So this is why I did not post a standard Daily Lunch Update (DLU) this afternoon: I was day drinking with coworkers on a sailboat! And it turns out, there were 18 of us. Let's do a roll call:

1. Darrell
2. Justine
3. Leon
4. Robin
5. Joe
6. Terry
7. Jeff
8. [Meat Merchandiser whose name I forget]
9. Steven
10. Peter
11. Noah
12. Kevin B
13. Kevin C
14. Kibby
15. Eric
16. Matthew
17. Lynne
18. Jess

Notable absences from the Merchanising Department included Scott himself; Tracy, the Fresh Director; Beth from Category Management; Cathryn, my counterpart in Deli; and the womam named Robin who only works in the office once or twice a week. The vast majority of us went, though.

I can't write a whole lot about it here though because it's late, I need to get to bed soon as I have much going on tomorrow and will need to get up pretty early for it. Suffice it to say that I had a really great time, and although it's now three months after my Birth Week, it still seems fitting as it's like a continuation of this year's boating theme.

This was the second time this year the Merchandising Team has been given a Friday afternoon out-of-office excursion, the first being when we were taken to Flatstick Pub for drinks and miniature golf in January. This is a new, unprecedented thing as of this year, one of the few evident perks of adding a layer of middle management in PCC's rapid growth: now department heads get budgeted certain amounts for what basically amounts to "team building." Thank god we still haven't been reduced to using actual corporate jargon like that, or having to participate in organized "team building exercises." We just get to go out and have a good time.

I did realize I could basically calculate the total cost of this one, though. This "Let's Go Sailing" sailboat ride on Elliott Bay -- which, amazingly, I did not realize existed at the time of my Birth Week; I did get to ride a sail boat with Shauna on Lake Union for free though -- costs $39 per person. With 17 people from Merchandising plus Jess (who is from, Marketing maybe?) who also got invited to come alonh -- and had by far the best camera among the lot of us -- that adds up to $702. Then we were all provided with a box lumch from Gourmomdo Cafe, which, at $14.95 a pop, adds an additional $269. So, PCC paid $971 for all eighteen of us to do this today. There must be some study somewhere that indicates keeping morale up with this kind of generosity is a worthwhile investment and boosts productivity? I for one appreciate it!

Anyway. Before starting this post, I spent quite some time working on the captioning for all the photos in the full photo album on Flickr, which includes 28 of my own shots, and 10 shots from four other people: 4 by Eric, including a nice video clip of a whale tail breeching the water surface; 2 by Justine; 2 by Jess (hers being the highest quality due to her camera of superior quality), and 2 by Lynn, who took a shot of me I liked so much I had to update all my online profile photos with it. I was unusually careful and meticulous with these captions as I then added a follow-up post from what I posted earlier today on Facebook and Twitter from the boat, with the link. So if you want plenty more detail about how it all went, you can find it there.

[posted 10:26 pm]