third time's the charm
Last night was the third Vegetarians of Washington Monthly Dining event in a row that Shobhit and I went to, and honestly, it was the first one I felt was totally worth it. For once the food was flavorful rather than bland, which may have been because apparently guy from The Upper Crust had had someone else make this month's food, with a Mexican theme, rather than making it himself.
The past few months I honestly kind of assumed the blandness was likely by design -- this organization is pretty earnest with the "health" angle of vegetarianism (and much more so with veganism, which I feel like they kind of regard vegetarianism as a step toward), so perhaps they were deliberately keeping all their food low on sodium. Well, I am far from a salt fiend and even I felt that many of their dishes needed salt.
This time, we actually brought our own salt and pepper, and Shobhit brought sriracha. I expected to need salt and pepper, but this month's food was flavorful enough that I didn't add any seasoning at all. Shobhit still did, of course, but that's because he lives on redundancy and will insist on putting salt and pepper on food before he even tastes it, which is totally ridiculous but what can you do. I even found the enchilada dish (topped with an actually pretty decent vegan melted cheese) a bit spicy. When I told Shobhit that, he said, "Is it?" with skepticism, making the lady to my right start laughing. She agreed with me.
Being at a Vegetarians of Washington event, people are always interested to hear that I work for PCC. The older couple to my right, who sat at this same table with us last month, complained to me about a change in "vibe" among the staff at the Edmonds store, which they insist is far less friendly than they used to be, since at least October. They theorized that it had to do with staff turnover, and are certain this change has remained consistent since at least fall. I took a lot of the feedback, which they clearly felt was just friendly and constructive, with a grain of salt, given how long the lady also went on with an example of when she once told a restaurant that the staff should probably not say "Oh that happens all the time" after she complained about a fly on her food.
All I could think of was -- okay, flies are inevitable. You don't particularly want to see them in a restaurant, but a solitary one is not really reason for grave concern. Now, to be clear, I actually agree that the staff person should not have said "Oh that happens all the time." My point is a single fly is not really reason enough to complain to begin with. When we all got up to get in line for the buffet of food last night, I immediately noticed a fly twirling around the center of the room, and I thought, Oh shit, I hope that lady doesn't see this! (I was being facetious. With myself. Hey, let me live my best life!)
If there's a swarm of flies, then clearly there is a problem. But a single fly? Seriously, they're gross if you think too much about them, but they're also just a part of life.
Anyway! We even brought containers for leftovers this time, although we never used them. Shobhit had gotten up to ask if we were allowed to take leftovers, and the guy said they usually feed the leftovers to the homeless. So then we were like, ...oh. I guess the homeless need it more than we do. Besides, Loma Linda was once again a sponsor of the event, so we were each individually given two plastic meal pouches on our way in, and then encouraged to take as much as we wanted of those leftover on our way out. We must have taken home eight or ten packets.
I learned something rather interesting this morning about Steven, the guy who filled Kibby's role in HBC when she moved over to Category Management a few months ago.
I have to backtrack a little first, to review some key changes. It was during my conversation with Justine (Scott's boss) last month about the imminent restructuring this month, which would switch my direct supervisor from Scott, the Grocery Merchandiser, to Eric, the new Pricing Manager filling the role Chris J has vacated by moving over to Accounting to be a Senior Business Analyst. Like my switch, Patrick's supervisor is being switched from Robin (Deli Merchandiser -- or maybe it's Leon, Deli Prepared Foods Merchandiser; he supports both, in Deli), and Ellen's from Jared (I think -- he's now the Meat Merchandiser), both also to Eric, Pricing Manager. So It now tiers down from Eric to the three of us who do pricing maintenance for our respective departments.
Now, I had assumed this would include Steven, who is currently doing pricing management for HBC, but it was Justine in the aforementioned conversation who told me Steven had been brought in to HBC to fill a role more analogous to Noah's in Grocery. (Until just this year, Scott was both Noah's and my supervisor, but Noah kind of existed a space in between, as far as hierarchy is concerned: Noah's title is currently Associate Center Store Merchandiser.) This completely recontextualized Steven's role in my mind, as I had been assuming he was a lateral equivalent to me in Health and Body Care. Turns out he's, like a half-level above me, if not in any direct line. It's like he's my department-uncle.
The new thing I learned today is, with Terry, the HBC Merchandiser, set to retire soon (either this year or next, I think, I don't remember for certain), Steven is already taking on a whole lot of more intricate tasks and involvement than Kibby ever did. This is with the general expectation that Steven will eventually take over her role.
So here's the crux of all this. Shortly after Steven came to the office -- he previously worked at one of the stores as an HBC Coordinator -- I looked him up on Facebook, as I often do with people who intrigue me in any way. He was clearly much younger than I am so I wanted to find out how old he was.
He was born in 1990. First of all, it's like -- yeesh. I have two nephews and a niece older than that. Secondly, the part that hit me this morning: even if it's not until 2020 that he becomes a Merchandiser, he would thus be one at the age of thirty. And here I am, still at the bottom of the totem pole, age 42. 43 late this year; 44 in 2020.
Don't get me wrong -- I'm still comfortable with my lack of ambition, my lack of interest in being a manager of any kind, my disinclination to get promoted to the point of misery, incompetence, untenable stress, or all three at once. (Also, this just occurred to me too: it's not like I want all the pressure and time consumption Steven's role clearly has.) I don't care how much more money comes with it -- no, thank you! Nevertheless, it's a new experience seeing people who have started either at my same level or below, catapulting beyond it. Especially when they are 14 years younger than I am. This is probably just part of the aging process for many people, actually, and it's glaring to me now because it's new. New-ish, anyway; after all, Jared was hired at my same level and he's been the Meat Merchandiser for a year or two now. I forget how old he is though -- I know he's younger than I am, but in his case by maybe only a few years. He does not appear to be on Facebook.
Something else just occurred to me, though. Kibby's move was kind of lateral for her, and although she was already doing a lot of stuff Steven does now and therefore could be argued to be in a role more analogous to Noah's as well (though that did not afford her a new title), she had otherwise been doing the same thing for HBC that I do for Grocery for the previous sixteen years. And Kibby is nine years older than I am. I should perhaps bear that in mind just as much as I keep focusing on how much younger Steven is. So really, I guess I should take care not to feel all that insecure about refusing to "expand my horizons" professionally until I've reached the age of, say, fifty without any change.
And there almost certainly will be some kind of change. Scott says he still wants me to choose some new thing I'd like to work on, a "passion project" as he calls it. It's hard to find a "passion project" when you work in data entry but whatever. I'll keep thinking about it and maybe come up with something. I should be able to, I'm a creative person.
[posted 12:27 pm]