Our boss, Kevin – in response to a bet for a new wardrobe from Kris – is visibly losing weight on a daily basis. At least they both said the bet was for a new wardrobe, but at the rate he’s taking it off I suspect there’s an – ahem – “special bonus” for him in that bet somewhere.
He’s getting so skinny that when I peered into the conference-slash-training room recently I almost didn’t recognize the man hunched over a worktable assembling terminal cables. It’s not the sort of thing one would normally expect the Master of All He Surveys to be doing anyway, but I’ve learned that QiSOFT is not the sort of company where the expected is ever the norm.
The terminals were for our LabLink equipment which feeds all sorts of information about values – like moisture content, weight, thickness, surface smoothness, porosity, etc.- into THE WORLD’S BEST SOFTWARE, that being the software produced by QiSOFT. (Most readers already know this, but it bears repeating for you newcomers).
Kevin had already assembled five pieces of the equipment and was handily using a crimping tool on the sixth, and last. He was surrounded by various tools, cords, a pair of needle-nose pliers, all kinds of electronic bits and pieces, and one quite large hefty wrench at hand to smack the first person with who asked him why he was the one doing the assembling. Recognizing a smacking wrench when I see one, I didn’t ask.
Instead, I looked around the room and admired how Franklin had set up and tested all the various computers, getting them all now ready and waiting for future trainees. The white board was in place and already covered with those strange hieroglyphics you’ll find on every white board in every office at QiSOFT. I believe it’s some sort of secret computer code, one that only computer programmers and computers can understand.
“There, I’m done,” Kevin said, laying down his finished project with satisfaction. I commented on the white boards being up after our recent move and his satisfaction carried over in his nod.
“Yes. You can’t beat a white board. There’s no substitute for working things out with a pen on the board,” he said, reading the incomprehensible scribbles there with a pleased smile.
I furrowed my brow and nodded thoughtfully, agreeing with him. I learned long ago one should always do that when a boss person speaks, even if you can’t read the writing on the wall.
Sam, wearing flats at long last (see earlier blog entitled “Rome, The Cat’s Away, and High Heels) was back in Savannah working on a number of projects, including Phase Two of our webpage update. But he stopped everything to kick off his shoe and peel off his sock to show me the impressive scar leftover from his Achilles’ tendon surgery.
I was properly horrified by the damage, to his satisfaction, so he replaced his footwear and went back to work making changes reflecting a name change by one of our certified agents in Barcelona, Spain; formerly Applitech Network, now Applitech Optimizing.
As he finished telling me about it, Melody spoke up from her desk across the room, “We are presently working on having our sales material translated into five languages, and our website, too. Our start is for Spanish, French German, Dutch, and Portuguese. We’ll track those to see which others are needed to better reach our customers, and to better support our distributors.”
(Working for an international company like QiSOFT makes me feel so sophisticated I can barely stand it sometimes, but since everyone else there is so cool about it, I wear my blasé’ cool face when I’m around the office staff. They wear that same face, but for them it’s a natural fit.)
Our new building has a revolving door downstairs and our global staff knows how to use it. Vincent was the one out of town this week and Kevin – volcano permitting – is getting ready for a trip to our office in England to get Kelly “established into the QiSOFT family.” And Michael is packing for Brazil, his “favorite destination place.”
Michael’s desk butts up again the hallway window, making it look like he’s hard at work inside a brightly lit aquarium. I suggested he paint some water plants along the bottom of the glass and make fish faces at passers-by, but I suspect he won’t follow through on that.
Al right now is busily “playing with the WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation),” and Franklin was “running an instruction and upgrade for a client,” the White Birch Paper Company. When I asked where the company was located Franklin gave me a startled look (low key, but still startled) and said he thought maybe in Kentucky, but didn’t know for sure.
“I go right into their system at my desk,” he explained.
And I thought, “Duh, of course,” and was grateful I hadn’t said it out loud the way I usually do.
I went into the breakroom to chat with Kris, who was in there making tea for all, and noticed a cartoon had appeared on the board there since my last visit.
But then, the Advancing QIsoft “army” is apparently fueled by tea.
So go pour yourself a cuppa and contemplate some profound thoughts, like, “What you do today is important. You are exchanging one day of your life for it.” – or – “Today really is the first day of the rest of our life.” – or – “There is more to life than increasing its speed.” There, you’ve got the idea … have fun.
And, as we tea drinkers say, we’ll see you back here in a fortnight.