What a Week, Vol. II

Fifteen Years of Fun

Fifteen years ago Monday I arrived at San Francisco International Airport for the start of a volunteer year with an environmental non-profit organization. Eight months later my boss offered me a full-time job as Office Manager and Bookkeeper. Yesterday, my co-workers threw me surprise party celebrating those fifteen years of service. Yes, I am still working for the same organization but for a little bit more money than my volunteer stipend of $45/month!

I was told of a special all-staff meeting at 12:30pm on Thursday so suspected it might be something me-related but I couldn't be sure. Our ED's birthday is today so there was also a lot of furtive movement about the office related to surprising her with flowers and such. However, she was the one who had entered the meeting into our office calendaring system so I remained suspicious. However, I didn't spend a lot of time thinking about it as I had the audit to contend with!

I arrived in the conference room and there were two pies sitting with a pile of plates as well as several bars of various flavors of chocolate. My boss came over beside me and announced that we were there to celebrate my fifteen years. I was a bit overcome and really can't remember what he said but I was presented with a heavy package wrapped in thick gold paper and bound with binder twine accompanied by a lovely, clever, entertaining note from our founder (who is leaving us after 25 years in December) which I attempted to read aloud through my tears.

The package contained three books: The World Without Us by Alan Weisman (what would happen to the earth without humans) and two baseball-related ones. I look forward to reading all of them. Our founder also presented me with some amazing note cards constructed with photos taken by her partner. They are truly beautiful and I can't imagine sending them off to anyone. I'll have to keep them for myself.

Our ED was celebrated with a bouquet of organic flowers, we sang Happy Birthday, then we passed around the strawberry-rhubarb and banana cream pies and chocolate with almonds and caramel as several of my long-time co-workers shared stories about me. It was very lovely; I just wished someone had remembered to provide tissues.