Working friends

Today I may post several posts. My goal is to finish this friendly project before sundown.

This is about friends I've found in the workplace. There aren't many of those (workplace I mean, not friends). I'm a fairly consistent employee. I volunteered for seven years of my life. Went to college for another seven years of my life. Worked part time at an Architecture firm 18 months. And finally, been with the current company for the past seven years. I'm not counting the one year work at Fuddruckers (Absolutely best burger you'd eat!) - because I didn't make any friends there.

My first "job" was actually without pay. I volunteered seven years with the USO (Haifa, Israel). I could probably fill a book about the friends I gathered from the hundreds of thousands American sailors that passed through the office during that time. And yes, I ended up marrying one of those friends. It wasn't intentional. But I figured that if I've managed to compare him to so many friends I have, and he still stood out as the "chosen one" I better get married to him. I was also very scared about losing him as a friend, and marrying him was the best option. No regrets there.
Today I've lost touch with most of my friends from that period in my life, but that's because Americans have these common names that are impossible to find on the internet even if I tried. But if anyone comes across a Stan Clark, married to Michelle back in the 80's, who went through the Top Gun school of aviation and looks like Kevin Kostner, please direct him to my website. I need to tell him that I appreciate his help with Calculus, but I ended up failing it for the third time.

Then came 18 months at an Architecture firm where I tried not to make friends because I was too much of a snob at the time. Though I'll admit that I still keep in touch with one of the Architects in that office, B.W., who's been a good friend throughout my time there and after. I think he's the only friend I have who's an Architect. Considering my background that's absolutely amazing that I've turned my back on the profession in such a manner where I cannot even make any friends among them.

Then there's my current company. Seven years of being surrounded by friends. I have no idea how this came about. Maybe the length of time I've worked here. But I'm leaning more towards the fact that this company has the most awesome collection of like-minded people. It's a management company. Everyone here is opinionated, strong, stubborn, vocal, and yeah - fun to be with! This is no doubt where I belong, among people who know everything about everything and people who know how to have fun as well. I would do it great injustice if I tried to name everyone, and you could pretty much go through the alphabet to get everyone's initials, ranging from C.L, J.V, W.L, D.G, L.R, B.S, H.K, D.D, D.M, E.C, G.M, C.B, P.H, P.K, I.N, J.Z., V.R (yes, the same one mentioned below). Wow, I think I can come up with a good game with just the initials of my friends from work.

When you work in the D.C. area, you end up with friends who live an hour to two hours away from your house. So unfortunately, most of my friends don't live very close by. But in spite of this, these friends are not just friends from 8 to 5. We meet outside of work, we meet in company parties and picnics. I've met most of the spouses, significant others and the kids. I've even been to one wedding, and I'm expecting a couple more invitations!

My favourite time at work is lunchtime, when I get to meet my friends, play cut-throat Scrabble with C.B and J.V. and get advice from all my other friends as they sit in the kitchen to observe our fun game. Scrabble rules. No doubt. In fact any activity that makes you laugh through your lunch break should be encouraged in the workplace.

If some of you think that my standards for friends must be quite liberal, think again. I'm very picky. I have lots of rules and requirements. They need to be smart, intelligent, funny, caring, responsible, honest, opinionated and with excellent work ethics. And yes, they need to know how to spell if they want to play Scrabble.

So here's to all my working friends, who've been there for me during the most difficult years of my life, who collected $100 in a Popeyes Take-out box to give to the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation of America when I was headed for surgery, who forced me to finish my lunch, who forced me to take a break from work, who forced me to take vacation, and who forced me to stay home on long term disability (because I insisted on coming to work just so I could get to play Scrabble with my friends at lunch).
Here's to all these friends who make me laugh, who let me rant and vent about life and work, who challenge me to seek higher goals, who help me win an argument, who are just there to lean on when I need it most.

Thank you all for being such wonderful friends and not just co-workers.