long time, no blog

i apologize for not keeping up with the blog lately. things have been hectic. routines are hard to get into and i feel exhausted by the time i make it home. we're trying to get on a better schedule so that our days are a little more regular. the problem so far has been if i go in early and the rest of my co-workers don't roll into work until 9:30 or so, it's weird when i'm leaving earlier than them or if they catch me at the end of my work day and ask for something to be done. i can't wait until i feel more comfortable saying, "would it be okay if i work on this right away in the morning for you?"

i have a list of things to write about:

1. experiencing our first earthquake
2. a guy from my work getting fired last week
3. meeting engineering people at the pool
4. hanging out with my new friend misty
5. my work party on saturday

i'm not sure if i'll make it through all of them tonight. i'm going to write until i get tired.

item numero uno: the earthquake
this past week, i was at work, going about my business. i was walking to the kitchen to get a glass of water. i didn't really notice what was going on; i just knew that i felt dizzy. i was leaning on the counter while i was getting water, so i didn't really feel the building swaying like other people in my office did. when i walked out of the kitchen, i just stopped. everyone was standing up, looking around, a couple of people had walked out of their offices. everyone was taken a little off-guard that we'd just been hit by an earthquake. immediately, questions of "what we should do" or "where we should go" when an earthquake hits arose. some people said they were going to hide under their desks, while others said if it got bad, they would take off running. mind you, we're on the 16th floor of a 22 story building. jeff noticed that i wear high heels to work every day and warned me that just in case something happens, i should bring an old pair of running shoes. scary thought. dustyn had a completely different experience with the earthquake, so i'm going to let him write about it. i've given him access to be a blog-author on here, so hopefully he'll take the hint!

i'm pretty sure that item number two is going to take up the remainder of my typing time tonight. if you refer back to my previous blog where i detailed a couple of co-workers, you should recall stephen (can't remember if he was #1 or #2. i'm not talking about front desk stephen). monday morning, he came back from his week of vacation. he joked with me about "still being there" when he got back and said he wasn't sure i'd "survive". he's that kind of person, always joking. i didn't know or realize it at the time, but we had a head leadership lady in our office that morning. i suppose that signals to the office that someone is going to get fired. the two stephens were joking back and forth that the other was going to get the boot. on monday's, we typically have a 9:00 "what's going on in san diego in 30 minutes or less meeting". well, we had all made our way to the front of the office for the meeting, but were instructed to return back to our desks because the meeting was postponed temporarily. then, we all saw jeff walk to stephen's desk (again, not receptionist stephen) and they went into a conference room. nicole and i were standing in the library, trying to tidy up since we didn't really have work to do at that point. she said, "if they let stephen go, i'm out." after they took stephen to the conference room, it was the last time i saw him.

they called all of us together after stephen left, and announced that stephen had been 'let go' because our office doesn't have enough work to keep him. they said they didn't want us gossiping about why he was let go, so if we had any questions, we should approach one of the higher-ups to talk about it. immediately, i felt awkward and so out of place. this was the beginning of my third week at gensler. if they didn't have enough work, then why in the world was i here? to make matters worse, i was the most recent of three new hires within a month. how could they take on three new employees if stephen wasn't capable of staying. i knew at that point that something else had to have been going on.

i guess i assumed that maybe he was doing outside work, other projects for people not involving gensler. *this is illegal, grounds for a lawsuit from gensler. if we're working on any other projects, we have to inform them. nicole said at one point my first week that everyone works on outside projects. i am well aware that nicole and stephen are extremely close, therefore, when she said everyone, i think it's safe to say stephen was included in that.

monday, everyone was quiet, depressed, and had tear-stained faces. nicole and nancy took turns crying throughout the day. have you ever felt like your head is just heavy? i felt like there was a heavy cloud in the office. no one could relax, and people's treatment and attitude toward me changed. i'm sure i wasn't imagining it. kelley and nicole no longer asked if i wanted to be part of their lunch outing. nancy would glare at me if i said her name asking for help with CAD. jamie would just smile when she walked in, not really acknowledging that i'd commented her cute dress. the worst was feeling like everyone was upset with ME - but really, how was I to know that he was about to get fired? if they didn't want me, they wouldn't have hired me.

i've since learned that there was strife between jeff and stephen. i'm not sure why or when it started. i started to sense that yes, maybe people were upset that there are new hires in the office, but more than anything, i think they're upset with the management. it was pretty low that he'd just gotten back from vacation and that it happened at the very beginning of the week, first thing in the morning. a week could never feel as long as this one was. nicole and kelley eventually came around and started treating me the same way. dustyn kept telling me that i just needed to give them time. i had to keep reminding myself about how much it was a shock to me when i got let go from my job last december, right before christmas from idr-studio. i loved the job, loved the work, loved the people. i cried, and frankly, felt pretty bitter all during the christmas break. i didn't expect it, and certainly no one else in the office predicted it. when i thought about how i felt when that happened, it made waiting for kelley and nicole to come around again, a little easier.

the hard person to deal with has been nancy. she's probably the most childish person i've ever met. she made it blatantly obvious taht she was avoiding me. she wouldn't even look at me when she would walk my way. i asked for help a few times last week - things i asked others to help me out with before bothering her. her response would be "i'll be there in a few minutes." i have YET to talk to her about those things. the only time she was minutely nice was when she needed me to run an errand for her. things quickly went back to normal afterwards. i mean, come on. she's in her 40s, at the earliest.

the strange part now is that i've heard nicole talking about her willingness to leave this office and be transferred elsewhere now. how quickly things change. i remember writing the blog not long ago about her passion for this office. i guess when things aren't going exactly how you want them to, you move on. she's considering transferring permanently back to the LA office. i would be sad because she's my age and we get along well, but at the same time, if she feels like that's what she needs to do, then so be it. i'm not sure if she'll follow through with it once the shock of stephen fades away.

yesterday, there was a gensler family party at jeff's house, and it was fantastic. details will have to come at a later time, but i learned that regardless of what happens in this office, dustyn and i are exactly where we should be.