In Seattle

On Monday, I worked for the morning and then in the afternoon, went into Seattle with a retired Boeing Engineer, Ernie, who I’d met at the bar the night before.  He kindly offered to show me around and I took him up on the offer.Seattle is a really pretty city that reminds me a lot of Melbourne.  I think this is because it’s of a similar (maybe slightly smaller) size, can be walked around, and was also built with gold rush money.  Architecturally, there are lots of interesting buildings.Of course I saw a Starbucks, although I’m told they are not as succesful now as they were, and not even the preferred chain for Seattle coffee drinkers.

Ernie suggested we have lunch at Shuckers, an old fashioned style oyster bar in the Olympia hotel. Seattle is famous for it’s seafood and the salmon in particular was exceptional. I think I ate salmon about 4 times during my stay and it was always exceptionally good.

After Shuckers we worked to the Public Market. This is very much like Victoria Market in Melbourne, but a bit smaller. It was still good fun to have a look around.

While we were there, I was amused to see Pikes Fish Market, the “home” of the management book “Fish!”. You may not of heard of this, but it was the rage in the corporate world a few years back, so it’s kind of amusing to see the people in question the book was based on.

The story is simply that Pikes are famous for having fun at work — and they do. Tossing whole salmon back and forwards across the counter, all shouting out when they make a sale, pretending to throw kids across the counter. For every person buying something, there was about 10 standing watching. There was a very ugly fish in the centre of the display called a Monk Fish, and whenever anyone stopped to look at it, they would pull a string hidden in the ice which made it open it’s mouth, scaring the person who had stopped.After the afternoon in Seattle it was back to the hotel where I met the Microsoft people for a reception drink which was also fun.