my beard is now beginning its 6th week of existence. only three more to go until the end of 2007. i’ve been called grizzly adams 5 times at work last week. is there another joke? i mean, come on, i know i work with some creative people, so i’m expecting better. speaking of work and my beard, here’s a story from Friday…

last week at work was a big review where a lot of high ranking people came to town. there was a staff meeting on Friday with some pretty high ranking people where they announced a restructuring of the team, and how they were going to divide responsibility between Denver and New Orleans. they went around and introduced the managers who were sitting at the conference table, the usual. then one of the higher ranking Denver guys says “could we take about 7 minutes and go around the room so we can put names with faces.” i thought “great, i hate having to do this stuff”. so since i was sitting at the front of the room, and everyone at the table had already said their name, etc, i didn’t get much time to get creative. i was in the 2nd row. i was nervous about what i was going to say. then the guy three seats down from me adds the tagline that “he goes to meetings”, so i thought, “hey, i can say something about my beard.” when it got to my turn to stand up and say something, i stood up, told everyone my name, that i was a designer on the service module, and then said “by the way, don’t remember me as the guy with the beard, because i don’t usually have a beard.” it was a success! the room laughed! one of the guys i know from Denver who was sitting at the conference table gave me the head nod as he laughed. even the head engineer for the service module laughed and asked “is it going to be changing soon?” to which i said “yes, in about a month.” then it went to the next person and continued. some of the other guys after me tried to ride my coattails, with “i’ve always had a beard” but nobody laughed. after the meeting was over, one of the Denver guys even came up to me and asked me about it. i got to tell him about how my friends were in a beard contest and i was just kind of supporting them and trying to grow my beard until the end of 2007. what i said had a better effect than i thought, and i got to get face time with people i probably would not have before.

i did get to talk to the head engineer after the meeting before i left, plus the guy i know from Denver for a while, and felt better about my job. some new opportunities might be coming up, so i’m anxious to see what will happen in the next couple of months.