Old friends and new colleagues

Blessings for old friends and new colleagues. Earlier this week I had lunch with Jamie, a former co-worker and Toastmasters colleague and current friend (pictured above top), who is about to finish an M.B.A. degree and help unveil a new building - that folks in the town where Stephanie works hope will help turn around the downtown there - and move into the building, whose complex public and private financing she arranged (as a YMCA chief financial officer). Good going, Jamie, and best wishes with the stretch run.

I also talked today with two friends facing job challenges. My friend Abby (pictured above middle), who I hope to see in Boston, is trying stretch her job as editor of a magazine that a left-liberal Boston think tank that studies the Right. Helping pursue stories on the Right's attack on stem cell research and on mainline Protestant churches in the United States and Africa is helping keep her going, while she contemplates doing labor research. I also talked with my friend Gary, whose family I did not get to see while I was in Tallahassee. Ironically, he's just come back from Boston vacation (like my friend Kurt - they and their spouses - all friends of ours - shared a birth preparation class) to find that his father-in-law (our friend Christine's father) had had a stroke and heart attack while traveling in Ireland (he's still there) and was getting laid off by the "Miami Herald" - historically one of Florida's two elite papers - thanks to contraction in the newspaper business (see "Media challenges") and his lack of seniority. I talked with Kurt and Gary trying to find out information for a research project, and I caught Gary (pictured above bottom) at the "Herald" Tallahassee capital bureau, where he worked for several years, even though his last day was July 3. Abby was a graduate school classmate of mine and close friend in New York City. Gary and Christine were colleagues of mine at the old "Florida Flambeau," the essentially now-defunct independent daily that was once the Florida State University student newspaper. Abby had gotten back recently from a New School event honoring our former professor Chuck Tilly. She said no one was as frank as I had been in "Remembering Chuck Tilly." She got to meet other former students of Tilly and my recently arrived New School faculty. I did not make it, but a surprise person who did: another former classmate, Warren. My family and I visited with him and his family in Orlando, he and his son and I visited in St. Pete, and I frequently run into him and his family at sociology meetings. Warren did not get tenure at a Florida school and his subsequent job search has not panned out yet. Warren doesn't love Florida (though I like Orlando), but his wife has a law practice there and we'll see what happens. Say prayers for Abby, Gary, and Warren and their job struggles.

Not one but two new colleagues have recently joined us at work. After having essentially no new staff after me for my first three years there, in the past year Susan and Becky have joined us as administrative assistants. In the past month, Joelle has moved here from Wisconsin and joined us as an intermediate-level researcher and this week Hilary has joined us as a (highly educated - BA in religious studies and Spanish) administrative assistant - apparently, partly due to the recession/slack labor market. Suddenly, we have nine colleagues total (thanks in part to the U.S. Congregational Life Survey Wave 2 grant/work), and so we had to move our welcome/birthday party for Hilary (drats - I forgot to take pictures) to a different conference "room." Hilary and Susan spoke most - and women outnumbered men 7:2 (our manager sometimes speaks little at these more social gatherings). In the old days our former manager and the one guy administrative assistant spoke most. Sometimes I speak most - though no one is going to get speak much with 9-10 people (we're still apparently looking to fill one more position, the one I applied for) - which can be kind of bland. Already, it became clear that Hilary comes from a different class background from many of us - and especially compared with some of the AAs - her family owns a boat and her father - a corporate scientist - collects sports/race cars. She sounds very interesting but we'll have to see if this creates any class tension within our ranks. She and her boyfriend are buying a condo (thanks in part to job security from landing our job?) so I will remain the only renter among the nine of us. One of our managers predicted several months ago that the staff would be very different in a few short months - though this hiring took longer than we had hoped - and with four new people in the lsat year it will certainly be the case. Hilary violated one office norm by not opening her birthday card when she got it, but perhaps she'll learn. Already, we've changed some things, because Susan likes cutting the birthday cake, and the birthday person used to do this. Ida, Christy, and I - all staying late yesterday - decorated Hilary's office the night before last. Blessings for my new colleagues - especially Joelle and Hilary - and let's say a prayer for the dynamics in our office and for all of us.