Filed under: Nine to Five
You’ve seen those scenes in sitcoms where the adorable lead character asks the new guy at the office “So, what do you do here?” And then that “New Guy” answers, with a slightly bewildered look on his face, “Well, I’m the Senior Vice President of the Western Region over Sales, Marketing, Finance, Engineering, and Human Resources.” And the adorable girl -with great shoes and a new, sky-blue, courderoy shirt-dress- starts laughing because she thinks he’s kidding. And quickly, although not quickly enough, she realizes that, in fact, he is serious; he really is the Senior Vice President of the Western Region over Sales, Marketing, Finance, Engineering and Human Resources.
Yeah. That just happened. In the breakroom. While I was getting my morning hot chocolate. Oh my laws, I am so embarassed.
And, to make a rocky start of my day even rockier; I somehow managed to stab myself with a bic pen and am bleeding from both arms. Awesome. (Note: I did not attempt suicide with a ballpoint due to the obvious faux pax with the Senior Vice President. The pen incident happened first.)
I have been trying to write something that resembled anything for the last two hours. Perhaps I am just a bit worn out from the rant about deal-breakers from yesterday; it is a definite possibility.
I could talk about how I’m almost done decorating my Christmas tree; very cute this year with white twinkly lights, shiny red apples and Swedish straw ornaments that look like snowflakes. I am still hoping to get some popcorn strung, and MAYBE squeeze in a batch or two of gingerbread boys.
I could talk about how this December feels completely different than last December. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but I am more excited about Christmas right now than I was just a few days before Christmas last year. Granted, I will most likely be spending Christmas morning curled up in my apartment, watching the snow fall (please bless!) out the window and sipping hot chocolate. And I will absolutely love it. In honor of Miss Alynda’s Heathrow reunion with her man, I have decided to watch Love Actually and send happy thoughts across the pond to her. It will be a good Christmas.
I could talk about how, after 3 months with no income, I am so very excited for my first payday and watch the bank account numbers go UP. Yes, that will be a VERY nice change.
I could tell you about the incredibly eye-opening rant I heard today from Jezabel, the Office Whore, but, well, she has a mouth on her that would make an army drill sargeant blush! Goodness! Could we maybe tone down the profanity to a per minute ratio instead of a per nanosecond ratio? I’m not even sure I understood what she was trying to tell me, becaust nearly half of those words I’d never heard before!
However, I think I am just going to go scrub my face and teeth and take a much needed 8-hour nap. Done and done.
Filed under: Nine to Five
Or at least temporarily suspended. At work. The warm-fuzzies of the first day were suddenly banished about 10:30 this morning when the Office Whore waltzed over to my desk and, with an enormous smile on her face, told me the reason she was late was because there was an 8-car pile-up on the freeway. Ok, psycho, stop smiling about massive carnage and twisted steel. Within a minute she was telling me how much she drank last night, and how fantastic it was to sing karaoke at the bar, and how she drank even more when her x-boyfriend walked in, and how it was soooo great to see him, and how they stayed up “talking” until 3:30 in the morning, (sure… “talking”) and how this morning they began “talking” again and how they’ll like probably, maybe get back together next week or something… And then? It got even worse. She began to tell me about the sex-in-the-shower with the x-boyfriend. Um, hello? I met you yesterday lady! Who does that?!? I mean, not “who has sex in the shower”, I’m sure lots of people do, but who gushes about it to their new co-worker? It’s not like I am friends with this girl, I can’t even remember which of the J’s she is, so I have taken to calling her Jezabel. Ugh. Not cool. Shudder. I really didn’t want to start my day with Jezabel beating me over the head with her sexcapades.
I have high hopes that tomorrow will not include a run-down on Jezabel’s night. But as for now, I am trying to avoid her in the hallways, the break-room, the parking garage, the cafe downstairs, the conference room, or anyplace else that the Jezabel’s of the world hang out, sneakily trying to spread stories about their torrid affairs. I am not a prude, but come on, it was my second day of work and she was sparing no details. Come on lady! Class it up!
Filed under: Nine to Five
New jobs are always a little bit odd the first day. You don’t know where the break room is, or the bathroom, or the general office decorum. I didn’t know what time to show up (picked 8:30, turned out quite nicely), I didn’t have a parking pass, or a little key-fob thing to get into the building. My desk was all set up, but needed a good dousing with clorox wipes and windex. After an hour or two, I was feeling pretty good; my desk was in order (although depressingly bare, am bringing artwork for my office), I had found the secret door to the parking garage and had met dozens of people. Strangely, I think 75% of my coworkers have ‘J’ names; Jamie, Julie, Jeff, John, Janice, Jeremy, Jake… it’s a little bit ridiculous! I will never be able to keep them all straight!
By mid-afternoon I had signed up for health insurance, my 401(k), direct deposit and put in a request for a few office essentials. So far I love the company, I think I’ll get along smashingly with my co-workers, I love love LOVE my commute (1.5 miles vs. 47 miles at the previous job) and I love that today, the first day of real snow, I had Miss Daisy safely resting in covered parking. Ah, bliss!
I hope that this good start will last all week, and preferably, for several months in a row. I have high hopes for this job, I think I will really love working here. Of course, if I don’t, ya’ll will be the first to hear about it. But as of today, I consider Operation New Job: Successful!
Filed under: Nine to Five
Today is my last day of unemployment; not the measly weekly check to help you keep up on your bills, but the actual state of unemployment. I start my new job tomorrow and I am so very excited about the whole thing. Granted, this is not my dream job; but I will be working for a company with a solid financial history (read: no layoffs) and I really like my boss. What am I doing to celebrate? Well, I slept in a little, and I am planning on going for a little run, and I need to do some laundry, and I want to go to lunch with a friend (if he can squeeze me in), and the biggest plan is to start on the gingerbread cathedral. I know, I know, I was supposed to have been considerably farther along with it by now. But, family calls and I’m not one to put a higher priority on a “little” confectionary creation than on my brother and his family.
(As for the brother, in case you are wondering, he’s doing a little better. No one knows what is going on, but the mysterious medical wonder has slowed down considerably and he is able to live a slightly more normal life. So, hopefully it will continue to slow down and eventually just disappear. And never come back. Please bless.)
What have I been doing the last two-and-a-half months? Well, besides the 10 thousand resumes I sent out, and the 30-odd interviews I had…and the hours and hours or trolling monster.com and various other “you need a job? we’ll find you a job” sites. So, besides that, I have been doing a bit of everything.
I’ve been runing almost every day; so much, in fact, that I thought I would be able to run a 6k on Thanksgiving. That is correct. I ran a race on Thursday, my first race. In the morning. On a holiday. In 20-something degree weather. Yes, I have put in a request to check myself into an asylum. I did ok, not great, but I had a little bit of trouble. I started out with the Channel 2 news anchors and their camera guy (did anyone see me on the spot they ran? I didn’t see it, but I was standing right behind them before the race and ran right in front of them for the first little bit… so, if you saw a freezing blonde girl, that was me!) At any rate, running UP the canyon was a little difficult (yes, I said UP THE CANYON! Am clearly insane. Am working on that). However, on the way down the canyon I was running directly behind a chunky 8-year old boy. He was doing great, right up until he stopped dead in his tracks. So I stopped dead in my tracks so I didn’t clobber him. The 280 pound behemoth behind me did not. He clobbered me, I clobbered the kid, I managed to twist a little so that I fell under the chunky pre-pubescent, (i.e. he fell on top of me) meaning I now have road rash on the left side of my body and a nasty bruise on my hip. Pictures are coming soon, as soon as the official photographers send them my way.
Ok, it’s taken me over an hour to pen this not-even-close-to-fabulous-but-informationally-updating post… time to just publish and be ok with the fact that there will be no bits of award-wining writing coming from me today. Hope you all had a lovely holiday weekend! xoxo
Filed under: Nine to Five
It’s official: I have a job! (Commence Happy Dance on my desk, on the couch, on the kitchen table, on any kind of semi-stable surface, continue Happy Dance ad nauseum.) Sure, it may not be my dream job, but it is a solid company and I really like my manager. I can hardly describe the enormous sense of relief I felt this morning as I walked out of my new office with a confirmation order for my business cards and an Official Start Date. I won’t begin work until after Thanksgiving, but I don’t really care; in fact, I think that is perfect. I have some pretty crazy things going on right now that I need some time to deal with and a few weeks (hopefully!) should do it.
Speaking of the craziness, I’m off again to go take care of that. I promise I’ll be blogging regularly soon.
But, I have a job! I have a job! I have a job! I have a job!
Last week I had the worst, and I mean the WORST, second interview of my life. I didn’t do anything wrong, I was on time, professional and open. However, last Thursday managed to be the longest 9 hours ever. I had interviewed with a Marketing Consulting company earlier in the week and walking out of the interview felt like dynamite. I knew I had nailed it. I was told this company did marketing and marketing research for major companies in the Salt Lake market. The woman interviewing me listed of such companies as Google, Yahoo, IBM, Nike and Staples. Ok, sounds promising.
I got called back for a second interview, a lengthy second interview. I was told that the company likes to have potential employees shadow a real employee for the day so both parties can get a better feel of how things would work if actually hired. Ok, seeing as how I don’t currently have a job that wouldn’t really be a problem. I agreed to be at their office (close to downtown Salt Lake) at 9:30 on Thursday morning.
Thursday comes and I show up a few minutes early, just in case. I am introduced to “Dwayne”, a slightly stumpy, kind of chubby guy in his late 20′s with greasy greasy black hair that is a little too long to be professional and is covered in white, flaky dandruff. Dwayne told me that he had some appointments during the morning and then, because he is technically a “trainer”, at lunch he would talk about the salary, benefits and answer any questions. Alright, sounds good.
Dwayne & I go out to his car and get on the freeway… I feel like I need to stop and explain a little more about this situation. His car was filthy, crumbs and dirt and junk all over the floor, the seats, the dashboard, everything. I probably could have scratched his dash three or four times with my fingernail and not touched the bottom of the grime. Dwayne is also a chain smoker, but I could hardly smell the nicotine due to the overpowering sense of 3-day-old sweat that filled the teeny car as soon as he took his jacket off. Ugh, this is making me sick just thinking about it.
As we headed South I asked where our first appointment was, and was shocked when he said “Spanish Fork” a teeny, tiny, cowboy town over 50 miles away. I had to sit in his car in my freshly dry-cleaned suit (which is safely BACK at the dry cleaners) for over an hour. I tried to ask about the company, the appointment, the clients, trying to get a sense of what, exactly, we would be doing all day. Dwayne was much more interested in learning what I did for fun, what types of books I read. As we got off the freeway and headed to this “appointment” I still had very little idea of what was going on.
We walked into a teeny retail store on main street and Dwayne began his schpiel… the schpiel about how he can guarantee the business owner that by switching to his company they will save a bundle of money on paper, printer ink and copy toner. I was not introduced during the entire conversation, so I stood there like a wall-flower, desperately wishing Spanish Fork had a taxi service to rescue me. In what language is “Marketing Consulting” code for “Door to Door Paper and Ink Salesman”, or “Office Supplies Solicitor” or “Slimy Traveling Salesman”? I was furious, but I knew that the “misunderstanding” wasn’t entirely Dwayne’s fault, so I bit my tongue. I had sat in that filthy car with this creepy man for an hour to go to Spanish Freaking-Fork to interest people in paper?!? Are you kidding? No, thank you. At least in The Office there is a Jim to make jokes with and a Michael to roll your eyes at, and a Dwight to play tricks on… with Dwayne there was nothing. Nine hours of schlepping paper and ink cartridges, it was a sales-call from hell.
After an hour or two of walking up and down Main Street (me in heels and a suit, him in a dirty shirt, wrinkly tie and pants with suspicious gray-ish white stains on them) I was past the furious bit and decided that this was going to make a highly entertaining blog post, so I began taking mental notes.
- Dwayne’s glasses are held together with black electrical tape.
- Dwayne smoked 2 packs of Malboro’s in 9 hours.
- Dwayne’s greasy hair was parted like an accountant from 1984, with dandruff.
- Dwayne had a ready-to-pop zit right inbetween his eyes that disgusted me and also fascinated me, it kept growing throughout the day.
- Dwayne does not have business cards, or sales fliers, or even a phone number. Sketchy.
- Dwayne drank 3 Rockstar energy drinks in the morning.
- Coincidentally he had to stop and pee every 45 minutes.
- Somewhere around 11:00 Dwayne came out of the bathroom with his fly completely open, red boxers hanging out. I decided not to tell him, he never figured it out. I don’t know if the fly down was a convenience thing for his frequent bathroom-breaks, or an air-conditioning system, or what. But I noticed a lot of people noticing the red boxers, and I died laughing inside.
- Dwayne likes to “get on the level” of people he is talking to – which in the normal world means sitting down if they are sitting down. Most places we visited didn’t have extra chairs, so he would cop a squat on the floor, looking less like a slimy salesman and more like he was taking a crap. Which, guessing from the stench that followed him through the day, may have actually been true.
- Dwayne does not think psychology is a science and his idea of economics is based solely on something he read in Playboy magazine. Seriously.
- Dwayne claims to be a “big reader” but hasn’t read anything lately, or in the last 2 years. His favorite book (defined, by him, as the most challenging and rewarding book he ever read) is by Dr. Seuss… which I could support if not for the “psychology is not a science” statement immediately preceeding this conversation.
I was counting down the minutes to 4:30, I was desperate to take a long shower to remove all traces of nicotine, Dwayne-stench and auto-grime, and I wanted to drop off my suit at the dry cleaner as quickly as possible. Well, life sucks a little bit more when you are a door-to-door paper salesman, and his last “appointment” lasted an hour longer than anticipated. Hey, at least the guy bought some paper. We didn’t leave Spanish Fork until 5:45 and I was so beyond being upset, I was just keeping tracks of all the bits and pieces of the day, I had even started taking notes. I asked Dwayne what he was going to tell his manager, what kind of report he was going to give about me. He said he thought I’d be perfect for the job, that I had the confidence (true, but misguided) and personality (wrong) to be really successful. And while I appreciate the statement, there is not a chance in hell. Dwayne asked me if I would be interested in working, for their Company, joining their team, he asked if I thought I would be able to do this all day, every day. My response? “Absolutely, I do.”
When the Boss called to offer me a job I politely explained that I am not interested in working for a company whose representatives are so unprofessional and inconsiderate of time (we got back to SLC over an hour late). I am not interested in working for a company that purposefully misrepresents itself (“Marketing Consulting” anyone?) and though I’m sure the Boss is a lovely person, I am not interested in working for a manager that allows and encourages these behaviors in employees.
Alright, so remember when I found out that I have to move my desk from a lovely office with a door that locks and a window to a generic, freezing cubicle close to the bathrooms? Well, that day is officially today. Things are crazy, everything is in boxes, and in just a minute they will be cutting me off from the internet to move my computer (Gasp! No internet? For 15 whole minutes! What is happening to the world?!?).
No, I am not giving up my fantastic apartment. Nothing like that. As a matter of fact, my office is being moved from one side of the building to the other. And they (you know, the ominous “they”) scheduled my move smack dab in the middle of a deadline and a vacation. Nice. Apparently I will be leaving this office -complete with a hardwood door, windows to the atrium garden and a shiny silver name-tag- and moving to a cube; a cold, industrial-gray cube with no windows and no office door. And no shiny name-tag. Sigh. I am sooo not looking forward to this. I don’t really have to do anything but pack up my pencils and pens and personal items; however, the idea of a windowless office deep in the bowels of cubiville makes my heart hurt a little. There isn’t much I can do about it – the individual moving into my office has a fancy-pants title and a staff of 3. I can’t really compete with that. However I am now forced to come up with some kind of creative treatment for cubi-walls; and due to the FREEZING COLDNESS of my new quadrant of the building, it would seem that I will be wearing snowpants and earmuffs to work year-round. Boo! Hiss!
This morning our office had a meeting/going away party for one of our editors (I work for a company that publishes severeal different magazines). I didn’t know this person very well, as in, at all. When I received the company-wide email notifying us of her resignation, I actually had to ask a coworker who she was. As she talked about her time at the Company and all she’s learned and blah blah blah I looked around the room at all these women who were crying, and even a few men too. And I started to kind of wish I had known this stranger a little bit better. Maybe it would be nice to be able to identify with these coworkers of mine, perhaps be a little bit more like them. And then something happened and I quickly changed my mind.
The newly resigned Editor started talking about where she was going to next, what she was doing, opportunities that she was exploring. And I guess she has been offered two different jobs, both of which she is thinking semi-seriously about; one in Belize and the other in Liberia. And suddenly a cloud of confusion settled over the crowd…What? What’s Liberia? After a minute our Company founder actually interrupted with “I don’t even know where that is! Is Liberia in the South? Oh! Isn’t Belize up in Canada? By Nova Scotia!?!” And half the room nodded in agreement. You.Have.Got.To.Be.Kidding.Me!!
I was trying so hard not to laugh! I may (or may not) have had to leave the room with my hands covering my face. They didn’t even know that Liberia and Belize were the names of INDEPENDENT COUNTRIES!! Seriously! I don’t think I could fill out a map of the entire world, labeling all the countries correctly; but I do know that Liberia is in Western Africa and Belize is in Central America! So, with that lovely bit of idiocracy, I leave you with a quiz. This site gives you 10 minutes to name all 192 countries in the U.N. Leave how many countries you had left in the comments. I am obsessed with maps, took political science/international relations classes in college (where knowing locations of international conflict is essential) and I have done this quiz before, but I only had 14 countries left (and yes, I’m a nerd). I should warn you – they only count if you spell them right. And for “Bahamas” you have to type in “The Bahamas.” Ok, that’s the only hint I’m giving you. (Thanks for the link Steph!).
