Rich Men & Rich Food

I just came home from dinner with the corporate director (Jeff) of environmental affairs, my two mentors, and our corporate site support guy (Randy)...(my boss skipped dinner to deal with 13 year old adopted son issues). Peter (one of my mentors) and I arrived early, just as Jeff & Randy pulled up. We waited for them in the parking lot to greet them. As we turned to walk to the restaurant, I accidently stepped out of my left pointy-toed 3 inch heeled black slip on (yes, I am an engineer, and my name ain't Grace), but I slipped it back on and didn't sweat it.

The dinner conversation was filled with talk about kids, rental property, life in NO post-Katrina, the economy, environmental issues, & international vacations. Randy asked me if I'd been on any exotic vacations recently (the last time he was here, I'd just flown in from New Zealand the night before). I told them about my unplanned trip to Italy last February where I met the Norwegian and my subsequent trip to Norway just before Katrina. Randy said, "I hate talking to her! It's like something out of a movie!"

While we ate our crab cakes served on a bed of linguine smothered in creamy butter based sauce, I listened to these men go on and on about various things, realizing how early I am in my career (all of those guys have at least 25+ years of experience each...and they're all making well into six figures). Bill (my other mentor) shared that he was helping his younger son with Algebra homework last night, but he couldn't remember how to do the thing with the matrices. I piped up and said, "Oh yeah! Cramer's rule" and then proceeded to explain how it's calculated. They all looked at me like, "How do you remember that?!" I then remembered the most important math for dinner conversation: God gives you two ears and one mouth for a reason...you're supposed to listen twice as much as you talk...especially when in the company of men who make twice as much as you do and have been working for more than twice as long.