Hats off to Roy Harper

4:18PM I'm sitting in my car, idling at the entrance to the Third Artery Tunnel, headed South on I93. Specifically, my car is standing still next to a blue sign for Tufts/ New England Medical Center.

4:30PM I emerge from the South end of the tunnel. I've traveled 1.7 miles. That averages out to about 6 mph.

5:02PM I reach the I93 South/ Route 3 South split. 10.8 miles down.

5:09PM I hit Exit 16B on Rt 3. 15.9 miles. Only took me 51 minutes to go just shy of 16 miles.

On the plus side, I got to listen to all of disc 2 of Echoes . That's got to be good for something.

We had our first Hats Off ceremony at work today. It's one of those lame customer service initiatives, right up there with Hawaiian shirt Fridays. The idea here is you nominate someone for a Hats Off by filling out an orange form with specific examples of occasions where he or she has gone beyond the call of duty. A committee reviews the submissions, and the winners are given a hunk of tranlusent plastic shaped like a top hat. Woohoo.
A good number of people were nominated, and apparently all of them got an award. RB got one, which was nice to see. I earned myself an ass whupping from Molius for nominating Trainwreck. Two of the biggest pain in the ass nurses we have won one. They got it for being good nurses.
I was not nominated, and was a little surprised by how ticked I was over it. I go out of my way to provide excellent customer service. Every day. People tell me they appreciate everything I do. Just not enough to fill out an orange form apparently.

That said, the best hats Off went to JM. He got it, so we were told, because he drove to our SW office when they lost power and transported all our flu vaccines up to the MN office to save them from going bad. Turns out, he told me later, he was just walking around the office, doing nothing, when the woman who drove them up to our office grabbed him and asked him to carry the boxes in and put the vaccines in the fridge.

That, my friends, is the best reason for an award I've heard this year. JM is my hero of the week.