So while I was happy to be included on a work dinner invite list to all-you-can-eat sushi at a local restaurant near my office, I was already anticipating a long day. I left my apartment at 6:50 AM that morning and the dinner didn't start until 6 PM. And though I knew this meant a good 14 hour work day, door to door, this was a nice opportunity to spend time with a group of people outside of my immediate work group and I genuinely liked everyone that was there. Plus one of the senior managers had organized it as a "thank you" to a group of people, myself included, that had recently helped out on a particuarly challenging project. How can you turn down such a generous offer?
When I arrived at the restaurant with a colleague friend of mine, we were relieved to be the first people there. This meant that we had our choice of any seat at the table and could strategically plant ourselves to make a quick getaway when needed. We ended up sitting towards the middle of the long table, deciding that at least if the dinner conversation topics grew awkward on one side of us, we could turn the other way and have the option of diving into someone else's conversation.
So when the organizer of the event, the senior manager, sat down next to me, I was a bit taken aback. Now I really needed to be "on." No casual chatting about The Bachelor. Oh boy. Did I need to sound intellectual? What else was I going to talk about at these things? Certainly not "Banking" or "The Law." How boring!
We made small talk about the menu, the all you can eat amazing bargain of a $20 per person dinner (WAY cheaper than any sushi place I've gone to in NYC) and luckily one of The Husband's commercials came on the television in the restaurant - his voice over work is far more interesting to talk about than banking!
Then the food started arriving in an endless parade of platters. Separately, a nice big steaming bowl of edamame, those blessed little green pea pods I can eat like popcorn, came out as well. I started eating these and discussing The Husband. How he got into voice overs, etc. The Senior Manger Host Guy seemed very excited by this. Then his cell phone rang and I got the hint relatively quickly that this was a work related call. So there I was, munching my edamame, pushing out the pods with my fingers and popping them into my mouth when suddenly BAM, one of the peas shot out between my fingers and hit Senior Manager Host Guy right in the forehead.
Time was frozen as I waited for his reaction. He was still talking on his cell phone and I contemplated, then decided against, apologizing. I only had a second to do it and the moment came and went really quickly. I looked around to see if anyone else caught this edamame bullet event and the friend I had come with was already cracking up across the table. Busted. Senior Manager Host Guy never even acknowledged being attacked and I didn't want to embarrass him or myself by bringing it up in front of the group. So I did what any normal person would do under the circumstance: I pretended it never happened.
Dinner went on and the time came to leave to catch my train. On the ride back I emailed Senior Manager Guy the following:
Dear [Senior Manager Host Guy],I hope all of your work dinners this week and those in the future go a little smoother than mine did. Happy Monday!
Thank you so much for including me in the dinner tonight. The sushi was delicious and I hope to be invited to future outings like this. Also, I'd like to apologize for hitting you in the head with one of my edamame peas. I was aiming for my mouth, but obviously missed. I hope you can forgive me.
Sincerely,
Stacey
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