2022 Reunions

Today has been a bittersweet day.  My friend and coworker Jim started his bypass surgery at 7:30AM, and that is an occurrence which will overshadow everything else work-related for the near future.

Things took a turn for the better at noon, when I attended our belated multi-department Christmas luncheon.  Everyone who answers to my immediate boss was invited, and with the exception of Jim, everyone was there.  Our head of grounds has quite a bit of pull in the organization, and she gets to choose the venue- this year it was a fairly upscale Italian restaurant, Tesoro D'Italia in Pleasantville (yes, it exists).  

I hadn't seen some of the luncheon attendees in about two years- COVID and my nights/weekends schedule keeping me from seeing even some essential personnel in the organization.  It was a nice reunion, and I had the pleasure of sitting next to one of our gardeners who is friends with my upstairs neighbor because both are involved in the GAA.  When I asked my neighbor if she knew my coworker, her response was hilarious: "Is she really good-looking?"  "Yes", I responded, "that's her."  Her son is now working in Galway, not too far from his grandparents.  I'll probably run into her at the Yonkers St Patrick's Day parade this coming Saturday, and I told her if she found me face down in the gutter, to make sure I was face down.

It was also good to hang out with my immediate boss, who I genuinely like.  He's super-competent, funny, and an interesting guy.  He's a drummer, even occasionally giving lessons.  He's also an architect, and has accomplished some major renovation work at several of our sites, so his reputation as an achiever is secure.  Right now, he's trying to obtain old plans for our properties so he can locate any pitfalls (literally, in some cases- there's an old well in a copse on one of our sites that has been largely forgotten) and bring the infrastructure up to 21st Century standards.  He kept the conversation informative and entertaining... I think we all appreciate him for his ability, his fairness, and his acknowledgement of our abilities.  We hung out for two hours, and the time flew by.

I also got to meet a new hire, who worked as an IT temp during our fall event season, but whose real love is for carpentry.  He joined our maintenance and restoration department, and has been busy at work preparing our sites for the upcoming Spring reopening.  It was nice to put a face to the name in the COVID-tracing sign-in book.

Currently, I am at my usual worksite.  When I arrived, the president of the organization was present, along with two vice presidents, and our new head of human resources.  They were interviewing a candidate for head of our education department, a very lovely woman who had put in a couple of decades in a public school system.  Again, I enjoyed seeing the bigwigs, though I did have to bear the unfortunate news about Jim's surgery.  They thanked me and Tim for jumping through hoops to cover the work that needs to be covered.  I also appreciated putting a face to the name of our new HR head, and joked about being the guy who he'll have to chase because of the weird nights and weekends schedule.  He's a good sport, at least he was a good sport about me telling him that my computer security system blocked the last form he sent me.

All told, it was a generally good day, though with a tinge of melancholy.  I was glad to see everyone that I saw, and I'm glad that our sites will be opening in a month-and-a-half.  I am hoping that 2022 will be the year of the comeback, though my optimism is cautious.