Monday, March 12, 2007

First Day at the Las Vegas Office

After a horrible night's sleep totalling about 3 hours, bathed in the green glow of the MGM Grand, Jeff and I started our first work day in Las Vegas. Everyone here is on vacation, of course, and is dressed in tank tops, shorts, and flip flops so we seem incredibly overdressed in our business casual attire. We met for breakfast at 7:30AM at the Studio Cafe, which is one of about 20 restaurants available in this hotel. Jeff had a hearty breakfast burrito, but I was feeling a bit delicate and shaky after such little sleep, so I had vanilla yogurt and berries, which was actually delicious and filling. Even though it was 7-ish in the morning, there were plenty of people in the casino playing poker and slots and drinking alcohol. We think they were actually left over from last night.

We met Chris (VP) and took a cab to our Las Vegas office. Our Vegas branch has only four employees, so it's a modest space in one of those very open air looking low rises that you see in cities with warm climates. One entire wall is lined with windows with a view of palm trees and the distant mountain range.


The project manager, Cameron, is from Toronto, but the rest of the employees are American. So, he has taken it upon himself to inject a little Canadiana into the office. For example, the server is named 'Celine' and she has a lucky bottle of maple syrup that keeps her from crashing. A very American touch is the aerosol can of Easy Cheese (yes, it really exists) that gets moved from cubicle to cubicle depending on who deserves punishment.


Everyone at the Vegas office is very friendly and a lot of fun. They're a really good group and they're doing such a good job supporting our Vegas clients. It turns out that Jeff and I will most likely not have direct contact with any clients while we are here. We will be supporting our guys only, which takes a lot of pressure off us.


With the time change, Daylight Savings, and the sleep deprivation, this was the longest day ever for me. I hit the wall at about 1PM and it was all I could do to stay awake. At about 5 we headed back to the hotel and went for dinner at Shibuya, a very swank sushi restaurant in our hotel. Happily, Jeff likes Japanese food too. We had miso soup, edamame, dragon rolls, and something called Shibuya rolls. I felt like having some sake so I asked the waiter to choose a sweet-ish one for us, which turned out to be $49 for a small carafe! I charged the entire meal to my room. It didn't feel so expensive that way.


Jeff isn't a big drinker so I had the lion's share of the sake and I'm a little tipsy. I'm looking forward to a nice, deep, 8-hour sleep to get me back on track.

Rumour has it that Cameron can get us tickets to see Blue Man Group. Neither of us has seen it before, so hopefully it'll work out. We also want to walk up the strip and check out all the other big hotels. Jeff came here last year and he says that I haven't seen anything yet. I'm looking forward to it. Vegas is fun. Goodnight everyone.

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