In 1492 Some Jackass Sailed The Ocean Blue, And Did Very Bad Things, But At Least I Got A Day Off

This weekend went from a two-day weekend to a four-day weekend in the blink of an eye. I took Friday off from work with a sinus infection and Monday was a complete surprise. It wasn’t until I was watching SportsCenter on Sunday night when they mentioned Columbus Day that I realized I had Monday off as well. All the important things in life I have learned from watching ESPN.

The weekend was rather subdued. I didn’t go out once and cooked almost every night. I also rented out my services to family members. On Saturday I did all of Mark’s laundry (for a small fee) and on Sunday I helped my sister paint her house (no charge). Yesterday, after I called my job to verify we did indeed have the day off, I watched a movie, prepped my house for the winter, went for a walk around Ohio City, stopped at the market to buy ribs and spent the evening drinking good beer and cooking ribs. It was a great Columbus Day. Thank God for Manifest Destiny!

And She Wasn't Even Wearing All Black

I had someone walk into my office to say they needed to get a form and they went "on the line" to get get it, but they didn't have access. For those of you keeping score at home, when she said "on the line" she meant on-line. Though in my mind I made it analagous to Johnny Cash singing "Walk the Line." It was much more interesting that way.

TGIF Part Three

Three weeks are now in the books at the new position. I wish I had a little more to show for it, but I am getting there. The big progression this week included: REVERSE SHADOWING. Day by day they are giving me a little more power, though still supervised power.

Looking ahead to the weekend: I am so excited to see some friends from college I haven't seen in years on Saturday afternoon and then Saturday night will be all about Le Tigre. I can not see this band enough. I am so excited! I will really enjoy the paradox of a baby shower and radical lesbian musicians rocking Peabodys.

TGIF Part Two

Two weeks down at my new job. I still feel like an invalid at the end of this week as well but at least now I know what I don’t know. Last week, I just walked around like a zombie completely ignorant to everything around me.

One thing I know is that I am really bad at being trained. If only I could pay attention for longer than one minute, perhaps I could get a better handle on things. I try to be an active listener, but it just doesn’t work for me. I see their lips start moving and then five minutes later, they say: “In a nutshell that is how that works, any questions?” This is when my question should be, “Yes, what did you just say again? I am sorry I started thinking about traffic patterns in Cleveland and drifted off.” Instead I just say, “Nope, I think I got it. Thanks.”

That Moment

There is that moment when you realize you have made the right decision to switch jobs. The moment when you say to yourself, “this was the right decision and I am so excited about this move in my life!” That moment came to me this morning.

I was sitting in my office talking to two of my co-workers when one of them noticed my Ani DiFranco sticker. The conversation soon turned to Bitch and Animal and the woman who asked me if I had ever heard of them was so excited when I said I had. I revealed, with a little hesitation, I have Bitch autograph my chest whenever I see them perform. She turned to me and said: “Me too!” That was the moment I knew I had made the right decision to switch jobs. Who cares about the promotion, the raise and the self-fulfillment this job will bring me at the end of the day when I am working with someone who also gets a little tipsy and has Bitch sign her chest.

The very best part about the whole conversation was I would never have expected him to ask me about Ani DiFranco when I first met him, and I most certainly would never have expected her to pull out a picture of Bitch from her desk when I first met her.

Thought For The Day

My boss gave us this quote this morning:

"Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are--you aren't."
-Margaret Thatcher

Hopefully he wasn't trying to say something about me with this thought.

By the way, he is hilarious! To keep things light, he quotes lines from "Mommy Dearest"--what else could you ask for in a boss?

TGIF

Finally! It is finally Friday. The last day of my first work week at my new job and I couldn't be more excited. Don't get me wrong, I love the job, but I am so exhausted from the amount of intake I have done over the past five days. I can't wait to not be the "new girl" anymore. Last night I was actually in bed asleep by 9:15. However, I did have to get up at 10 for Being Bobby Brown on Bravo and then go back to bed. If you get a chance, you have to catch this show!

The New Blog Entries

This job is going to have me running all over, all the time. I love that. My blog will suffer. Many posts are going to look like today's:

New job is so great, can't wait to tell everyone about it. Running around like crazy. Rumor has it LeBron is going to have his own reality show on MTV.

Thank You

I may have hated a lot of aspects of my current job, but I really loved some of the people I worked with over the past three years. Tomorrow is my last day and as I look back, it will be my co-workers (not all of them, believe me) that I will miss the most. I wish I could take some people with me in my new professional adventures but I guess this is part of growing up and moving on (it seems like I have been doing a lot of that lately).

There are a couple of people that saved my ass on a weekly basis but who made me laugh on a daily basis. You know who you are! If you are reading this which I am assume you are because there are only three people in my office with this blog address, than I want to say thank you. Tomorrow I will tell a bunch of different people how much I will miss them and what a difference they have made in my life, but to the few of you I bonded with beyond work issues, who got my stupid jokes, who knew exactly what I was thinking before I said it and who looked out for me so often, from the bottom of my heart, Thank You!

Thank you for all of the real conversations we had. Thank you for making it fun to be in this office. Thank you for helping me with the boring little tasks I could never complete due to my attention span. Thank you for laughing with me when nobody else knew what I was talking about. Thank you for going along with all the stupid things I did. There aren’t enough words to describe how much I will miss you. We have become like family and I will never forget you.

Irony

The ironic part about wrapping up my job is that this is the most work I have done in the three years I have been in this position.

More irony...the CAVS desperately need a shooting guard with range and they sign Larry Hughes.

I Got A New Job

It is true. I actually got a job offer last week which I accepted and I now I am crazy busy for the next two weeks. As a matter of fact, I took a real job where I actually will have to pay attention and do real work, so hopefully this will not be the end of my blog. I might just have to get me a computer.

A New Job...Well Kinda

“As a new shopper ... Congratulations and Welcome! We don't assign shops, rather, you pick them yourself. You are allowed a maximum of 2 shops per month (to allow others a chance to shop locations in yourarea). Also, you cannot shop the same location twice within a 90-day period(some of our clients request that shoppers not return for even longer periods).”

How fun is that? I applied and took a test and now I am a real bona fide mystery shopper. (Insert Mission Impossible theme music here)