Work History Meme Part 2: after college

Several of my friends have done a meme where they list their work history. I thought it was really interesting to read other peoples' histories and I want to participate too! Unfortunately, I have worked so many jobs over the years, often simultaneously, that it became insanely long. Therefore, this became a two-part post. Part 1 is here.

Part 2 - jobs after college


Olive Garden, waitress - when I graduated college, I was not able to find a job immediately. My job search was impeded, no doubt, by the fact that I was working two jobs for full time hours and going to school. Since I had been waitressing off and on for almost a full year at this point, I knew I could move to pretty much any city and work as a waitress until I figured out the next step. The closest big city was Dallas, so I moved there. The first place to hire me was Olive Garden. For those headed toward the server profession: do not work in a chain restaurant! They have all kinds of restrictions and requirements which sorely inhibit how much you can make. I'd recommend a local restaurant like the ones I worked in during college. This job taught me how to run into the bathroom or kitchen and take a professional business call. It also taught me two ways to successfully cheat on a drug test. Not to get this job the next job.

IT contractor - I was finally hired as a temporary contractor for some kind of big contracting company and placed at the faltering telecom Verizon in Irving, TX (right outside of Dallas). I got this job because of all my web site design and web master-type freelance work in college. Completely unrelated to my degree in Speech Communication, of course. I had the joy of driving 35+ minutes in horrible traffic to get to a giant, nearly-empty building before 8am every day where I sat in front of computers testing code. I actually enjoyed the work, but there wasn't always enough to keep me busy. Not a good problem to have when your job depends on how much they need you. I took on work for other people in the team in order to keep busy, and got trained in areas other than my job. So that was helpful. I met some very nice people. Every day at lunch they talked about when everyone was going to get laid off, which was really stressful after a while. 9/11 happened while was here. I watched it on the TV's in the giant, empty cafeteria early in the morning and then went back to my desk to watch it on the computers in my cubicle. Everyone had gone home, but I couldn't go because my boss had disappeared (he had family in NYC) and I was paid hourly. So I sat there alone watching the news online. It wasn't until 5 months later that we were all, indeed, laid off.

Web Content and Data Coordinator - if you live in the DFW area you might be familiar with a certain family of luxury-car dealerships: Mercedes, Porsche, Bentley, Astin-Martin, Lexus, and since I left they've also acquired either Audi or BMW, I can't remember. I had a great boss here who was a career mentor of mine for years. He was a really hilarious guy, very smart, knew a ton about cars and loved them. I handled all the online advertising which meant I bought and coordinated all the banner ads (banner ads were huge back then, remember?!) and Cars.com/AutoWeb/AutoTrader relationships. I also handled the design and management of their luxury automobile accessories stores. Each dealership had their own parts and accessories department and the guys in those departments were really proud of their stuff and fun to work with. I still have a Porsche-monogrammed bathrobe! That's the kind of thing they sold, items for your everyday life that had your luxury car logo on them. Because if you own a Porsche, you freaking want everyone to know it, even when you get out of the shower. Because I was part of the marketing department as well as the IT department (common placement for the web people at the time), the events coordinator for the dealership group (who was also the mother of one of my friends outside of work) would recruit me and another guy on our team to help assist at their fancy cocktail events. That meant just hanging around doing whatever she told us to and looking nice. It was fun but I remember standing for very long periods of time wearing heels - ouch. The bonus was that I did get to drive the cars. Several times I had a Porsche Boxster over the weekend and once a Mercedes SLK convertible. I just loved the convertibles and I still drool thinking about those cars. During that time I also knew a lot about cars but since it was work-based knowledge, as soon as I changed jobs I just completely forgot everything and I don't know much about cars anymore except that Lexus is a great reliable car and Mercedes always have electrical problems. It was a good job with a lot of fun perks but it didn't pay much since they hired me with very little experience.

Production Analyst (Email Marketing and junior Project Manager) - you might have noticed I am now leaving off the names of the companies. If you want to see them, find me on LinkedIn. This is now in the recent-enough past that I am going to start being generic because I am still in touch with a lot of these coworkers and I don't want anyone to think I am ungrateful or complaining. I have met a lot of really great people over the years. At this job I put together and tested weekly and biweekly email marketing campaigns for our clients. I also did some content management of their web sites. Here I had one or two of my most terrible bosses. For the 2.5 years I was there, I think I had about 6 bosses total. Management just kept changing our bosses and the organizational structure, and it was so confusing because everyone had their own political agenda within the company. I was also going through a lot of personal issues around this time which caused me to have a tenuous hold on my own sanity. My primary client was the company's cash cow so it was highly stressful, which seemed like a great time for me to stop smoking weed (not really! but it needed to be done). On the bright side, this is also where I met my husband. He was the developer working on the Really Big Client so I worked with him a lot for at least a year before he ever asked me out. By then I'd been in therapy for 6 months so I said yes. We also had mutual friends who assured me he was not another of the crazy bad-for-me men that I had been dating for the past few years. Anyway, that's personal and not work-related but it did kind of have to do with why I left the job. We were getting more serious and a few people had found out that we were dating. The Really Big Client was still driving me (literally) crazy too, so I decided to look for another job.

Email Marketing Specialist for Major Non-Profit - a co-worker who had just left the company I was working at had gone to work for this Major Non-Profit and called to see if I'd like to come over there too and help them with web QA stuff and email marketing. I went there originally as a consultant and got hired as an employee after around 7 months. Despite how stressful this job also was (email marketing is just stressful in general), I really liked the company itself and everyone who works there is just SO STOKED about working for the cause. Great cause, too. So I was glad to be there and I got a ton of email marketing experience because I was actually the only person who took care of all of the email marketing for this organization for about a year. Eventually we set up some standard operating procedures and hired more staff, which helped a ton. I really liked working here because everyone was so passionate. I definitely would have stayed longer but I was getting burned out on email marketing. When someone from the company I'd left 3 years earlier called to see if I wanted to come back again and do some really boring code work, I actually jumped at the chance to do something more mundane.

Data Producer aka SQL Programmer - by now, Christian and I had been married a few years and he had left the company so it was not a conflict of interest for me to go back. In addition, I was technically coming back to a different company owned by the same person - they shared the same office building and HR/payroll but are legally separate entities. Very confusing to anyone outside but it makes sense when you're there. I loved this job because I just went to work, wrote code, and left. I never felt stressed to work outside of work hours and I never had any heavy responsibilities. A few times my supervisors mentioned potential team lead opportunities and I was like AHAHAHAHA!! - NO. Everyone on the team worked remotely so I worked from home more and more and when I went into the office it was very casual. I worked here through my first pregnancy and afterward. When I got pregnant the second time, the environment at the office was changing - they bought a new office building that meant more of a commute for me, and they wanted everyone to come in more often. Our team was writing less code and spending more time administrating the software program that now wrote the code for us (not as fun). I had a son who didn't sleep and then had a new baby who also did not sleep, so my speed and accuracy writing code had taken a nosedive. We decided during my maternity leave that I would not go back, but would stay home with the kids. I was sad to leave this job. I hope if I get another job it is as mundane but technically challenging as this one was, because that was totally awesome. The working from home and not having to wear nice clothes helped too.

Here I am - I worked part time in social media for a friend's social media company for a while, but I couldn't keep up enough hours to make my time really worth it for her. Now I am just blogging and keeping house. What is next? I wish I knew!

Working mom balance: working from home vs. commuting

In the world of working moms, there are a lot of different ways to balance work and family life. For me, the right balance is something I am constantly attempting to reach. Ultimately, my choice is to see my #1 priority as my family and my home, and work falling somewhere below that. I do not have a great desire to achieve in my current career. I go to work, I do as good a job as I possibly can, and I leave it at that. I don't want a higher position, more responsibility, or greater recognition. What I want is a paycheck. That is just me - some women (possibly all of them) are definitely more ambitious or enthusiastic about what they do for a living.

Since becoming a mother, there have been two models of work that have been available to me at my current company and position: the working from home model (WFM) and the commuting model.
I have been working from home since Little Sir was born, only going in to the office 1-2 days a week.

Recently, as our company has expanded, rebranded, acquired other companies, and changed our leadership personnel and methodology, we have been encouraged to migrate more to the commuting model.

I've told a few people about this upcoming change and how it gives me anxiety, and a few times it seems to me that the person I'm talking with does not understand why the WFM model would differ from the commuting model. What's the big deal? In both models I still have a nanny taking care of my child all day, right? Well, that is true, but I would like to go into more detail regarding the differences between working from home and commuting to the office, as it pertains to our particular household.

The work environment
Of course everyone's job requirements are different regarding the length of day and length of commute. Right now the shift for my job is 9 hours long with a 60 minute lunch break. The nature of my particular position is that we must send an email when we are leaving for lunch and we must be back online 60 minutes later. Without going into extensive detail, the 60 minutes is pretty set in stone. Any longer, and there is additional burden placed on other members of the team who are also waiting to go to lunch.

In the WFM model, although the shift is 9 hours, I am not "on duty" until exactly 9AM (which is when the nanny arrives) and I am "off" at 6PM (or near then - 6PM is when the nanny leaves). During the 60 minute lunch break, I can run to the grocery stores near our house and get groceries, unpack them, and get back online. The same for running to Target or a drugstore for various other things. Or, I can use the time to put laundry in the washer/dryer or to chop up vegetables for dinner that night. Frequently, when I get up to take potty breaks toward the end of the day, I will set a pot of water to boil for noodles or I will put something into a pot to start cooking.

With the commuting model, there is an additional 30 minutes driving either way. Therefore, in a commuting situation, I am away from home a total of 50 hours a week. Because I have to leave 30 minutes before the nanny arrives to commute, either my husband must go in to his work later to wait for the nanny to arrive at 9AM, or we must pay the nanny extra to come in 30 minutes earlier.

In the commuting model I cannot use the 60 minute lunch time to do much of anything home-related. Sometimes I do go to a Target or Big Lots near my workplace, but full-out grocery shopping is not possible due to limited refrigerator space at work, and of course laundry or food prep can't be done at the office either. Most frequently, what happens in the commuting model is that I get home at 6:30PM, my husband has been home for 30 minutes because the nanny left at 6, my son is getting bored and frustrated, everyone is hungry, and we have no groceries, so we end up having to order out or heat up convenience food. I think you guys know how I feel about that kind of nutrition.

Cost difference
A summary of the cost differences, aside from the obvious cost of gas.

• Cost of toll ($2/day) in the commuting model.
• In a 100% commuting model, there would be additional cost for the nanny to come in 30 minutes earlier.
• Cost of food is significantly lower in the WFM model due to additional time after work to prep.

I have chosen to work from home these past 14 months because it sets a much more relaxed pace for my life and allows us to have a bit more time together as a family in the mornings and evenings. I have other friends who aren't stressed by the thought of the commute like I am, and who do a much better job of balancing in a commuting model than I do. If you are one of these moms, feel free to share your tips and tricks for anyone who might be reading. Hopefully these insights can help other working moms find an environment that works best for them and their family!

Here we go again

Well I figured that if it has been Twittered, then it is fair game to share: Christian is no longer employed.

Yes, we suspected it was coming. No, he does not have another job lined up yet.
And yes, he did have to give back his amazing almost-brand-new MacBook Pro
* sob *
That part has been a crushing blow because it was so awesome. Well, I say that, but I never actually touched it. It looked awesome, though.

We are super thankful that they gave him a severance-type package. We have a little less than 3 months to find other employment.

Since we both work in technology, this isn't the first time for either of us. This is the second time for him since we've been married.

I don't write about this for sympathy (although maybe for a little bit of publicity in spreading his resume!).

But I'm not going to lie to you, it's not the most fun. I know I'm not supposed to worry, God will provide for us. We have seen it happen before, not even 4 full years ago.

Despite what the feminist agenda might claim, I don't relish the position of being the only one working. I know we need to save money, and as the person who does the grocery shopping and the cooking, I should be the one to figure out how to do that. But it is very difficult for me to figure out how to do this while still working full time. I have been trying to get back to my pre-baby menu-planning and coupon-shopping ways and I've done pretty good so far, but we've still had to resort to buying food 2-3 times a week when I just run out of food and/or ideas. Obviously, this needs to stop. I'm thinking of making a list of easy meals and just keeping the ingredients in stock and rotating them. Maybe I'll make a list of them here on the blog.

I'm also on the lookout for more vegetarian crockpot recipes. So if you have any of those, pass them on!
Also, jobs. You know.

Too close for comfort

We just returned today from a 4 day weekend in Arkansas visiting Christian's family and telling them the news. There was also a big party/family event going on at the same time so we got to see a lot of people. I want to talk more about it but I need to have Christian upload some pictures to Flickr first, so I will save that for another day.

When we got back last night I went online to check work email and found out that my company had a RIF (reduction in force) on Friday while I was gone! I do realize that in this economy, that should not be a surprise. However, we are a very small privately owned company and up until now, we'd been told we were doing fine and there would be no need for lay-offs. We had 305 employees and they let 35 go, which is something like 15%, right? 2 people from my actual working group are gone now.

I'm not exactly new to this whole RIF thing, I graduated college in 2001 with nothing but Technology experience, right into the dotcom crash. I worked as an IT contractor (consultant) at a major telecom company (one of the top 2 out there - still operating). Since I was a contractor and not an employee, I didn't have benefits and the taxes I paid were extremely high. As I contractor, I knew that when they decided to let all the contractors go, they had no obligation to me - here today and gone tomorrow. You don't get a package or severance because contractors aren't company employees. However, I ate lunch with and hung out with the employees of the company at the time, who also knew they might be laid off any day. Every single day at lunch the conversation revolved around whether this would be the week that everyone would be laid off, who had heard what rumors, etc. This happened every day for at least 6 months. I had to stop eating with them! The speculation was so nerve-wracking. Finally, on the day I found out that I would not be coming back to work the next Monday, the entire department was laid off all on the same day. It was sad, but in the end, due to how long I had been hearing about it, it was kind of a relief to finally know for sure.

It's a little different here since we're so small and we hadn't heard anything about it until it happened. And weird for me since I wasn't even there when it happened. Today was our annual Employee Update meeting where they go on and on about our sales performance and profits, etc. The entire 4 hour meeting they only mentioned the RIF once, in passing. It was just very odd.

Balancing

I'd been meaning to do this for a while, but I finally got a balance ball and have been using it instead of a desk chair when I work from home (which is about 50% of the time). I got a regular Reebok version at Target for something like $21. It looks like this:
I got the 75mm one so that it is tall enough to pull up to the desk.

You can get fancy schmancy chair versions of the balance ball made into a chair for ridiculous amounts of money ($80? $100?).
But what kind of fun is it, if you aren't constantly faced with the possibility of falling off and breaking your tailbone?!

The first day I had the ball as a chair, I got carried away and bounced on it a little too much. I almost fell off a few times. I also allowed the cat to sit in my lap, on the balance ball. I was very careful of her claws. She didn't seem to mind it.

I have been more conservative in my bouncing the last few days, and have found that I should probably limit the time on the ball to around 3 hours at a time, since it doesn't create the most ergonomic position for typing. Also, after sitting on it for 8 hours the first day, my abs HURT at the end of the day!

Just think how OMG ripped I am going to be! If I don't break my neck first.

Overheard

I am working from Crooked Tree Coffee House this morning, and sat down next to what was obviously a job interview for an agency/creative position. A nearly-40, well-groomed business man in a black suit meeting with a young ("I'm 24, I'll be 25 in April!") dark haired woman in jeans and calf high boots with a bright scarf. This was the most stereotypical interview for an agency position EVER, it cracked me up.

"We work hard, but we play hard too!"
"I don't really have a problem working, say, late at night or on Sundays"
"I love it when, you know, we bring in some kegs"
"It's not a typical 40 hour week, but it's things like that, we do at work, that make it less like work"

This is my favorite line, from the young woman to the older man:
"Oh, you play in a band?! That is SO COOL!"

Maybe it is my background working for/with/around ad agencies that makes this so funny to me...

The dangers of business casual

If you follow me on Twitter or are my Facebook friend, you know that I hate business casual. Over the summer at my work, we could wear jeans every day. Then when Labor Day rolled around, it was back to business casual. WHY? I am hating it. Why is it OK to wear jeans 3 months and not the rest of the time? I am a programmer so I never, ever see clients. I just sit here and write code all day. Half the time I work from home. Why do I have to change clothing for the 4 hours of the day I am in the office, only to change again for the other 4 hours I am working from home?

Not only is this annoying, it is dangerous and let me tell you why. For women, business casual involves different shoes. I have discovered 2 ways in which these shoes can cause me personal bodily injury.

Flats - Despite how fashionable flats are nowadays, I have come to terms with the fact that I am too clumsy to wear them. We have long shiny tile hallways into the building with slippery floors. At least once a day, one of my shoes flies off my foot in mid-stride and I have to go chase it and put it back on. Either that or, for some reason, I lose traction and slide on the floors. This only happens when I wear flats.

Wedges or heels - I actually have fallen in love with wedges because they are heels with less chance of me falling off of them. But let me tell you what is not safe. What is not safe is when I am going down 4 flights of stairs in wedges and some dude behind me is trying to run down the stairs. It's dangerous enough trying to go down stairs in wedges at all, but trying to run downhill, as it were...that is a straight up ticket to the hospital! This has happened to me several times in the last week. What is the deal with needing to run down the stairs at 9 AM? I haven't even had my coffee, and you are making me run. What can be so important that you need to get into the building right now??

My suggested solution to these dangers is that I should be able to wear jeans and flip flops all the time. At least jeans so that when I fall down stairs or slip on floors, I will have a more flexible and comfortable landing.

List of things so I don't seem boring

I am working the West Coast shift right now, which is 11 AM - 8 PM and the work came to a sudden grinding halt at about 7:30, which I love, but which leaves me with nothing to do since Facebook is blocked while I'm VPN'ed in to the ERI network. So I decided to make a list of things that we have been doing, so that we don't seem so boring.

• Yesterday we went to the wedding of my good friend Kora to John Lehman. Congratulations, Mr. and Mrs. Lehman! Makes me think of when we got married and all the great advice we got, all the marital counseling, and how we thought we were prepared AHAHHAHAA!!!! Let me stop laughing about that part and continue.
• Saturday morning we rode our bikes to the park to hang out with our Community Group. This was probably our last time with the Suttons before there are 3 of them - Mel is in the hospital right now being induced. Bob is keeping us updated via Twitter.
• Due to everyone being pregnant right now, I am learning more than I ever wanted to know about the way doctors and hospitals deal with pregnancy and birth. I am not going to go into my personal feelings, because I know there are a lot of different ideas out there, and I want to say that everyone should do what they feel comfortable with. But for the most part, the more I learn about how doctors and hospitals deal with pregnancy and birth, the more angry I get.
  
• I got my mesh scooter jacket Saturday and wore it to ride to work today. It doesn't feel hot at all, it has great ventilation!
• Posted the pictures of Trent & Virginia's baby shower on Flickr, if anyone is interested.
• Christian saw what appeared to be a mountain lion during his morning bike ride today! Dallas Animal Control did not understand or care.
• By the end of this week I should know my work schedule for the next 2 months. I am really looking forward to that, since it has been difficult to plan things not knowing what shift I'm working until the last minute. Alternatively, we are going to 10-hour shifts where we only have to work 4 days a week. This means there will be some nights that I will have to be online and can't do the things I'd normally do. But it also means that I won't have to use vacation days to take 3 or4 day weekends!
• We saw Wall*E last night and it was awesome! Everyone should see it!!
  

If anyone can think of anything else that I have done that might be considered interesting or exciting, please do feel free to post a comment!

Updates on work

So, the last few weeks I've been trying out the West Coast shift at work, which is 11 AM - 8 PM. I like it because I get to do things like grocery shopping and errands that I would previously have done in the evening after work, very early in the morning instead. I get to avoid all the traffic and crowds, which is great. Also, I tend to work out more in the mornings because I am not so rushed. But, unfortunately we are hiring some more people (which is actually a good thing - it's getting a little crazy-busy here), and they will be taking that shift back. I'll be back to 9 AM - 6 PM. :-( Too bad, I will miss that!

But, because we are hiring more people (one of them will probably be our friend Bob), we don't have the space for everyone, so more people will be moved to working from home. I get to be one of those! Christian and I have been working on setting up the spare room to be more conducive to a home office. This weekend we went to Ikea and got 2 desks for around $60 each. Yesterday we got a wonderful filing cabinet that looks like a bureau. So things are moving along and I will take some pictures when it is all set up.

Last weekend I did paint the bedroom, but since I do not have curtains or a new bedspread yet, I have not taken pictures. I think it really needs some good grey-and-moss-green curtains and a bedspread yet. If anyone sees one, let me know!!

Kwik Kar on Greenville Ave, Dallas TX

I just want to say that I am not mad but I am a little annoyed. This is the second time I have taken our Honda to the Kwik Kar on Greenville Avenue to have the oil changed, because it is near my work. The first time I went was the first time I'd had the oil changed since we got the car from my mom and dad (they were the previous owners). The service technician called me out of the waiting area to show me all of the things that I "really need to have done if they have never been done on this car". Totaling hundreds of dollars, actually closer to thousands. And of course they were the ones to do it! RIGHT NOW!! We knew we had to take care of the strut replacement already, and that would be $1K on it's own. We had that done in February at an independent shop.

So, I go back today, and a different service technician calls me out of the waiting room. He tries to sell me the exact same things!! Here is the list:

• Timing belt replaced
• Spark plugs replaced
• Brake fluid replaced
• Fuel system (some kind of service or flush?)
• Radiator fluid (a flush?)

With my marvelous iPhone I emailed mom and dad while the technician was talking. This afternoon I got a reply regarding what has been done to the car in the last year:

• timing belt replaced
• drive belts replaced
• valve cover gasket, seals and washers replaced
• brake fluid replaced and master cylinder checked for leaks
• cooling system serviced and flush done

Look familiar, Kwik Kar??!!

I am not taking our car back there. If I want to be sold something I will drive onto a used car lot, go to the perfume counter at a department store, or visit an insurance office.

UPDATE 9/14/09: Blog post about who is responsible for honesty in service, in response to comments below.

We don't owe!!!!

I am so excited! We did our taxes tonight and so many amazing things!! Christian and I are still speaking to one another No one ended up in the bathroom crying We did not have to involve a professional or pay hundreds of dollars to file We did not have to empty our entire savings account which means....

WE DID NOT OWE ANYTHING!

This is so exciting to me. I have been thinking of this night with dread for months (why? see last year). And now we get to keep what is left of our savings.
It's so exciting! :-)

How is the job going?

A question I will be getting a lot and have been getting.
It's always so hard to say in the first weeks or even months of a new job. Mostly because it's hard to know what it is that you don't know for quite some time. I'm no stranger to changing jobs, so at this point in a new venture I typically just do a lot of praying and asking for help and listening so that I can feel out the environment. I think it takes about 6 months to know if you like a new job. In the case of my last job, it took about a year.

But I can say that the nature of the work here is very different from what I was doing at the AHA and I really like that. I think the uniformity of the work that comes down the pipeline is awesome.

I do not miss the marketing and consulting I have had in my previous job descriptions. Man, I hated trying to explain things to people who are ignorant and/or indifferent and then try to convince them not to abuse the technology once they grasp the vague concept. That was really wearing me down. Especially because it never worked.

Work between vacations

The rest of the weekend between jobs was good - we camped at Enchanted Rock for 2 nights.




On our way back from South Texas, we got a call that Christian would be flying out to Philadelphia at 6 AM the next morning for work. He was there all last week, came home late Friday night and flew out again tonight...well, is waiting at the DFW airport right now. He should get in around 1:30 AM. They are letting him fly back Tuesday so that he can drive with me to San Antonio Wednesday evening. After Thanksgiving, he'll be back in PA for at least another week. Please do pray that it is only one more week. I hope it is not extended.

I miss him, but tonight things are even weirder because our neighbor in the other half of our duplex let us know that on Friday night someone tried to break into her house, while she was home. It seems like it was not a very well thought-out break-in, because he tried to crawl in one of her windows that is open to the alleyway that is shared by all the houses in our corner of the neighborhood a little before 7 PM, which is right when everyone is coming home from work. She had one of those stoppers on the window and he was having trouble getting in when she saw him and when he saw her, he fell back out. She was so shaken she didn't call the police until the next morning after she talked to us. They came out and filed a report. I think that means they'll be monitoring more over here.

So, I think I might get a little scared at night. But I am sure it will be fine. It's only 2 nights!

I've been blogging...but only in my head

Does anyone else do this: I write blog posts in my head that I never get a chance to post. It just seems like things go really fast in life and I don't get to stop and record it much lately.

Right now we're in the middle of the last scientific conference I'll have to work for the Association before my last day on Wednesday. It's one of the 2 times a year I have to work in evenings at this job. So I'm sitting in the coffee shop of the worship center of our church using the free Wi-Fi, hoping that the email will be approved to send before my Celebrate Recovery small group starts at 7:20. I hope that I get to make it into group tonight, but at the moment it's not looking promising.

It's weird to be at work while everyone is in Orlando at this conference, knowing I'll be gone when they get back. I really will miss a lot of the people, and it's been a great environment to work in, other than the fact that I've had to spam people for a living.

I am taking Thursday and Friday off and then starting the new job next Wednesday. Christian has taken the same days off work to use up his time off that he'd otherwise lose at the end of the year. During the week off, we are going to East Texas to babysit my niece on Thursday. Friday we are going to spend an entire day (9 hours) watching all 3 of the Lord Of The Rings movies back-to-back. Sunday and Monday we are going camping at Enchanted Rock. Somewhere in there, I need to learn SQL for my new job!

The News

Today I gave my 2 week notice at the AHA & will be starting a new job as a Data Producer at a company owned by the company I worked for before!! If you know where I worked before, you know what company this is. I will NOT BE DOING EMAIL MARKETING ANYMORE! I will be writing SQL queries and other data stuff. I am very excited not to be spamming people for a living, but sad to leave the AHA.

I am also excited to take exactly 1 week off between jobs. Christian has taken the days off too - we might go camping or just hang out. Maybe go see my niece!!

Stupid things

#1 I had to work over the weekend to deliver a report that my performance review now depends upon. But, the person who utilizes this report has left the company. Yesterday, I figured out how to look at the report's destination and saw that no one has even looked at what I worked 5 hours on Sunday to send out. But I still have to keep doing this because otherwise I get dinged on my performance.

#2 I just sent someone a report they asked for, with an explanation why the report was long. They emailed me back asking why the report was long.

#3 I just sent someone some numbers and explained where they came from. This person replied asking where the numbers came from.

I was grinding my teeth, I was wasting my youth

Climbing The Walls
By: They Might Be Giants
Copyright: 2007

I can't talk, I got to go
Don't call me back, I won't get the door
Got to focus on the job
'Cause I got a new job climbing the walls

I was grinding my teeth, I was wasting my youth
And using up my teeth
Now I'm done chewing my nails
Hanging my head, chasing my tail
It got so bad I quit my job
Then I got a new job climbing the walls...

******
Last time I went to the dentist, they told me (once again) that I grind my teeth and suggested a night guard. Now, I know I don't grind my teeth at night and I don't need a $500 night guard.
But last week it turns out they were right - I am grinding my teeth.

Just not at night.

During the day.

While I am work.

From the stress.

Hooray!

******
In other news, we are scheduled to look at 2 rental houses Thursday evening, so pray that at least one of these is not fully falling apart, maybe even enough to actually live in....

I feel attacked

Since we've gotten back, it hasn't been a great re-entry, to say the least.

• The first day back at work, I was so unhappy and dreading it so much that I was nauseous all night the night before, and then had a splitting headache all day.
• There was some drama, which I'd rather not blog about, but suffice it to say, the result is several thousand dollars gone.
• Our air conditioner leaked all over the hallway yesterday.
• I am so behind at work that I am going to be working at home tonight for 2-3 hours.
• I have been massively angry about the drama for about 24 hours now. So angry that I start shaking. This is a negative thing to feel and it is unpleasant.
• At work today, we found a serious error that has one of my customers very, very upset. It was not my fault, but unfortunately, it is my problem.
  

I had this epiphany while on vacation that I really want to work somewhere that I can serve the end customer directly. Right now what I do is try to serve people well, who turn around and use the services I provide them to treat other people badly and disrespect them. My dream job would be something like a coffee shop were I could do the books or work out front. But the aforementioned unforeseen thousands of dollars we've now lost will definitely keep me from being able to take a lower-paying job, especially if we ever want to move out of this apartment.

Which reminds me:

Cigarette Count: Number of cigarettes my upstairs neighbors threw into my back yard today, which I had to pick up and throw away: 2

Stress to make our vacation seem more relaxing

Apparently there was a mistake when we tried paying our USAA bill and instead of $100, it attempted to draft $10,000 from our checking to the USAA investment account. We are leaving at 5 AM tomorrow morning and we found this out around 8 PM in the evening tonight when we logged in to our checking account and found it overdrawn. This is a problem because we hadn't taken out the cash for our trip yet, and we plan on using public transportation, which requires cash.

Yay for WAMU :-)
The lady who answered the phone at our bank (WAMU) was very nice and helpful. She stopped payment on the $10,000 but said it would take 2 business days for the account to kind of "get right" again. They also refunded the insufficient funds charge we had received, since this was a mistake. I got confused as to what was up with the account overall, but she said if USAA called WAMU and/or stopped trying to draft the amount, it would clear up and we could take out money again.

Boo to USAA :-(
USAA was not as helpful. They said they couldn't stop payment on the charge because it was after 5 PM and all the managers who have the power to do that sort of thing were gone until Monday. We explained that we are leaving in the morning and we need access to our checking account and they basically said "sorry". We called them back a second time and they changed the story a little and said the charge had already stopped itself. We were not sure which to believe.

It gets dumber
So, we can see from WAMU online that our account still shows our correct available balance. We decide to drive to the ATM and see if we can take out cash anyway. We drive to the WAMU ATM and IT EATS OUR CARD!! We call WAMU again and they can see the amount it tried to take out and I think they put it back. They said we could pick up the card from the branch tomorrow morning but of course we can't, because we are leaving at 5 AM. Oh well, WAMU issues a new card in the mail but now we are down one card and only have mine left. We are too afraid to try the ATM again for fear we'll lose both cards.

The outcome...
We end up going to 2 separate CVS Pharmacys and buying a toothbrush at one and some Kleenex at the other with the debit card so we could get the maximum cash back on each transaction. Hooray, this works! And it only took like 3 or 4 hours and a bunch of stress.

On that note, see you next week! Will log on from the hostel computers if we have access...

2 days and counting...

Sorry I have not been posting much. I have not been home except to sleep since Sunday and I won't until Friday, when I will be packing that evening to be ready for the airport shuttle that comes at 5 AM (?!). I am really looking forward to the vacation, work has not been easy this week trying to prepare, and as I mentioned, I've had something (sometimes more than one thing) every day of the week after work. If I can just make it to Friday....