As you guys may know from my post about eating my face off, I was away at work meetings for most of the week last week.
Would you believe me if I said it was a LOT of fun?
Fair enough, the meeting part wasn’t exactly a party, but I can’t get enough of the social time!
I’ve mentioned before that there is only five full-time staff in my office (and four part-time retired teacher-coaches who drop in sometimes), but because we are a non-profit organization, we are governed by our Representatives’ Council (40 members) and Executive Council (20 members). We all get together for these meetings only a few times a year, and I love spending time with these people. We hang out in the evenings in the hospitality suite, and usually go out for dinner.
A common theme of these meetings seems to be “story time”, where our office staff will tell all our reps about funny things that happen around our office, and everyone will be dying laughing.
For example, my boss can sometimes be very cheap (though he prefers to be called “budget conscious”), so when we regale our reps with stories of his budget consciousness, they created a nickname for him.
Alligator arms.
Because he can’t quite reach his wallet…
(My boss is very easy-going, but having his actual face on the alligator arms might be too much even for him.)
T-Rex arms would also work. It is very funny when people imitate the alligator arms. My boss was even crying from laughter.
Something that I have noticed about the story-telling is, most of the stories told by my boss and Brian are about me. Brian especially seems to have an endless amount of stories of my office shenanigans that he loves telling anyone who will listen.
(Brian and I)
Many revolve around my love of food, but I am pretty sure I covered that in this post about being first in line for cake out of hundreds of people, and when the MC went mysteriously missing after he called my table last for dinner.
But I tend to embarrass myself on a regular basis, and this seems to make my coworkers laugh. And it makes me laugh too. Sometimes you just have to laugh at yourself!
Since other people think these stories are funny, I thought I would share them with you. Here are a few that were circulating at our meetings.
Dan Hill
I don’t know how many of you are familiar with the name Dan Hill, but he is a Canadian pop singer who was popular in the 80s. I am SURE you all know the song “Sometimes When We Touch“…
The honestyyyyy’s too much…
I knew the song, but I wouldn’t say I was very familiar with Dan Hill…
My organization has a scholarship for high school distance runners in the name of Brian Maxwell, who was a Canadian athlete and coach, and also the creator of Power Bar. He tragically died of a heart attack at the age of 51. Every year we have a ceremony in our building for the scholarship recipients, and members of Brian Maxwell’s family come for the occasion and speak to the attendees. It is always a very emotional and touching ceremony, and I am usually bawling my face off.
Two years ago Dan Hill (who I guess was good friends with Brian Maxwell when they were growing up) showed up and performed a heartfelt song that he had written for Brian.
(Dan Hill in the flesh)
My boss had of course mentioned that Dan Hill would be attending the ceremony, but I am embarrassed to say that the name had no meaning to me. I didn’t make a connection to “Sometimes When We Touch”, or any of his popular songs, and I had no idea who he was. I thought he was just a guy, who sang.
He sang incredibly well, and everyone had tears in their eyes when he finished. After the ceremony, when everyone was mingling around, I walked over to Dan, patted him on the shoulder, almost condescendingly, and said “Wow, that was really good!” like I was surprised at his talent.
My boss witnessed this and was basically in hysterics. When he retells the story, he makes it sound like it happened like this:
When we were back up in our office later, my boss showed me Dan Hill on YouTube and I realized that I did actually know who he was, and he had quite a few record deals under his belt. Whoops. I was so embarrassed about the shoulder pat.
But now, of course, it’s a funny story.
Tony Danza
Sometimes I say things without really thinking them through first. Or sometimes something will sound funny in my head, and then I say it out loud and it just isn’t at all.
A while ago my boss was going to a Bruce Springsteen concert. He was very excited about it, and he walked into the office exclaiming “Guess who I am going to see tonight? THE BOSS!”
Let me just say that I know that Bruce Springsteen is nicknamed The Boss. I know this. So when my boss said he was going to see The Boss, do you think I said “Bruce Springsteen?!”
No. Of course not. For some reason I said:
Everyone stared at me incredulously, like I was some sort of crazy person.
I don’t know where Tony Danza came from, or what I was thinking. But this is another story my boss loves to tell people to embarrass me.
The Photo Cropper
A few years ago at our Football Championship, Brian and I had the ultimate pleasure of meeting Dan Marino.
LACES OUT!
The funny thing is, Brian was originally in this picture on the other side of Dan, but he ended up being a casualty of the Photoshop crop tool. Sorry about that Brian (no, I’m not really sorry).
Brian was also in this picture of Pinball Clemons and I, on the other side of Pinball.
Once again, Brian didn’t make the cut.
Brian likes to joke now that there’s no point of him being in a picture with me because he knows he’s just going to get cropped out later (only if there is also a celebrity in the picture Brian, duh!)
And if Brian happens to meet a celebrity while I’m not around (like Roberto Alomar), I like to add myself to the photo like I was there.
Brian likes it.
The Trailer
Another time at our Football Championships in the Rogers Centre, I was hanging out in the referee’s lounge because they had a bunch of free food and coffee in there.
When I came out, I was walking around with a cookie and Brian asked me where the referee’s lounge was where I scored the cookie.
Without hesitating I said “the trailer”.
So Brian and another staff member went off in search of the trailer. When I saw them next they expressed that they could not find the trailer anywhere, and asked me to show it to them. When I tried to find the trailer myself, I realized it was not a trailer at all, it was just a room. There was a door in the side of the stands that led into a little room. When I was inside, it reminded me of a trailer, I just felt like I was in a trailer. But there was no actual trailer. Just a room. In the side of the stands.
Edit: I took a picture of the “trailer” last time I was in the Rogers Centre. Here it is in all its glory:
Another story that I still haven’t lived down.
The Princess
Brian works as a part-time special project coordinator now, but around the time that I started at my job he was a full-time Assistant Director.
Brian likes to tell people that I was high maintenance when I started working here, because I “needed” a lot of stuff:
- A new desk (listen, the one that was in my office was from someone’s bedroom in the 70s I’m pretty sure)
- A new computer (my position was new, so I needed a new computer. I requested a Mac because I do a lot of graphic stuff and I am just more comfortable working on a Mac. Mac’s are more expensive, and it ended up being the nicest laptop in the office, so Brian of course had a field day with this, raving on about how his laptop wouldn’t even turn on but no worries because I had a new fancy Mac)
- A new camera (I had to take pictures for our magazine and the camera they were using was .2 megapixels and the first digital camera ever invented. No thank you. We needed a DSLR).
So he started calling me The Princess. His favourite line is “I don’t even have electricity in my office, but the Princess, the Princess has everything.”
I overheard him telling people this at our meetings.
(On Friday night I actually was a princess)
And he not only calls me the princess around our staff, he refers to me as the princess to outside committee members and people from other organizations as well, so that people I don’t even know are calling me the princess.
I have received emails from people I don’t know addressed to “The Princess”.
I also have a picture on my door of Brian with a license plate that says “I’m the Princess, that’s why!” that he and my boss found when they were on a trip to Yellowknife.
Apparently they saw the license plate and just had to get a picture of it. My boss likes to tell everyone that he got a big soaker in his boot while taking the picture because he had to stand in a snowbank to get it.
Update: My coworker Ken went to Florida and brought me back a shirt that says “I didn’t ask to be a princess, but hey if the crown fits!”
He then proceeded to present it to me in the middle of a meeting, and he made it seem like he had a huge addition to the agenda. It was funny.
But I am not the only one around here with a nickname, or who is known for something.
I made that for Brian when he was leaving as Assistant Director and framed it for him. It is all of our office staff, as well as our intern at the time. You’ll notice I am holding my beloved Mac, wearing a tiara, and showcasing my love of eating. My boss is demonstrating his budget consciousness in the right corner, and Brian is in the centre holding a big piece of cheese because he is cheesy. Lexy at the top is Spider Lex because she likes to trap people in her office in her web of questions.
I truly love my job and the people I work with, and little inside jokes like this make me love it even more!
Do your coworkers or friends ever make fun of you about something stupid/silly you did?
You just gotta laugh at yourself! 
