Rhonda Bracey: At Random

I’ve been in Perth the past two days, getting acquainted with the new company I’m about to start a three month part-time contract with. They are a BIG global company, and the project I’m working on is MASSIVE (many billions of dollars). So lots of new things to learn. The actual work should be relatively simple, but, as always, learning the corporate acronyms, getting some understanding of the corporate culture, the document management system, the file structure, the smart card login system, the people who make things happen, the business processes, etc. takes time. However, it’s an exciting project to be part of—even if it’s in just a small way.

While I’ve been here, the large company has put me up in one of Perth’s 5-star international ‘brand name’ hotels and I ended up in a massively huge King Suite (yes, I know that’s not all grammatically correct, but this suite is damned big… nearly as big as a small house!). They’ve set a precedent now!

Dining/study area of King Suite - this is part of what I saw when I first walked in

Living area of King Suite - this is what I saw when I turned to the right

Bedroom of King Suite - only part of this separate room...

While I’ve been here, I’ve had the pleasure of catching up with some old friends. I had dinner last night with Clare who was the person who referred me to the powers that be in the BIG company, and we caught up on a lot of news. She also gave me a rundown on some of the high-level background stuff about the company and the project, which was great. Tonight I had dinner with Claudia, with whom I go back an awfully long way—we were at Teachers’ College together doing the Library Studies course. I think I was 17 when we first met. Such a long time ago. It was wonderful catching up with them both.

And tomorrow morning I’m having breakfast with Gail, with whom I worked for some four or five years at the first software company we both ever worked for. Then it’s off to the Perth office of the Brisbane company to pick up their new software release, learn about the new stuff, and to catch up  lunch with two workmates from there over lunch. It sounds like I’ve been on an eating feast! But seriously, I’ve been working hard and learning lots. I just can’t talk about most of it.

It’s sorta been nice being back in an office again, especially one with such fantastic views over the city and river, but I’ll be glad to be heading back to my home office tomorrow. I really couldn’t work in a cube farm ever again, and having worked with those views before, I can tell you that you learn to ignore them fairly quickly. Give me the birds and the trees any day.

There’s no other word for it. I got the biggest surprise today—and a most pleasant one at that. A real warm fuzzy surprise, and totally unexpected.

The small team I’ve been working with on the big project for the Queensland company had their final meeting with me today. But it wasn’t a meeting. It was a ‘surprise party’ to say “Thank you”.

So, how do you have a surprise party from the other side of the country? You enlist the help of people at this end (my husband and good friend Bobbie), and get other things happening at their end.

The meeting starts. They want me to connect via webcam but as I haven’t used the webcam or headset on the new laptop, and as this was a last minute request, the technology beats me. So we go back to a standard Skype conference call. Which is a pity because they wanted to see my face while the surprise was happening.

Steve D sends me a file which is a PowerPoint presentation created by Sarah P (I think), and I open it. It’s a neat presentation thanking me for the work I’ve done on the project and compares a good technical writer (me!) to Da Vinci, with a doctored photo of the Mona Lisa with my face. Cute! Then there’s my name spelled out with a suitable word for each letter, the last of which is A for ‘anal’. Which I then proved by pointing out that someone (Sarah?) forgot the ‘f’ in H for ‘helpful’!! and that Hamish B didn’t pick it up in proofing it. Lots of laughs about that one. And no-one suggested it was a deliberate error. LOL.

Then after the great presentation has finished, Mel K (my boss) asks my husband to do his bit. He reaches into a shelf and pulls out a gift and card for me! The card was signed by many members of the team, and the gift is the Ricky Tims Convergence Quilt book. I was blown away. My husband then pours me a glass of wine (that was part of the surprise too), so I can take the toast from the others… at 2 in the afternoon!

I was blown away for a few reasons:

• The choice of gift was absolutely appropriate and the card was signed by many members on this project
• My husband was complicit in all this without my knowledge—he received the gift and card and hid it from me without me knowing; he was in regular contact with Mel regarding the timing of all this and setting up the toast etc.
• Bobbie was involved somehow (choice of book would be a given, but I think it was mailed to her by Mel and she ‘couriered’ it to the house without me knowing); somehow Mel and Bobbie got each other’s email addresses and/or phone numbers—again, I suspect my husband…
• The time and effort that went into getting all this organised behind my back was particularly special as I know that the team is working their butts off on this project and are moving corporate offices at the end of this week

Thank you guys! It was a terrific surprise and a great send off. You’ve been a fantastic team to work with, and it won’t be ‘goodbye’. I promise.

I almost forgot… One other cool thing. Sarah P asked if I’d mind if she named her next fish after me. Then later she referred to her “fish called Rhonda“. ROFLMAO!