Last week, I was given a work assignment as part of a leadership training program. Unfortunately, this week’s illness prevented me from attending the ceremony and presenting my result, so I am sharing it here, because I am loathe to let good prose go to waste.
I have been given an assignment to produce a platter of scones, and to document my experience, end-to-end, of the process and it’s consequences. I present them below, in the form of a diary:
Monday, 1st December:
Amy informs me that she has received Lou’s secret assignment files to print, but she can’t as they were sent in Mac format. I offer to print them, but I am not supposed to see them. Lou resends them in PDF and Amy prints and envelopes them. I weep for the loss of the intelligence I could have gathered.
Wednesday, 3rd December:
I collect my envelope from my mailbox. It says to open on the 5th. I think to myself that we were told we’d get 2 weeks to prepare the secret project, but there’s no point in lodging my complaint – we’re here now, all we can do is forge ahead. I put the envelope in my work bag and drive home, wondering what it is about. I shake it and find nothing abnormal in it’s response – no coins, keys, bullets, or nuclear weapons.
Friday, 5th December:
I am off sick, with what I assume is food poisoning from questionable lunch catered at the APWA luncheon the day before. I complain to myself slightly about the injustice of it all – I go halfway across town and they make me sick? The gall! But I am comforted by the reminder of the 20-dollar Starbucks gift card I received as a door raffle prize. Ce que l’on gagne d’une main, on le perd de l’autre ![1] In this melee, I forget to open the envelope.
Saturday, 6th December:
I open the envelope. You are asking me to bake something? It’s been a good 10 years since I’ve baked anything, but I’ll give it a go. I add the requisite bits to my shopping list for the next day. Outside, snow begins to fall. The weatherman says it’ll go all day. I consider my plate decorative strategy, and snuggle under a blanket with the dog and the newspaper. I complete my book, The Crisis Caravan, and ponder it’s contents.
Sunday, 7th December:
I depart for the grocery store after breakfast. The snow has entombed us – later, it would be decided by the NWS that we’d received 8 inches overnight. Plow men hadn’t been out in my subdivision yet. I started the car, and pulled out of the driveway. As the car’s antenna saw the sky, it started the satellite radio back to the station it was running when I parked it – Les Tubes Franco, a French pop station. The voice of Henri Des sings happily « J’suis content, c’est l’printemps, aujourd’hui j’ai rien à faire… [2]» I assume, given the weather, that this is some kind of divine joke. I turn the radio to Headlines 24/7 as I approach the gatehouse to leave my subdivision and hit the open road. I slowly work my way up Randall Road, observing a number of vehicles spun out in the ditches, several having kissed stoplights or telephone poles. I know slowly is the safest way to do it, so I continue to plod my way north, only once achieving the truly high speed of 30mph. As I went north, the snow seemed to thicken on the ground, and the conditions worsened. The anchor of the news channel informs me of vehicular waste and destruction across the northern Illinois area, as I arrive to the Jewel parking lot. The parking lot, and the store itself, were packed to the gunwales – everyone in Chicago, myself included, needed to get their shopping done before the Bears/Packers game started that afternoon. I escape relatively unharmed, to retreat home and determine the path of action. I decide the format of this paper on my drive home.
Monday, 8th December:
During the preparation for the Senior Staff meeting, I try floating the idea that having Teo or Ben prepare my scones would be a show of my delegatorial abilities. Others report they have tried this and were shot down, so I resign myself to making my own scones once more. I begin to feel worse as the day progresses.
Tuesday, 9th December – Morning:
I wake at 6h30 with a terrible chill and attack of shaking, again. I finally gave in and brought myself to the urgent care down the road – they identify a swollen, warm boil on my arm as an infection, and say I’m lucky I didn’t wind up in the hospital, that it was likely growing all weekend. They send me home with a note for HR, enough Amoxicillin to kill a moderately-sized horse, and orders to rest. I inform Amy, who works with Lou and Jeremy – eventually they decide they can Zoom me in to the meeting via Jeremy’s laptop. They still expect me to bake scones, despite nobody but me being able to eat them due to the infection risk, and the noted difficulty in conveying scones through a video camera. Quelle insolence ! [3] But, I’ll do it.
Tuesday, 9th December – Evening
I feel a sense of listlessness that can only be explained by the presence of a low-level systemic infection and the mental weight of SCONES. I begin the preparation process. I’ll be honest, I was supposed to mix it with a pastry utensil, but I found it more enjoyable (and I had a finer level of control) just using the tools God put on the end of my arms. I doled it out, and only folded raspberries into half of it – I do not particularly enjoy raspberries, and considering that nobody but my mother and I will eat these, it seemed to be a reasonable thing to do. We may have sampled the corner of a finished scone, and found it to be very pleasant. Now, I just have to figure out how I’m going to shove these through my laptop’s microphone in the morning.
Wednesday, 10th December, 05h30
I wake earlier than usual in a clamor of sweat and general unpleasantness. Shortly after waking, I become acutely aware that all the pain medications have worn off overnight. I think back to my book, and a story therein, about warlords in the Sierra Leone who were best known for removing arms of rebels – I wonder to myself if this would put an end to this infection. I decide it’s a more prudent move to instead forage for some breakfast, take some more pain medication and my antibiotics, and try to rest. My arm shall live to fight another day.
[1] That which one wins in one hand, one loses in the other!
[2] I’m happy, it’s Springtime, and today I’ve nothing to do!
[3] Translation of this line is left as an exercise to the reader.
à demain, chéries !
