Strangers in a Strange Land

It's been a long couple of days - I was in charge of organizing and carrying out the itinerary for a couple of our New York office visitors.  At nearly every turn, something went wrong - the projector wouldn't work, I blew out the motherboard on my two-week-old laptop by plugging the ethernet cord into a digital phone jack (since when are those jacks the same size??), a program we were demoing as part of the visit wouldn't work as well on my Mac laptop that we used as a replacement, the woman who normally helps set up all these things had to go home sick yesterday, etc...it just started being funny, and I had to laugh.  "But of COURSE that broke!!" I started saying.  But I digress.  I'd met one of the NYC-ers before and had been up there myself, so I knew there were cultural differences.  Not just between NYC and Bham, but between the Time Inc Interactive offices and SPC.  A few choices moments:

Upon arrival at SPC:

New Yorker #1: Where could I get some coffee?

Me: Well, there's some regular coffee in our break room right there - and a fancy coffee machine downstairs - and Starbucks in the cafeteria.

NYC #1: Starbucks drip? 

Me: Um, yes?

NYC #1: What about espresso?

Me: No.

NYC #1: No espresso in the whole building?

Me: No...there's something like it in the fancy machine...but that's not really what it is.

NYC #1: Ohh...[shuffles off to get regular coffee with amazed look on face]

In the cafeteria:

New Yorker #2:[Holds up Mr. Pibb Zero bottle]  What's this?

Me: Um, I think it's Diet Mr. Pibb - you know, like how they call Diet Sprite "Sprite Zero" now.

New Yorker #2: [blank stare]

Cashier: [yells from across the room] It's like Dr. Pepper - it's the Coke product.

Me: Ohhhh...I didn't even realize that's what you were asking!

At lunch:

New Yorker #1: So um, this is going to sound kind of ignorant...

Me: That's ok. We get that a lot.

New Yorker #1: Ok - um, you know the movie Forrest Gump?  Where could I see a house like that?  You know, big and white?  And a pond?

Me: Well, you'd have to go to South Alabama.  About 2 hrs from here.  But we do have a pond on campus, just down the hill...

New Yorker #1: [looks sad] Ohh.

Anyway, good times with that - glad the two days of craziness are over, though!