Schwag
I got a free pen today that is so nice, a giant version of it could actually serve as a certified pimp cane. If I were the size of a large rat, I would have already adopted a swagger to my walk.
Its top is screw-on, so you can carry it without worrying about explosions. It also has the appearance of being made of chrome, with nice silvery lettering.
I got a hinged pen that [what’s the opposite of “retracts” while preserving the root of the word … “tracts?” … whatever it is, place that word here] when you unfold it, meaning it is also (at least nominally) pocket-safe, although I’m sure theory would not consistently track with reality in that case.
I also have a small core sample of sandstone with a pectin inscribed on it. Scratching it reveals the hint of hydrocarbon odor, thus justifying its existence and award. Además, I received my second Ferrari keychain. I believe the first one “drove away,” we might say, to the possession of my Beloved. Totally with my endorsement, of course. Perhaps this one will not wander so far.
What I didn’t receive was another Carrying Appliance, which the Dutchmen apparently value quite highly, as I have already had the chance to destroy (superficially, at least) the one from last year through heavy use and receive an identical model this year. I assume they saw the light, noting that many interns were actually using their prior-gifted Carrying Appliances to haul all the schwag we were receiving at Bellaire today.
I missed out on the flashlight because I opted out of changing a tire on an engineless racecar (hence the Ferrari tie-in, for the careful readers out there). I instead chilled out (literally) eating ice cream and talking to folks who were fun to talk to. This was probably a good call.
I find I tend to relate to Finance, Accounting, and MIS (the dominant “global functions” in Shell-speak) folks as well or better than I do with other engineers, for the most part, although that is by no means universal or even reliable. Maybe it’s just the inverse effect of having people think you’ll be a technocrat butthole and you turn out to, in fact, seem to have a soul.
My relative performance between Verbal and Math (favored the former over the latter notably) on the GMAT subscores, I believe, betrays my lack of sensibility to towing the party line in terms of the engineering profession.
As a final note before beginning some nice off-the-clock extra work: is it somehow indicative that the dash on a computer keyboard is up with the plus and equal signs? Wouldn’t a grammarian, if represented on the “QWERTY Consortium” or what have you, have placed this figure on a more intuitively punctuation-based area of the keyboard?