On Wyoming

I try not to blog about work. I don’t want to shatter the illusion that we are on a “year long vacation” as several friends have suggested. Trust me, there are about 60 hours a week that don’t quite feel like a vacation.

But there are two work related items that I can’t resist writing about. The first was the flyer that I found on my desk one morning, complete with BSC logo, explaining in Spanish that the following week would be STD awareness week, and employees could make appointments with the company physician for screening. The flyer had lovely graphics (and I mean graphic) along with a “Mr. Condom” mascot. I thought this flyer must have been a crass joke on the part of a coworker, but I noticed that every desk had the flyer. I asked my boss what kind of operation he was running while I showed him the flyer (apparently Directors did not get copies on their desks – perhaps the physicians thought they’re immune). All he could manage to utter between guffaws was “Oh my God!” To top it off, the next week they sent a follow up email, again with the mascot. I forwarded it to my Maple Grove associates, who made a number of inquires as to whether I was in fact working or sampling the local culture.

Before leaving work yesterday, I went to check with some coworkers regarding the date of independence day in Costa Rica. For some reason, it is not on July 4th. Anyway, they asked if I was going to dinner with the other Quality Managers, our boss, and our boss’s new boss (who works in Massachusetts). Apparently I had been left off the invitation inadvertently. After checking with The Boss, I decided to go. So during the course of the evenings’ conversation, someone asked where I was from, to which I replied “Maple Grove” (meaning the location of the plant where I work in MN), but for some reason I added “but I grew up in Ohio”. The new boss asked “what part of Ohio?” “Cincinnati”. “I’m from Cincinnati” she said. “Where in Cincinnati?” I asked “Wyoming” she mentioned as if no one could possibly have heard of it. My jaw hit the floor – I was raised in Wyoming, and my folks still live there. She was as incredulous as I at this coincidence. We proceeded to compare notes on who we knew and where we lived, our teachers growing up, etc. with the bottom line that when I was a senior, she was a freshman. I did not know her then, even though our school only had about 800 students. When I got home, Nancy was on Skype with Greg and Tim, who proceeded to email a scanned page out of one of our yearbooks with her picture. I knew we kept those for a reason.

Now look at the pictures and resume your assumptions about our vacation.