i love new york.: 2 Reasons I Love My Company

Reason #1 - My boss sent the entire company a semi-threatening email last week about a Monday night meeting, to be held at 6:45pm. "We have a lot to go over, so please expect to be here until 9pm," she wrote, adding that every employee MUST be in attendance. Monday came around and some of us asked whether (having the meeting go so late) we might be able to get a pizza or something. "No," she said, "we have snacks here." At 6:45, we were all dutifully in the kitchen, loaded with notepads and pens to take notes. I was making a few sandwiches for those of us not satisfied by chips. She broke us into groups of four. "Are we doing a trust exercise or something?" I asked wryly.

"I AM ONLY GOING TO SAY THIS ONCE," she proclaimed. "YOU ARE GOING TO 110 UNIVERSITY PLACE, SECOND FLOOR. The first team to get there gets 10 extra points, GO!"

We wasted about half a second on bewilderment before grabbing our things, ditching our sandwiches, and running out the door. When we arrived at the address, we saw it was Bowlmor Lanes, the neon-lit bowling alley of the Union Square neighborhood. Evann was waiting for us there with wristbands and strict instructions to go get a drink.

So drink we did.

Our company threw us a freaking SURPRISE PARTY.

Just because we've "all been working really hard lately."

And yes, they even had food for us.

Some people are better bowlers than others. Like Reilly...

And our fearless, generous leaders JJ...

And of course Maury.

It was a great opportunity to get to know some of our newest members, like Aussie Joe,

And Liz, my new partner in awkwardness. After a particularly good round, I went to high-five her. But she thought I was going for a hug. Then I tried to adapt by hugging her, but by that time she was trying to high-five me.

And cute li'l Donna, who became my personal cheerleader that night.

Especially because I suck at bowling.

After a strike, I was so excited that I started jumping around, promptly falling on a puddle of spilled beer and hitting my head. Don't worry, I'm okay, but it was nice to know that 20 people would come to my rescue after making an ass of myself.

The winning team... of course it's a rowdy group of drunk dudes.

So that was a pretty damn awesome thing of PS260 to do. But that's not the only reason I'm appreciating my company this week (and also not just because they're totally letting me leave the country for two months).

Reason #2 - We can build a fort in an edit room when we have a few minutes of down time.