November 11, 2011
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Later That Afternoon (related to yesterday’s post)
Monday a new guy named Pedro joined our IT team. He works for our New York City office, and yesterday afternoon he had his first team phone call with us. About sixty seconds in to the call our boss Chris had to take another call for a moment.
Chris: “Everyone is on the line. I won’t take the time to introduce the entire team over the phone. But I will introduce Pedro… [brief intro]… Sorry guys. I’ve got to take another call for a moment. Talk amongst yourselves.”
I couldn’t let the moment pass with normal banter when there a perfect opportunity to completely confuse Pedro existed. Aside from our boss and his office mate, he hasn’t had real interactions with the rest of us, aside from phone interviews, so he had no idea what to expect.
Me (in a very monotone, uninspired, dry voice): “Welcome to the team. We’re……….. really ….. awesome.”
*Some laughter from the rest of the line.*
Me (super dry): “Do you like Celine Dion?”
I love it. His first chance to interact with the team, and the first question asked is whether he likes Celine Dion. He obviously wanted to make a good impression and definitely doesn’t care for Celine Dion, but he didn’t want to say that because Celine seems to be important to our team for some reason. He then proceeded to spend the next several sentences politely saying he doesn’t like her music.
Pedro: “… so I don’t always like every performer or artist, but I do listen to some of every genre…”
Me (interrupting him): “So you’re okay with New Age Ska?”
Pedro (highly baffled and confused): “What?”
At that point, as a team we lost it and couldn’t keep it up any more. We just died laughing.
Chris: “Okay, I am back. We’re just going to move past the current conversation.”
