In an effort to give you a sneak peek into the wonderful world of LAD, we’ve created a new weekly column – Name That LADie! Every Friday for the next six weeks we’ll be posting an interesting anecdote or story told from the perspective of one LADie. While many of these stories may sound like a plotline from “The Office” they’re real – we have the scars to prove it.

So, enjoy the first installment in our name that LADie series, posted below. Your mission is to read the post and try to guess which staffer is featured center stage then post your theories in the comments section. One lucky poster will be selected to receive a shiny new travel mug…

A Legendary First Week of Work.

It was my first week of work. Friday to be exact. I strolled into work having had the past five months off for my last unofficial summer vacation after graduating from college, so you can imagine the shock my body was in to be waking up five days in a row before noon. I dropped my purse next to my desk, took off my coat and sat down to check the very few emails I was receiving. Yay, two junk emails! I was confident in my business clothes, my grown up planner and I had nailed down an internship at this PR firm called LAD communications. Oh and I forgot, I had brought into the office a sparkling new coffee travel mug, how could I forget?

So, moving on…

After toiling over my emails, I decided the tea in my travel mug was way too cold. Hmmm. I should probably warm it up a bit. By this time it was around 10:00 a.m. Shawn, our office manager, had made her way into the office and I had been introduced to her for the first time. Hopefully it isn’t true what they say about first impressions. I was still asleep as I dragged myself out of my chair, wandered into the back room to the microwave, placed my travel mug into the microwave – for 2 whole minutes – and headed back to my desk to check to see if anymore emails made their way to my Inbox.

About a minute passed before a co-worker made her way to the back room and SURPRISE! Fire in the microwave! I heard the scream and knew it was I. OMG, what did I do? Once we heard the yell, everyone was on their feet running to the back room to see what was going on. An employee, who has since been named MacGyver, grabs the fire extinguisher, pulls the key, flings open the microwave door and starts dousing the flames like she’s had experience doing it before. I actually think she was in the bent knee position I learned in basketball. After spraying the flames smoke was everywhere, and a layer of yellow dust covered everything. Then – lucky me – the fire alarm decides it is going to join in on the fun, along with the magnetic fire doors that have all decided to automatically close.

How could this experience get even worse? Thank God the sprinklers didn’t go off. I think if that had happened Lisa would have had no doubt in using it as grounds to give me the axe.

We locked up the office and made a mad dash down the stairs to the sidewalk. Note: we work in the MIDDLE of downtown Portland. How mortified was I? Very. It was my first week of work and I could only imagine how dumb these people thought I was. WOW, what an idiot! Metal in the microwave, really?

In the end nobody was hurt, nobody besides the LAD team evacuated the building (good thing for them it was only a microwave fire), no fire truck came oddly enough and nothing was damaged except the microwave and my self-esteem. A lesson was learned that day – DO NOT put metal travel mugs in the microwave. I have now made it a ritual to ask every time I put something into the microwave if it’s microwave safe and I have been branded with the name “flambé”.

I wonder if Lisa still would have hired me if she had known about my previous “blender accident”? hmmmmmm…

Anyone who can guess all three of our Halloween costumes will receive a special treat. A surprise seasonal ale! Don’t be scared…

Happy Halloween!

After all of the phone calls, drop ins and questions like, “Is it in today?” Deschutes Brewery’s the dissident release finally arrived! Immediately when the doors opened to the Portland pub this Wednesday at 11 am, people started rushing in to get their bounty of dissident brew. The first person who showed up purchased eight bottles, the next six, and on from there – lets just say, our stash is dwindling. The day was crazy! We were given an allotment of 30 cases from Bend and we already went through 18 cases in one day. People kept coming up to the front desk saying, “I’d like a t-shirt, a pint glass, and umm a case (twelve 22oz bottles) of dissident.”

Earlier on in the day, employees gathered around a back table to open and discuss the remarkable beer. One of the most frequent comments I received from customers was, “I didn’t know you could do this with beer.” Well everyone, you can make a sour brown beer, Bend decided to do it, and it is delicious. It has a very fruity and sharp taste to it that drinks so well and only gets better. It’s true, when you first taste it the immediate reaction is “whoa, beer?” But once your taste buds settle the next inclination is, “whoa, beer!”

The feedback and excitement surrounding this beer release has been overwhelming. We are expected to run out of the cases we received from Bend within the next day or so, and might possibly finish off the kegs by the end of the weekend. Everyone and their grandmother is buying this reserve series. You could tell how far the excitement spread when the general manager announced that Portland pub would be receiving Dissident t-shirts in-stock and all the employees lit up and let out a squished face, hissing “yesssss.”

I have never witnessed something quite like this – everyone who comes in is in tune with the uniqueness and quality of this beer. They are so excited about getting their hands on as much as they can. A dissident spell perhaps? The entire pub from servers, bartenders, hosts, clientele, and customers are all grinning and basking in the release. It has been a whole lot of fun and judging by the excitement and the sales thus far, I don’t know how much longer the fun will last, so be sure to come in this weekend and get the last few drops of Dissident.

–Andrew (from the Portland Pub)