Today is Tuesday- well almost Wednesday

Work was amusing today.
Several people came up to me to ask how I was feeling. I kept forgetting that I was 'sick' yesterday, so I kept answering with a very irritated, yet quizzical, "fine!?".
Suddenly, it rang as clear as a bell; if you are going to lie when telling a story then create one that is as close to the truth as possible- unless of course you are Lacie Peterson's husband. I want to say something clever about him, but the words fail me. I will think of something and get back to you on it.

Anyway, back at work, I started to tell my lie about how I ate the bad Indian food restaurant and it appears that they didn't meet the necessary sanitary standards as required by law. Not sure what I caught, but it was a mean one.
In the NYC, it was the 'Thursday night food poisoning'. In the NYC, for some reason, more people called in sick on Fridays due to eating out and getting food poisoning then any other day of the week. It is an epidemic in the NYC; especially between July and September. It Doesn't really translate out here though.

Back in the hallways at work, and depending on the person I encountered, I chose from a variety of next steps (kind of like Dragon Slayer) for my elaborate story-lie. I would start it the same way by speaking about taking Francis out to Mother's day dinner, and then ending it as follows:
To my male peers, "Went in hot, came out hotter."
To my direct reports, "I would not recommend the Sag Paneer, I think that is what did it to me." And, of course, to my boss, "You know, there are no good over-the-counter options for diarrhea. We should really put some R&D behind it. You know, I would have spent $100 bucks....."
You get the idea.

Quite nice marketing. Got the sympathy up front and eliminated further questions in the back.

I must admit, that though this sounds pretty glamorous- spending the whole day walking about telling every employee my story- in actuality, I probably spent 10 minutes in total telling my lie. The rest of my day was spent in four, one hour touch-bases, three one hour strategy meetings with the director's of various accounts; and one three hour executive 'CRUNCH' prep- CRUNCH is the secret name for one of our new products.

In the CRUNCH prep, we of course had to silence and holster our Treos, so staying focused and alert was my goal; during the first hour of all the technical talk it was challenging as usual to stay awake. I got up and left for ten minutes in the second hour, as I needed to 'ask a question to one of my directors'. But, I just went down to the 14th floor to have a gander at a new admin. I did a quick 'drive-by' and walked up and said, 'Is he in? Oh never mind, I will get him on the cell. No, no everything is fine.'
I think she had on yellow panties today.
Got a quick glimpse.

Before going back to the CRUNCH prep, I grabbed my newest director who has been with the company for just about a year. 'Come with me. I need you in the CRUNCH prep. I know, I know, its ok, just bring up the work that you did on CRISPS (yes, we name our projects like the NOAA names hurricanes) if asked'. I now had an alibi for walking back in ten minutes later.

We walked in right as one of the account managers was speaking about deliverables and deadlines and blah blah blah. So, I waited and waited and waited and listened and listened. Until, she said '.....if you are going to dump pork on us then please give us fair warning.'
'What do you mean by that?' I said in a tone that was welcoming and good intentioned.
Seriously, I have never heard such a saying. By her accent I place her in the west not the south, and I am pretty sure she isn't Jewish or Muslim, so what the fuck does that mean?

She ended up backtracking, turning sideways, recanting, etc. until she turned a bit red in the face and made some sort of concession.
I was a bit confused, since in fairness to her, I came in mid presentation, I had no clue what she was talking about, but, she somehow saw my point of view and acquiesced to my opinion.

I was now very confused, but I chose to keep silent. I made it through the last part of the meeting, and offered up my new director for additional work.

Before leaving for the day, I stopped into see my boss and she thanked me for my input and support in getting the project finished. That's my job. I did ask her what April (I think that was her name) meant by what she said.
My boss responded, 'they are always complaining about us dumping work on them at the last minute. I am glad you pushed back on her, since........blah blah blah'

It was a good day all in all.
I might see how this April is doing tomorrow. I can't really apologize to her, but I can see how her workload is.

Xioba