Dear Diary,

It's the end of the week and I haven’t talked to you in many days.  Much to tell.  A lot of it about this glorious conference room which I write to you from while having my delicious lunch.

Talked to Jim on Monday about wanting to make this room a more relaxed atmosphere.   Like a comedy club or the Golden Globes, only businesslike.  With a better room design, I was betting that more people would appreciate my lectures, workplace mediation and impressions.

Jim advised me to get rid of the big table, and to replace it with a bunch of smaller tables. Sounded good. I did that on Tuesday.  After that, he told me people would listen more attentively if they weren’t so hungry.  Made sense to me. So on Wednesday I had a couple of new vending machines brought in.

On Thursday, Jim said adding a microwave and a stack of magazines would finish it off nicely. Thursday afternoon, I realized he was creating a second break room.  Today, I had the big table put back in and things returned to normal.

Didn’t get mad at him though, how could I?   Ryan has become a Death Eater (hehe – Jan wants me to stop using hehe but sometimes it’s necessary), and now Jim is my main protégé.  

We’re a lot alike. Except that his girlfriend didn’t get implanted and doesn’t make him dress up in a school girl’s outfit. As far as I know.  Will confirm and get back to you.

Besides, Jim helped me out of a bad mistake yesterday. I was in the break room, the real one, chilling out with Angela the accountant. I suggested she try a piece of my beef jerky.  She reminded me she was a vegetarian. I asked how serious she was about that. She really didn’t have any meat in her cauldron at home?

I know.  It doesn’t look good when I write it out like that.

Jim was sitting nearby and made one of his faces at me, and I caught myself. I meant to say kitchen of course, and quickly corrected myself a bunch of times.  It was an easy mistake, since Jan and I had just watched a History channel show last night about Puritans burning witches.  And you know how Angela always looks at work? Like a cross between both sides of that?

Anyway, diary – I am so glad that this room is back to normal.  I love it. The conference room is like Central Perk meets the Room of Requirement. It is my place of teaching.  It is where I bring everyone when there’s a situation that needs to be unsituated.  I make everyone gather in here and I impart the wisdom of my experience.  Not that I’m that old because I’m not but I am old enough to have wisdom – youngish wisdom.

The conference room had a very personal impact on my life too. This is where I first fell for Jan. She was visiting from New York, giving us all a lecture on how to cut costs without getting people fired.  Blah blah, you know how it is.  Who has time to listen to that?

She had an indefinable quality that drew me to her immediately.  I told that to Packer later and he said “So she gave you a boner?”  But it was more than that. She was hot, but she had class. It was a classy boner.  A classy boner that ended up changing both our lives. Me and Jan, not me and Packer.

So the room holds memories and importance to me. And is a surprisingly good place to watch a movie.

That’s it for now.  Text you later, by hand.

XOXO

Michael