Friday, December 5, 2008

Lost in Translation: I'm a MOM!!!!

When I came to work at my present job... I'd had a rough road to say the least. While a portion of that unpleasantness was self-inflicted, I left my last job bruised and battered from it all. God in His infinite wisdom put me in a job that I needed to work on myself and to work out some of my idiosyncrasies.

One of those... is my need to be relational. My last job was cliquish, and within two weeks of this job, I was put in charge of the cross-departmental Christmas Party for 40 people. Probably doesn't sound like much until you realize my company employs 40,000 folks in the world. But my Director decided that I needed to be the one in charge of parties. Along with that, I was put in charge of birthdays. I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE BIRTHDAYS. Birthdays are important -- not so much for the age, but to know that you have people in your life who choose to recognize you. I don't mean that in a conceited way, but I love recognizing my friends' birthdays -- to mark the proverbial milestones. And work is not that different. Out of the 25 or so birthday cards I've purchased the last few years, I try exceptionally hard to make sure that each card goes with the person, even so much as to make specific situations or inside jokes. I've also been known to see a birthday card oh, six months before a birthday, and purchase it. I have a special box at work that currently contains 8 birthday cards and a gift for a co-worker whose birthday is in January.

See, I am ahead of my game. Except for my FBC ladies -- I totally dropped the ball on them. '09 will be different. I digress.

My small department LOVES cookies from The Great American Cookie Company. Chocolate chip cookies are the big winner around these parts. GACC has a special buy 6 get one free on their large cookies, so I've been able to save $80 over the last two years. I usually call in an order about 10am, and pick it up shortly after lunch. Well... this week is our busy week -- Closing -- and I completely forgot two birthday for my department -- including my Director's. In order to compensate, I picked up some yummy Krispy Kreme doughnuts this morning as well as the birthday cards. I call GACC at 10, and they said my cookie cakes would be ready at 1.

Just so you know, I told the young lady who answered my phone that I needed two cakes. The first cake was to say "Happy Birthday Danny", and the second cake was to say "Happy Birthday Bucky". I got to the mall around 1:00 today to pick up my cakes. The woman at the counter opened my boxes so I could check. Something caught my eye, but I thought I might just be seeing things so I fluffed it off. I got my free cookie this time (Lucky #6!), and headed out the door. Then it dawned on me what the cookie said, and what the lady must have heard.


Behold the cookies of my two "sons":


Happy 1st Birthday Danny


Danny reading the cake realizing that he gets to relive part of his childhood.

Happy 2nd Birthday Bucky

Bucky thought it was hilarious!

I must say, the funniest thing about these pictures is the expression of my "Big Boss" in the background. His birthday is in January, and I'm pretty sure it's going to say "Happy 3rd Birthday Tom".

1 comment:

Paige said...

This is such a funny post!! They will remember their cookies for a long, long time.