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Company Lunch
Nov. 11th, 2021 11:23 amYesterday my company held a "meet the execs" lunch for us employees based in the Bay Area. Execs flew in from around the country and even overseas. But this wasn't a case of You traveled 13 hours just for lunch??. The execs are meeting in San Jose this week for high level planning. A get-to-meet-local-employees lunch was added on to their schedule. Here are 5 Things:
1) Meeting Old-New People. The last business event I attended in person was in late February 2020. It's been over 20 months since I've seen a colleague except through a camera and a video screen. During that time a lot of former colleagues have left the company and new people have been hired. The result is there are now people I work with on an almost-daily basis whom I've never met in person.
2) People are not always who them seem online. The problem of forming an inaccurate picture of someone has existed since the early days of the Internet. Back then it was pretty much text only, making it really easy to misjudge someone, particularly if they deliberately misrepresented themselves. Nowadays with live video and audio interaction it's a lot closer to meeting in person... but not exactly. One of the old-new people I met for the first time yesterday (see above) is "Calvin", a colleague I've worked with daily for almost a year. Calvin looks easily 10 years younger in person. He's also taller and in much better shape than you'd conclude from seeing only his face via webcam. He strikes a much more commanding presence.
3) Over the edge of my Covid-19 comfort zone. The lunch meeting was entirely outdoors, which was good. Everyone brought masks AFAICT, which was good, though we all took them off outdoors as is allowed here. The problem was proximity. We were all seated next to each other to eat, and we were all clumped together when standing and talking, yet I didn't know who's vaccinated and who's not. A few colleagues I've spoken with about vaccination and know they've vaxxed. But others have given waffling, non-answer responses when asked in the past, so I've got to suspect that at least some of them— including at least one C level exec— are Covid deniers. I wish I could have been more careful around people of unknown vaccination status during this pandemic, but there was enormous social pressure in this job context not to rock the boat.
4) The execs were 30 minutes late. Of course they were. But that wasn't too much of a problem as all of us worker bees, who started arriving 15 minutes early, enjoyed socializing with each other. But even the event planner was 15 minutes later. And nothing was set up as promised. That led to a bit of confusion among those of us who were on time or even early. It also lowered the opinion I hold that event manager.
5) I Haven't "Forgot how to People". Yesterday I wrote about having dinner last week with a friend who confessed, "I forgot how to people." Like I wrote there, for me it's like learning how to ride a bike. I found it easy to get back into the groove of talking to people in person. And far from being confusing or tiring, it was fun. ...Okay, it does get tiring after a while. It always does for me. But for 2 hours I got a charge out of it.
1) Meeting Old-New People. The last business event I attended in person was in late February 2020. It's been over 20 months since I've seen a colleague except through a camera and a video screen. During that time a lot of former colleagues have left the company and new people have been hired. The result is there are now people I work with on an almost-daily basis whom I've never met in person.
2) People are not always who them seem online. The problem of forming an inaccurate picture of someone has existed since the early days of the Internet. Back then it was pretty much text only, making it really easy to misjudge someone, particularly if they deliberately misrepresented themselves. Nowadays with live video and audio interaction it's a lot closer to meeting in person... but not exactly. One of the old-new people I met for the first time yesterday (see above) is "Calvin", a colleague I've worked with daily for almost a year. Calvin looks easily 10 years younger in person. He's also taller and in much better shape than you'd conclude from seeing only his face via webcam. He strikes a much more commanding presence.
3) Over the edge of my Covid-19 comfort zone. The lunch meeting was entirely outdoors, which was good. Everyone brought masks AFAICT, which was good, though we all took them off outdoors as is allowed here. The problem was proximity. We were all seated next to each other to eat, and we were all clumped together when standing and talking, yet I didn't know who's vaccinated and who's not. A few colleagues I've spoken with about vaccination and know they've vaxxed. But others have given waffling, non-answer responses when asked in the past, so I've got to suspect that at least some of them— including at least one C level exec— are Covid deniers. I wish I could have been more careful around people of unknown vaccination status during this pandemic, but there was enormous social pressure in this job context not to rock the boat.
4) The execs were 30 minutes late. Of course they were. But that wasn't too much of a problem as all of us worker bees, who started arriving 15 minutes early, enjoyed socializing with each other. But even the event planner was 15 minutes later. And nothing was set up as promised. That led to a bit of confusion among those of us who were on time or even early. It also lowered the opinion I hold that event manager.
5) I Haven't "Forgot how to People". Yesterday I wrote about having dinner last week with a friend who confessed, "I forgot how to people." Like I wrote there, for me it's like learning how to ride a bike. I found it easy to get back into the groove of talking to people in person. And far from being confusing or tiring, it was fun. ...Okay, it does get tiring after a while. It always does for me. But for 2 hours I got a charge out of it.
I entered the store expecting to rekindle the magical feelings I had from years earlier... except even better since I could do more than just wish for nice things. Alas, the store was way less than I remembered. The toys looked dull. Things like the colorful stuffed animals and Lego sets I grew up with were replaced rows with lookalike plastic packages of games for umpteen different game consoles. The shelves seemed little more than half full, and the whole store looked shabby.