How I missed the Spring February 1 - 10, 2002 Spring erupted during a single week -- and of course it had to be when I got the flu

	Ano Nuevo we could not get to elephant seals, yet we did not miss out on pretty landscape

We still occasionally get some whiff of cold, it rains time to time, or the sky darkens quite awfully, but there's no way to deny it -- the sun is a-shinin', flowers are a-bloomin', birds are a-singin'. It is over with Winter here in the Valley -- and I almost did not notice it. As is my habit, I caught my Spring Flu, and during last ten days managed to annihilate our household stockpile of ibuprofen, chamomile tea, cough drops, and about three boxes of kleenex. This all while more or less going to work every day -- for we had scheduled a visit of our uppermost ultra-top executive super-deity, and we had to prepare for it.

To explain the circumstances, I will attempt to describe how it works in a small office company in Silicon Valley. Please keep in mind that similarity with any living, dead or fictitious personae is purely accidental.

All clerks arrive to their workplace somewhat late, though immersed in an important cellular conversation, which makes them wear faces as if the party on the other side were either Bill Gates, or at least George W. Bush. These efforts are wasted, for the boss arrives later yet. Sometimes I think that he may sit at a coffee shop on a corner and watch until everybody arrived, to avoid causing embarrassment by his own premature arrival.

	Pacific spring version of kitschy blue

One part of employees keep wearing this haunted, yet important face up all day. The same people often, during a casual discussion, drift contemplatively away to pick up a phone and place another call of global significance (which, as one may overhear, actually deals with dental appointment or plans of bowling with friends tonight).

Such obviously frivolous affair as a lunch break is then completely out of a question. Alas, a depressive smell of burgers and french fries seeps through the office space around noon -- colleagues usually take pity and bring a take-out for the workoholic. As urgent assignments would never allow an interruption to wolf down this fast food in a small, dedicated lunch break room, it is ingested right over business paperwork. With office space I mean a rabbit cage-like contraption consisting of "cubicles" - stalls built from re-arrangeable partitions, which form no barrier to smells.

Fluorescent tube lighting flickers from the ceiling of he office, to illuminate (the majority of) stalls that lack on direct daylight (which fortunately does not apply to my beautiful, fully glazed reception). An air conditioning / heating system is also on all the time. Somebody somewhere calculated that an average employee will tolerate 71°F (22°C). This, unfortunately, applies to me, as we all hang off the same forced air duct -- after two hours of working process, my fingers tend to freeze stiff over the keyboard, and after another hour I reach for my overcoat.

For some reason, my clothing never surprised anyone -- during our six weeks of heavy winter I gradually converted from skirts and cardigan to trousers, crew socks and a fleece jacket (over a shirt and a sweater), while my colleagues kept adding layers underneath (cotton T-shirts under dress shirts). We are all lucky to have easy customs in California -- there is practically only one "office dressing rule" -- only engineers (like, for example, my husband) may wear blue jeans to work.

	BridgeToJapan.com looks like another dot.gone company

Even here, in the land of unlimited opportunities and high incomes, one can find in-duh-viduals who elect to empty out all paperclips from the company office supply storage. Not a wire left from my generous order (boss was leaving for a business trip, so it was clear that no-one would be available to sign another order for a while, hence I stacked up). This happened right before Christmas; could it be that someone got an idea for holiday presents for all his relatives?

Just as anywhere else, a reception in an American office is a miniature Bermuda Triangle -- during the day, even while I am around, things that are not nailed down simply keep disappearing from the counter -- stamps, envelopes, pencils, pens, markers, yellow pages... ceramic pens vanish right before my eyes, while I am still pulling them from their box. I stopped trying and order only the cheapest ball point pens -- those sometimes last for so long I don't need to go to our storage room for twenty four hours!!!! What is interesting is that unchanging period, regardless of how many pens I bring out. One will last just as long as four.

The above rule is not limited to the reception -- between my departure in the evening, and arrival in the morning, cola from our fridge disappears at a rate equal to what gets drunk during the day. Could it be that my colleagues work harder at night and hydrate more then?

	In February, even sand dunes turn green in California

On the other side it is unbelievably pleasant that I don't have to argue about where all those supplies might have gone, or if we can afford to buy a new stapler along with a hole puncher for our new co-worker. Computers and telephones are a matter-of-fact office workplace equipment -- a computer gets simply bought at Fry's around the corner, we connect it to our T1 (internet) and it's done. Phones may take a while -- order with PacBell, drag wires to a new stall -- it sometimes takes a day or two (I remember when our family in Prague was on a waiting list for a phone hookup for several years, and that my last European workplace shared one (ONE!) line for telephone, fax, and internet).

It is disturbing how everything gets arranged through the internet (even our permanent re-ordering of office supplies), or over the phone. Internet is easy, but I consider the late Mr. Bell a dangerous madman. I still did not get over talking into a black box and I get nervous every time when, instead of showing an accountant at PacBell in person ("Look, here you've got an incorrect sum"), I have to explain into the phone on which faxed page, which line, and what actual number I don't like. Besides that, I still hesitate when I'm about to reply to standard American idiomatic pleasantries. The first time I heard: "Thank you for calling PacBell Business Accounts, I am Sheryl, how can I provide you with excellent service today?" I imagined I had mis-dialed and reached a whorehouse, and the rest of the dialogue was distorted by my uncontrollable explosions of laughter.

	California Spring features viciously green grass

Sometimes, phone is invaluable -- I pick it up, call a cleaning company, I tell them that we have been missing paper towels in our bath room for two days, and let them deal with it. There is no haggling with Mrs. Perwinkle the cleaning lady, whom even a director is afraid of. No wet floors during the day; it is unthinkable to get yelled at for stepping all over them. Janitors, guards, drivers simply do their jobs and have no telling in the ways of the company. Do you do your job right? Well, thanks. Don't you? OK, don't come tomorrow. I admit that the case with paper towels got escalated into termination of the relevant janitor. For that I had to "unleash a demon" -- my supervisor, who yanked at the chain of the janitor's boss.

It is not easy to have supervisors -- working at a branch of a huge corporation, there is a large pyramid of "bosses of bosses of my boss". In reality it results in this -- we collect our receipts for reimbursement, calculate the balance, print it out, make a copy for our records, have it signed by our local uppermost boss (takes about 1 day), FedEx across the whole United States to our central office (takes another day). There, mysterious things happen to these claims, however, after about a week or two we receive another FedEx with checks. I take them and mail them out to all those companies we had owed money until now, for their goods and services. Why we can't issue our own checks, or why checks cannot be mailed out directly from the central office, which might save up to a fortnight of time and some money for overnight mailing, is beyond me (but frankly, I almost don't want to know).

	Pigeon Point a meadow under a lighthouse

Things that I get to organize myself exhibit wonderful logic and clarity -- I love to go shopping for coffee -- there's a coffee roasting factory around the corner, combined with a coffee shop -- I buy a pound of coffee and receive a voucher for one free cup of coffee. This I redeem during my lunch break. I sit on a chair at a window and watch people go by a wall painted to resemble a French street. It may be kitschy, but I find it funny that there is a painted door with a real handle attached to it, or a railing of a painted balcony has real flower boxes hanging off of it. The painting also features angry looking cat with a dead fish; the street's name (also painted) is Street of the eating cat (rue de Chat qui peche).

When I leave for home in the evening, my colleagues sit in their cubicles and appear busy to show how important some people are that they must stretch their working time till late. When I found out once after getting home (about half hour later) that I forgot my wallet there, and wanted to ask someone of those dedicated co-workers to go look at my desk, I could only reach a single colleague (out of seven).

As I mentioned earlier, my happy worktime routine was disturbed last week by a flu that I got. As a pleasant surprise came a matter-of-factness with which they accepted my statement on Monday at ten a.m. that I felt miserable and was therefore going home. During my half day absence, however, my reception got raided for everything, as well as the fridge and coffee cupboard -- the company simply collapsed without me.

Unfortunately I could not afford any other day off -- we were getting ready for the visit of the very topmost chieftain. The whole tiny branch got consumed by feverish preparations, during which there was no spray-painting the grass green, but only because we don't own any grass. When I attempted to mention this as a joke to my exhausted colleagues, I received back a handful of thoughtful stares and replies like: "well, if we painted the grass green, would it not die then?"

	Pigeon Point Lighthouse

After a full week of arrangement that must have taken a whole heap of dollars, the deity Himself arrived. Majestically passing by our decorated meeting room (on whose preparation I could easily prove my qualification to managing a first class catering service), he strode towards a room, which is rented out to a company selling virtual reality. There he spent forty minutes out of his one-hour visit wearing a large projection goggle headset -- virtually shooting at his subordinates. It seems that the visit was a success, especially since our lavish refreshments remained untouched -- at the point when a limousine door clicked shut again, my colleagues, until then steaming themselves in their best suites, tossed their ties as well as sedulous face expressions aside, and heroically applied their best efforts to a "clean up" of our "leftovers". To their honor I must add that they turned to the real clean-up with the same fervor, and helped with dishes and re-arrangement of chairs. Nothing could stop us from entering a well-earned weekend.

Though I mentally yearned to go ski again, my physical condition still did not allow for any greater exertion (I even did not feel like CLIMBING!!!). We therefore opted for a pleasant combination of resting and a small trip. We never visited Ano Nuevo reservation at the Pacific coast during my one and half year stay here, and I also wished to photograph a lighthouse at Pigeon Point. Ano Nuevo is famous for rare elephant seal colony -- alas, in the time when they have offspring, rangers would only let you hike on a less interesting part of the peninsula -- only guided tours may approach the elephant seals and we could not find any information on how to arrange for a guide. We did not care much, though, for we really wanted to go hiking anyway, enjoy a view of the ocean and an easy afternoon before leaving for a sunset at Pigeon Point.

We got lucky with weather -- it was a beautiful, sunny day with minimum haze, we could even wear short sleeves. Pacific turned its color from steel gray to kitschy blue towards turquoise. Combine that with a viciously green new grass, yellow mustard flowers, and red sea cliffs -- the effect: we had to push through a crowd of photographers at the lighthouse. In return, we have two films alone (not counting digital pictures) aspiring to be the winner of a sentimentality contest of the year.

Copyright © 2002-2005 by Carol & Sid Paral. All rights reserved.