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Good-bye Lunch
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In bed my real love has always been the sleep that rescued me by allowing me to dream. |
Wednesday, August 4, 1999
One year ago: Resemblance
Two years ago: The Scythe of Death
I had lunch today with Jane Hawkins, Glenn Hackney, and Denys Howard. This was by way of being a mock "good-bye" lunch because I'm leaving Microsoft. But since these folks are friends of mine in the real world, not work acquaintances (and because I never did see them often on campus) we'll be in touch just as often after I'm gone as we are now!
We spent a pleasant hour, getting caught up on each other's news, and laughing about our various MS experiences. Both Glenn and Denys have been contractors, then full-time employees at MS, then left or "retired," and now have returned. So I might be back myself, one day! We aren't yet to the Delaware state, where everyone works for Dupont, but Microsoft does keep growing.
Each day this week, I'm unsubscribing myself from internal mailing lists, deleting stuff, and throwing away old papers. I've been looking at the pages I wrote on my first assignment at Micrsoft, proofreading on such a small team that content bugs weren't logged in our bug-tracking database. I just wrote the problems down on paper, handed them to the program manager that was correcting the errors, then checked off on the page when the problem was fixed. There was something very satisfying about that; it was tangible evidence that the product was better for my having been there. But I can let them go, now.
* * * * * * * *
Sleep-Aire is a local mattress company. We've dealt with them once before, when my parents and I first moved here, around eleven years ago. We wanted a new sleeper couch for the apartment, and we wanted it to be rather long so my tall mother could lie down on it if she wanted to. (As it turned out, my short father did more of that, and Mom stayed in her rocking chair.) So we went to Sleep-Aire, picked out fabric and design, but then realized that a big couch couldn't fit through the twists and turns in the hallway that led to our place. So we left.
It wasn't until later that it occurred to my sister M--- that, since we were having this thing made to order, they could make it as a sectional couch! Two twin-size hide-a-beds would fit together as a fine, long couch! So it worked out fine, and the furniture got used by us, then passed on to my film festival buddy A---- (and it's still there in his place). But it shouldn't have had to be us that thought of that. The sales people just seemed very depressed and lackadaisical, not that interested in solving our problem or making a sale.
I returned to that store today, to buy a new mattress and box spring. The young man working there now did make the effort to sell me on a mattress, asking me as I tried each one if it felt soft or firm, did I like it, how much I was willing to spend. He also reported personal testimony from the store manager on one model ("a good value for someone who doesn't want to spend a lot!"), and reported on his own personal choice. I think I tried out every possible mattress they had, sticking with their own brand and skipping the Serta mattresses. Do I like a firm mattresss? a soft one? I don't know! My bed is my bed and I'm used to it, I suppose.
But I finally picked a model and paid for it. Then came the question of delivery. "Our delivery days in your neighborhood are Tuesday and Thursday." Huh? But I want it delivered on Saturday, if it can't happen in the evening! I don't want to take off from work, and I don't want to wait until next week! He saw that this might be a deal-breaker for me, and started backpedaling. "We are trying some Saturday deliveries now, as an experiment; let me call the main office and see if it's possible." And of course, it was.
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