Dallas (Part 1)
Last Thursday Sam and I were able to arrange for a trip to Dallas, Sam had to meet with the colleagues he will be working with in Mercer and we thought it would be a good time to go house hunting.
We had a trip scheduled last month but we didn't make it because of lousy weather, it was snowing heavily, after getting to the airport and waiting for about seven hours the flight was cancelled.
This time round we had good weather, got on the plane and landed in Dallas safe and sound. Mich dearest went to spend time with our friends Felix and Candy, he has lots of fun with their girls besides the company was only able to pay for the two of us.
We got in to Dallas about 9pm, caught a cab and headed to our hotel, interestingly the cab driver had strong African looks and an accent to go with it so Sam dryly asked him where he was from. Turns out he was closer to home than we expected, well he was from Sudan and has been here for five years. It was nice because after telling him where we were from he took it upon himself to give us a guided tour of the city.
We were booked into one of the MagnoliaHotels, apart from the fact that it looked wow! the staff were very courteous, opened the cab door, took our luggage, opened the door to the hotel e.t.c I couldn't stop smiling I don't ever remember being pampered like that except on my wedding.
I had planned to sleep in the next day while Sam went to the office to meet the Partners and staff, then we would meet up later in the day to go look at housing. In the event I came with only casual clothing and sandals, I knew the weather would be fantastic here. Well, lets just say my plans were thrown out of the window.
Sam's colleagues were expecting both of us, since it was a Friday I figured my dress code would survive because in most offices Friday should be a "dress down" day. I was more concerned about meeting all these people, I was now thinking I need to ask intelligent questions and be energetic (which I wasn't feeling, not in the least). I was thinking interview mode, anti this is internship and you need to be at your best, I didn't want to get in the way of Sam getting a full time offer, anyway I also wanted to leave a good impression. I don't know why I felt under pressure, why I felt like I was going for an interview??! beats me too. Considering that I haven't been on the office scene for about 7 months now, I guess the work mode was kicking in.
Anyway so we go, the office looks quite impressive kind of reminded me of Price Waterhouse Coopers. As we took a walk around the office and got introduced to the staff (the few who were there) I noticed lots of empty desks and chairs, the setting was cubical like and of the roughly 20 cubicles only four people were actually there. You might think it was Ugandan style civil servants and some other offices we know where people leave coats on the chair and go doing personal business, no way. Majority were out at work, by the way not like down the street or something but in other states and countries. That's when it hit me that Sam will be in the same shoes, travelling like crazy. I'm told the average consultant travels every week, out on Monday and back on Thursday, not easy on the family I must say. I'm already praying to God about it, it's not going to be easy if he has to be away so often, but I trust God will look after us as He always has.
After meeting guys in the office we were invited to lunch with six of them, I was thinking damn, now the talk is going to be about consulting and complicated stuff which I don't have much knowledge on. I was wrong again, much of the conversations at the table centred around, family and travelling to Africa and China, that was nice because then I was able to talk with some authority. I was also amazed at how young the other consultants were, some were still leaving at home, but my guess is the average age is about 27 years.
Lunch was great, we had it at Neiman Marcus, I didn't bother sweating the menu, I just asked my neighbour what he was having and ordered the same, that was certainly a wise choice.
I decided to take the afternoon off and head back to the hotel while Sam stayed for some more meetings.
When he came back to the room later in the day he told me we were going out to dinner with one of his colleagues Matt and his wife. Oh oh!, I didn't have any dinner wear, remember I came with jeans and sandals and just looking at the ladies in Dallas they dress to kill, somewhat like kampalans. Then Sam's colleague calls to say something about how it's a really top end restaurant, that didn't help the situation. There was nothing I could do about it anyway, I put on what I had and that was it. We were picked up from the hotel and ooh! was Matt's wife dressed up or what?!
I tried to keep my mind off the matter but I noticed how she kept checking us out, again there was nothing to do about it. They gave us a brief tour of some of the places we could find housing, then we went to dinner at a five star restaurant. It was really great, nice food we are talking about five course meals here, excellent service, great conversation, it was a good dinner.
We got back to the hotel about 10:30pm and immediately went to be bed.
Saturday morning was ours to basically do some more research on housing, our flight was scheduled for 2:45 so we had about 5 hours.
We got on to the train and went to the different areas we had in mind, spoke to the management in charge and had a tour of the sample apartments that would be available. We ended up liking the apartments in a place called The Village. Reasons, close to the train line, shopping areas, enclosed and family friendly, Mich will have lots of running space. We were not able to make a payment since the lady wasn't sure which apartments would be available in the summer but she asked us to keep in touch closer to the time we are scheduled to come.
That pretty much took up all the time we had and now it was time to head back to the hotel, pick up our luggage and head to the Dallas Fort Worth Airport. We got a cab and interestingly this time the driver looked at us and asked if we were from Africa (we must look real ... and I guess we also don't have the accents). We told him and turns out he is from Ghana, looks Ghanaian, talks like a Ghanaian and how long has he been in Dallas? 27 years. If after 27 years he spoke like that, I guess the case is closed for some of us, not that we are trying anyway.
We reached the airport in good time only to be told that our flight had been cancelled, bad weather in Philly, snowstorm and stuff. The earliest we could get back to Philly was Monday evening, that is literally 2 more days in Dallas.
I told you how we failed to leave Philly some time because of bad weather, and now we could not leave Dallas because of a snow storm in Philly.
The dilemma is, either we are not supposed to be in Philly or we are not supposed leave Dallas.
I'll tell you more in the next blog.
We had a trip scheduled last month but we didn't make it because of lousy weather, it was snowing heavily, after getting to the airport and waiting for about seven hours the flight was cancelled.
This time round we had good weather, got on the plane and landed in Dallas safe and sound. Mich dearest went to spend time with our friends Felix and Candy, he has lots of fun with their girls besides the company was only able to pay for the two of us.
We got in to Dallas about 9pm, caught a cab and headed to our hotel, interestingly the cab driver had strong African looks and an accent to go with it so Sam dryly asked him where he was from. Turns out he was closer to home than we expected, well he was from Sudan and has been here for five years. It was nice because after telling him where we were from he took it upon himself to give us a guided tour of the city.
We were booked into one of the MagnoliaHotels, apart from the fact that it looked wow! the staff were very courteous, opened the cab door, took our luggage, opened the door to the hotel e.t.c I couldn't stop smiling I don't ever remember being pampered like that except on my wedding.
I had planned to sleep in the next day while Sam went to the office to meet the Partners and staff, then we would meet up later in the day to go look at housing. In the event I came with only casual clothing and sandals, I knew the weather would be fantastic here. Well, lets just say my plans were thrown out of the window.
Sam's colleagues were expecting both of us, since it was a Friday I figured my dress code would survive because in most offices Friday should be a "dress down" day. I was more concerned about meeting all these people, I was now thinking I need to ask intelligent questions and be energetic (which I wasn't feeling, not in the least). I was thinking interview mode, anti this is internship and you need to be at your best, I didn't want to get in the way of Sam getting a full time offer, anyway I also wanted to leave a good impression. I don't know why I felt under pressure, why I felt like I was going for an interview??! beats me too. Considering that I haven't been on the office scene for about 7 months now, I guess the work mode was kicking in.
Anyway so we go, the office looks quite impressive kind of reminded me of Price Waterhouse Coopers. As we took a walk around the office and got introduced to the staff (the few who were there) I noticed lots of empty desks and chairs, the setting was cubical like and of the roughly 20 cubicles only four people were actually there. You might think it was Ugandan style civil servants and some other offices we know where people leave coats on the chair and go doing personal business, no way. Majority were out at work, by the way not like down the street or something but in other states and countries. That's when it hit me that Sam will be in the same shoes, travelling like crazy. I'm told the average consultant travels every week, out on Monday and back on Thursday, not easy on the family I must say. I'm already praying to God about it, it's not going to be easy if he has to be away so often, but I trust God will look after us as He always has.
After meeting guys in the office we were invited to lunch with six of them, I was thinking damn, now the talk is going to be about consulting and complicated stuff which I don't have much knowledge on. I was wrong again, much of the conversations at the table centred around, family and travelling to Africa and China, that was nice because then I was able to talk with some authority. I was also amazed at how young the other consultants were, some were still leaving at home, but my guess is the average age is about 27 years.
Lunch was great, we had it at Neiman Marcus, I didn't bother sweating the menu, I just asked my neighbour what he was having and ordered the same, that was certainly a wise choice.
I decided to take the afternoon off and head back to the hotel while Sam stayed for some more meetings.
When he came back to the room later in the day he told me we were going out to dinner with one of his colleagues Matt and his wife. Oh oh!, I didn't have any dinner wear, remember I came with jeans and sandals and just looking at the ladies in Dallas they dress to kill, somewhat like kampalans. Then Sam's colleague calls to say something about how it's a really top end restaurant, that didn't help the situation. There was nothing I could do about it anyway, I put on what I had and that was it. We were picked up from the hotel and ooh! was Matt's wife dressed up or what?!
I tried to keep my mind off the matter but I noticed how she kept checking us out, again there was nothing to do about it. They gave us a brief tour of some of the places we could find housing, then we went to dinner at a five star restaurant. It was really great, nice food we are talking about five course meals here, excellent service, great conversation, it was a good dinner.
We got back to the hotel about 10:30pm and immediately went to be bed.
Saturday morning was ours to basically do some more research on housing, our flight was scheduled for 2:45 so we had about 5 hours.
We got on to the train and went to the different areas we had in mind, spoke to the management in charge and had a tour of the sample apartments that would be available. We ended up liking the apartments in a place called The Village. Reasons, close to the train line, shopping areas, enclosed and family friendly, Mich will have lots of running space. We were not able to make a payment since the lady wasn't sure which apartments would be available in the summer but she asked us to keep in touch closer to the time we are scheduled to come.
That pretty much took up all the time we had and now it was time to head back to the hotel, pick up our luggage and head to the Dallas Fort Worth Airport. We got a cab and interestingly this time the driver looked at us and asked if we were from Africa (we must look real ... and I guess we also don't have the accents). We told him and turns out he is from Ghana, looks Ghanaian, talks like a Ghanaian and how long has he been in Dallas? 27 years. If after 27 years he spoke like that, I guess the case is closed for some of us, not that we are trying anyway.
We reached the airport in good time only to be told that our flight had been cancelled, bad weather in Philly, snowstorm and stuff. The earliest we could get back to Philly was Monday evening, that is literally 2 more days in Dallas.
I told you how we failed to leave Philly some time because of bad weather, and now we could not leave Dallas because of a snow storm in Philly.
The dilemma is, either we are not supposed to be in Philly or we are not supposed leave Dallas.
I'll tell you more in the next blog.
MO!!!! I should have schooled you a bit before you left! hehee, yeah right! Anyway, I was cringing and growing smaller and smaller in my seat while reading about your dressing drama! Don't worry you are not alone. Happened to me once, at such times the best thing is to look like you don't give a hoot about what you look like and all the people who are dressed up are overly dressed! Okay, might not always work so just console yourself by saying you had no idea this would happen BUT never mention it otherwise people will know you are feeling uncomfortable, better still, just imagine they all have onion heads or something...whatever makes you feel less tense and miserable. Edna
ReplyDeleteThanks Ed, a lesson learned definitely. Two plans in mind now, either I will give you a buzz before I go places or carry some snazzy clothes where ever I go.
ReplyDelete