notes from the trenches

Lots of days slip by at work. Sometimes, by the time I get home, I have a good story to tell at dinner, but most of the time things are unremarkable...which is good.

Today I have a good story.

A few years ago, before I worked there, my boss bought each member of the "management team" a special pen. I don't know the circumstances surrounding the purchase of these pens but I have seen each member of the team with the pens and I know my boss has one too. His is blue and, if he misplaces it, he gets a little worried.
Last week was kind of rough on the "management team," IMO.
They were doing lots of year end stuff and there were many meetings and things seemed sort of stressed and even a little emotional around the office.
Anyway, just after one particular fellow met with my boss, seconds later in fact, he sent me an email asking if I had seen his special yellow pen.
I went into the conference room and gave it a cursory glance as there was another meeting scheduled in minutes - no pen.
I wrote back to him and he replied instantly saying that he was getting a little frantic.
I promised him I'd keep an eye out for it....
Later that day an email went out to all employees in search of the treasured pen.
I didn't hear about it again until the next day when the guy mentioned that nothing he was writing was any good without his yellow pen.
I started to feel a little sorry for him. After all, I often assign special value to inanimate objects.

The next morning, early, he sent out another email to the staff. His pen had been found!
I emailed him right away to tell him I was relieved.
I said: if you look out your window right now, you will see me, across the air shaft, in my office, smiling very hard.
I hit send and swivelled my chair around.
And there he was waving his special pen, smiling.



It changed my whole day.