— पाँच हजार सात सौ तैंतालीस —
There was no Daily Lunch Update (DLU) yesterday, because we had our in-person POS meeting, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.—at the Bothell PCC store. Cathryn took an extra day to take the ferry into Seattle (she usually only comes in on Wednesdays), actually driving her car (she usually gets a ride from her husband to the Bainbridge Island Ferry Terminal and then walks up here from Colman Dock), and I carpooled with her to Bellevue and back. We left the office at 9:15; I was back in the office at about 2:45; and that left me all of about three and a half hours in-office yesterday. I had no time to work on a draft of a blog post. I know, you were all devastated. (All 2.3 of you.) I'm sorry!
It was fun to chat with Cathryn in her car on the way there and back, though. On the way there we swapped stories of the worst car accidents we have been in. I told her the story of
crashing in Grandma and Grandpa McQuilkin's truck and camper trailer, back in early March of 1999. None of us got injured, though, and Cathryn told me about a crash she got in with her ex-husband and their then-infant son (who is now 30), all of them fine except that it took hours for Cathryn to accept help fro people trying to get tiny shards of glass out of the side of her face. Yeesh.
When we arrived we told Gabby we had swapped stories about our worst car crashes, and she was like, "While you were driving?" Ha! Yep. I'm not sure either of us thought about that.
Anyway. We have 15 stores, and therefore 15 POS people; we do a biweekly Monday Teams call and this is what Gabby is hoping will be the first of a quarterly in-person POS meeting. The previous person to otherwise dealing with receiving and inventory was also tasked with the official Office-POS relationship and it went okay; a few months ago that responsibility was moved to Gabby, which actually makes sense as she is the Pricing, Promotions & Project Management ("P3") and POS validate pricing at stores—it's a much more logical point of connection. And, Gabby has really jumped into this role and done a lot to streamline communication and organize how we and they all work together. A big part of that is meetings like this, where she not only brings in all POS to mingle together, but even scheduled guest speakers to fill POS in on stuff no one else really ever bothers to: Eric (who was in Gabby's position previous to her) came in to talk financials; Jack, Lexis and Fran all came in to present for quite a while on Marketing stuff (a ton of which generates signage that POS also deal with); and Rachel and Mike W came in to present on the "Purpose" side of things and ways PCC gives back and works with community partners. They shared a video that was very cool about working with local farmers to provide really fresh produce to local food banks, and I meant to make a note of that and share the link on my own socials, which I have not yet done. Note to self!
Thus, broadly speaking, even though the four-hour meeting was very dense with information and presentations in a way future ones are not likely to be once they happen on a more regular (quarterly) cadence, I would say it went very successfully, and Gabby did a spectacular job. We have our 1:1 meeting this afternoon and I am certain she will ask me how I thought it went—she always does—and while I am never negative about these things, I will likely be more enthusiastic in my feedback than usual. I thought it went very, very well.
Gabby also ordered in Chipotle for a catered lunch, which was very tasty but also high in volume. A lot was left at the end of the meeting and so Gabby asked me to help Cathryn pack it all up and take it into the Bellevue store break room. I had never been back there before (Cathryn had never even been to this store before; I had to take her out of the classroom and make sure she saw
the public art piece by the registers, my favorite art piece out of all the stores). We discovered there were only two tables back there, both rather small, and trans woman was seated at one, taking her break (I only mention she was trans because . . . well, representation matters, I guess: it's important to illustrate that trans people exist and lead everyday mormal lives like everyone else). We covered nearly all the surface of both tables, apologized to that woman who was evidently not all that bothered by it, and felt a little bad about leaving so much of what at the end of the day would be a bunch of garbage for someone to clean up.
I almost packed some leftovers to take home for Shobhit; he loves Chipotle. But, I'd have to carry it to the office first, and also walk it home—and I already had a small tote bag of prizes from winning the first round of Gabby's PCC "Price is Right" game, where we guess the regular retail of 10 random items she bought, and then add them all up; whoever gets closest to the real total without going over wins. I was partnered with Jack; we won the first round, and Jack took about 4 of the items from the bag and I took the rest.
Mark F, from the Bothell store, was sitting next to me. He so clearly did not want to be on a team with me, it was kind of funny. He was sitting right next to me so I figured we'd partner by default, but when Gabby asked if anyone didn't have a partner, Mark raised his hand. So did I, basically saying I could team with him. And then Mark asked Lexis, sitting across the table from him, to be his team partner. I did not take this personally; I've known Mark as long as I've worked here (I've been here 23 years, he's been 33) and he's very personable and friendly. I honestly think it was just that he wanted to win, and I had already said I don't remember any of our products prices even though I key in all the grocery ones. So, I partnered with Jack instead, also sitting across the table from me. And then we won the first round! Ha! Take that, Mark!
— पाँच हजार सात सौ तैंतालीस —
— पाँच हजार सात सौ तैंतालीस —
Under normal circumstances, yesterday I would have shared that Wednesday night was Action Movie Night, and it was the first Shobhit had been able to attend since mid-December. Christmas landed on the Wednesday that Action Movie Night would have otherwise landed on, so it was a rare case of it just getting skipped; Shobhit flew out on the first leg of his trip to India that day anyway. And then he was in India on January 8, when we had 13 in attendance—had Shobhit been here, we would have filled the theater seating capacity at 14.
Let's see if I can remember everyone who was there this week. Tony, Jake, Ryan, Chris G, Derek, Tom, Andrew, Daniel, Nico, Jeff, the guy with long red hair whos name I don't remember, Shobhit, and myself. Nice! I remembered all 13 people. Only one name I still don't know. Most of the group was the same as it was last time, with maybe two or three variances (including Shobhit).
Shobhit is still at the end of getting over a cold he caught in India, and he's largely lost his voice. He was coughing a bit and I was really concerned about that, but he took cough drops with him and actually managed not to cough much at all the whole time we were down there. What he did do, though, was fall asleep during the movie—which lately he does during almost every movie that gets shown, but this one he slept through most of. He never snored audibly, but he started to breath in an almost-snoring way a couple of times so I had to nudge him.
It was Jake's choice this week, and he chose a 2024 martial arts movie from China called
Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In. It was okay. I found it relatively entertaining, mostly unremarkable and umemorable, and a tad overlong, with a 125-minute runtime.
Shobhit and I brought something we've never brought to Action Movie Night before, but he made because we needed to use our fried tofu before it went bad: magi, a noodle dish that's like an Indian version of ramen, but which Shobhit boils longer until the noodles get thicker, plus he adds a bunch of extra vegetables, as he does with virtually any meal he makes. It actuall went over fairly well, although the biggest success was the
belgian waffles Andrew made while we were all there, complete with a small waffle iron and a large bowl of batter he mixed in-person (from a pancake & waffle batter mix, not from scratch). He also brought this "bourbon maple syrup" which was absolutely delicious. I think between Shobhit and myself we must have each eaten two full waffles cumulative, though we each had half or a quarter at a time. Hey, they were relatively small waffles! They were so good though.
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Beyond all that, Shobhit
was going to meet me at work and walk home with me, but for the second time in a row that we made such a plan, he texted me that he wasn't feeling like it and would stay home instead. I walked home, prize bag weighing down my backpack, and then I actually watched one of Shobhit's SAG Awards screeners with him:
Conclave, which for me had slightly less impact upon rewatch but which I still really enjoyed. When it ended Shobhit said, "That doesn't deserve to win," which was funny after how locked in he was, as I predicted—but, he's also right. It's a very good, superly shot movie that's also not particularly award-worthy.
He then moved on to
A Complete Unknown, which I watched some of with him but then went to do the dishes and then retire to the bedroom while he was still in the middle of it. Shobhit is now kind of locked into watching the nominated movies he hasn't already seen, which is the biggest reason why I still haven't renewed Netflix or Apple TV+, when there are several series on both for us to catch up on. I was waiting for him to return from India—I had originally planned to renew both subscriptions in December—and now I'm just waiting for him to burn through the SAG Award nominees. He'll be occupied with that for a bit.
— पाँच हजार सात सौ तैंतालीस —
[posted 12:33pm]
