"You're reading aloud from the transcript of a conversation you're still having?" - Sally Sparrow, Doctor Who episode "Blink" by Steven Moffat.
Actual Facebook chat, still in progress...
Sujan hi
Karen hello! :)
Sujan how ru
where u from
Karen I'm in Arizona. It's 5:39 AM and I'm thinking about going to bed.
'cause I'm not good at sleeping at night!
Where are you?
Sujan nepal
Karen wow.
I love that Facebook has people all over the world.
We have mountains here, but not huge ones. they only get snow a few times a year.
Sujan here no snow fall that way so boring
Karen We pretty much don't have a winter.
Sujan haha
male or female
Karen female
Sujan ok
what do u do
Karen accountant. need a job.
married, almost 30 years.
no kids, 2 dogs, no cats.
Sujan ok nice to met u
hahah
i m not married
24 years
Karen We were all young once! ;);)
Sujan oooo
Karen I hope you meet lots of cool people on FB
Sujan ya thanks
u already met it
Sujan r u there
Karen yes, but trying to get other stuff done too so I can go to bed.
Sujan with ur husband or single
Karen told you. Married 30 years. Very, very married.
He's an editor.
Sujan hahaha
sory
o nice
Believe it or not, this is not the most awkward chat I've had on Facebook, although it's close. The winning entry for that was a conversation with a young woman who wanted to chat about Wrestlemania and Twilight and the movie version of Buffy.
You know, it's not hard to find out more about me online. I pretty much spill my guts in this blog on a daily basis. But people would rather make a personal connection with a complete stranger in some awkward chat on an extremely glitchy server than find out something about the other person first. If you're a young man in a distant country, looking for online female companionship, I'm not what you're looking for. Really, really not. And this is pretty clear from my Facebook profile, let alone my blog, my two main online bios, and everything I've ever written on any social networking site.
But I suspect that most initiators of online chat with strangers, aside from those with legitimate business, i.e. questions related to online gaming etc., aren't looking to make friends per se, much less get to know all about some unemployed accountant in Tucson. The opposite of talking is waiting, the saying goes, and that's true online as well. Sujan didn't chat me up to learn about the mountains in Tucson. He wants to know if I'm young and female and amenable to flirting. And one out of three doesn't cut it.
That's fine. People go online for all kinds of reasons, but the biggest one is to communicate, to make some kind of connection with other people. I do this mostly through blogging. Other people do it through gaming or chat - even awkward chat. And Sujan was perfectly polite, and I wish him well. But yes, I'm married. Move on, please.
And I think he has.
Sujan is offline.
Karen
P.S. I should mention the other side of the coin. Another new "friend" turned up on one of the "add me" boards for the game Vampire Wars, where people go to find additional allies for the game. Two things: 1. as far as I can tell, she's never even set up a character name for the game, let alone played it. 2. Her profile picture is of a seriously sexy woman lounging provacatively on a bed, dressed in skimpy black lace underwear. Perhaps I should introduce her to Sujan?
Showing posts with label Social Norms. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Social Norms. Show all posts
Thursday, April 09, 2009
Friday, March 20, 2009
Weekend Assignment #259: Mentors
Hi folks! I should probably use a guest professor this week, but instead I'm going with a new topic idea of my own:
Weekend Assignment #259: The term "mentoring" has become a buzzword in recent yearsm but the concept of a mentor goes back centuries, and the word itself all the way back to Greek mythology, where Mentor was a friend of Odysseus. Have you ever had a mentor? How did you benefit from the relationship? And if you didn't have one, would you have wanted one?
Extra Credit: Have you ever been a mentor to someone else?
Harry's mentor Dumbledore, as played by Richard Harris.
I thought of this last night because I was rereading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's [Philosopher's] Stone. Although Harry's mentor, Dumbledore, is a presence right from the beginning of the first book, the two characters don;t actually converse until hundreds of pages later. Dumbledore, of course, comes from a long line of fantasy mentors, from Merlin to Gandalf to my own character Fayubi. Those particular characters fall under the archetype I like to call the "Tricky Old Man," a combination of Jung's Trickster and Wise Old Man. Mentor characters can also be female, although I don't see them as often. Madeleine L'Engle's Mrs Whatsit is sort of a mentor to Meg and Charles Wallace. Maximiliana Van Horne in L'Engle's A House Like a Lotus is explicitly a mentor to Polly O'Keefe, but a flawed one whose drunken betrayal of Polly drives the plot of the book.
Real life, of course, is a bit different. I've never been on the Hero's Journey, never met a wizard, never been sent overseas by a rich friend many years my senior. But I have latched onto a number of people as mentors over the years, at least to some minor degree. There were high school English teachers that I looked up to and appreciated for more than what they taught in class. There was the young woman across the street who claimed to be a writer and sometimes served me tea when I was in high school. There were the writers-in-residence at Clarion, particularly Harlan Ellison, with whom I had corresponded and whom I had met a few times by then.
But the main mentor I had when I was younger was a young English teacher from an entirely different school district when I first met her in early 1974. She was 23 years old. I was 16 going on 17. I had just published a Star Trek fanzine called 2-5YM, which inspired "d" to contact me. We got together and talked about Star Trek and lots of other things, sometimes sitting in her car for hours, just chatting. She had realized that teaching was not for her, so she went back to school to become a librarian instead. When I was in college the first time she ran a small one-room library at the University, and I hung out there after class.
d didn't teach me about writing or accounting or anything like that. Mostly she taught me how to be an adult while expanding my literary horizons a bit. I first read the 60 original Sherlock Holmes stories because of her. She taught me how to check whether the dish you are washing is clean, and advocated squash for pie instead of pumpkin, although I still disagree with her on the latter. She told me about Japan, where she wanted to live, and advised me about the Star Trek group and its members. She made me an afghan blanket, and was co-Maid of Honor at my wedding. And I think I still have some E. E. Cummings books I should really return to her. She was also an Episcopalian, a denomination I sought out many years later, in part because of her.
I haven't seen d in about 20 years, since she visited Tucson shortly after we moved here. Noe has she sought me out in the years since. I found her online a few years ago, and could write to her care of her current workplace, assuming she's still there. Would she welcome the contact? I don't know. But I hope she is well and happy.
As for being a mentor myself, I have occasionally had pretensions to this, particularly in online relationships with younger writers. But that's more of a mutual support and advice thing than true mentoring, I think. It might be different if my novels were published an in the stores, but they're not, and won't be anytime soon. Eventually - this Karen swears! - but not soon.
How about you? Have you had or been a mentor? Tell us about it in a blog entry, and please remember to link back to this entry so people can read what others have to say on the subject. Then leave a link to your entry in the comments below. I'll post a roundup of your responses a week from now. Meanwhile:
For Weekend Assignment #258: It's A Small Web (After All), I basically asked how sociable you get in your social media. Here are excerpts from the small pool of responses:
Julie said...
Florinda said...
I certainly don't have a wide net of online friends. I don't belong to many online groups. I have this one here, and Carly's photo shoot as my only online groups. That's fine with me. If I had too many, I'd have trouble keeping track of everything I'm supposed to be doing. I have enough trouble getting to every one's posts the way it is now.
That's it for now! I look forward to hearing about your mentors and mentoring. And yes, as always, I'm still soliciting topics for these Weekend Assignments. Please email me your suggestions. Thanks!
Karen
Weekend Assignment #259: The term "mentoring" has become a buzzword in recent yearsm but the concept of a mentor goes back centuries, and the word itself all the way back to Greek mythology, where Mentor was a friend of Odysseus. Have you ever had a mentor? How did you benefit from the relationship? And if you didn't have one, would you have wanted one?
Extra Credit: Have you ever been a mentor to someone else?
Harry's mentor Dumbledore, as played by Richard Harris.
I thought of this last night because I was rereading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's [Philosopher's] Stone. Although Harry's mentor, Dumbledore, is a presence right from the beginning of the first book, the two characters don;t actually converse until hundreds of pages later. Dumbledore, of course, comes from a long line of fantasy mentors, from Merlin to Gandalf to my own character Fayubi. Those particular characters fall under the archetype I like to call the "Tricky Old Man," a combination of Jung's Trickster and Wise Old Man. Mentor characters can also be female, although I don't see them as often. Madeleine L'Engle's Mrs Whatsit is sort of a mentor to Meg and Charles Wallace. Maximiliana Van Horne in L'Engle's A House Like a Lotus is explicitly a mentor to Polly O'Keefe, but a flawed one whose drunken betrayal of Polly drives the plot of the book.
Real life, of course, is a bit different. I've never been on the Hero's Journey, never met a wizard, never been sent overseas by a rich friend many years my senior. But I have latched onto a number of people as mentors over the years, at least to some minor degree. There were high school English teachers that I looked up to and appreciated for more than what they taught in class. There was the young woman across the street who claimed to be a writer and sometimes served me tea when I was in high school. There were the writers-in-residence at Clarion, particularly Harlan Ellison, with whom I had corresponded and whom I had met a few times by then.
But the main mentor I had when I was younger was a young English teacher from an entirely different school district when I first met her in early 1974. She was 23 years old. I was 16 going on 17. I had just published a Star Trek fanzine called 2-5YM, which inspired "d" to contact me. We got together and talked about Star Trek and lots of other things, sometimes sitting in her car for hours, just chatting. She had realized that teaching was not for her, so she went back to school to become a librarian instead. When I was in college the first time she ran a small one-room library at the University, and I hung out there after class.
d didn't teach me about writing or accounting or anything like that. Mostly she taught me how to be an adult while expanding my literary horizons a bit. I first read the 60 original Sherlock Holmes stories because of her. She taught me how to check whether the dish you are washing is clean, and advocated squash for pie instead of pumpkin, although I still disagree with her on the latter. She told me about Japan, where she wanted to live, and advised me about the Star Trek group and its members. She made me an afghan blanket, and was co-Maid of Honor at my wedding. And I think I still have some E. E. Cummings books I should really return to her. She was also an Episcopalian, a denomination I sought out many years later, in part because of her.
I haven't seen d in about 20 years, since she visited Tucson shortly after we moved here. Noe has she sought me out in the years since. I found her online a few years ago, and could write to her care of her current workplace, assuming she's still there. Would she welcome the contact? I don't know. But I hope she is well and happy.
As for being a mentor myself, I have occasionally had pretensions to this, particularly in online relationships with younger writers. But that's more of a mutual support and advice thing than true mentoring, I think. It might be different if my novels were published an in the stores, but they're not, and won't be anytime soon. Eventually - this Karen swears! - but not soon.
How about you? Have you had or been a mentor? Tell us about it in a blog entry, and please remember to link back to this entry so people can read what others have to say on the subject. Then leave a link to your entry in the comments below. I'll post a roundup of your responses a week from now. Meanwhile:
For Weekend Assignment #258: It's A Small Web (After All), I basically asked how sociable you get in your social media. Here are excerpts from the small pool of responses:
Julie said...
For me, it depends on the situation. On places like Twitter and FriendFeed, I'm following (and am followed by) people from all around the world. Just yesterday I exchanged "tweets" with someone in the UK about the Manchester United match that was going on at the time. I'm more careful on Facebook, where I tend to follow and "friend" real-life friends and professional contacts, though I've made a few exceptions.
Florinda said...
I hesitate to say that my offline friends are the only "real" ones, though. My connections with some of the folks I've gotten to know online are just as "real" to me. I've met a few of them in person, but the fact that I'm unlikely to physically cross paths with most of them doesn't diminish those relationships. I enjoy meeting new people online and getting better acquainted with the ones I've already met via blogging and Twitter, which for the moment are meeting my social-media-interaction needs pretty well.
Mike said...I certainly don't have a wide net of online friends. I don't belong to many online groups. I have this one here, and Carly's photo shoot as my only online groups. That's fine with me. If I had too many, I'd have trouble keeping track of everything I'm supposed to be doing. I have enough trouble getting to every one's posts the way it is now.
That's it for now! I look forward to hearing about your mentors and mentoring. And yes, as always, I'm still soliciting topics for these Weekend Assignments. Please email me your suggestions. Thanks!
Karen
Friday, March 13, 2009
Weekend Assignment #258: It's A Small Web (After All)
Hi folks! The new Weekend Assignment is inspired by the online phenomenon known as friending:
Weekend Assignment #258: In the online world, the word "friend" has become a verb. We "friend" or we "follow" people on social media sites and blogs, often forming casual connections with people we would be unlikely ever to meet face to face. Do you extend your arms wide to the online world, collecting lots of online acquaintances, or limit your web interactions mostly to "real" friends?
Extra Credit: Have you had much online interaction with people from other countries?
It's no secret that I've spent a bit of time on Facebook lately, checking in with various games such as Dragon Wars, Pirates and School of Magic about once an hour to do a quest (which usually involves clicking a button) and spending or banking the virtual cash. These games all require the player to form alliances with other players in order to succeed, up to 500 of them for each game. Since most people don't have 500 actual friends online, they find message boards on Facebook devoted to finding allies for that game, "friend" the people they find there, and send an "invite" to them from inside the game, as fast as the software allows - which isn't very fast at all, but limited to a small number per day. If you play more than one online game - and most of these gamers do - one can quickly rack up a hundred "friends" or more, from all over the world. At this moment I have a message board open in another tab that I found a few minutes ago while writing this paragraph. Among the people asking other players to "add me" are at least two people from Malaysia, a woman in Italy, a Londoner and a guy from Nottingham, a woman from Baltimore and someone from Edmonton, Alberta, and lots of other folks whose points of origin are not given. And that's just on the front page.
My personal friends list is up to 131 and counting. It isn't a patch on John Scalzi's list of online admirers, but it's many more than I had a week ago, or ever expected to have. I was a little nervous about all those strangers crowding out the blurbs and activities of my "real" friends, many of whom are mostly-online acquaintances themselves, but of longer duration. But something interesting is happening. As Henrik and Zeldo and Nam and Shane join Carly and Sarah and Sara and the rest on my main Facebook page, along with barely-remembered classmates from high school, they're gradually becoming more than names and thumbnail pictures to me. I see them posting pictures and videos, soliciting game invites and sending virtual plants to help save the rainforest. I've chatted with Alan (who found me through the Outpost some time ago), consulted with Colin, discussed tactics with Shane, received birthday greetings from Lucy, and chosen virtual gifts for Ken to reciprocate the ones he sent me. I've reconnected with a little girl who used to attend meetings of our Doctor Who club with her parents before the family moved east. She's in college now, and thinking about getting another tattoo. Tina posts in a language I don't recognize, but I'm guessing Scandinavian. Sheryl's son Tommy, another small child from the old days of UWoT, is now taller than Sheryl is. Ryan's wife just gave birth. I know nothing about Mouse Fa except that the rodent in a fedora is very cute. It's fascinating and a little mindblowing.
And I can't help but wonder whether this sort of thing will have the unexpected benefit of teaching generations of tech-savvy kids and adults the same thing I've been preaching for years, that there is no "them." We are all "us." When you're attacking other players in Dragon Wars, it doesn't matter whether you're from Columbia or Iceland or Syria or New Zealand. It only matters how you play the game, and how you treat other people.
Memes such as the Round Robin Photo Challenges also connect people from around the world. We get to see photographic glimpses of life in Singapore as seen through Jama's camera, or historic Waterloo courtesy of Gattina. Closer to home (or maybe not), we meet other writers, other accountants, other Disney fans or whatever. It's a wonderful thing, this Worldwide Web. And if the definition of the word "friend" gets expanded and watered down in the service of making all these tenuous but real online connections between distant strangers, it's well worth it.
How about you? Do you have many international readers on your blog? Do you follow blogs from around the world? Have you friends and acquaintances many thousands of miles away, whom you would never meet or know about were it not for the Web? Tell us about it in a blog entry, and please remember to link back to this entry so people can read what others have to say on the subject. Then leave a link to your entry in the comments below. I'll post a roundup of your responses a week from now. It will look something like this:
For Weekend Assignment #258: Hobby of Mine, guest professor Laura and I asked about hobbies you'd like to try. Here are excerpts from the responses:
Julie said...
I've always wanted to try painting. When Chris was a baby we used to watch the painting shows on PBS together. They made it look so easy.
Laura said...
* motorcycle riding - I haven't ridden on a street yet, only in the parking lot for the class I took and failed, so I'm still counting this as something I want to do. I'm planning on starting classes at a local school soon, so this is my next hobby to start (not that I don't have enough already).
Florinda said in comments...
So, after some hard thinking I came up with flying. An airplane, not being a superhero, or anything. My step-dad had a four-seater airplane that he used to fly when I was growing up. I always thought it was cool and really wanted to learn. When he was learning about flying I would always help him with his tests. Actually, not all that long ago, I found some of his old study materials in the basement. Inside was a score sheet with both his and my scores. I did pretty well!
That's it for now! I look forward to hearing about your online connections. And yes, as always, I'm still soliciting topics for these Weekend Assignments. Please email me your suggestions. Thanks!
Karen
Weekend Assignment #258: In the online world, the word "friend" has become a verb. We "friend" or we "follow" people on social media sites and blogs, often forming casual connections with people we would be unlikely ever to meet face to face. Do you extend your arms wide to the online world, collecting lots of online acquaintances, or limit your web interactions mostly to "real" friends?
Extra Credit: Have you had much online interaction with people from other countries?
Certain "magic dragons" may only be purchased
when two or more new allies are added in Dragon Wars.
when two or more new allies are added in Dragon Wars.
It's no secret that I've spent a bit of time on Facebook lately, checking in with various games such as Dragon Wars, Pirates and School of Magic about once an hour to do a quest (which usually involves clicking a button) and spending or banking the virtual cash. These games all require the player to form alliances with other players in order to succeed, up to 500 of them for each game. Since most people don't have 500 actual friends online, they find message boards on Facebook devoted to finding allies for that game, "friend" the people they find there, and send an "invite" to them from inside the game, as fast as the software allows - which isn't very fast at all, but limited to a small number per day. If you play more than one online game - and most of these gamers do - one can quickly rack up a hundred "friends" or more, from all over the world. At this moment I have a message board open in another tab that I found a few minutes ago while writing this paragraph. Among the people asking other players to "add me" are at least two people from Malaysia, a woman in Italy, a Londoner and a guy from Nottingham, a woman from Baltimore and someone from Edmonton, Alberta, and lots of other folks whose points of origin are not given. And that's just on the front page.
My personal friends list is up to 131 and counting. It isn't a patch on John Scalzi's list of online admirers, but it's many more than I had a week ago, or ever expected to have. I was a little nervous about all those strangers crowding out the blurbs and activities of my "real" friends, many of whom are mostly-online acquaintances themselves, but of longer duration. But something interesting is happening. As Henrik and Zeldo and Nam and Shane join Carly and Sarah and Sara and the rest on my main Facebook page, along with barely-remembered classmates from high school, they're gradually becoming more than names and thumbnail pictures to me. I see them posting pictures and videos, soliciting game invites and sending virtual plants to help save the rainforest. I've chatted with Alan (who found me through the Outpost some time ago), consulted with Colin, discussed tactics with Shane, received birthday greetings from Lucy, and chosen virtual gifts for Ken to reciprocate the ones he sent me. I've reconnected with a little girl who used to attend meetings of our Doctor Who club with her parents before the family moved east. She's in college now, and thinking about getting another tattoo. Tina posts in a language I don't recognize, but I'm guessing Scandinavian. Sheryl's son Tommy, another small child from the old days of UWoT, is now taller than Sheryl is. Ryan's wife just gave birth. I know nothing about Mouse Fa except that the rodent in a fedora is very cute. It's fascinating and a little mindblowing.
Mafia Wars is one of at least three Mafia-themed online games.
And I can't help but wonder whether this sort of thing will have the unexpected benefit of teaching generations of tech-savvy kids and adults the same thing I've been preaching for years, that there is no "them." We are all "us." When you're attacking other players in Dragon Wars, it doesn't matter whether you're from Columbia or Iceland or Syria or New Zealand. It only matters how you play the game, and how you treat other people.
Memes such as the Round Robin Photo Challenges also connect people from around the world. We get to see photographic glimpses of life in Singapore as seen through Jama's camera, or historic Waterloo courtesy of Gattina. Closer to home (or maybe not), we meet other writers, other accountants, other Disney fans or whatever. It's a wonderful thing, this Worldwide Web. And if the definition of the word "friend" gets expanded and watered down in the service of making all these tenuous but real online connections between distant strangers, it's well worth it.
How about you? Do you have many international readers on your blog? Do you follow blogs from around the world? Have you friends and acquaintances many thousands of miles away, whom you would never meet or know about were it not for the Web? Tell us about it in a blog entry, and please remember to link back to this entry so people can read what others have to say on the subject. Then leave a link to your entry in the comments below. I'll post a roundup of your responses a week from now. It will look something like this:
For Weekend Assignment #258: Hobby of Mine, guest professor Laura and I asked about hobbies you'd like to try. Here are excerpts from the responses:
Julie said...
I've always wanted to try painting. When Chris was a baby we used to watch the painting shows on PBS together. They made it look so easy.
Laura said...
* motorcycle riding - I haven't ridden on a street yet, only in the parking lot for the class I took and failed, so I'm still counting this as something I want to do. I'm planning on starting classes at a local school soon, so this is my next hobby to start (not that I don't have enough already).
Florinda said in comments...
I will be turning in this assignment late because I didn't get an inspiration for it until Wednesday, so I'll be posting my full response next week. In the meantime, my short answer is playing a musical instrument - either piano or guitar, but maybe both.
Mike said...So, after some hard thinking I came up with flying. An airplane, not being a superhero, or anything. My step-dad had a four-seater airplane that he used to fly when I was growing up. I always thought it was cool and really wanted to learn. When he was learning about flying I would always help him with his tests. Actually, not all that long ago, I found some of his old study materials in the basement. Inside was a score sheet with both his and my scores. I did pretty well!
That's it for now! I look forward to hearing about your online connections. And yes, as always, I'm still soliciting topics for these Weekend Assignments. Please email me your suggestions. Thanks!
Karen
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Christmas as a Social Obligation
Even if you're a total slacker, as I've been this year, this Christmas stuff is hard work! I've shopped for a grand total of about two hours, and I'm exhausted already. I'm also belatedly remembering that shopping within a week of Christmas is less than optimal in terms of selection. Can I just say "Amazon for everyone!" and leave it at that? Heck, even my Dad does Amazon, as the picture below will attest:
But of course, for the people at work, Amazon was not an option. Tomorrow is the pot luck and the Secret Santa. So tonight I went looking for an appropriate gift for this particular person. I'm not even sure which one she is, but I've got a cheat sheet. I hope she likes what I found at Walgreen's for her. I know I do.
The Secret Santa thing is relatively painless, and I was happy to do it. But what about the other 15-or-so people in the office? Just yesterday I contributed a pittance to an alcohol-based gift for my boss. I don't really approve of the choice of gift, based entirely on my own hangups, but my boss seemed to appreciate it. I'd rather have gotten her something myself, but I didn't want to be socially awkward about the whole thing. It's a little hard sometimes to gauge the local norms when you're the new person. So I chipped in, and that was that.
Until this morning. That's when one of my supervisors handed me a nicely wrapped gift pack, one of those fun food-plus-drink-plus-mug things. It was much appreciated, especially since I've been wanting a new mug for work that has never had coffee in it. I hate coffee, and I'm on a tea kick at the moment in my cold office.
So that was great, but a little embarrassing, because I wasn't expecting to exchange individual gifts other than the Secret Santa one and the group gift to my boss. But within five minute of receiving the mug, I was also given Christmas chocolate, a candy cane and a homemade knitted Christmas wreath pin by two other co-workers.
Whoa! Should I buy a token gift for everyone, then?
Tonight I decided that my pot luck contributions will have to be sufficient for the office at large. But I bought a similarly-themed gift for the mug-bringer, and a gift card for my other supervisor, and a different gift card for my boss. If I overdid it, I don't think anyone will mind. I'm pretty sure I'm not underdoing it now. Much.
So guess what I'm contributing to the pot luck, aside from cranberry relish?
Got it in one, didn't you? In case there's a reader out there who has missed my October and November rants about this obscure yellow vegetable, these are rutabagas.
And look! I scraped my thumb peeling them!
And you want to know the ironic bit about all this last minute preparation? I'm probably going to miss most of the office party. I've got part two of that self-actualization seminar all day. Who knows when it will break for lunch!
Karen
But of course, for the people at work, Amazon was not an option. Tomorrow is the pot luck and the Secret Santa. So tonight I went looking for an appropriate gift for this particular person. I'm not even sure which one she is, but I've got a cheat sheet. I hope she likes what I found at Walgreen's for her. I know I do.The Secret Santa thing is relatively painless, and I was happy to do it. But what about the other 15-or-so people in the office? Just yesterday I contributed a pittance to an alcohol-based gift for my boss. I don't really approve of the choice of gift, based entirely on my own hangups, but my boss seemed to appreciate it. I'd rather have gotten her something myself, but I didn't want to be socially awkward about the whole thing. It's a little hard sometimes to gauge the local norms when you're the new person. So I chipped in, and that was that.
Until this morning. That's when one of my supervisors handed me a nicely wrapped gift pack, one of those fun food-plus-drink-plus-mug things. It was much appreciated, especially since I've been wanting a new mug for work that has never had coffee in it. I hate coffee, and I'm on a tea kick at the moment in my cold office.
So that was great, but a little embarrassing, because I wasn't expecting to exchange individual gifts other than the Secret Santa one and the group gift to my boss. But within five minute of receiving the mug, I was also given Christmas chocolate, a candy cane and a homemade knitted Christmas wreath pin by two other co-workers.
Whoa! Should I buy a token gift for everyone, then?
Tonight I decided that my pot luck contributions will have to be sufficient for the office at large. But I bought a similarly-themed gift for the mug-bringer, and a gift card for my other supervisor, and a different gift card for my boss. If I overdid it, I don't think anyone will mind. I'm pretty sure I'm not underdoing it now. Much.
So guess what I'm contributing to the pot luck, aside from cranberry relish?
Got it in one, didn't you? In case there's a reader out there who has missed my October and November rants about this obscure yellow vegetable, these are rutabagas.
And look! I scraped my thumb peeling them!And you want to know the ironic bit about all this last minute preparation? I'm probably going to miss most of the office party. I've got part two of that self-actualization seminar all day. Who knows when it will break for lunch!
Karen
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