Wednesday – Lunch at the Fed
Mar. 11th, 2009 02:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ninanevermore.
.
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Yesterday I had lunch with my former coworker and friend, Astro Joe, who works in the Federal Reserve Branch Office building next door to where I work. I won a baseball autographed by a rookie player for the Houston Astros the other week in a United Way fundraiser, and I'd send Joe an email asking him if he wanted it. The player, Hunter Pence, is still wet behind the ears, but Joe is gaga about anything having to do with the Houston Astros baseball team. He said he would love to have it, and told me to just walk next door and he'd be happy to show me around the Fed and we could have lunch in the cafeteria there.
At the appointed time, I walked the short distance to the front gate of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas Houston Branch.*
It turns out that the front gate and grand entrance are largely ornamental. I'm sure the architect who designed them had noble intentions, but the part of Houston I work in doesn't see a lot of foot traffic, so the building management is only set up to receive people via the parking garage.
As I stood looking at the locked gate, a voice came out of the intercom box asking what I wanted. I explained that I was there to see someone.
"Do you have an appointment?" the woman asked.
I told her I was visiting a friend who worked in the building.
"Oh," she said, and paused while she considered what to do with me. "You're gonna need to go around to the side and talk to the guard there. I can't let you in here."
So I walked around to the side and toward the back of the building. The parking garage attendant seemed surprised to see someone on foot, but he pointed me toward the garage and told me where to find the elevator.
When I got off the elevator, the guard behind the front desk and the guard at the metal detector seemed surprised to see me. They get emailed to warm them about visiting government officials and the like, but it seems no one ever just shows up to the Fed to have lunch. At least, I seem to be the first person they ever encountered who did. After putting my purse in the bin to be x-rayed and walking through the metal detector, Astro Joe called me. With all the extra walking, searching, and detours to find an entrance I was actually allowed to enter, I was 8 minutes late for our appointment.
"I'm in the lobby over the parking garage, trying to explain that I'm harmless," I told him.
He laughed and said he'd come get me.
When Joe showed up, the two guards seemed relieved to know what to do with me. I was given a visitors badge and Joe showed me his office. He works for a non-profit that teaches people the skills they need to be entrepreneurs and all the facts about the workings of the economy that they might ever need.
"You don't get a lot of visitors here, do you?" I asked.
Joe thought about that for a while and then said, "No, I guess you're right." Then he told me I had to see the cafeteria. Instead of a hard working Korean couple serving short-order meals in the basement like my building has, they have a chef over at the Fed. I was impressed. The cafeteria at the Fed branch does not have cheap plastic chairs and linoleum-topped tables, and not only was my lunch not handed to me in a Styrofoam box, it was served on china.
The building is quite, with a gift shop and tasteful educational displays in alcoves. The ceilings are high and the hallways are wide, which is strange for a building that doesn't seem to have that many people in it. You feel like you should whisper when you talk in there. Joe says it's like working in a museum. The few people I saw were quiet, intense looking, and seemed very busy.
Over lunch Joe and I caught up on old times, old friends, and politics. We have similar views on politics, and it's always more fun to discuss things with someone you can find common ground with. I'm a centralist, but in an industry as conservative as mine that makes me suspiciously liberal to most people.
I was gone a little longer than I'd planned, and then had to walk the quarter mile or so back around the building to get back to my office (good thing I had on sensible shoes), because the front lobby was sealed off for visiting dignitaries at some conference.
When I got back to my office, I groaned and sent Joe an email saying: I forgot to give you your baseball !!!!!!!!
I guess I'll have to go back to the Fed for another chef-prepared meal so I can give it to him. Besides, when I told Jeff about the gift shop he said he wanted a Federal Reserve T-shirt (he's a dork sometimes). I guess a girls gotta do what a girls gotta do.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * # * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
*Some say this building is cool looking, and some say that it is an architectural abomination. My opinion is that for an architectural abomination, it's kind of cool looking.
.
.
Yesterday I had lunch with my former coworker and friend, Astro Joe, who works in the Federal Reserve Branch Office building next door to where I work. I won a baseball autographed by a rookie player for the Houston Astros the other week in a United Way fundraiser, and I'd send Joe an email asking him if he wanted it. The player, Hunter Pence, is still wet behind the ears, but Joe is gaga about anything having to do with the Houston Astros baseball team. He said he would love to have it, and told me to just walk next door and he'd be happy to show me around the Fed and we could have lunch in the cafeteria there.
At the appointed time, I walked the short distance to the front gate of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas Houston Branch.*
It turns out that the front gate and grand entrance are largely ornamental. I'm sure the architect who designed them had noble intentions, but the part of Houston I work in doesn't see a lot of foot traffic, so the building management is only set up to receive people via the parking garage.
As I stood looking at the locked gate, a voice came out of the intercom box asking what I wanted. I explained that I was there to see someone.
"Do you have an appointment?" the woman asked.
I told her I was visiting a friend who worked in the building.
"Oh," she said, and paused while she considered what to do with me. "You're gonna need to go around to the side and talk to the guard there. I can't let you in here."
So I walked around to the side and toward the back of the building. The parking garage attendant seemed surprised to see someone on foot, but he pointed me toward the garage and told me where to find the elevator.
When I got off the elevator, the guard behind the front desk and the guard at the metal detector seemed surprised to see me. They get emailed to warm them about visiting government officials and the like, but it seems no one ever just shows up to the Fed to have lunch. At least, I seem to be the first person they ever encountered who did. After putting my purse in the bin to be x-rayed and walking through the metal detector, Astro Joe called me. With all the extra walking, searching, and detours to find an entrance I was actually allowed to enter, I was 8 minutes late for our appointment.
"I'm in the lobby over the parking garage, trying to explain that I'm harmless," I told him.
He laughed and said he'd come get me.
When Joe showed up, the two guards seemed relieved to know what to do with me. I was given a visitors badge and Joe showed me his office. He works for a non-profit that teaches people the skills they need to be entrepreneurs and all the facts about the workings of the economy that they might ever need.
"You don't get a lot of visitors here, do you?" I asked.
Joe thought about that for a while and then said, "No, I guess you're right." Then he told me I had to see the cafeteria. Instead of a hard working Korean couple serving short-order meals in the basement like my building has, they have a chef over at the Fed. I was impressed. The cafeteria at the Fed branch does not have cheap plastic chairs and linoleum-topped tables, and not only was my lunch not handed to me in a Styrofoam box, it was served on china.
The building is quite, with a gift shop and tasteful educational displays in alcoves. The ceilings are high and the hallways are wide, which is strange for a building that doesn't seem to have that many people in it. You feel like you should whisper when you talk in there. Joe says it's like working in a museum. The few people I saw were quiet, intense looking, and seemed very busy.
Over lunch Joe and I caught up on old times, old friends, and politics. We have similar views on politics, and it's always more fun to discuss things with someone you can find common ground with. I'm a centralist, but in an industry as conservative as mine that makes me suspiciously liberal to most people.
I was gone a little longer than I'd planned, and then had to walk the quarter mile or so back around the building to get back to my office (good thing I had on sensible shoes), because the front lobby was sealed off for visiting dignitaries at some conference.
When I got back to my office, I groaned and sent Joe an email saying: I forgot to give you your baseball !!!!!!!!
I guess I'll have to go back to the Fed for another chef-prepared meal so I can give it to him. Besides, when I told Jeff about the gift shop he said he wanted a Federal Reserve T-shirt (he's a dork sometimes). I guess a girls gotta do what a girls gotta do.
*
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no subject
Date: 2009-03-11 08:27 pm (UTC)It sounds like the FedRes is staffed by the same clones.
no subject
Date: 2009-03-12 06:19 pm (UTC)One thing that strikes me as funny is that this building full of money is still missing tiles on it it's roof 5 months after the hurricane. Maybe they are still waiting on their check from FEMA...?
no subject
Date: 2009-03-12 12:54 pm (UTC)But what a schmancy place!! ^^
no subject
Date: 2009-03-12 06:23 pm (UTC)Excellent food, though. :)