Hiking for pizza

Our division commander bought us pizza for lunch for our efforts a few weeks ago with server and desk moves. That was all well and good until I had to work for it (again). A co-worker and I went outside (in the hundred-degree weather) to wait for the pizza guy to show up "any minute". But twenty minutes later we knew something wasn't quite right. After checking several times on the status of the grub, our biggest fear was confirmed. They wouldn't let the pizza guy on the base. Keep in mind that pizza guys deliver on the base every day. But every now and then you get a gate guard that likes keeping people hungry.

So we decided to go meet the pizza guy at the gate. On foot. It was determined to be too much wasted effort to walk to a car, drive to the gate, drive back, drop off, park, walk in, etc. Well, it's close to a quarter-mile walk from my building to the gate. And the walk out to the gate was mostly tolerable. Then we learned that the co-worker forgot his badge and so couldn't get back in the gate if he exited the base, which left it to me to obtain the ten pizzas from the pizza guy.

Fortunately, I convinced the co-worker to wait for me inside the gate instead of heading back to the office, because ten pizzas is more cumbersome to carry a long distance than one might think. So we split the pizzas for the walk in, but over that distance (and in that heat), it was a less comfortable walk than I think we imagined when deciding that driving was not convenient. Someone did offer to give us a ride, but we were already about half way back, so we stuck it out (plus it wasn't our pizza to share should he have wanted as much).

Of course, it would figure that not only did we have to walk all that way to get to the building, but we had to take the pizzas to the furthest point in our office area where there was a free table. Free pizza is almost always worth a little extra work. But today I think we were pushing it.



Following the pizza lunch, it didn't help my tiredness any that I held a three hour staff meeting with my team. I know, what was I thinking. Well, I only intended for it to be an hour, but we had MUCH to talk about, with three products nearing a major milestone. We hardly even went off on any tangents.