The Rainbow

Now that the holidays are over, it’s back to the hard, hard labour I’m subject to on a daily basis. After a strenuous three days of work, it was time for another (sort-of) break – it’s time for our department’s yearly professional development excursion into Vancouver where we reflect on the hard labour of the past year and try to figure out solutions for the group to push on ahead for another year. As is my tradition, each year I blog about where we went, what we did – considering those things, this is my fourth PD blog! Have I really been working here that long? Yikes.

Regina, Brenda, and I carpooled in together mid-morning on Thursday. This year we were staying at the The Listel on Robson Street – my idea. Hope the hotel is nice or it’s my neck on the chopping block.











Not to shabby indeed! It’s no Westin in Ottawa or anything like that, but it’s certainly sufficient for my needs over the next 24 hours. Our meetings were held downstairs in the (duh) meeting rooms, so I dumped my junk and headed down there for lunch.








Deanna is just pretending that I’m not there, taking a picture. Nice try. It’s part of my schtick.





As you can see, I was a pig. Well, I was storing fat for the long afternoon ahead. Our workshop today was Colours. Have you had your colour done? When you do, you get totally pigeonholed into a specific stereotype and then you spend the rest of the day discussing how you are like your stereotype. Awesome. No really, I love colours.





As you can see, I’m the strongest in Orange, but Green isn’t far behind.

Orange

seeks change and variety
makes quick decisions
independent and competitive
extremely generous (I know, right?)
quick witted and funny
impatient with theory and semantics
may be pushy in seeking a decision (heh…heh?)
bend/break rules to get things done

Hm…well. What about green?

Green

logical and rational
quality conscious (and how!)
strategic thinker
innovative and ingenious
needs independence
requires private time
insensitivity to the feelings of others
provide information overload
impatience and lack of understanding towards emotional arguments/pleas
lack of concentration if disinterested
argumentative

Oi! It’s like voodoo.




Blue people. I know it might be difficult, but they are not to be confused with “Blue Man Group”.

Part of the workshop was to try to think like your least colour – mine was gold. Gold’s are really organized, dependable, prepared, loyal, helpful, narrow-minded, self-righteous, unforgiving, and pessimistic. Ha ha ha ha. It’s funny if you think about it. Anyway, I was the only one in my whole department, apparently, who is the least likely to be gold. I think that says something, but we can’t focus on that now. I was given $10, all by my lonesome, to try to run out and find a gift for the group of golds. I had 20 minutes, so I used the first 10 to dawdle and use the washroom, and the last 10 running like a chicken with my head chopped of.



I ended up buying them a giant pack of tealight candles because there were a lot of them and I didn’t want them to never forgive me for forgetting a person or two. Ha ha ha. The group of people buying for Oranges bought us scratch-and-win tickets. Yay! Us Oranges absolutely love money. And we didn’t win one thing. BOooooO!

We had some free time until dinner, so Brenda and I headed down Robson to do some shopping and eventually make our way to the Fairmont Vancouver for dinner.







The restaurant, Griffins, was also my idea. Call me selfish, but the only reason I suggested it was because of their bountiful dessert buffet that I knew would be included. But it all went over well – that place is great!













No late-night shenanigans this year…everyone just retired to their rooms and I got on the phone calling everyone far away as we had free long-distance. At least, I hope we did…I yakked for ages.

Ed. Note: I’m getting these things done finally! With this blog, November 2009 is done. Ha ha ha. I’ll be up to Christmas in no time…just in time for Easter!