Saturday, August 01, 2009

a new month...

It's August 1. Where did July go? I would ask, where did the summer go, but living in Texas, that would be a foolish question, as I'm quite sure we still have a lot of summer remaining. The catalogs from Pottery Barn and Crate and Barrel are starting to look a lot like fall, though, and I'm beginning to long for those dusty warm days with cool, clear nights...my favorite time of year.

We had our midyear company meeting this week. Attendance was mandatory, and a few minutes into it, I realized that was because if we weren't obligated to attend, no one in their right mind would willingly sit through such babble. It didn't escape my notice that the speakers were all middle aged white guys, although my boss pointed out that they aren't as white as they used to be...meaning that some of them spoke with an accent. But middle aged white guys, nevertheless, and of course, not a woman among them. And I found myself wondering once again, what on earth am I doing here? I have a master's degree in psychology. People interest me; business doesn't interest me. I don't begin to understand it. I've never dated a businessman, and sitting there, listening to these wealthy guys in their beautifully tailored suits drone on and on, I congratulated myself on at least being wise about that. I've dated doctors...they talk about their patients, or procedures they've done, or the pharmacology of new drugs coming on the market; I've dated lawyers...they talk about their clients, or courtroom strategies...shoot, lawyers are generally articulate and can talk about anything; I dated a former NFL player, and he talked about guys he'd played with, and games he'd played, and plays that went down on the field...and he also talked about his son and his brothers and the kids he coached...but businessmen...what on earth do they talk about over dinner?

I'm grateful to have a job, and more than that, to have a job with good benefits and flexibility and yet most of the time these days, I wonder what on earth I'm doing there...

2 comments:

Chris said...

"Honey, you should have seen the way I handled the Sugarman account today, I nailed it!"

And I guess Christmas catalogs will be just around the corner.

Mrs. L said...

I dated an FBI agent once in my life. He wasn't supposed to talk about his work. At lunch one day he arrived in a very bad mood. I finally asked what was wrong and he said he couldn't tell me, but he hinted that something bad had happened when he had to arrest a bad guy. I said it was impossible to go out with someone who couldn't talk about his job. That and the fact that he carried a concealed weapon.