merylinabarrel

Last night was the WOUB party/potluck that Erica and I planned. Originally, it was Erica's idea and she mentioned to me a few weeks ago that we should have some kind of get-together at the end of the summer because she'd heard our boss talking about the staff parties they used to have occasionally. She and I are kind of obsessed with our coworkers because they're all very cool and interesting, but they're all very weird, too. We're both really interested in everyone's lives, but we don't want to be creepy, so this kind of event seemed perfect.

Our boss was okay with the idea and said we could have the party at his house, so we made up a flier and handed out copies to everyone on the floor and anyone else who we see or talk to on a regular basis. Some people seemed really excited when we gave them the fliers and said, "Oh! thanks!" and other people didn't care at all and were more like, "Oh... thanks." The thing is, most of the people who work at WOUB tend to fit on the scale somewhere between a little shy and straight-up antisocial. They're not mean, but most people have very self-contained jobs where they're responsible for a certain aspect of the station and they don't interact with anyone outside of the two or three other people in their specific area.

To be honest, I worried we'd show up and it would be Erica and me, our boss and one guy down the hall, but we got there twenty minutes after it was supposed to start and there were already 15-20 or so people there. It was so great! We brought cheesy potatoes and cookies and all my leftover beer from my birthday party because I was never going to be able to drink it myself. We got to meet people's husbands and wives and families and be sociable and talkative and bubbly, rather than sullen and quiet like we are at work.

Other than people who brought their kids, we were the only students there. Everyone else was a real adult who works at the station as a career, but still everyone was so nice and seemed genuinely interested in us. They asked about our journalism classes and about our jobs at the station and were really complimentary about our work. A few people I work closely with knew that this week is going to be my last week in Athens, and they were asking me a bunch of questions about The Netherlands and where I was going to be and what I was going to study. They all said it sounded like a great opportunity and that I would have a blast.

Because it was a grown-up party, it started to wind down around 10, so we said goodbye to everybody and thanked our boss and his wife and headed out. We got in the car and Erica shut the door and said, "That was so great!" and I said, "Oh my god, tell me about it!" We've both been there a year and a half or two years and I think we finally feel like we know these people. I'm much sadder now about leaving, and I'm going to try to do a tiny series of documentaries about my job this week before I leave and post one each day. So look forward to that.