Little Things

Mike, me hugging the birthday girl and Rogelio

I guess you never realize the kind of things you would do for your team until you have to do something sweet for them. My former experience as Comm Mgr taught me one thing: the most important thing is to make their day.

Of course at my new job the Comm Mgr makes unaceptable mistakes such as undercommunicating, getting people's birthday's wrong and the worst, not knowing their names. I try to at least make my area a livable place. Most of us are new, the average tenure of 95% of the staff is less than a year.

I consider myself fortunate. I have a team that can rely on each other. Even though we are struggling to adapt to our new style of work. Slowly but surely we're getting there. We've been able to combine responsabilities and help each other to make our work more efficient.

Keeping things in a happy note. Our birthdays start since January with mine. This month, we had Blanca's. What to do? Mike wasn't sure if it was appropiate to get her something. I told him to leave it up to me. I talked to Rogelio. We kinda got the idea of the gift and each went to buy the present. He was to buy a gift certificate at a record store. I was to get a balloon and a little something.

I ended up at one of my favorite gift shops. I was between a picture frame and a zen garden. Then I found small purse shaped picture holders. They were completely adorable. I had to buy them for her. Then came the card. Something cute. I ended up buying something pink. I found the balloon at another shop. A huge star shaped balloon with the approioate message: "Happy Birthday from all of us".

On Monday, I sent the usual birthday email. I hid the balloon in an office. Rogelio gave me the gift cerificate. As soon as they left for the meeting, I was ready to roll. I went for the balloon, fixed the little gift bag. Rogelio filled out the birthday card, with special dedications.

When she saw the balloon, she glowed. It was completely adorable the way her little face lit up. She wasn't expecting anything. When the guys left, she said "It was your idea". I hate being predictable. We went to lunch. I had this huge fear that Mike wouldn't make it. Fortunately he did. He ate half of my plate. I wasn't that hungry anyway. Blanca looked so happy and cheerful.

Of course the cake had to be included. Before the day was done, we had a slice of mango cake. Her favorite. Strange coincidence, it's our complete office's favorite too. Before we left she began insisting that she wanted a picture of the four of us.

Sometimes, you just have to give in.