so dead quiet

i've been plugged into my ipod all day to just do my research and reading without distraction. well, i just got up to rinse out my cup, and i realized how DEAD quiet it's been in the office. it's usually quiet in general because no one is ever in the office, but today was even more quiet. i felt bad just standing up and walking to the kitchen because my footsteps were disturbing the silence.

i think it's time to retire xanga. it's been dying. i have a few active commenters (and even those are fading) and just a few lurkers left. just doesn't seem like this community is alive enough. also, i'm rather over my "ladybirdt" screen name. it started as something i picked up from sex and the city (aiden called carrie "ladybird" once), and it really doesn't have much meaning anymore. i've been wanting to get my el-twirpo blog up to 2.0 standards. i just haven't figured out how to integrate it into the current layout of my site. or maybe i'll keep a spinoff blog for random moments when i'm away from my mac lappy. who knows. i'll figure it out by the time 2008 rolls around.

farewell, xanga. it's been a fun run for 4 years.

day one of eating in the kitchen

 my office has the strangest vibe. a little anti-social. rather cold and sterile. i'm sure there are tons of really nice people here, but i wouldn't really know. every social gathering is like this awkward high school dance where you look for the one person you know and hang out with them like a protective huddle. and even the added alcohol doesn't loosen people up. and the thing is... i've been here for four months, and i still feel this awkwardness. that's really strange. i usually warm up to situations after just a few weeks.

the problem i'm finding is that people work in silos. you work only within your team. and the work is so busy and constant within that team that those are the only people you get to know very well. i'm a weird special case, i guess. my team is mostly in chicago. and even then, i work on a few projects with them every other week or so. most of the time, i work within the account planning group on higher level strategy assignments. so i know the account planning team really well... and everyone on my account just eh... and everyone beyond that - not at all.

i was talking to my neighbor erin yesterday (who started a week after me and feels a similar isolation in the office), and i decided that i would eat lunch for the entire week in the kitchen. on most days, when you walk into the kitchen at lunch time to heat up food or grab something out of the fridge... there's NO ONE. it's dead space. so i was pretty surprised when there were quite a few people filtering in. quite a few as in 7. we have an office of about 60 on any day (100+ work for the austin office, but they often have to go to the client's offices or they're traveling, etc). that's a little more than 10%. not bad.

i struck up a conversation with a woman who'd only been here for a month while in the kitchen. i think we're in the same meeting this afternoon, so that'll be good to be in a face-to-face meeting rather than taking everything over the phone in a conference call. i am determined to enjoy the office environnment!

i like it when...

it's pay day! i didn't realize it was already the middle of the month, and i checked my bank account to make sure i'd have enough money to pay for chicago this week (we pay up front for travel expenses and then we have to turn in an expense report)... and there it was. more money. woo hoo!

we're still winding down from the wedding. slowly putting gifts away. most of them are for the kitchen, and we don't have a terribly large kitchen. i registered for a lot of items that i know we'll use more as we get older. serving bowl, serving platter, punch bowl, etc. but since these are larger and meant for guests, i don't really want to keep them out with the everyday use items. i really feel like we need to throw a dinner party now though. especially a sushi night. we have these really cute sauce dishes and small serving plates.

we recycled a boatload of paper this morning. if anyone thinks the world is going paperless, they are so wrong. online shopping (+ shipping) is single handedly keeping the paper business going. everything comes in tons of tissue paper and other packaging materials. not to mention all the slips of paper that come with a package. it's so nuts how much paper is being used. at least with bubble wrap, i get some added value there to slowly pop one bubble at a time.

anyway, it's really quiet in the office today. barely anyone is here. they're doing construction upstairs, and i fear that something will be crashing down on us. scary.

oh, xanga, what am i going to do with you?

xanga and facebook have been pretty dead these last few days. i need more stuff to look at and read between doing work at work. today's been pretty good considering that i've been gone the last three work days. usually when you get back after taking a few days off, sh*t's hit the fan, and you're swamped. but things are going well. i'm doing more secondary research on millennials for a project i've been working on, and it's so interesting to read about a generation that i'm kind of in. that must sound very self-absorbed, but so are all the other millennials out there. haha.

i started rambling about the weekend's festivities on el-twirpo, but i needed to get to bed earlier last night to make sure i wouldn't oversleep today. but if anyone wants to see pictures that george had already posted, you can go here:

http://flickr.com/photos/gjhsu/sets/72157602299420871