Suitable

I love my boss. We get along great, I have a lot of respect for him, he is incredibly generous. Also, he is a whole head shorter than me.

Today I spent a day "in meetings," working on some "documents" and talking a few things over with Men in Suits. This is very much not my element, but I went with it anyway, pretending that I knew exactly what I was doing. Curiously enough, I think I pulled it off.

When the two financial types came into the office, there was a flurry of activity, I shook their hands, we got straight down to business. At a desk, in chairs. We talked for two hours, discussing a variety of technical details that I actually understood. I asked pertinent questions. I may be on my way to adulthood.

At the end of our meeting, they suggested we go run some things by my boss, and I obliged. I told them to go on ahead, and that I would meet them at the store as soon as I had put away the extra stool we had stolen from a neighboring boutique. They went ahead.

And when I walked in to where two Men in Suits and my boss were, suddenly it occured to me: all three of these men - who were technically my "superiors" - were the exact same height. They all came up to my chin. Literally.

It felt very strange to be a part of such an official, business-like procedure while towering over three men twice my age. Plus, as mentioned, they were in suits. I was wearing a hoodie.

I also only got 3 hours of sleep last night (I had a very unexpected and random burst of insomnia) and it took everything I had not to giggle and giggle and giggle at the awkwardness of it all. Eventually, I just sat down... it was simply too much. They remained standing, probably relieved to physically assert their authority once again.

In the end: yay! I got through The Big Meeting and only have quadrupled my workload for the month. I think it's sort of funny that I have been put in charge of steering this ship. I mean, eventually, I'm going to be doing the occasional 50 000 euro transaction here, people.

This from the girl who quivered a bit when she bought a new cell phone today using her freebie points. I had to pay 19 euros, and I seriously hesitated doing so even though my current phone is broken. On the metro immediately following the purchase, I tried to justify getting the 19-euro phone instead of the 1-euro phone by wondering what the last non-necessity (food, metro tickets, blood tests) I bought myself was. It was the pregnancy book (also 19 euros) that I picked up in November. Besides that, nada. That made me smile, because at that rate, I would have a yearly budget of just under 120 euros for frivolous goods. So I felt better about my 19-euro folly.

This all brings me back to my meeting this afternoon.

The Men in Suits talked for a moment today about online payments, and how certain cards cannot work online. They mentioned that these were cards reserved for people who don't have a lot of money, or whose bank is obligated to moniter their spending for some reason or another. Then they chuckled and said, "I don't think the people with those cards are exactly your sort of clientle," implying that we're clearly all united together in the kind of stratosphere where people have premium cards and more flexible payment options. I didn't have the heart to tell them that I have a restricted card, myself, so I went along and pretended we were stratopheric neighbors. I'm not sure if my co-chuckling was convincing, but maybe my amazonian status was enough to distract them.