Manager's Meeting Madness

Today was the company wide manager's meeting that has been hyped for quite some time now. The regional managers have been furiously working on new employee handbooks, register manuals, and manager guides for over 3 months now. Over the past few days I have helped print and assemble these books and was curious if the day would ever come that our office would return to normal and the mounds of pages and binders would disappear. They vanished today and made their way into the hands of the 14 managers that convened on our store today. The meetings were going well from what I heard, but they also lasted longer than intended. The meetings started around 9:00am and then (with a few breaks including lunch) they dismissed sometime after 5:30pm. I worked on only one thing today: the mailing list for a second wave of the Early Childhood flyers. I didn't think it would take that much time to find and type in 245 new businesses to send our information to, but apparently it did (or I'm really slow at typing). I also was about to drop-kick the copier towards the end of the day today as it seemed determined to do anything but what I wanted. (can we get an exorcist to fix this devilish machine?)

As the work day came to a close Stacy and I talked about our dinner plans with Leslie tonight. We decided that since she was still in the manager's meeting we would eat at home and then meet-up later for some drinks. Stacy offered for me to join her at Publix to do some grocery shopping, and since I officially ran out of all food at my apartment the night before I was eager to do some shopping. We met at Publix and apparently I really did have no food as my purchase was insane at $172! This amount seems absurd, but I will probably not have to go grocery shopping again for another 4 weeks so that thought kept me from having a stroke at the checkout line. We went our separate ways and then as I almost got done putting my purchases away at the apartment I got a call from Stacy. Leslie was done with the meeting and opted not to go eat with the other managers for dinner, but instead would join us at T.G.I.Friday's for some food and fun. (see we're important to someone down here in GA!)

We met around 6:30 to begin our evening of mischief. Little did I know how much mischief there would be...you can see the picture of my partners in crime here. (See they're not imaginary friends. They're real people!) I had the Cheesy Bacon Cheeseburger which I have not had in quite a while. It is one of the best inventions since the wheel! Let me describe it to you: a basic cheeseburger with all the usual condiments, but then they put a fried mozzarella patty on top to compliment the healthy traits of this meal choice. Two words for you if you don't believe in the tastiness of this dish: try it. Throughout dinner there were many comments some of which I will post here as simple quotes, but do not read into their meaning because they were situational and sometimes I only heard half of what was said leading up to them which added to their randomness. Here it goes...

Me to Leslie: "Thank you"
Stacy to Leslie: "Do me, do me!"

Me to Stacy: "I'll mow the grass, you cook the food"
Stacy to me: "I'm going to call you my little migrant worker from now on!"

Me to Leslie: "If Brian starts to get jealous, just tell him I'm gay. That should work."
Stacy to me: "If I meet a boy and he asks about us hanging out all the time, to him you are gay!"

Server to us: "Everything good here?"
Stacy to server: "She needs another beer. Gotta keep my girl happy!"

Those were just some of the great conversations that took place during our "weekly date". I went home and worked on the reception video for just a bit, but soon found myself overwhelmed with feelings of fatigue. I gave in soon after that and actually went to bed early for a change. I went to sleep with the last thing on my mind being the mountains and the backpacking trip coming up this weekend. I really need yet another escape from reality, and I'm not sure why this time. Oh well, I will leave you with this:

Meditation of the day: 1 Corinthians 2:4-5 "My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power, so that your faith might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power."