34. I’ve been added to a queer group. ‘The aqueerium’

35. I asked someone what a conference room was called. They said (seabird name). Unprompted, she grumbled: totally inaccurate. The room only has photos of pelicans. It’s not right. It’s the wrong bird. No attention to details.

36. Upon entering a room we were overwhelmed by an intense lavender aromatherapy.

Coworker: what’s with this spa treatment?
Very queer person: gurl it’s either lavender or Dead Fish smells

(Thousands of anchovies are washed up on the beaches here this season. Maybe hundreds of thousands. It is impossible to keep your windows open)

Personally I am used to it coz it just smells like ikan bilis

37. I got an invite to go watch some employees play guitar in front of the sea nettles so I’m putting on my shoes to go there (we are closed for an all hands, all fins event)

38. We took a large org-wide team photo and the photographer said SAY ANCHOVIES

39. I had to shout to be heard while presenting in a conference room because some of the gulls started absolutely screaming right outside

40. We shut down all of today and tonight we have a staff and guests only 40th anniversary party. Not only is there delicious food at every part of the aquarium, it’s also magical seeing all of this

Watching my guests (some of whom have never been here) gawk at everything is so fun

ALT

41. I posted my first question in the ‘All Staff Q&A’.

(Picture of fish)

‘What is the scientific name of this fish?’

Got a response in 1 minute (Zaniolepis latipinnis.)

42. At a meeting this morning

I asked my coworker ‘do you think people hear what we talk about, and have the same ?? Face I did when I heard people talking about gelatinous zooplankton?’

She thought probably but we both agreed gelatinous zooplankton is cooler than databases

43. I had lunch with the ‘Director of Puns’ today. She looked forward to working closely with me. I said I hope it all goes swimmingly

44. I learned that cool videos like these are shot in the office next to mine

https://www.youtube.com/live/h6VIMHKAqew?si=1owwfHl0WeHN6e4N

45. Saw someone write ‘oysters are an embodiment of queerness’ and I truly feel like I’ve found my people

46. I’ve been fascinated by ‘whale fall’ since I first learned about it here.

Here’s an incredible video of a whale fall exploration dive in the deep sea just off Monterey Bay.

https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/whale-fall.html

47. I talked to real people about animal poop 5 different times today (I counted). Different animals too

48. I found the internal form for ‘booking an animal encounter’. My coworker said ‘usually it’s for team building or bringing your family on behind the scenes visits BUT if you want to hang out with the octopus or otters on your lunch break by yourself, I don’t see why not?’

49. She then said when she went to hang out with the octopus she got octopus hickies all over her arms and they didn’t go away for a long time.

50. Today I got stopped in the hallways. Someone I didn’t really know said, ‘hey are you the one who posted the pic of the Townsend’s warbler? I saw the same bird but didn’t have my camera so thanks for taking the cool pic’ (when I worked at a database company, all they talked about was emacs vs vim)

We then agreed to go on a lunch bird walk

51. Apparently they will pay for us to get Spanish lessons, so my taco dreams are going to be bumped up to the next level. Did I also mention I met a guy who has a database of 90 taco truck rankings in Monterey, Salinas, Watsonville, all the way up to Santa Cruz

I’m emailing him to have lunch (at a taco truck)

52. People were asking me if I got a bluetiful sweatshirt and I thought they were all mispronouncing beautiful, but there really is an employee sweatshirt called BLUEtiful. It’s blue.

53. My manager showed me a special spot in a building facing the ocean that he called the ‘binoculars corner’. There are comfy chairs and binoculars you can use.

I zipped down my jacket and showed that I already had a pair of binoculars. He said ‘oh yours are better’

Then I told him about how I went to someone’s office just before that and she had a SCOPE SET UP FOR WHALES (that anyone visiting her could use)

54. Idea for a blog post title describing my new job going from tech to tech in an aquarium: From Monads to (Octopus) Gonads