today was rebecca's first day of work at srm. today was mandy's last day of work at srm.
i bumped into rebecca outside the office this morning. i was busy taking photos of the biogen people who fled their office and went across the street in some sort of fire drill when rebecca walked by. we entered the office together, i was glad i was to be able to share a special first-time moment with her. as soon as she got there, we went right into a 9am morning resource meeting, where she was quickly introduced to everybody (what's my name! what's my name!) before the resourcing started. beads of sweat started forming on my forehead (which was cropped by my new haircut) when i heard the news that the alpha that was suppose to have gone out perhaps saturday never went out because of continuing bug issues. i just can't seem to escape the gravitation pull of this project! looks like i got some sweet debugging to do today.
despite my time sensitive debugging obligations, i was determined not to break my promise to mandy to take her out to lunch in chinatown on her last day at the office. i had already broken my promise to amanda when i told her last week we'd be running again on monday. after some careful negotiation, i was able to persuade amanda to forgo running for just another day and come to lunch with us (actually, she had already planned to come, sort of invited herself). if amanda was coming, then we'd have to invite christine, mandy's designer partner in crime. and if we were inviting christine, then carrie must come too, one of mandy's best friends.
with the team assembled, we left shortly after noon, via mbta, to dtx, walking to chinatown. after a quick pitstop at a sovereign bank, we went to suishaya (2 tyler street) for our korean box lunch specials. we all had some sort of box lunch other than amanda. being the solitary vegetarian, she ordered the veggy fried rice instead, picking out the straw mushrooms. this was my second time at suishaya in 4 days (and my 3rd visit to chinatown). with our meal finished, there was time to do the walrus with our chopsticks. when the check arrived i grabbed it and treated the ladies to lunch. i mean, when you come out to lunch with four lovely ladies, you just have to treat, there's some sort of unspoken rule.
 mandy |
 christine |
 carrie |
 amanda |
 tony |
we left the restaurant, totally forgetting to get our dunkin' donut coffee, but instead visiting a chicken slaughterhouse, then walking back to dtx, hopping on the subway to return to the office. amanda showed me her blue tongue from sucking on the courtesy lollipops we get from suishaya, in the process scaring some fellow mbta passengers, but allowing me to score more photos of her with her tongue sticking out (that perhaps is amanda's default photo face).
at the end of the day mandy bid her good byes to everyone, hugs were exchanged, and off she went towards something bigger and better. i'm going to miss mandy, my office life seems a little more empty without her presence. even though we sat at opposite ends of the office, occasionally we'd wander into each other's realms to chitchat or maybe to exchange food. just when we were starting to get to know each other! she leaves. but i'm very happy for her, and i count the days until she comes back and visits with stories about new york city!
this day wasn't all sad though. rebecca joins the staff, so i'm sure there'll be plenty of office hijinks in the near future.
