Yesterday was our quarterly staff meeting, in which all the staff from all the locations come to a meeting center in Berkeley. We went over our collective mission, stats, finances, and then brainstormed and discussed what expectations of us are, who we answer to, how we affect the organization at large, how we'd like to see it change, what it would need to do to keep us as employees, etc. We also listened to a guest speaker talk about technology and usually we have a donor recipient come talk to us about their experience. This time they couldn't arrange that, which was disappointing, but there's always next time.

My real involvement in the staff meeting, though, was to put faces to names (since I'm in HR I see ALL the names, but have met few of the faces) and to be seen myself. And I realized that I really fit into this organization well. In one of the small group exercises/discussions, my group nominated me to present our views, and before we'd convened I'd hardly met anyone in the group yet. I made the whole organization laugh, intentionally, while I was presenting. I also participated in a presentation by all the administrative assistants in which they hoped to give people some background on where their experience lies and what they do now, in the hopes of personalizing us and garnering some respect. (I hadn't noticed this lacking, but apparently it's just a sensitive issue worth attention.) So I got a chance to talk about my experience with admin work, and my writing studies, and to joke about how if anyone had ever been to Middlebury, CT in the summer of 97 and ridden the Mad Mouse at Quassy, I was the one running the brakes. :)

My boss said she had all KINDS of people coming up to her and telling her how well they thought I fit into the organization, how capable and professional I was, how funny I was, how much they liked me, (and of course, how tall I was). Experiencing a day where I really got to see the face of the organization as a whole revealed to me that the average employee here is smart, dedicated, light-hearted, and even-tempered. It makes me really want to invest my time. For the first time, I can envision myself living in the bay area for more than just a year or two, and I can envision myself staying at a job for more than just a year -- as opposed to the annual wanderlust I seem to experience.

Time and management could change all that, and quickly. But for now, I really feel that not only did I survive the job-seeking experience in the Bay Area, but I came out on top, too.