that’s why most of the people at my new-old job like me. ♥
My Favorite Church Sign Note: This church always advertises the greatest sermons. While not particularly religious, someday I should attend. I think I would like to meet the Reverend.
Anyway, this is the next sermon.
So, I went with that.
Oops. I thought it said, “Dog!” Everyone believes in their own way. So, I fixed that.
Bonus Monty Video Note: When Monty isn’t sleeping, pooping, or barking (yes, I still love him anyway, Steve!), he and I play this game called “Kill the Bone.” So, here you have it.
Happy weekend, everyone. ♥
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