Sunday Scribblings #75 The End .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. (a perfect example of how great my job is)

I’ve probably mentioned once or twice before — although my job is demanding and very, very chaotic (as is every other position in our office) the docs that we work for are just phenomenal!!

Case in point…… and keep in mind that this is not fiction!!

At a staff meeting about 2 months ago, we were told to keep a certain date open. We would be closing the office at 1:00 for the afternoon and we would be taken to an undisclosed place to do undisclosed things. All very mysterious. And such fun to try to figure out!! One of our ladies had been going out of her mind in the weeks leading up to the day, trying to guess what we would be doing. It was so entertaining just watching her, trying to get clues out of the docs, trying to guess what it could be, piecing together snippets of what was said or not said. Hysterical!! And as the date drew nearer, she became even more agitated about wanting to know where we were going. I have to give the docs kudos for this one — although we received several emails containing clues in riddle form, no one even got close to what happened.

After closing the office, we had a great little lunch of pizza, then we drew numbers out of a bag to decide which of 3 vehicles we would each be going in. Off we went on our magical mystery tour, all still wondering where we were going and what would happen when we got there. After a road trip of about half an hour, we arrived at a very large mall. More and more mysterious — everyone piled out of the vehicles and kind of stood around wondering what was next. Our office manager gave each of us a piece of paper listing the rules, while Dr B handed us each a $100 bill. The deal was, we each had to spend $100 in one hour — only on ourselves, not including food. The person who came closest to spending their entire $100 would be getting another prize — although we won’t know until Tuesday what it will be. Surprisingly, a few of us had a bit of a time spending money “under pressure”. It was hard to figure out what to spend it on when all your mind wanted to do was marvel at what we were doing!!

And so — as instructed, we shopped, we spent, we ran into each other giggling and laughing in pairs and groups, then we met at the appointed place after about an hour to calculate who the winner was. One lady in our group hit $100 right on the nose due to some very savvy purchasing. Way to go, M.A.!!! We sat around with our docs, talked and laughed, marveled some more — oh, and we also found out that the afternoon wasn’t finished yet — seems we had dinner reservations at The Cheesecake Factory!! We were speechless!! And astonished and bowled over and floored!! Needless to say, we all rolled out of the restaurant with very full tummies, happy smiles from ear to ear, and still more marveling at our delightful afternoon.

Besides the obvious reasons for enjoying this outing, I think there was another more subtle reason for which to be grateful. We were able to reconnect with the other members of our “family” — we all work so hard and bustle about so, it’s easy to forget that there are more people in the chain than just you or your immediate co-workers. It was lovely to sit and eat, talk and catch up with everyone.

Now I ask you — how can you not appreciate (and work extremely hard in return) for employers who will go to such lengths to insure that you know that you are an appreciated member of the team? It was a truly incredible end to a remarkable afternoon and we won’t forget it anytime soon!!