Fun Day at Work

Today one of the people in my group is leaving the company. She's going back to grad school to get her PhD. So we all went out for lunch. There were 8 of us who went. There are 2 more people in the group but one of them is on vacation and the other one didn't come to work today. Anyway, I enjoyed the lunch a lot. Not so much the food because it was pretty expensive place for not as good and small portions. The guy kept asking if we wanted any appetizers. We probably should've ordered some because most of our meals turned out to be very small. Anyways, the guys were very funny. We talked about the most random stuff ever.

H (to T): I see a lot of young people nowadays with tattoos and nose rings and such. What would you say if your children asks you about getting one?
T [blinks twice]: If they ask you that it's too late! They asks you that means they've thought about it already. It's too late!
[at this point everyone is laughing and making jokes about tattoos and rings]
T: It's true! You've got to take preventive action!
[preventive action! hahaha]
A (to T): You know I had a mohawk once.
T: Ahhh! Good thing you didn't went you interviewed or we wouldn't have hired you. Scared me.
H: Isn't there policy about equal opportunity?
T: Equal opportunity! No such thing! No such thing nowadays.
[we all thought this whole exchange was really funny. T's a funny guy. Always ready to give you his opinion. There's a couple of guys like that in the office actually. They have really hilarious conversations.]

T (to waiter): What is this [points at something on menu]?
Waiter: That's paella. It's a typical Spanish rice dish with seafood.
T: Okay, I'll take it then.
H: That's the most expensive thing on the menu!
T [nudges H]: Hey, I'm not paying. I always order the most expensive thing when we got out. Just ask M. [M's the supervisor.] That's why I don't want to be the boss.
[at this point we're all trying to look at the remaining menus to see how much this dish costs. It's $21. I'm not actually sure that M is paying for it with his own money. I think he has a company credit card and this kind of stuff gets charged to the company. Either way, T is very much into this 不客气 (bu ke qi) thing whenever M is paying. They've been working together for 10+ years.]

[on the way back to work, we pass by this construction site where a building is being built. They've excavated the place and getting ready to build the basement. The site is surrounded by a wire fence and there is cloth to covering the fence so that you don't see what's going on inside.]
T: Woah, what are they doing here?
[goes to a gap in the cloth covering, pulls it apart and peers in.]
T: Wow, big excavation! They've got lots of tie backs in place!
[at this point, there are now 3 guys trying to peer inside. 2 on top of each other and one trying to look over the fence.]
M: Well, you've got to step back and let everyone else see!
[I was laughing really hard and wished I had a camera or a phone to take a picture. one of the construction guys looked over the fence at us. he looked really confused. hahahah]

Oh yeah, I also wore the nerd shirt to work today and everyone was trying to figure it out as we were walking to the elevators to go out to lunch. They were really excited when they finally figure it out. I'm glad that people actually looked and thought about it. Seriously, I was annoyed that at Cambridge no one ever said a thing until I pointed it out.

A bunch of the younger people also went out to a bar after work as a farewell thing for the person who's leaving. Just another excuse to socialize mostly. It was fun. I should really hang out with these people more. I think they wanted to talk about more non-work stuff but I kept probing everyone about how they like the company, their work, grad school, and such. hehe. I really need to network more. Make better use of my lunchtimes.