And then there were 6

One of our group of seven new construction engineers had been seriously considering leaving for quite a while, and two weeks ago he made the final decision to that it wasn't for him and left. His primary reason was because he found he didn't like working for a large bureaucracy, but I think the real reason was because there's no free coffee on our floor. We may never know for sure. (Just kidding - I know it's the coffee.) We talked a lot about it with him. He's going to have to repay a very substantial amount to the government, but it's probably better to make the decision sooner than later since he knew it wasn't a good fit. It's unusual for someone to leave so early so it raised many eyebrows, but the "No coffee? NO WORK!" protest just isn't going to work, grammatically or otherwise. He admitted it was an expensive way to make friends in far away places that he'll be able to visit. He used to refer to our group as The Magnificent Seven, and now we're just the So-So Six.  We certainly all wish him the best - he's a great guy with a bright future, and hopefully our paths will cross again.

I had my first project-related secret meeting recently, which was very interesting. We have a project in [redacted], and we're [redacted] granny smith [redacted] mango [redacted]. Then he said "Hurry up" so we left. We'll see how it works out.

Speaking of secret stuff, I need to tell you all about our super awesome shredder for secret stuff. It produces what I would almost call a paper mist, it's unreal - far different from the 70s shredders shown in Argo. The first thing I thought when I saw it was "They'll never get that out of the carpet." To ordinary mortals, this might not seem interesting. But to the particularly mischievous, that fine paper purée has some amazingly messy potential. In my first year I'm probably unlikely to take too many risks, but I definitely need to keep that product in mind. Maybe I could put presents I give in a box of it to "protect" the present? Something to keep in mind for this holiday season...

(This post written while listening to Bruce Springsteen Working On The Highway.)