After the printer story I began to relive one of my more embarrassing moments. I was a new supervisor in a manufacturing facility, but came to them with several years of management experience behind me. It was my very first night on second shift. We had a meeting every night at the same time. My boss had little traditions that he cherished and since we all loved him we cherished these traditions also.
We all sat in the same seats every night. Whenever there was someone new on the shift, the new person was asked the same question by the boss. It came to be my turn to answer the famous question and I was wondering what the question was going to be.
At this point I should really tell you, I was the only woman in the room. Everyone had been trying to be on their best behavior not knowing how the new woman would react to such things as cussing. The boss had a rule if you were offended you were responsible to speak up for yourself and if anyone offended you from that point on then they had to pay $1 fine. We had one person for awhile that was very opposed to using the lord names in vain. We also had one person who when pissed through such vanities out of his mouth with an impressive flourish. This guy was also the only one who did not tiptoe around me and had a wonderfully demented sense of humor.
Well the boss asks me the question, what is the state bird of Illinois? I could not simply say I don’t know it’s not in my nature I was taking a guess. I am a huge Monty Python fan and started to immediately think of a clip from the bridge in Holy Grail. Then I was trying to think of a bird that was plentiful in Illinois. I also was thinking of a problem we had been having with birds in the barn lately. All of these thoughts flew through my head with lightening speed. Before I could stop it I hear myself blurt out. Uhm……Swallow.
Dead silence.
Then uproarious laughter. I was included in this laughter and was crying. I look across and see one guy resting his forehead on his hand shaking his head. The one with the great sense of humor looks over at the boss and said, I think she is going to fit in just fine here. The boss still ask the question every time we got someone knew but instead of bored disinterest it was now met with laughter from everyone in the room and they all looked to me for the answer. I always stated I knew what it wasn’t.
The best thing was from that point forward I was one of them and I fit in great. If only it were always that easy to secure you spot in the crowd. Oh and the answer cardinal just like Indiana.
