Watch out bad guys, these boys are tough

The guys at work had a farewell for me yesterday. It was really nice of them, even though I told them I didn't want one. They gave me this picture with notes from a lot a people and this flag and case. The flag has a plaque and certificate that say it was flown on a B-2 for me. I think that was pretty nice of them. They also gave us a gift card for our trip.

Two people made the presentations for the gifts--my supervisor and the deputy for the squadron (our commander was on leave fixing stuff that the home inspector said needed to be fixed--he's moving in 2 weeks). My supervisor said all kinds of nice stuff about me. Then the deputy got up and said more nice stuff about me. Specifically, she mentioned something Adrianne is forcing me to write about: April 1st I facilitated our squadron's leadership off-site. The deputy asked me a week or so before if I would be willing to do it (I think she was being polite because it isn't as if I could say, "You know, I really don't want to do that. I'd rather sit here at my desk and read the news.") It was a big complement, though, that she, and the Colonel would think to ask me to do it. To help put it in perspective, let me explain who I am and who else would be there. I'm a 1st Lu...leui...Lt--the second lowest possible officer. The other people there are 1 Colonel, 4 GS-14s, and a bunch of GS-13s--in other words, I've been in 3 years and the next lowest person has been in close to 20 years. As the facilitator, it would be my job to guide the discussion.

While the deputy had plans for what to do at the off-site, she invited me and all the supervisors to a meeting to discuss what should be on the agenda. People had different ideas, but I kicked into bossy mode and convinced them all to do what I wanted to do. Later the deputy and I had a meeting where we planned out the details of the off-site...I felt like she deferred to me about a lot of what to do. Blah blah blah...back to my story about the farewell.

The deputy said she and the colonel and all the other supervisors had a lot of respect for me. She also said I have a special ability to direct senior leaders to the outcome I want (which is a nice way of saying I'm manipulative/bossy). Most of what I did at the off-site and in general at work was just what other people talked about doing. I guess I'm really just a good listener...or maybe not...I hardly ever hear what Adrianne has to say the first time.

****

This is Adrianne typing now. He is right, I did force him to write the above. All of it is just really saying that Mike is Awesome with a capital A (Paul, that was for you, though you probably don't read our blog). So yeah, everyone at work loves Mike and he is awesome and since this is our blog, I can brag about him all I want. The flag thing was cool by the way....they don't just fly with flags in planes for anyone. And, they tried to find a Mormon pilot to fly it for him, which is nice and funny all at the same time. Anyway, Mike is going to miss the people at work. They were very good to him and they think he's great.