Thursday, January 8, 2009

Everything I ever needed to know I learned in my sorority…kinda (1/7)

As it’s the first Wednesday of the term and Sigma Delts (and all others) are settling down for their first meetings of the term, I feel that I should reflect on how meetings go at Common Impact.
First a story: when we first implemented our social calendar this summer our genius of a social chair (genius of an event planner at least) forgot to enter the “PM” in for everything. So suddenly we were supposed to be having meetings at 10am on Wednesday mornings. I mean…I knew sophomore summer was ragey.
Little did we know then – at the innocent beginning of the summer – that before long we’d be three games deep and still not done with the series at 10am.
The purpose of that story is to impose upon you how foreign the idea of an 8:30 AM meeting is to me. (Answer: very foreign. More foreign than Japanese toilets. Which are VERY foreign.)
But it was a little okay. Because the CEO and the COO of Common Impact are both Dartmouth alums, so when they handed out the agenda (a little like the poster we have a SD except a little smaller, a little less colorful and a little more detailed), I was unsurprised to see that the meeting started off with toasts. Because all productive meetings do.
More so, I was unfazed by the fact that nobody was there at 8:30 on the dot (well except for me because I’m an intern). They were all waiting for coffee. Much like how our meetings at school can’t start until JFish pulls up out back and unloads her trunk. Beverages are necessary in both atmospheres.
It was a little strange for me that people were toasted for productive things like cleaning the supply closet and not embarrassing things like hooking up with a guy who has nipple piercings (reference…1…2…3…GO!). Nor were they followed by somebody drinking out of a shoe. But then again…I did not email my new bosses asking them to please “haze me harder.” (Why did I ever delete that blitz?)
When the financial advisor (read: treasurer) spoke, people listened to her. She did not simply scream “PAY YOUR DUES!” and then sit back down. That was interesting. She did, however, admit that the way she came up with the budget was just by adding up the numbers that everybody gave her…which is pretty much how we do it too.
We got a Marketing Tip of the Week = Hayley Kennedy’s Top Ten?
But my favorite part by far came at the end. Which was kind of the giveaway that I wasn’t supposed to be there. The CEO kind of looked up and introduced me, and then asked who was going to be responsible for me for the next eight weeks. It was as if we chose bigs and littles while the pledges were sitting right there. Except for me, it was like being picked last for the dodgeball team, except when each team insists that you go to the other one because they just don’t want you. I smiled, I gave sad eyes, I rambled off my qualifications…but it just seemed like nobody quite wanted to deal with an energetic little puppy dog running around the office (miss you Ellie). And then I was left to think about this quandary: if there had been no Jenny Fisher…would I have had a big sis?

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