Things at work have been crazy busy. Strangely, I’ve been thriving. I’ve been stressed, but positive. Frustrated, but plugging through. It’s so unlike me! But that aside, Friday was one of the days that I really remembered, I love my job.
One of my mentors at work is the Original Boss; the person I reported to when I first started working there in 2005. We hit it off professionally as well as friends and I’ve learned everything I know about my current role from him. When he was promoted last summer and I started reporting to New Boss, it wasn’t long before I had worked my way into his previous role of Team Leader. Now we share war stories on a regular basis. Not a week goes by where I don’t call him with some question or show up in his office needing advice on handling some difficult situation; or a situation that I’ve made more difficult than it really needs to be.
Sadly, he’s put his notice in and his last day will be Friday. This makes me so selfishly sad, but his reasons for leaving are just. It’s time for him to move on. To try his hand at his own ventures. I’m happy for him in this regard. I really, truly am. But I hate that he won’t be a 4-digit phone call or an across-the-cube-farm walk away any longer.
However, his departure isn’t the reason for this entry. (Really? Fooled me!) The reason for this entry is because he had arranged to have Merlin Mann from Inbox Zero and 43folders come speak to us about organization and efficiency at work. I had heard of Merlin’s work before. I read about him after Dooce posted this and linked here. I found the concept of Inbox Zero fascinating. I couldn’t wait to hear him speak. Especially since my own Inbox was bursting at the seams.
The talk was fantastic. You can see Merlin’s presentation at Google here and perhaps also apply some of the tips. I highly recommend watching.
The best part of my day wasn’t hearing him speak, though. And for those of you that follow me on Twitter, you might have sensed my excitement.
As Merlin is a personal friend of the Original Boss, they were going out to lunch prior to Merlin having to catch a flight back to California. Original Boss invited me to come along.
Oh my God I was going to have lunch with Merlin Mann.
Dizzle came with and so did another colleague so I felt less pressure to worry about if I’d get food caught in my teeth or laugh before swallowing completely and have bits and pieces of food splay out from my lips. I mean, if Dizzle didn’t tell me about the lettuce in my teeth, he’d certainly blog about it later and we’d all have a good laugh.
I made it through lunch without any unfortunate food incidents. And later analysis led me to believe I didn’t sound like a complete bumbling moron. The conversation surrounded office politics, culture, changing bad habits, and even Old Boss plugging me as an “aspiring personal blogger”. Holy shit.
I’m pretty sure that come Monday, the man won’t remember me as anything other than the girl with the Red Sox T-shirt on that wouldn’t stop talking about The Armstrong’s at lunch, but spending time with him was inspiring. His knowledge and passion of the industry is admirable. I walked away feeling a lot better about blogging and why I blog in general. Seeing people that have nailed their careers to something like this is truly amazing. Will I get to be one of them?
I guess only time will tell.
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