What I'll miss most...

If I do this academic year in Mexico thing during 2009-2010, what I'll miss most may be surprising. I know I will long for my little veal pen of a cube at MegaCorp.

OK, not really. The 5x9 "compressed cube" with soft grey padded walls is far from an emotional experience for me, but the people who wander around it simply rock.

There's a tradition at our company around sabbaticals. When someone from the cube-dwellers' world returns from sabbatical, they are treated to some sort of cube remodel or redecoration - or else a practical joke of sorts that lets them know they were gone for eight or so weeks, but not forgotten. Our little area has turned this into an art form.

My then-manager/mentor/friend took off on her sabbatical last summer. Before her return, everything in her office was wrapped in aluminum foil. Everything.

We helped unwrap it after she returned and pictures were taken, but being good, socially-conscious Oregonians - what were we to do with all of that foil?!? Why - recycle! So - each subsequent sabbatical has meant not only coming up with an idea for how to best modify the soulless little box in honor of our colleague's return, but also how to reuse the foil.

One colleague is a dog fanatic, so her office was turned into a kennel, with stuffed pooches parked here and there, doggie bowls and a placemat, and a "leash" made from the foil. Those chains were then repurposed for my return, draped across the entryway of my office, and tied to a large ball with an ankle ring around it - the proverbial "ball and chain".

My office redecoration is the photo on top. Yeah - it was turned into a Starbucks. Those of you who've known me awhile may remember that I was a store manager & district skills' trainer back in the olden days, starting before the company went public and quitting when it hit about 100 stores. I still have my skills' trainer certificate hanging in my cube; it's not visible in this picture, but is just to the right of the "Viva Mexico" banner. That banner's one of the few things from my "normal" (is there such a thing?) cubicle; everything else was moved under the desk so the espresso machines could be put in place, along with cups, napkins, brochures, and beans. A sign on the wall read "In case sabbatical reentry doesn't work out, Plan B: Starbucks!"

Best of all, they gave me a bottled Mocha Frappucino, a couple boxes of pastries (shared with the hospitality staff at my parish later that day) and a box of biscotti. :)

It was great to come back to such a thoughtful and funny cube remodel. I headed off to San Jose the next day, and my friends restored my cube to its previous glory (?).

So that's the tradition. In this case, it's particularly touching, though, because while we all used to work in the same little organization, reorgs have scattered us to different subteams within a much bigger group. Truth be told, we all still do work together closely; we're friends, we know each other's areas of expertise, and the result of any two or more of us working together always produces something greater than just the sum of each of our individual work products.

I really missed these people.

One of them wasn't there to see the results of the redecoration. The colleague who covered my sabbatical went off on his own eight-week break two weeks before my return. I'm his primary coverage in his absence. He's also the one who comes up with many of the great ideas for what to do to the cubes, and then he somehow manages to avoid doing any of the work. Early October - payback time!

So what does this have to do with the kid, with me, with Mexico? Well ... nothing's written in stone yet, and the amount of work to do between now and June-ish looks daunting. BUT - the first pass at surveying the "veto-holders" of such an endeavor is over, and the responses are pretty clear. "Go south, chica!" The kid's dad & I talked about it over sushi last night. What're the dates we're thinking? What do I know about schools? Would we be in Mexico City, Guadalajara, or ...? What's the latitude, and the altitude? What's it like there?

Yeah. It's looking like the first stage - "Is this even remotely possible" - is a go. Now - moving on to the next steps.

It's funny - part of my job at work is managing content details for our lifecycle frameworks - the guides for how we do development across lots of different teams. I now find myself looking at this adventure of a year in Mexico as yet another project, with milestones and decision checkpoints. I'm identifying stakeholders, and if I'm not careful, I may even call a meeting - with PowerPoint.

Oh. A couple of y'all have asked if I'll continue to work while I'm there. I dunno, but I'm optimistic. The company is on the list of "significant stakeholders" - but not necessarily a veto-holder. Didn't see the point of jumping into that discussion before getting the green light from those who could raise issues that'd get me to call off the analysis already. However, I've passed the idea by some folks with good initial responses, so ... we'll see. Stay tuned. Maybe they'll let me take my comfy little cube with me...