Sunday, November 02, 2014

My guy misses me - scheduled date night on Sunday

My guy had thought that he would be dropping by the office last week, but that visit didn't transpire. So, he spent the entire week working from home.

Work continues to be crazy. I get along well with my team, which is a plus. However, there are challenges with two of the three writers that I work with.

The scary thing is that the next senior technical writer isn't exactly a trained writer. She is technical, which makes understanding how our software works easier. However, her first language isn't English, so I end up teaching her technical writing 101.

I like teach folks how to write better. The downside is that it puts a damper on actually producing quality work when you have a writer who you have spent a ton of time working on writing mechanics and they don't fully sink into her head.

I also have to have a side discussion with her about business writing. I don't think that saying you folks twice in the same sentence to an audience of software developers and project managers to be professional. Sure, you want them to respond to your e-mail, but it should not be that informal in tone.

The other new writer is not assertive. It's who she is. Writers tend to be shy and quiet by default. I am half of that, so I am a bit of an exception. I am quiet when I work and I am okay with that. However, I am far more social than these two writers combined.

Anyway, I just went off on a tangent that I wasn't expecting...

Oh, yes. I can tell when my guy truly misses me. He sends me more e-mails and tries to contact me more than he typically does.

On Friday, he had forwarded his travel itinerary. It had a notice about getting an e-visa as a visitor to Turkey. He will travel there next weekend. I will follow suit a week after that. I had meant to write back to him, thanking him for sending it to me. Things got busy at work that I forgot.

Later in the day, my guy sent me another e-mail, asking how my week was so far. He was chattier than usual, telling me about how his week was boring, but productive. He also wished me a good weekend and reminded me to set my clock back an hour for Daylight Saving Time.

I didn't respond to either e-mail. I had to head home and prepare to shell out goodies to Halloween visitors. It was a lot of fun, despite the evening being rainy and cooler than it should be in late October.

I logged on to my computer after midnight. I went to shower. I came back maybe twenty minutes later and my guy was on Skype, wondering whether I would be awake.

As most of you know, I tend to write blog posts after midnight. I am a strange creature. I am a night owl who has no trouble getting up early in the morning. Don't ask. That answer will take another blog post to sort out.

We chatted and caught up. I told him about getting my new passport in the mail the other week. We talked about the e-visa application (it takes five minutes to complete and cost $60.70 USD, which is frankly a ripoff, but must be done).

He also told me that he would be in Toronto on Sunday. He teaches a course on the side.
"I'm downtown," he told me.
"Wow, that's different," I replied.
"Noon till 6 pm."
"That's a long time," I said.
"Yes," he responded. "I miss you."
It is significant that he said that he missed me. Most of the time, I am the first one to mention that. I told him that he was sweet and that I missed him, too.

I had suggested that we could do dinner after he was done with his course, if he was game. He was.

I asked where he would be downtown. He had an idea of the address, but he didn't know if the street ended with East or West.
"I have to go back to the e-mail," he told me.
"Oh, no. That could be an issue for directionally challenged guy," I replied.
"But, no problem for cute Asian girl," he teased back.
"You're so sweet. What's wrong with you?!"
"I guess I just miss you."
"It's nice to hear that I'm missed. You haven't said that for a while."
"When I'm in a good mood, I always miss you."
"Well, I hope that your mood continues to be good."
"Me, too."
"It'll good to see you downtown."
"It's good to see you anywhere," he said sweetly.
He was definitely in a good mood. It's nice to have a date night, especially on a Sunday, when you typically dread the fact that your weekend is nearly over. Spending it with someone special makes going back to the work following day far more bearable.

4 comments:

  1. Hey CB...Sorry your guy missed your scheduled date night and you have challenging co-workers. Depending on what I'm doing, I sometimes end up working with team members for whom English is not their first language and they have trouble with sentence construction, consistency and punctuation. I spend more of my time correcting their mistakes. Of course they do much better with English than I would with their languages. ;)

    Hope you and your guy have a lovely dinner.

    Hugs and Blessings...
    Cat

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    1. Yes, your team members sound like mine! I feel the same way about spending more time fixing what they have written and explaining why I have made the changes.

      My guy and I had a great date night. I will be blogging about it in a couple of posts.

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  2. Speaking in another language is very different than writing in it. Especially if the language is about a niche in the English language. Some people are born with a feeling for the correct language, some have to work on it.
    I understand that in times of time pressure it is time consuming, time you don't have. On the other hand it is an investment in other people's.skills. On my 50th birthday I made a bucket list and one thing on it was to learn to write better English. I.do that by writing a lot and hope in combination with reading I will develop a feeling for it...
    Maybe when I'm retired I will subscribe to an English grammer course. Smile.


    Love to hear the rest of the story...

    Han

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    1. That's true. I always look at taking the time to point out grammatical technicalities to be an investment. However, it is a bit frustrating when the person does not absorb that information as well as you'd like.

      I think that you are doing a fine job writing so many blog posts to write better English while enjoying the fine art of English.

      Maybe by the time you retire, you will be teaching me English at the rate that you're going!

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