The first major meeting included:
Bahn – marketing manager and brains behind the original idea of Redfin
Cynthia – our charismatic marketing rock star
Matt – web/tech guru extraordinaire
Bryan – something big time with the tech stuff and God of all computer issues
Dave – broker/attorney wiz bang and my boss
Glenn – our fearless yet Zen-like leader and CEO
Me – I mean, how in the world did I end up here?

I was a nervous wreck. My palms were sweating. (I don’t know why I can’t take these intimate meetings in better stride, but I just can’t. At our company wide meetings I’m a Chatty Cathy. I interview well. I’m a dynamo at most parties. But this meeting thing? Fugettaboutit.)

If the rest of the meeting attendees gave me a thought, they must have been thinking, “Why does she look like a deer about to be hit by a Mack truck?” I put my foot in my mouth about one of our emerging markets, and mentally prayed for the whole shabang to end, which it finally did.

Don’t get me wrong – I worked hard to join Redfin and am one of its most rah-rah employees. I have a knack for the written word, and campaigned for the position when the job was posted. But, here I was in a meeting with the big wigs of the company. Sure, I crack jokes and have coffee with them in our teeny tiny kitchen, but to be part of an official policy founding meeting with these people? I felt like Forrest Gump getting a purple heart from Kennedy.

Our forums are off to a decent start, the dialogue exchange has been intelligent, light-hearted and informative. Since the big first day, we’ve had more meetings and I’ve gotten through them fine. I suppose the first one just needed to be gotten through. I even got a personal high five from Glenn, which I played ultra cool, but made me scream inside like a Beatles groupie from the Ed Sullivan show.

Bottom line, I am the geeky-est of geeks. I am Geeky McGeekerson from Geekertown on the Geekiest day of the year. (Thank you David Schmader).