An Oldie But a Goodie

Here's a little blast from my past.  When I worked at the Federal Reserve, every summer all of the research assistants would have a photo op with Alan Greenspan.  We'd have about a week's notice, and then on the appointed day we would all gather in front of the Fed (if the weather was good) or in the main lobby (if the weather was bad).  The official Fed photographer would arrange us all just right so that we would fit within the frame, and then Greenspan would come in, tell a joke, pose for a couple pictures, and tell us all to get back to work.  I think my first year, one of the research assistants made an obscene gesture so nobody got a copy of the picture.  My second year, I somehow ended up in the back row, behind a big bushy head, and you can only see my forehead sticking out a little bit.  I'm pretty sure that picture is somewhere on facebook, but I just looked through all my Fed friends' albums and I couldn't find it.  My last year, I was determined to get a good picture.  Somehow I ended up on the front row (I definitely wasn't one of the shortest people there, but I wasn't going to argue with it; besides, everybody behind me was standing on the steps in front of the building, so I wasn't blocking anyone).  I thought I was wearing a good outfit and that my hair looked good (yikes, what did it look like on a bad day?!).  The photo day was about a week before I left to go back to school, so I knew I was cutting it close to get a copy, but one of my friends promised she'd send it to me if I missed it.  She never did, and I bugged her about it, but I never got it.  I was bummed.  That would have been a pretty cool little memento from my days at the Fed.

For some reason, this week, one week short of my 9 year anniversary of leaving (how can it have been that long?!), I got to thinking about that picture and I decided I wanted it.  So I emailed the Fed and asked if they could send me a copy.  Tangent: When I worked there, one of my duties was to answer emails from the public.  I bet you didn't know this, but if you have a question for the Fed, you can send them an email, and those emails will get sorted by division and section, and the appropriate person will get back to you.  My favorite emails were from a man in upstate New York who had frequent questions and advice on alchemy, and how we could control the money supply if ordinary citizens could were creating gold.  

Anyway...I sent my email to the Fed, asking if they could send me the Research Assistant picture from 2005, and half an hour later, it was sitting in my inbox.  The wonders of modern day interwebs.  So without further ado, I'd like to introduce you to me from 9 years ago, along with some of my friends.

I'm on the front row, 2nd from the left.  The boy on the front row, 2nd from the right was my junior assistant.  I trained him through my second year, and when I left, he became the senior and trained the new junior.  From his first day there, he tried to date the girl in red standing next to him. Within a few months they were inseparable.  It was kind of cute.  They're married now and live in Chicago (last I heard).  The girl on the back row, third from the right was also in our division.  Her counterpart was one of my best friends there, but he had left a week or two earlier, so he's not in this picture. The other girl next to my counterpart was the roommate of the girl in our division, so she hung out with us a lot, when we'd do lunch or if we did something after work.  The really tall guy in the fourth row from the back, 2nd from the right, wearing the suit is one of the nicest guys you could ever meet.  He wasn't in our division, but somehow he always hung out with us (I think he was roommates with some of the people in my division).  He ended up marrying my replacement.  His junior is the really short girl next to Greenspan.  She was also fun. Oh, and the guy standing right behind me was one of the foulest people I'd ever met.  If he gets remembered for nothing else, I'd like that to be written.

So there you go.