staff meeting

One of the things I learned to dread most in my new job is staff meetings. In a normal situation, whole-company meetings inspire a certain sense of foreboding among the rank-and-file. But now imagine for a second, gentle reader, the added dimension of understanding absolutely nothing being said. Add to that the possibility that you may be called on, singled out, fired, or laughed at in front of 25 coworkers and picture the towering horror that an Icelandic staff meeting represented to me when I first arrived.

When I said to myself in Boston that I wanted to experience "challenges" by living in a new land, I guess this is what I meant. And I am for the most part living the dream. But Jiminy Christmas, I never expected the staff-meeting waking nightmare.

Well, we just had one now, and I am happy to report that my normal sense of white-knuckles panic and dread was for nothing. As the words spilling out of our fearless CEO's mouth piled on top of each other, my mind as usual picked them up and sorted them out into "yep, got it" and "ha?" buckets. But this time the "got it" bucket won out, and, at least in broad brush strokes, I knew what was goin' down. I even laughed at a couple of jokes. Not too shabby for a kid from the Merrimack Valley.