May 3, 2014 by Amy

When work is good

Geese on the chapel. Honking throughout Mass this morning.

This is pretty indicative of how my day went, which was awesome compared to the shitsoup it was yesterday.

I laughed a lot today. A LOT.

This is good because if I can laugh I'm pretty sure I do not need the Xanax. I would much rather laugh than resort to federally-controlled pharmaceuticals, although I am certainly not above trying them should it be necessary.

Today I learned a new word: aspergillum, and I sent an email inviting some of our closest friends to join us for bowling, Trivial Pursuit, eight-man luge, and/or cat juggling. Amazingly, two of the three couples immediately said yes. I love our friends.

Also, I learned a new phrase to use at work: We're building the plane as we fly it. It's a paradigm shift! It's thinking outside the box! It's forward motion and a 30,000 foot view and it leverages our strengths!

I love business-speak. It's usually so ridiculous that I can't help but giggle in meetings when someone uses it and then I have to make up a reason why I'm laughing when no one else is laughing. At M's work they have their own language. And a lot of them start their sentences with, "Sooo…" Come to think of it, M stopped doing that once I pointed it out to him. He swam upstream. I wonder if he single-handedly banished the soooo from his office. I'll have to ask him when he's not exhausted from work and in a comatose state on the other couch. Other words he's brought home include opty (opportunity), convo (conversation), and stage gate (which I think means different status points but am not entirely clear). He's also working on a project called Neptune, and every time he mentions it I think that it's good they didn't pick Uranus because that would cause so much giggling as to slow down productivity. "We need to schedule a stage gate for Uranus." Now that's just asking for it.

But no one would have to wonder why people are laughing in meetings.