Old Friends are the Best Friends!

Old friends really are the best friends. Last night I was able to catch up with some folks I used to work with when I first moved to the city. One of the guys from the office is getting ready to head back to Iraq to work with the Inspector Generals office there. He worked over there for a year and a half as the coalition was changing and power was being handed over to the Iraqi people. He has now signed up to serve for another year maybe more to help ensure things run smoothly there. Mike is a pretty inspiring person to say the least.

But it was a fun evening as all of us have now left our former place of employment the last leaving only a short 8 months ago. We all surpassed the normal time line for employees at our old office of 14 months with the shortest stint being a little over 2 years (that was Mike and not sure if you can count it short since he left to serve in Iraq), the longest being 6. We laughed as we remembered crazy stories or things we went through, stories y’all have to hear me tell except there were 8 of us telling the same story last night. We joked about things we would do to keep us laughing while we worked there, like changing where we would sit in meetings we ran just to throw people off. You would be surprised how much just changing a seat will take someone off their game when they are used to one set up.

I learned a lot from all of these people. We were the room to come to when you needed something done so everyone loved us, and we were the room that often told folks they could not do things they wanted to so that made them not like us but never tell us because soon they would need something else. It was interesting time and great time to work. When I first started there I worked a bit over 3 straight months till I had my first day off (folks this includes Saturdays and Sundays) but everyone was right there with me. So we may have spent a lot of time together and we know each other, just a bit. I love each and everyone of those people. And when I am asked if I will ever return to my old job, I always tell people even if I did it would never be as great, as we had the best of the best on that team and you can’t replace that. Yes the place will always be magnificent and it obviously still runs with out us, but it was a special point in time, a special sequence of people. Not everyone is so lucky to work in a place they are passionate about but even a smaller amount of people get to work in a place where the 100% respect and love the folks they are working besides. I have never found a situation like that again (not that I have had a ton more time to look) but I am unsure if I ever will.

Good luck and Godspeed Mike!

Room One Crew Minus a Few

Mike and I

John and Little Kendal! (She's totally waving to us!)