Another day at the office

So, today was a national holiday in Costa Rica.

Can you guess which one?

National-Bring-A-Gringo-To-Work Day!

That´s right. My Tico father asked me to come to work with him today. At first, I was a little hesitant because I didn´t want to get in the way. But when I told him as much, Kristian simply shrugged his shoulders and said, "Es Viernes."

It´s Friday.

So, we woke up early this morning, ate breakfast, watched the United States World Cup match, and skipped into work late. I spent the majority of the morning researching hostels and making reservations for next week.

Then, at around 11:30, my number was called.

"Bran-don!" Kristian screamed.

I walked into his office to find Kristian and his four co-workers standing there, staring at the computer screen. They looked at me, then looked down at the empty chair.

"Sit," Kristian said. "Write letter. English."

So, I sat down in front of the screen, and with my trusty Spanish-English dictionary in my lap I began to gather information.

Kristian is the general manager of the Costa Rican branch of a small company that imports medical equipment. This August, Kristian´s company, DuoTec, will be hosting a booth at the Urology Congress of Central America. It´s basically a big medical equipment sales convention.

In order to show a product at the convention, Kristian´s company first needs to import the product. And in order to import the product they need to furnish the Minister of Health in Costa Rica with all of the technical specifications of the product, in order to gain approval. Apparently, the company that produces the product has been dropping the proverbial ball, and the clock is ticking.

Good thing DuoTec had a blogging beast in the office this afternoon.

After twenty minutes of translation, I was ready to write.

I drafted a letter to some dude, at some company in Atlanta, that contained a detailed list of the information Kristian´s company needs (read: the information I could gather they needed), explained why the issue was so urgent (read: why I interpreted the issue to be so urgent), and thanked them for their prompt attention regarding the matter.

Then, Kristian threw his name at the bottom, clicked "send," and bought me lunch.

Yep. Just another day at the office.