Blissful Friendships

I had lunch with an old friend from my prior company today and it was an awesome respite from the insanity that is sometimes my life. We worked together for four years and have been friends since the day he found me crying in the warehouse and comforted me, even though I was probably not making a lot of sense. Ever since whenever I’ve needed a shoulder to cry on over anything work related, PMPM (don’t ask, it is one of those really stupid nicknames that people end up with when they work together too long) was always there for me. In fact, our other friend always tells me I have to go find PMPM when he thinks I’m ready to turn on the water works.

The four years we worked together were incredibly intense. We first met when he was the project manager (PM) of a labeling project and I was a total novice who knew absolutely nothing about project management, requirements gathering, test scripts or any of the geeky stuff that’s now my life. He patiently coached me through writing my very first test script (my mom was so proud she framed it, just kidding) and read the many iterations of my requirements documents. We also snuck out to Starbucks (I mean went to an offsite meeting) at least once a week to dissect work, life, and dish on all the great gossip.
PMPM kept our team together when internal and external forces threatened to blow us apart. He kept his cool when dealing with a very uncool engineer who believed everyone in IT was his personal was monkey and when, in the time before I’d embraced my inner b*tch, our ABAPer called me one and I took offense. He managed to get us all calmed back down and sometimes we even sat around the campfire and sang kumbaya (okay, not really…but we did get drunk together if that counts).

I ended up working for PMPM again on my my very first SAP implementation and that’s when I figured out what I wanted to be when I grew up. I watched, observed, and learned from a master and now I can do it almost as well as he can. He saw me through some of the worst times in my professional life when my boss was demanding more than I could give and life on the home front wasn’t so rosy because I was traveling all the time. He was one of the people who told me in no uncertain terms that I needed to get some balance in my life.

More than my PM, PMPM has been my friend and wise counsel over the past six years. Although I’ll never profess to be as wise as he is, I’ve done my share of listening to his complaints ranging from our rogue team member in Germany to his struggles at his last gig, which were remarkably similar to my struggles. What was really cool about seeing PMPM today is that he looked happier than he’s looked in a long time. The last few times we’d met for lunch, he’d looked like a man under a tremendous burden and today he was happy. I told him I’d trade places with him and I’d take hanging out at home and working on home improvement projects and he could go back and deal with my insanity. For some reason, he didn’t think that was a great trade.

Even though we haven’t worked together for more than two years, he’s still able to make me smile and convince me that everything really will be all right. The bliss of old friends who understand you, understand your history, and can make everything better is priceless.

PS: I had two nicknames: PM Jr and DB (domineering b*tch)

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Raine Shakti

Raine Shakti believes in living her life cairn by cairn and in helping others learn to do the same. Her day job is in the training and communications field and her best professional experiences are when she is able to empower people. She has spent the last few years reclaiming her life and her inner warrior. Part of this journey was becoming an ordained priestess with the Fellowship of Isis. Her Matron deities are Nephthys who has helped her become a true virgin woman, the Morrigan who has taught her what it means to be sovereign, and Yemaya who has taught her the strength in having a loving heart.

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