First Day At Work Stories

In last month’s survey, we included a bonus question that asked about the funniest part of your first day at your current job. You submitted a ton of hilarious stories and here are some of our favorites.

This is worth a few minutes of your Friday.

Uhhhh, is Anyone Home?

“Being told to sit and wait for someone to get me, and waiting almost 3 hours with no one in sight.”

 

“I was the first one in the office, and nobody showed up until hours later. It was a lonely and confusing morning.”

 

“Absolutely no one introduced themselves until 3 days later.”

 

“Nobody at the job returned my emails so I showed up a day late”.

Image result for first day at work memes

First Impressions Matter

“I borrowed a pair of heels from my mom and I could not walk in them and my boss kept asking if I was okay as I got a tour of the office”.

 

“Introducing myself to the Fed-Ex man thinking he was one of my bosses”.

 

“During meet-and-greet, as I was getting to know people, I was getting lazier with asking for everyone’s names and positions, so when I get to the last person, I said, “So what do you do here?” He was the founder and CEO. I just asked the Founder of the company what he did here.”

 

Co-Workers are Like a Big (Dysfunctional) Family

“Everyone at my office was so shocked when they heard what year I was born in– one woman said, I thought people born in 1996 were still in elementary school”!

 

“When new nurses all said where they were from and listed Virginia, Maryland, and North Carolina then when it came to me I said Vermont and someone asked, Did you live on a farm”?

 

“Our operations managing team thought I was a client and came out to shake my hand then realized I was a new hire…”

 

“My coworker couldn’t think of the word for photosynthesis so she googled “what is it called when plants eat the sun”.

Nailed it!

“I couldn’t turn on my computer monitor”.

 

“Lost my ID badge already”.

 

“In the middle of training, I kicked the power switch on my computer and shut the whole thing down. I had to wait 40 minutes while it turned back on and updated before I was able to get back to the training.”

 

“Spilling coffee on everything”.

 

“Printed out three I-9s because I messed up the date then the year”.

 

“After lunch I went to get my picture taken for my badge – turns out I had pen smeared across my face for the entire day until then…”

 

“Getting locked out because I thought that the front door to the building was secured since the handle would not turn. Turns out, I just had to pull the door really hard”.

 

dog work GIF

 

Kids Do the Darnedest Things

“The child I nanny pooped on me after I thought she was done pooping and took off her diaper”.

 

“One kid pointed to the tail of a horseshoe crab in our touch tank and said “That’s its penis”.”

 

“I’m a swim coach for the summer and one of my little swimmers lost her tooth. So she handed the tooth to me and hopped in the water like nothing happened”!

Living the Dream

“Walking in and greeting people just to drop off my sister’s lunch because I’m actually still unemployed”.

 

“This summer I’m in Montana building a yurt with my mother. My first day “on the job”, I met the two literally 60 year old men I will be spending the next solid month with. (They’re living with us too!)”

 

“Yikes, if only I had a job…lol”.

Ben & Jerry’s Free Cone Day Plus the Vermonster

It’s that time of year, Spring has sprung, the rain has settled upon us, and the flowers are starting to sprout. This week we decided to tackle the infamous Ben & Jerry’s Vermonster (a top 100 things to do at UVM before you graduate), in lieu of Free Cone Day on April 10th!

Ben & Jerry’s has celebrated free cone day since 1979 and this year, the tradition continues. This day is celebrated around the world at various Ben & Jerry’s scoop shops in 35+ countries. Wow, now that’s a lot of free ice cream! They will be serving free cones from noon to 8 pm so make sure you stop by your local scoop shop to celebrate the 40th anniversary of this Vermont tradition!

And with that in mind, we thought, why not go even bigger and eat a Vermonster?

Creating it is a work of art in itself, consisting of 20 scoops of any flavor, 4 different toppings, nuts, hot fudge, cookies, brownies, banana, whipped cream and caramel. Want to build some muscle while at work? Just head on over to your local Ben & Jerry’s and become a scoop shop professional and work out those arms!

We opted not to include all of these yummy additions in our Vermonster (bananas in ice cream? – not our thing), but we did choose the classics for the base; Americone Dream, chocolate, vanilla and strawberry ice cream. The toppings included rainbow sprinkles, m&m’s, peanuts, cookies, brownies, fudge, topped with lots of whipped cream. Pretty breezy right?

Want to see us eat this monstrosity?! Check out the time lapse video we made of us conquering this feat. *hint* we shared this with a few other folks.

P.S. if you haven’t been in the Church Street Ben & Jerry’s recently, they added a VW bus. Vroom Vroom! Until next time!

Domino’s, Dining Halls and Dives. Your Favorite Burlington Eateries, Part 1

This week we are launching a new series where we visit our favorite Burlington haunts, bring one of you with us for lunch, and discuss why these spots will always have a place in our heart.

(You can sign-up to come to lunch with us next month at the bottom of the post)

Burlington has a lot of great eateries, so it’s easy to associate your time at UVM with lots of great food. We are still finding new restaurants, while also revisiting old favorites and want to share that experience with you.

Our first stop is Henry Street Deli!

In case you didn’t know, Henry Street had a fire about a year ago, and thankfully without too much damage. They had to close for what felt like forever, but this provided an opportunity for some renovations. It’s still the same Deli we all know and love.

This week we had lunch with Dana Elleman ’16

What are you up to now?

It has been a year since I graduated and decided that I wasn’t ready to leave Burlington. Right now I am a graphic design intern for the Annual Giving Team at the UVM Foundation. I do things like design letterheads, inserts, logos, case statements, blog videos and other web graphics. I really enjoy it and I have learned so much the past few months.

Why did you choose Henry Street? 

I picked Henry Street because recently I moved across town and haven’t visited since they reopened. I needed to check out the new digs and get my favorite BBQ chicken sandwich. The Henry Street staff is great. They are true sandwich artists, master crafts people.

Sometimes, when I am feeling adventurous and not wanting my classic BBQ chick I’ll get a wildcard: a specialty sandwich made by the Henry Street employees after asking you a few questions about your preferences. It’s like the surprise of what’s inside the cereal box, I have yet to be disappointed by a Henry Street Wildcard sandwich.

It’s also great because they have everything you need, if you run out of toothpaste or toilet paper even beverages. You can get it all in this one stop shop.

Us waiting patiently for Dana’s sandwich, so we could all eat together.

So what did we get?

Dana: BBQ Chicken with bacon.

Kathryn: Oven roasted turkey, provolone cheese, lettuce, cucumbers, tomato, green peppers, and pesto mayo.

Ryan: Chipotle chicken, roasted peppers and onions, chipotle mayo

We took our spoils to Pomeroy Park, and found a nice patch of grass to eat, and reminisce about our favorite memories of Henry St.

Why does Henry Street have a special place in your heart?

Dana: Henry Street has a special place in my heart because they basically fed me for a whole year. It’s quick and you can grab it on the go. The best thing is calling ahead and then your sandwich is ready when you get there. It’s like magic. Henry Street is the one constant in my life.

Ryan: I didn’t live downtown until I moved back up to Burlington (Redstone Apartments, represent), so I never got the undergraduate Henry St. experience. Luckily I lived nearby during grad school and honestly ate there every weekday during the fall and winter. It was just WAY too good.

Each morning on the way to the library (being at the library was my job) I would order two breakfast sandwiches on english muffins: one with bacon, egg and cheese, and the other with sausage, egg and cheese plus ketchup. Nothing fancy, but somehow the flavors were extravagant, the heat of the sandwich cutting through the crisp morning air.

I have fond memories walking up the hill eating one, and then scarfing the second and washing it down with a large coffee in the library later in the morning. Even if the sandwich was cold, it was delicious. That combo will be forever connected to my studies. Now, every visit is a nostalgic reflection of yesteryear.

Kathryn: Henry Street was a weekend staple during my Junior/Senior year of college. No matter how hard my week had been with exams, papers, or the general struggles of college life, I could always rely on a Saturday morning walk to Henry Street Deli to clear my head, and a beautiful sausage egg and cheese breakfast sandwich to be waiting when I arrived there.

After college, my weekend relationship with Henry Street changed a bit. Now, my boyfriend and I usually swing by to grab a large sub before we head to the beach for the day, and it will feed us ALL DAY ( Trust me, that small sandwich had a full pound of turkey in it- their large sub is the size of a small child!).

 

We’re hoping to get out and visit all the classic Burlington eateries this year, but to do that we’ll need your help.

Sign-up to come to lunch with us and we will pick a random winner to join us for next month!

Where will we go next…it’s up to you!

Win a Pair of Red Sox Tickets! + Welcome Kathryn Meader ’15 to Afterword

Remember when we politely asked you to make a gift to UVM and get argyle socks in return?

Well, we kind of went crazy with all sock-related stuff last month and have a free pair of Boston Red Sox tickets to raffle off.

That’s right. A free pair of Red Sox tickets!!

The game is on Saturday, August 5th and it’s Vermonter Day at Fenway. There’s a pre-game reception with other UVM alums and the game starts at 7:10pm.

You may love the Red Sox or hate them (I’m not sure there’s an in-between) — either way, this is a sweet giveaway.

But before you enter our raffle, even more big news!

We have a new co-host on the blog, Class of 2015 alum and Boston native Kathryn Meader.

So as you can see from the picture, she actually has the tickets.

Wait? Another host? Yep.

Kathryn joined our team as Assistant Director of Annual Giving at the Foundation, and as a recent UVM grad, we thought, who better to help host the blog?

If you want to learn more about Kathryn, check out this week’s post for the 2017ers where she tells her “my first year out” story.

We are really ramping up for an exciting time here at Afterword, so stay tuned!

And now, without further ado…go ahead and enter the raffle for Red Sox tickets!

Remember Free Cone Day On Campus?

Hey everyone, I’m sure many of you remember waiting in line outside the Davis Center every April to get your free cone (or multiple free cones). It was surely a tradition for UVM students and lots of fun.

I’m here to share some sad news. The scoop shop on campus is closing later this year, so free cone day on campus will be no more. The good news is, the Church Street shop is reopening after a winter of renovations, so you can still get your cone in town — but campus will not be the same.

With this nightmarish scenario in mind, I visited the DC scoop shop for the last time this past Tuesday for cone day, and did my best to make the day last forever…

Check out the video below.