As you might remember I had a jubilee day back in September for all the people that had their jubilee last year. Today was all about me because we celebrated my 10 years at the company today with the people I work with daily. My official jubilee date was December 16^th but my manager was extremely busy the last month of last year and asked me to postpone because he wanted to give me the jubilee I deserved so we postponed till today.

When I arrived at work there were posters everywhere on my way to the first floor where my office is. My manager had a colleague who is very good with photoshop made it. The subtitle says “in top shape to the next 10 years”.

At 10 am all my colleagues came to my managers office to congratulate me and after that my manager prepared a speech for me. Boy, he does know me well. I can’t remember everything (he did everything with only some words on a piece of paper) but I do remember some.

High standards: he told the others that I hardly ever make mistakes but when I do, he’s having fun for a week, mostly because I hate it so much to make mistakes. He said that happened twice since we work together.

Guardian angel versus pitbull: he says I’m very protective of the managers I work for and I do anything for them to help them do their job -> guardian angel. If I have to do something for them I go through walls if I have to to get it done -> pitbull. He also said he never has to write down what he asks me to do because he knows that once it’s asked, it’s done.

Discrete: he told everyone there that he could trust me a 100%, that I know everything what’s going on in the company but never tell anyone and how important that is for him.

Caring: he said I care for the managers I work for and I care for the ones at home: R., my family and friends and Bella of course. He said that I sometimes come to him and say that we need to have a talk and I usually have an idea how to do things better or how I can help one of the other managers of the company. He likes my initiative and that I’m always looking how I can help others. I can have a big mouth but deep down I’m a very sensitive and sweet girl who wants to take care of others.

Perfectionist: he used my running for this. He was already my manager when I started running and he knows how much time and effort I put into it. He said I should be more proud of what I’ve accomplished. He mentioned my DNF at the half marathon because of the heat. He knew how much I’ve trained for it and that I was ready. I was too hard on myself for not finishing that day, I should have looked back at how I got there and what I had accomplished with running. Bottom line: I should be more proud of my runs instead of looking at what went wrong. Hmmmm he could be right.

He ended by saying how glad he was that I am his assistant and hoped we have many more years of working together to come.

By that time I was blushing, I don’t like being in the spotlights, that’s why I chose this job: let me take care of things in the background and I’m happy. I had a little thank you prepared myself and it felt like I was shaking and blushing but my colleagues said later that I did great and it was a sweet speech. My last words were for my manager and the one I had worked for for 7 years because they are special for me.

Then I got a present, everyone had given some money to buy me a present and I got a couple of dinner cheques so R. and I can go out for dinner. We ended with cake and a group photo. The photos below one of my colleagues took with my camera but there was a professional photographer too and when I get his photos I’ll show them here.

With one of my favorite colleagues:

 On my right the manager I worked with for 7 years, he’s retiring this July. Next to him the manager I work for now.

So many came, this is not even half of the people that came for me.

Cake!

Well enough self-clarification for one day back to keeping both foot on the ground. But it does feel pretty damn good to be this appreciated.

Workouts:

After doing nothing for 2 days I did a short The Firm Express workout, cardio to see how I would feel and how it would go and it went okay. Still not 100% fit but much, much better.
Total time: 20 minutes.

This morning when I woke up I felt I had a setback and felt worse than yesterday. The decision to take an extra rest day was made quickly and I didn’t do anything today.

Weight Watchers review:

Three weeks down and many more to go. I had a totally off day on Thursday. I had a meeting including lunch and I ate too much. I find it hard to estimate what I eat when I don’t make it myself and I ended up not counting on Thursday. Friday I didn’t eat much good food because I was sick. But the other days of the week were good. The good news is that I just continued counting and eat healthy after an off day. And I was rewarded by another loss on the scale. Next week I’ll give an update on that.