I'm baaack...partially :)
What's the biggest fear when coming back to work after a month-long vacation? Statements like this from your coworkers posted on the blog: "… but Zoë has no idea about the fun she’s in for when she returns from vacation. :)" Thanks Gret!!
Seriously, my biggest concern was that when I asked how things went they would say: "Awesome! Things ran really smoothly while you were gone and in fact, we decided that we don't really need you anymore." I am not trying to be self-centered or anything, but I think every employee wants to hear that they were missed and that your office mates are happy to have you back. Am I right?
Luckily it seems that my mates really missed me while I was gone. In fact, when I walked through the door at home and started checking the messages on the machine I was genuinely touched to have a message from Gretchen. What did she say? "I know it is Monday and your not back until Wednesday, but I am really glad to hear your message on the machine and am looking forward to seeing you at work!" Ahhh...now that makes me feel wanted.
What makes me feel more wanted and valued? The icing on the cake? I received a traditional office trashing upon my return. Now not anyone receives this honor and it means a lot when your pals care enough to make your office a pig sty before you return. I am not being sarcastic when I say this - in my five years here this is the first time someone has gone to the lengths my team did in decorating my office to mimic a traditional English pub. And of course make me feel welcome and missed all at the same time. There is now a carefully crafted Union Jack displayed in my window, beer and pint glasses, balloons, decorative football (that's European not American) lights, and confetti. It was lovely when I first saw it and then I stepped into the room and - CRUNCH! - proceeded to step on about a billion peanuts (real, not styrofoam) scattered about the office. They helped me clean most of them up off the floor with me, but I am still finding them in off places like my tissue box, cabinets and shelves. I can imagine that I will be finding them for months to come!
Brings a tear to my eye :) I really want to give a big thanks to Gretchen and the rest of my team for making it so easy to come back to work. Though my office seems a little messy, it actually took some of the stress off of coming back to work. Not to mention all the extra work they took on while I was gone!
Anyway I am back trying to make it through all my email and slowly catching up with the happenings around here. I do want to tell you all a little more about my trip and will get to that post a little later.
TTFN,
Zoe
10 Comments
Barry Dorrans said:
So come on, how did the holiday go? Where did you get to? :)
Ramprakash said:
Welcome back zoe, hope you had a fun trip
<Ramprakash/>
zoe said:
I promised a post on the trip and I usually keep my promises :)
The trip was brilliant! I'll post some pictures in the next few days.
Thanks!
Jeremy Wright said:
Hehe, welcome back. Oh, and feel free to just ignore the roughly 30 emails from me / Heather / Gretchen. All my questions were answered and I'm sure Gretchen can give you a 15 second rundown to save you filtering through the whole conversation.
Again, welcome back!
Mike Andrews said:
Um, not the English pub that I'm up to - there certainly wouldn't be the balloons and if I'm not mistaken, that's cans of Bodingtons on the table - must be a "northern" pub - and those pint classes look a bit, um, "girly" :) I've heard stories about the office trashing, and that sometimes they can get a bit carried away - seems you got away lightly.
Anyway, glad to see you are back and hope you had a good time.
William Luu said:
Hehe, are you sure they didn't just have a party in there while you were gone?
And then conveniently forgot to clean it all up afterwards :P
Sathyaish Chakravarthy said:
>Hehe, are you sure they didn't just have a party in there while you were gone?
>And then conveniently forgot to clean it all up afterwards :P
Yeah, that is what it looks to me too. But that's still way too luxurious. That office you got is superb, Zoe.
Brian Korzeniowski said:
I can certainly relate to what you are saying. When I worked for Microsoft PSS, a bunch of the folks from Brazil trashed their buddy's cubicle - except they used duct tape and plastic wrap! :-) Ah yes... nothing says welcome home more than your cubicle wrapped in duct tape! We tried to hear what the fellow was saying, but we couldn't understand because he was speaking really fast in Portuguese. For all those who have obscure hobbies, add that one to your list of 1001 things to do with duct tape. Wrap a cubicle. Oh yeah - just don't let your PM catch you doing it! :-) Oh yes - for all you jokers out there, turning your PM's screen into one HUGE gigantic transparent button that ties into the PBX and rings random corporate extensions - NOT FUNNY! :-) Take it from someone who knows. Man, could I have fun working at Microsoft!
Anyway, welcome back Zoe! (I'd put that little accent mark on your name but it's too late. And I'm too tired right now.) :-)
AT said:
Is it real Zoë posting or provocation by Gretchen?
If it's real - I will be waiting for blog.msdn.com news about revenge by Zoë ;-)
Let' invade Gretchen office and search for weapons of mass-office-pollution!
FIGHT BACK !!
P.S> A real story about my past job.
I was working in most accessible, most visited and best placed room in my building - as It was required for anybody to be able access system administrators / build team easily. It was nice business decision. But it was also best room for all kinds of parties. Whole-office parties were usually organized in project manager/conference room (next door to mine), but all others local parties were in my room.
After vacation or long trips - I sometimes were unable to find my computer and all other stuff - as people very often used my table for foods and drinks ;-)
As a good part of this - build team/system administrators were invited to all parties on our floor ;-)
Thanks God - cleaners visited our office regularly.
zoe said:
Thanks for the warm welcome back everyone! Yup - this is a true story and not a ruse by Gret.
Although this isn't what I would say "authentic" in terms of a pub, but they tried their hardest and that's what I like about it.
Over the years there are many legendary stories of office antics. Gretchen's Josh even got his office filled with sand and turned into a tropical paradise upon his return from their honeymoon. I've seen pictures of it and it's pretty awesome. Mr. Zoe's office was artfully turned into a haunted house on his return back from our trip it was VERY cool.
My office has pretty much returned to normal. We picked all the peanuts up and the great janitorial staff came in last night and vacuumed up all the remains. Kudos to them!