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A Race

I have a new schedule at work, and as a result, I am in the office much later than I used to be. Put it this way, the cleaning crew recognizes me. Now, it's not like I am having dinner in the office, but they clean later in the afternoon and I'm still there when they're doing their thing. It's a little bit of an oddity, but it is what it is. I also get to take more days off, though, so it seems like a pretty even trade.

As you can probably imagine, things become a little more relaxed around the office when most people have gone home. There aren't any parties, at least none to which I have been invited. But people will be more honest and more playful, so I have often had more interesting conversations after 6PM. People are just more willing to let their hair down after a long day, you know?

Anyhow, I also happen to have a few friends who occasionally stay late. In their cases, it's not mandated by their schedules, so I usually suggest to them that they should enjoy their evening. I'm stuck because I have to be there, so someone else might as well be out living the good life. Who else am I going to live vicariously through if they're typing away? Now, I get that everyone gets busy, so I don't push too much. But still, it's not unheard of for me to provide a friendly reminder that it is getting late, and that my friend would probably enjoy going home.

The last time this happened, though, we had some fun with it. You see, my friend insisted that she had one last thing she needed to do before leaving for the night. Incidentally, so did I, and it was also getting to be around quitting time for me, as well. So, I suggested that it was going to be a race to see who finished first.

Remember that bit about people being less corporate after a certain time? My friend said, "all right then, it's on." I have no idea what she was working on, but she and I do different types of work. We couldn't have possibly been doing anything even remotely close to what the other person was doing. Still, a race is a race, and I didn't want to lose. Let's just say that I started coding just a tad faster (how's that for making work fun?).

The best part was that I finished a split second before she did. I finished my task, pulled up an IM window, and typed in something to the effect of, "all right, just finished up. Didn't cheat or anything." And in the very next second, she replied with "done." We had both been typing up our "ha, I win!" messages pretty darn close to simultaneously. As soon as I realized that, I was suddenly glad that I didn't type a longer message to gloat or anything; that could've cost me the race.

Regardless, we both had a good laugh, wrapped up our respective days, and headed home. I did, however, have a little bounce in my step as I walked to my car.
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