My office does this really cool thing once a year called Day of Service, where they close the entire national office, in addition to all of our state offices and everyone signs up to volunteer at different locations. The volunteer work ranges from making food to building playgrounds to painting to knitting. So, as you can see, there are a wide range of activities to choose from.
Well, my boss and another colleague of mine found this one option that claimed that you would be working with kids and doing things like face painting and helping out with field day games. We thought this would be awesome. I mean, who doesn't love working with kids and we would get to be outside. Turns out, there were no kids involved, but in fact it was an adult day program field day. It was such a fun day and the participants were so awesome. They totally got into the spirit of the day and were so excited when they completed one of the field day tasks.
In any case, even though the service part was the most important, the most interesting point of the day is when my boss and I decided to race each other in the bean bag relay that had been set up. Now, mind you, this thing was set up with each person having two milk crates with six beanbags about 40 feet from each other (the milk crates not the beanbags) so this was certainly not a feat of massive athletic ability or endurance.
As we were getting ready to begin, a few thoughts were running through my head. The first...am I really about to run a race against my boss? The second...should I let her win? Third...I am about to run a relay race against my boss.
And we were off. Pretty much neck and neck until our colleague who was officiating noted that my boss was one bean bag ahead of me. Impossible, I thought. We have been side by side. I immediately began to cry foul...or at least 'she cheated!' over and over again. Although my cries were muffled by the fact that I couldn't breathe due to being massively out of breath after running only 80 feet.
It was in that moment that I realized two things. I will NOT let my boss win and I might lose my job. Ok, the second one wouldn't have really happened, but I definitely was not going to go down without a fight. So, I mustered up all of my speed and endurance to make up the difference. Slowly but surely with bean bags four and five I creeped back into contention. The last 40 feet were upon me and I ran with all my might...only to end up tying. (which of course really meant that I won by one beanbag, but whatever.)
So, even though the race was contentious, I have to say it is a pretty cool organization and boss to allow such a day in the middle of the week to occur. I still cry foul to my boss, but she will never admit what she did--she just looks at me with a twinkle in her eye and notes that she told her teenage daughters that 'we tied.'
Posted by Morgan
at 12:36 PM EDT