No commentary, just some links

Although people have asked me to share office stories on the blog, I'm careful to avoid work when I'm blogging because I don't want to become another of those sorry tales of someone canned for blogging -- maybe because of blabbing company secrets, not following party line or just not upholding the sort of image the company might want.

Not that I'm postsing pictures of me drunk on our office patio or photocopies of my butt, but still. People accidentally do stupid things and I'd prefer to follow the safe than sorry mantra rather than have my name become online slang.

So with that caveat out there, here's a quick update on what's been happening at work -- without commentary, just some links for you to catch up on if you haven't been reading your E&P.
-- Re-organization of the business units
-- Launch of a new mobile news offering and still more changes for text services, announced at annual meeting
-- And we picked up some new board members
-- Comment on company direction. More.


Have I made you nervous about your own blogging, by the way? Here's an ancient article with some still valid tips.
And you might want to think about your Twittering, too.

When last we left our heroine ...

As Margaret just pointed out in the comments, yes, it has been two months since I last blogged. Rather than try to catch you up on everything you've missed, here are a few highlights.

Happy to be unwanted

Shortly after voting in the presidential primary, the state of New York thanked me by sending me a jury summons. Appear at New York Supreme Court on April 4, it commanded. So I let my boss know I'd be off doing my civic duty, and when my day arrived, I headed downtown on the subway.

Only on my way down there, when a guy standing near me noticed me holding my summons and started making small talk, did I learn an important thing -- in New York, jury duty is a minimum two-day commitment. If they don't pick you for a jury your first day, they don't dismiss you. You come back for day two. I'd optimistically figured I'd be back at the office before lunchtime that first day. No dice.

Lunchtime of day #1, I treated myself to a meal at City Hall, a nice downtown restaurant where I sat at the bar and got pampered by a bored bartender. I sucked down several iced teas to fight off the inertia of sitting in a cavernous room where use of cell phones is (mercifully) prohibited.

Late that first day, a whole group of us got sent to a courtroom for evaluation in a case. The judge gave us some basics: this is a murder trial involving gangs and drug dealing, and it could go two or three weeks. If anyone feels they cannot commit to that length of time or that they would be uncomfortable with the kind of testimony you're going to hear, raise your hand. Out went half the room.

Those of us who were left were asked to return to the courtroom the next morning.

At the start of day two, Friday, the judge kept screening people out generally -- do you know any of the attorneys, does your religion prohibit you from sitting in judgment of another person, do you know any of these witnesses I'm about to name. Out went another dozen or two.

Then they drew 18 names to be the first considered for jury. I was one of them. We were all given a list of basic questions and we each responded while the attorneys took notes. What's your educational background, what kind of work do you do, have you ever been the victim of a crime?

One of the questions was whether any members of your family are in law enforcement. My dad was a career cop, I told them.
What kind of police work?
Lots of different things. Vice, undercover narcotics, he was shift commander when he retired.
Did he talk about his work at home?
Yes, he did.

The only other prospective juror I thought was a more obvious candidate to get kicked off was the woman to my left whose brother had been arrested for drug dealing and who later died of a drug overdose.

We got a lunch break, and I dined at Excellent Dumpling with two prospective jurors, including an Episcopal priest and an attorney. The dumplings were merely good, but the conversation was enjoyable.

After lunch, we had some follow up questions and we were shown in the courtroom, and out, then back in ... so slow, so inefficient ... until finally, four of us were asked to stay and the rest were allowed to leave. Thankfully, my name was not among those asked to stay.

Not only was I happy not to spend the next three weeks of my life looking at crime scene photos and worrying about the safety of sending a gang member to prison, but I had two other reasons to be happy about my removal -- I'm going to our annual meeting in D.C. in a week and would have missed that, and I was having my bosses over for dinner on Friday.

High-pressure dinner party

It sounds so Bewitched or something to have the boss over for dinner, doesn't it? How about my boss AND his boss?

There's some pressure to hosting a dinner party for guys my dad's age -- everything from wondering whether they'd be disappointed if there wasn't a big slab of meat on their plate to knowing they both live in the 'burbs and our Manhattan apartment is tiny compared to hosting people in a real house.

But I like my bosses and they've been good to me so I wanted to treat them to a meal. Plus in the last year I've gotten to know them better and realized that although they're both sort of shy, they've known each other something like 30+ years so when they're together, it's pretty easy to make conversation.

After my first day of jury duty, I came home and cooked like a fool. I'd chosen a menu based on what I could mostly do ahead. John set the table with his mom's silver and cleaned up the house while I made:
-- a brothy Italian-style soup, sort of like minestrone but not as filling
-- a roasted beet and goat cheese salad -- I got all the ingredients ready for assembly day of
-- marinara sauce -- pasta to be boiled day of
-- three-layer chocolate Kahlua cake with mocha frosting

Then the day of, I put out nuts, cheese, crackers and olives while John worked the bar for cocktail hour. It felt more relaxed than I expected, maybe because I'd done so much fo the work ahead of time? Or maybe because I had a big fat glass of red wine.

The one hiccup in the timing was that I decided to make shrimp scampi as part of the entree, because I just didn't know how old-school guys would feel about a veggie-only meal, and not only was it a recipe I'd never tried, you just can't make shrimp ahead of time. So after the soup, there was a brief intermission while I made shrimp.

Fortunately we have a pass-through kitchen so I didn't feel like I totally stranded John with the bosses, and once the first tray of shrimp came out, I sent those to the table and got people started while I finished up.

Overall, I think it went well. My boss's wife said she'd never been in a Manhattan apartment so if nothing else, she got a life experience out of it.

On the apartment search

Our apartment management is playing games with us so we'll very likely be moving in June.

They want to put in a 14-foot block of windows in our apartment, facing Central Park, which is lovely. But to do this, they basically need to take over half our living room. And they want us to sign an access agreement to get in for construction, but they won't include anything in the agreement about how long the project will take.

They say worst case scenario, it'll take five weeks, but they haven't yet done the first apartment so let's be honest, that's a worst case guess. I know enough about construction to know that no project goes according to plan and they all run late, so the second they find an extra layer of asbestos or realize they ordered some wrong part, it'll get delayed.

I think if it turns out to be 10 weeks instead of five, they should have to address that with us, but they don't agree.

Stephen Ross, the developer who gave $100 million to get Michigan's business school named for him, has an apartment building in my favorite part of town -- where one bedrooms go for about $5,000 a month! Now I understand where that b-school donation came from!

We probably won't be living in Steve Ross's building, unless having a diploma with his name on it somehow nets me a substantial discount.

Stay tuned for more updates on the housing search.