First Day of Work

Today was my first day working in New York City. Even though it's just a short-term assignment through the end of September, I went to work with 8 million other New Yorkers, and it felt great. But the no. 4 train at 8 a.m. is no joke. I waited for a second train before just squeezing myself inside the closing doors and standing face-to-face with half a dozen random people all the way to Grand Central.

As I exited the subway station and walked down 42nd Street, I could hear the music from Good Morning America's Friday morning "Summer Concert Series" in Bryant Park. The department of the media company I am working for has an office on several floors of a building adjacent to the park. Apparently Carrie Underwood was performing. I could see the stage from across the street, but I did not have time to stop because I had to be upstairs by 9 a.m. and I wanted to be a little early. It's pretty cool to have live entertainment on your way to work. Next week, Christina Aguilera will be there. Maybe I'll try to get to 42nd Street early and watch her perform in Bryant Park while I eat breakfast. That is definitely not a sentence you can often type about your life anywhere else in the world! (Reason #33,076 that I love New York City)

Too bad Terrence and I didn't think about checking out the GMA free Friday morning summer concert last week. Pharrell and Kanye West performed on August 4. Lionel Richie performs on August 25, and then the summer concerts are over for 2006. Guess I'll have to catch some in 2007!

At work, I assisted with preparation for next week's event. The Internet segment of the media company is having a social event for their Internet ad clients on the rooftop of one of their Manhattan skyrises, and as is usually the case with major events, everything is a little bit behind schedule and the peddle is really to the metal. I rolled T-shirts and tied them with ribbon for the gift baskets we are going to assemble on Monday. When we unexpectedly ran out of ribbon, I offered to run the errand to buy more. The ribbon store on 38th Street, where the company has a credit account, didn't have any more of the ribbon we needed so I had to run around trying to find a close-enough match. By the time I found a suitable replacement, I had already been out 45 minutes. I didn't really get a lunch break, which I expected - being experienced myself in the run-up to events and knowing that lunches are often few and far between in the days before an event. My "break" was me running down 5th Avenue past the New York City Public Library thanking God I had chosen wide-heeled shoes this morning - a hotdog from a corner stand in one hand, a bag of ribbons in the other.

I spent the afternoon organizing files, taking inventory of goodies (mighty nice goodies, I might add) for the gift bags, packing boxes to ship to the event site on Monday, arranging back issues of one of the company's magazines and other busy work. The nine hours went by pretty fast today, but it helped that I like event planning, the employees are really nice and didn't make me feel like an invisible temp, and ... of course ... I'm working in New York City!