— छह हज़ार बानवे —
Rainier Square Terrace Party Roll Call!
1. Gabby
2. Dave
3. Noah
4. Leon
5. Tristan
6. Michael
7. Kyle
8. Benny
9. Erik
10. Jeff
11. Tyler
12. Peter
13. Stephen
14. Amy
15. Ann
16. Cathryn
17. Brandy
18. Mackenzie
19. Matthew
I had to text Gabby, who organized this event, over Teams this morning that I had counted 19 in attendance. Some of them being there much more briefly than others notwithstanding, that's a 66% turnout in all of Merchandising, which currently has 29 people. I noted that this was really not bad, considering all that's been going on, and multiple levels of scheduling challenges: the fact that there's never a single day when all of us are in the office; the traffic considerations; and more specifically yesterday in particular, another event happening in town that some of the people preferred to go to instead. Once that conflict was discovered, there was a brief consideration of rescheduling the party, but it's already rather late in the season for a "summer social," and it was decided to allow some to just go do that instead of they felt it might be beneficial to them.
I thought it worked out well, and that this clearly indicates a success. There were at least three people who went to the other event who likely would have attended the party otherwise, in which case we'd have had at least a 75% turnout. These included Frank—so, one of the two Grocery Merchandisers went to the other event, and one came to this party. Noah confirmed to me this morning that Frank had gone to the other thing, and then he added: "It was about as useful as I thought it would be." I said: "Which was not much?" Noah said that was correct.
Well, assuming the other event is annual, I suppose we'll see whether people want to go to it again next year. If nothing else, we'll have the experience and wherewithal next year to schedule the terrace party earlier in the summer regardless—I would say mid- to late-August would be ideal, though maybe the first week of September could work. The best thing to me would be to aim for real consistency every year, like the fourth Thursday in August or whatever.
All our calendar invites had carved out the two hours between 3:30 and 5:30; the
sign that Rainier Square had put up indicating the Lower Terrace was closed for a private event actually said "15:00 to 18:00." Presumably that was to give Gabby the time to set up beforehand and beak down afterward, although people had scattered almost completely out of there by about 5:00 anyway.
In any case, I thought the event was lovely. I've long been evangelizing about how much I love the Rainier Square terraces—since long before I even know the office would be moving to this building—and it provides a perfectly leisurely place to just hang out and relax with colleagues. I honestly think it was perfect for this event.
And I have to say, as much as I expected to really miss both the beautifully designed office itself and especially the truly spectacular views from the old office, practically speaking, I have never actually missed that old office. And it was a year at this new office as of September 2. In the aggregate, especially with a year experienced here now, the countless benefits of this new location far outweigh the very, very few drawbacks.
The only drawbacks, really, are 1) no windows to natural light visible from the desks area, the only windows being in the kitchen; and 2) a near-total lack of convenient or cost-effective parking options. And that second one doesn't even apply to me; I love telling anyone who will listen that each time the office moves it's a solid mile closer to where I live—I only have to go 1.4 miles back and forth each day, which is super easy whether I am walking, cycling, or taking public transit.
It even works well for plenty of other people who live further away, who either live near the Light Rail lines or can easily drive to a Park & Ride and then get on Light Rail. In every way, transit is easier for almost everyone than it was for the Elliott Avenue location, which was so inconveniently located that it prompted some people (particularly Mimi) to retire earlier than planned just because it was such a pain in the ass to get to.
I used to think of that spectacular view as totally worth any inconvenience. Now I think of this spectacular new location as totally worth losing the view. Not only is getting here easier, but we're in the thick of it downtown:
tons of lunch options nearby (not that I go out for lunch more than a couple times a quarter, if that), and plenty of other stuff to do and see nearby otherwise. I've not done this thus far, but I could walk down to the waterfront and back during my lunch break if I wanted. Instead of doing that, I spend nearly all of my lunch breaks here in the Rainier Square complex: in the lovely lobby common area spaces during the colder months, and outside on that very same terrace during the warmer months.
More than one person asked me during the party yesterday: "You come up here a lot, right?" I was like: yep. I go up there nearly every day to have my lunch (usually just a protein bar) and read.
I never tire of that space, so I was happy to be there yet again yesterday, even though I couldn't just sit and read. I actually skipped my usual lunch beak since I knew I'd be going up there to eat at 3:30. Nether Amy nor Anna, the new temp returning after being an intern at the old office last summer and who will be filling in for Amy during her maternal leave starting in December, had been up there, so I guided them. Amy is pretty pregnant now so I decided not to make them climb the stairway route that I usually take. Instead, I led them through the Corner Market store and out the back exit to the concourse, where there is an elevator right outside the exit that takes you right up to either level of the terrace. "Lower Terrace" was the button to push, which basically let us right out into the party.
— छह हज़ार बानवे —
— छह हज़ार बानवे —
I was far from the first person up there, but I was one of the last two to leave. I had wound up sitting across the table from Leon, who is one of the few people who has worked here longer than I have, and by two years: he started in 2000 and I started in 2002. He did not start at the office until 2007, though, and I've been in the office the whole time. Somehow Tracy W, the guy who had been CEO since the late nineties and clear through around 2013 or 2014 (he passed away in 2015), came up in conversation. To say he was mentally unstable was an understatement—I already knew the stories of him shouting at people working under him, and in some cases even throwing things at them. So I wouldn't necessarily have thought any story about him would shock me, except that Leon shared something I had never heard before: he would call people at home and berate them over the phone. He was apparently especially hard on Russ, who was the Director of Merchandising for a few years in the 2000s. According to Leon, Tracy would call Russ at home in the late evening and scream things like "You motherfucker!" at him. Holy shit. No wonder Russ moved on relatively quickly. I'm so glad I never had to work closely with any of our CEOs. Suzy, who was CEO for like eight months after Cate left, was never physically abusive with anyone and yet she was even crazier than Tracy.
The weird thing with Tracy was how much respect he had among a ton of staff for many years, because he was credited with turning PCC around in the late nineties, and in so doing sort of saving it into viability again. The way Leon characterized it last night, he hyper focused on two specific things: making all the stores super clean, because some of the customer complaints had been that they didn't like how grungy and dirty the stores felt; and truly radical customer service ideals. The latter was a big part of company culture when I started and for several years after—something we really fell away from, to our detriment, and which we are making a push to kind of return to, but without being anywhere near as radical about it. (Empowering staff to open any product to sample when any customer simply asked about it is just one example.) With stricter policies these days, I don't know that we'll ever get the customer service reputation we once had.
It's too bad these legacy changes we were once rightfully very proud of came from a guy who turned out to be an absolute nutcase. I suppose that's an abelist thing to say. Whatever. Sue me.
So anyway, that was an interesting way to end the party. Several people helped Gabby pack up the food and stuff; I would have taken a bunch of leftovers but had no easy way to get it home on my bike. I was still chatting with Leon, to the point where he and I were the only ones still at the table. Leon actually said: "Unless I'm hosting, I never help." I can totally relate!
Over the ninety minutes or so that the party lasted, I sat at the long, marble table two different times, and later when there was no chair available for me to sit at (mostly because Benny had finally come up from his desk downstairs), I just sat on one of the cushioned chairs nearby. I think Gabby thought I was getting left out—I really didn't feel that way—so she came over and sat with me to chat for a while. I had hoped she would play ping pong with me, but she was just like, "I don't play ping pong." After an experience with bowling at a previous job that did not go well, she clearly does not want to play anything with coworkers, like, ever. I thought maybe she'd be more inclined to play ping pong since it's similar to tennis which I know she plays, but, nope.
The one person who did play with me was Tristan, one of the Deli Merchandisers. It was really fun, and I could have gone on much longer, but Tristan only played about ten minutes before she wanted to get back to hanging out at the table with the others. I don't know, maybe I should see if there's a local ping pong club I can join or something. I really enjoy playing it, and it actually does get the heart rate up pretty quickly.
So that was basically all there was to it, really: a simple, easy taco bar for food; a cooler with booze in it (I had a couple of small canned margaritas); chatting over food at the long table; and the option of ping pong. Easy and simple, but fun and actually pretty relaxed. I thought it was great.
It was also now the
thirteenth Merchandising team event since we started doing them semi-regularly in 2019. The aim is to do them quarterly, I think, although 2019 remains the only year in which we managed to do three of them; there was a virtual one in 2020, then one in-person in 2021; and two have been managed each year since. My hope is that we can find it easier to establish regular, quarterly patterns at this new location—especially now that Gabby has let me know it's too expensive for her to keep up our quarterly Merchandising Enablement Team outings, for which she has been footing the bill personally (which was really never something we expected of her). I'm thinking about leaning a bit more into looking into ideas on my own. I really want these social gatherings to keep up.
— छह हज़ार बानवे —
I rode my bike home from there, and had a good amount of the evening left. I hung out in the bedroom while Shobhit was on a call with Tasveer between 6:00 and 7:30. He also told me last night what he wants to do for his birthday: there is a Tasveer gala fundraiser happening that very night, which will cost $175 a person. So it'll be $350 for both of us, but I think I can comfortably just use what I have saved for our travel budgeting for that. My approach for his birthday is always: "Whatever you want to do," and what he wants to do can really vary. When he turned 50 in 2023, all he wanted to do was have Alexia over (she still lived next door then) and make dinner for the three of us, so that's what we did. Last year we just went out for dinner with Sachin at the nearby Danbo Ramen. This year it looks like we'll be doing a gala fundraiser.
When his call was done, we walked down to the Central District PCC to get this week's Member Only Offer, which is a free 4-pack of Nixie Soda. This is the organic sugar-free soda we are pivoting to, away from my beloved Zevia, even though it costs a couple of dollars
more as a 4-pack than Zevia does as a 6-pack—and Zevia is too expensive to begin with! Nixie is good (though I like that Zevia dispenses with the pointless coloring for cola flavors; Nixie does not), but not something I'm ever going to pay for. We discontiued several Zevia flavors but not all of them, but my favorite—Cherry Cola—we bought a bunch of when they were on clearance pricing, and once I run out, I'll have to start special ordering by the case if I want to get more.
I also bought something I only recently learned about, a mercantile item that was perfect for someone I know, but I don't want to be specific in case they happen to read this. It's more expensive than I would prefer but whatever. I took it out of my budget for Christmas calendars and gifts. I also need to start working on my calendars pretty soon. It's going to be a little more challenging than ususal; I figured I'd get a lot of recent shots of people at the Family Vacation, but that
fell apart.
After we got back, we watched a couple episodes of season 5 of
Curb Your Enthusiasm, which we had fallen off of watching since before leaving for Europe, and they were hilarious.
— छह हज़ार बानवे —
[posted 12:35pm]
