Can I get paid for this?

Disturbing: McD’s MORE fatty in the US? Finally, we’ve found the source of our obesity!
A new ADDICTIVE game: Avocadolite Farm Hustle (Thanks Yasmina!)

So, I’m coming up on my 5-month mesiversary (anniversary just doesn’t work for me) here at my job with the advertising agency. In this time, I have done many many important things. Like manage our servers and interact with international clients on big accounts and other important important things. Right.

But I think that my greatest accomplishments have been the little office parties I have organized.

At Christmas, I organized “Babbo Furfante’s Gift Swap” – patent pending – (Father Christmas’ evil twin) – the flyer was pretty cool but I can’t post it because of the image rights. That day, even the CEO’s secretary brought a tiny wrapped present to participate in our gift swap. Not just a normal pick and swap….stealing! If you want the rules, let me know.

Needless to say, they’re already talking about it for next year.

At Mardi Gras, I talked everyone into bringing something to share and we had an afternoon of sweets and treats…the flyer for that was also very cool (humble I am not). I had a definite sugar overload that day. The beads didn’t make an appearance and especially when I tried to explain the whole concept of flashing and getting beads…thought it was better to leave it out for this year and focus on chiacchiere.

Today, I organized a Caccia all’Uovo – an Easter Egg Hunt here in the office. I printed out some pages of eggs and had a few people color them in at work – it’s amazing how creative you can get with highlighters and normal pens. But unfortunately, they left me with about half to do myself (we are pretty busy), last night. And then of course I had to cut all of them out, which was made a little less painful by watching Sex & the City at the same time. In fact, midnight came in no time.

I arrived at the office around 8.30 which isn’t really that early, but it is for our office. Luckily, there was one other person there and she helped me hide the paper eggs. Some of them were very obvious – for example, I put one on my boss’ back – I’m very cattiva (mischevious/naughty). The highlighter colors helped them be more visible. Some were more subtle – inside the fridge, on the pipe running above our heads.

And you should have seen them get excited about it! Some of our account managers, normally reserved and mature, went scrambling after clues I threw their way. When I mentioned that I might need a drink, 3 of them raced towards the fridge, bumping each other aside and almost falling over.

It was great fun.

So you may be thinking, you’re doing anything not to work, right?

Not exactly.

True, the productivity may be lower in these days, but the morale is higher. I walked into a situation which I have discovered is very multi-layered with conflict and dislikes, and in some cases, going back years.

So it takes the newbie to shake things up a bit, and get people to interact. Also, I want to do fun things, even if I’m not doing it with my best friends (in Rome or back home).

It’s not always great fun, though. (mini-rant) Sometimes this interaction puts me in the spotlight and the recipient of ill feelings – someone didn’t get this, someone else wasn’t able to do this – and it’s my fault! They quickly forget that it was my idea to organize it, I stayed up late, I got here early, so that they could enjoy – when something doesn’t go as they want. But I digress.

This is a battle I have fought all my life – trying to include (and hopefully please) everyone which in reality, will never work. But sometimes it works better than others, and I count those as victories. I’m an optimist.

Oh yea, and I get a little extra time to make flyers and get prizes.

Happy long weekend if you get one!