Crock Pot Goddess

For Brenda and Steve… ♥

I didn’t mean for it to happen. It was like turning 48; it just sort of happened, a natural progression as in the art of any process. I’m a crock pot goddess.

Is there an award for this? Nope. I didn’t get a little red and notoriously unreliable Italian convertible, a tiara, or even a crock pot recipe named after me; however, I do have a small but devoted fan base consisting mostly of the support engineers who work at my new-old company.

I was hired back at my new-old company about four months ago, and my position was to last only six months. In my new job, I was working for a different group than I had when I was there doing my old job; thus, there were many new things to learn. The most important thing to learn about and participate in was beer o’clock.

Beer o’clock occurred every Friday at 4:30. A few cases of beer were chilled in a refrigerator which lived in a small storage room. In addition to the refrigerator, the room also housed numerous computers, monitors, and one very lonely exercise machine that looked like its owner had sadly neglected it to said beers in the refrigerator. Anyway, the small room was much like a dugout for a baseball team if there was a major league team comprised of support engineers from a telecommunications company; it housed everything they needed to play the game.

My biggest challenge wasn’t learning FrameMaker again, remembering the difference between a trunk group and a super trunk group, or getting a phone installed in my office. My biggest challenges was walking 100 yards down the hallway, grabbing a beer out of the refrigerator, and finding some common ground with 15 or so engineers. The difficulty in that was only increased due to the fact that I had to also be comfortable being the only woman among all those men.

What was my problem? They certainly weren’t mean or unfriendly to me. And, it wasn’t like I was a shy person. It was just a situation that I had never been in before and perhaps it was one that I thought too much about, making me feel like a walking clip from Sesame Street’s “One of These Things is not Like the Other.”

As the weeks passed, I attended each beer o'clock. I did my best to mingle. One beer o’clock became extremely loud and laughter-filled; and discussions strayed to things that might have been topics that men normally didn’t discuss in front of women. At one point, I laughed out loud at one comment, and one of the engineers looked at me and said, “Hey, now you’re one of the boys.”

As I drove home that night, I said to myself quite pleased, “Hey, now I’m one of the boys!” Of course, a mile later, I was asking myself, “Is being one of the boys a good thing or a bad thing?” I polled my female friends, and they all voted “Good thing.”

Then, I began to look forward to beer o’clock and the nice people who made me laugh and feel like I was one of the boys despite my love of pink and the fact that I was from Venus. I felt grateful, and as a woman, I couldn’t help but see room for improvement in beer o’clock. I went right for the food, and I decided that the snacks (chips, cheese doodles, and pretzels) needed improvement.

Having used my crock pot every now and then, I thought what better way to contribute to beer o’clock than with warm treats. Armed with my “Fix-It and Forget-It Cookbook,” I stood in the kitchen the next Thursday night trying to decide what my first snack would be. Aha, nothing says “One of the Boys” like chili!

I carted my chili in to the dugout that Friday afternoon. At first, they all seemed a bit surprised. This was evident when someone went to grab a few pretzels, saw the crock pot, and then said, “Oh, wow. Hot food!”

Fortunately, if you make hot food, men will eat it, no questions asked. The chili was a hit. It was followed by barbecue meatballs, and that was followed by a question from the vice president asking me, “The food is great, but why are you doing it?”

I then confessed. Well, I didn’t really tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth; the truth was that I liked these people very much, and the food was my way of showing it. My truth to him was that I was hoping a permanent job offer was going to come through their stomachs. Actually, I don’t think the chili, barbecued meatballs, pulled pork, and apple sausages have hurt that goal either!

My vice president said my pulled pork was “amazing” and an engineer said my sausages were “delicious.” I had become adored! Earlier this week, two people asked, “So, what are you making this Friday?” I had become a wishful occurrence!

Today, as I was sitting at my desk, the designated beer buyer popped his head over my cube wall; I was quite surprised to see him standing there. He asked, “So, do you have any requests for beer?” Rather shocked, I said, “Dead guy beer!” I was asked about my preference for beer. I had become the Crock Pot Goddess! ♥