Photo Ops

You never really know when you get a call out of nowhere and an ordinary day turns out to be something quite extraordinary.

Last night I was getting ready to leave work and go to Stacy and Jason's house because I hadn't seen the kids in a while and we were going to have "International Game Night". Stacy told me that Logan has been asking about me quite a bit, primarily because he's doing well with his potty training and Jason served up a sleep-over at my place as Logan's reward (!)

(Ahem, while I am glad a sleepover at my place is seen as something to strive for...being a potty-training incentive is a new one!)

Right when I was leaving, we got a call from a contact at the New York Stock Exchange saying they had a last minute cancellation and did we want to have our client come down tomorrow morning to ring the opening bell. We had 15 minutes to decide, track down our client and commit.

By the time I left work, it was 100% a go. That evening I told Jason that the NASDAQ opening bell ceremony we participated in a couple weeks ago was a little surprising to me. Of course it was such an honor and exciting to be there, and we were all very grateful to have our important cause being broadcast over Times Square. But it was so surprising to not see people there. I was imaging a big noisy trading floor, and instead it was completely virtual - a sleek street-level studio with a podium and cameras and lots of big screens, but no people.

Jason said, "I think you'll find the New York Stock Exchange a little different..."

This morning felt like a tour of the White House! While we waited in the NYSE board room, an executive told us some facts about the history of the Exchange that began in 1653, including the impressive board room built in 1792, and how the early days of trading involved brokers standing up and discussing each stock one by one. (How civilized!).

We were escorted to the trading floor (cameras, coats and bags all left behind) and the event founders, top donors and some cancer survivors involved with the cause went to the famous balcony for the ceremonial market open. The floor itself felt straight out of a classic movie like "Wall Street" or "Trading Places", with seemingly hundreds of branded financial company zones that reminded me of 10x10 trade show booths at Expo West. And from the floor we watched the opening bell being shown live on CNBC.



After we were escorted back to the board room, they gave us all parting gifts. I was amazed they had the time to inscribe all of them between 6 pm last night and 8:30 a.m. this morning. Then again, its New York. Anything's possible.



I was thinking that the surprising turn of events reminded me of another ordinary Tuesday about three years ago when I got a call from a very frantic woman from the State Department because Sambazon was nominated for the Secretary of State's Award for Corporate Excellence by the U.S. Ambassador to Brazil, and we won (and had no idea).

That's of course another story, and another photo op, but you just never know what adventures the day will hold...