PCC 20th Anniversary Party

20th Anniversary Party Roll Call! 1. Matthew
2. Shobhit
3. Eric
4. Scott
5. Noah
6. Kevin
7. Jared
8. Amanda
9. Mackenzie
10. Leon
11. Robin
12. Peter
13. Benny
14. Adrienne It was indeed fourteen people! It's been such a challenge trying to remember everyone who was there yesterday afternoon, and every time I tried to count on my fingers I could only get to 12 or 13. Writing out the list now, I realized that I was consistently forgetting either Jared—who worked much more directly with me when he was a Merchandising Assistant, but as he ascended in the Deli and Meat departments we don't interact nearly as much as we used to—or Benny, a much more recently hired guy with whom I have not really had any legitimate conversations (yet?). He can be seen at the far right in this photo, another of the ten I took at work yesterday: By comparison, I took only five at my 10th Anniversary Party in 2012, but Janice took ten; thus, the photo album from that party contains 15 shots. So far as I can tell from the photos, there were also 14 people at the 2012 party. It's entirely possible that there was a few more that just weren't in any pictures. And the thing is, if this year were not still in the long tail of effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, with plenty of people still working from home, there absolutely would have been more than just the fourteen people who came yesterday. Catherine would have come, for sure. If Steven were in the office yesterday, he would have come. Ditto Jeff. Justine, the Center Store Director, even emailed me to say she had hoped to make it but her store walks were taking too long. Eric did reach out to multiple people outside the office to see if any could possibly make it as well, including Elin, Tracy, and Scott. Only Scott made it, but it made me very happy to see him. Even though when I hugged him goodbye he stepped on my toe and I was only wearing sandals. It wasn't too bad. We're having both Catherine and Lynne (the chef who was laid off late last year after decades of employment; I hope to get her version of the story there) over for dinner Friday next week anyway. Tracy told me today that she thought about coming to the party but, first of all, it didn't feel like enough time had passed—only about a month—since she left PCC herself; plus, she and I already had plans to hang out today and tomorrow anyway. She basically told Eric she didn't need to make it three days in a row, which I get. I was pretty touched by what Eric managed to put together as it was, anyway. It was so much more than I ever could have expected, and it made me feel so much better about something I had been thinking about in recent months—namely, that the people who went out of their way to make a big deal out of my earlier anniversaries (Elin and Scott) are no longer there. And Eric really went out of his way to tell everyone there how much he appreciated working with me and what I contribute to PCC, again beyond what I ever would have expected. It was really sweet. Eric even created a party game for us all to play: he had asked me to send him photos from my time at PCC, so I actually saved twenty photos, one from each year at PCC, to the W Drive for him to do what he will—about half of them overlapped with the photos I chose for the photo retrospective I emailed out to about 73 people on Thursday night. (At least two people, including Eric, asked if I minded if they shared it with some other people, but everyone I sent it to was BCCed so I had to be like, "Feel free, but just know there's a good chance you'll send it to people who got it already." Because those 73 people were all either PCC employees past and present, or brokers past and present. There were maybe only two or three people in the Merchandising Department who did not receive it, only because I didn't know them very well and had no idea if they'd even have any interest.) Anyway, the game: Eric actually printed out each of the photos and taped them either to the windows or the wall, around two sides of the conference room my party was in (it was held in our largest conference room, much larger than was ultimately needed, but of course he had no idea how many people would show). He then had 20 printouts of general trivial from each year, for each of us to pick one or two of and try to match to the year. The only year without a printout was 2021, and only because apparently he was down to the wire and encountered a printer glitch. Six of the years in question mentioned the album by Madonna that was released—every album she released within the timespan of my tenure at PCC. That made every one of those easily identifiable to me in a way it really wasn't to anyone else there. That kind of cracked me up. A cake had been provided at my 10th anniversary party, but the special dessert provided this time was root beer floats, with one of the root beer options my four cases of Zevia Creamy Root Beer 10pks. This was funny, because Eric had placed a special order for two cases, and they accidentally ordered double. And that's exactly what happened when I last special ordered this product myself, when I ordered one case and they had two available. This is my new favorite flavor of Zevia but for some reason they have yet to package them in the same 6pk sizes in which they sell all the other flavors. This flavor was launched last year, and Scott gave me his gift box he got from a broker, which was basically a kit for making root beer floats. That ice cream scoop that came with it is still what we use to dish our ice cream at home, and I eventually got another two of those glass mugs; I now have three. But, I haven't tried using Zevia Creamy Root Beer for a root beer float until we did it for this party yesterday, at my suggestion, in lieu of cake. It worked well! There may have been more, but Eric and I were the only people I saw actually having a root beer float. I don't even know if Eric used Zevia; he brought a couple of other brands of root beer too, probably correctly assuming others might not want to use a zero-calorie soda for it. I also did not realize actual food would be provided, not just dessert—although I did think it would be a possibility. So, I brought only half the amount of lunch I would have otherwise. I did have that lunch at noon, and then, shortly after the party started at 2:00, we all dug into samosas, pakoras, naan with chatni and dips that came from, of all places, Saffron Grill. The best Indian restaurant in town, the one that catered Shobhit's and my wedding! Eric said he vaguely remembered us talking about it before but he didn't realize the catering part. So he nailed it with the food even better than he expected. It was cool to have Shobhit there too, and he even left work a few minutes early so he could get there on time. There's kind of a funny story about this, because several days ago Shobhit texted me, Who is Tracy in your office? Quite reasonably assuming this was in reference to our current office staff, I said Tracy is the Fresh Director, and: why? Shobhit later showed me the text from Tracy, letting him know there was a party happening and what day and time. Because the text did not explicitly say, "We'd love for you to attend" or exactly "You are invited," it was unclear to Shobhit whether this was an invitation until I finally emailed Eric to get clarification. And even when I emailed Eric, I thought I was talking about Tracy M, who still works at PCC. I only discovered when hanging out with Tracy P today that the text had actually come from her. Eric had asked her to text Shobhit. This now explains why Tracy texted me to ask for Shobhit's phone number last week. I just provided the number and moved on without thinking much of it. And it also makes much more sense for it to have been her rather than the other Tracy, who neither came to the party (though again, I'm sure he would have had he been in the office yesterday) nor does he have much reason to have Shobhit's number. It's just that the text made it sound like it came from a Tracy who still worked at PCC, and I assumed he'd just been given the number by Eric or something. In any case, I spent the better part of a week thinking Shobhit had gotten an invite from one Tracy and he'd actually gotten it from the other. I'll also clarify that, for the better part of the two hours or so that the party lasted, there were thirteen rather than fourteen present: Adrienne had to bow out early because she said she had a meeting she couldn't move. But, she was still there long enough to participate in the trivia party game, so there's no reason not to count her as one of the attendees. I only now am realizing how much Robin changes her hair, because I turned to her at one point to say, "I don't remember who you are," and she kind of laughed and said, "Yes you do." We've had multiple conversations before, including about my apparent inability to remember her. I felt really bad for a minute, then felt less bad when who she was truly registered. "You changed your hair!" I said, in my defense. It was dyed an auburn color I had never seen before. She mentioned when we last had a similar conversation, her hair was largely silver. And when we played put put golf together at Flatstick Pub in early 2019 as part of a departent outing, she'd had a pixie cut with dark brown hair. Now I'm constantly going to be on the lookout for the rare times she is in the office—she did note that she is usually out in stores—and her regularly changing haircuts and hair colors. I did also get a "milestone gift"—a few of them, really: a new tumbler bottle which I quite like (though I'll still drink out of my old-design bottle with the twist-cap I prefer drinking out of); a "20 Years of Service" pin (my first since the late-2017 rebrand, so it's quite different from my other three); and, as noted on the inside lid of the box, apparently an extra $400 on my next paycheck. Nice! Given that yesterday I had to transfer $1500 from my savings account into checking to cover Australia trip flight expenses, that money will instantly be earmarked for travel expenses. I should get another three grand or so, I think, when I cash out PTO, the last time I'll ever be able to do that, at the end of the year. In any case, it was a pretty chill, but very sweet event, and it made me happy to have my twenty-year milestone acknowledged so directly at work. I really thought I might have to make a big deal out of it on my own. I do that for my birthday every year, after all! And, with the photo retrospective I sent out, I still did with this too. That's been met with widely positive response, at least 18 people (so far) sent me very nice replies to the email, and I happened to pass the front desk while Mel was reading it, and she stopped me to tell me "This email is amazing!" A couple of people have commented on the people featured in photos from the early years, either people who have long since moved on, or people who are still her but are much younger in the photos. The whole thing just made me feel really good, a big part of what keeps me loyal to this company, its evolving challenges notwithstanding. [posted 6:30 pm]