Tuesday, I washed my hair and set out for Richmond. A few blocks from home, I realized that I was still wearing the brown heels even though I changed to a black shirt. But instead of going back, I decided to deal with the situation, after all, I was in jeans. I got coffee today in the coffee room and settled in next to one guy, then another guy sat next to me. Not that surprising, given that my new employee class - a pretty randomly chosen set of VBCA employees - of 24 people had 5 whole women in it.
I noticed that my fluffy hair and bulky necklace looked a little odd. I attempted to flatten my hair and reduce the impact of my necklace. But really, I did feel so ridiculous. Project Management training, game, interacting with 4 other guys. Pink shirt guy, bending down with my knees [in my 2" heels] to get the cards, The Team that Jumped 9 Spaces at the End. Remember that guy who could have been an ef-ing comedian!!.
Pictures of motorbikes with all that racing crap were on the screen as we enjoyed the flavored rice and salad with greek dressing today. I got to talk about my favorite football team, but was not as amusing as I wanted to be. The room got warmer, but I didn't notice. I was apprehensive about this guy, but he did say that he would get us out of here by 3:30.
I wrote this version as a description of my voting experience, leaving out the excitement that happened around the whole 3:30 deal. When my boss contacted me, I told her that that we would get out of class at 3:30. You see, leaving then meant that I would get back to work around 4:00 or 4:15 at the worst. Leaving at 4 meant getting to the office around 5:00, but probably later. I would then have about an hour to not only fix the annual review situation, but drive over to Crow Canyon, wait in a potentially long line, vote, and get to the restaurant by 6:15.
But when 3:30 came around, we had several more slides to go. I also realized earlier that a lot of this information didn't apply to me. I was antsy and wanted to leave, but felt like I couldn't. What if they adjourned like a minute later? The slides were done at 3:50. In Bay Area Rush Hour, an extra ten minutes means a lot. But then the guy asked for questions and there we were, in a prisoners dilemma. We definitely had questions, but this would also extend the class and the time sitting in that infernally hot room [that was another story]. Every time he asked for questions, there was the possibility that there would be none and he.......... would........ let........ us...... gotomycar, getontheroad, makeitbacktotheoffice in time tofindthatthe corrections were there, but I just hadto re-submit theform. Then I would look up directions to the polling place, drivethere, and vote. No line whatsoever. I even had a little time to relax for the entirely free dinner at Faz in Danville.
I squirmed and whispered, but the clock kept going. At 3:57, they wanted some quick plus deltas. Boy, did I have a delta. I meant to say, "Please, do not tease us like that and tell us that we could go at 3:30, then hold us until 4, I told my boss I should get out at 3:30." It came out a lot more like an angry rant. Once I ran to my car, I began to feel a little embarrassed.* | I have class in Richmond this week, which is about 45 minutes away from San Ramon in moderate traffic. Today was the only day my project team could have our celebration dinner. So between 4pm and 7pm (end of class and dinner), I had to navigate The Maze, The Tunnel, and possibly wait in line to vote. Actually, three hours would probably have been enough time. Sadly, thats not what actually happened.
Around mid-day, a member of the project team alerted us that she made reservations at Faz for 6:15. That wasn't a huge problem, I just hoped for a short line wait and no major traffic incidents. Later, my boss emailed me and told me that she couldn't see the updates she told me to make in my annual review document that was stored in this clunky database that I couldn't access from my blackberry. In other words, I had to go back to the office and possibly re-do the updates that could take me an hour to complete. Shit.
So we get out of the room at 4, I run to my car (well, walk as fast as possible in 2 inch heels) and get onto 580. Traffic wasn't terrible, and I got through the reconstructed section of the maze (that part that melted back in March) and made it to 24. Traffic leading up to the tunnel was backed up, but things got better after the tunnel. But there was another back-up later around Lafayette.
It was in this area where I slowed and stopped for a stopped car in front of me. I checked my rear view mirror to see that massive flat-bed tow truck I passed literally barreling down on my car. I scream, see the truck swerve to the right and miss my car completely, thank goodness. It stopped without hitting anyone, but the front of the truck was about 5 or 6 feet ahead of the front of my car (maybe more). Had the truck not swerved, it would have hit me with all that force, slamming me into the bumper-to-bumper traffic. Its possible that I might not have survived that crash.
But I didn't think about that then. Then I was just happy that I hadn't been in an accident and been unable to vote. My heart was pounding. Traffic thinned later, and I got on the ramp to 680. I felt good that it was relatively empty, but then saw five lanes of parking lot ahead of me. I checked the radio to see what the back-up was. Actually, the radio had been on KQED anyway. Eventually, I realized that they might not cover back-ups on 680, so I searched around for east bay stations. I waited around in traffic, but after the truck, sitting in my car wasn't that bad. Traffic thinned at Livorna, just like they said it would, and I decided to vote first and go back to the office after the dinner if necessary.
When I found the polling place around 5:15, there was no line! I was voter 170 for my precinct, got my sticker, and headed to the office. Cindy was still there, which is pretty normal, and I related my tale to her as my ancient computer took its 5 minutes to boot up. I was glad I had booted it yesterday, so it didn't take as long today. I checked my document and did see the updates, which meant that there was just something weird happening with the overly complex database. I saved the document to my desktop, re-uploaded it, and attached it to the email I sent my boss.
After printing out directions to Faz in Danville and relating amusing stories about my aunt against the amusing stories about my boss's sister, I set out for dinner. I made it on time, and proceeded to order a $9 cocktail, stuff my face, and joke with my team. |
*Thursday night, I learn that the reaction was much more positive and sympathetic.
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