Category Archives: Work

things I like about my job

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1) Free coffee & at least a dozen different types of tea. And I don’t mean just plain ol’ drip coffee, either. There’s that too, of course, but there’s also an espresso/cappucino/latte-maker that is freakin’ awesome.

2) The soda machine only costs 25 cents. And it has both Diet Coke AND Diet Dr. Pepper in it. Hell yeah.

3) I met my career manager on Monday (more of a mentor than a boss), and he’s very nice. His name is Maurice, but everyone calls him Mo. I asked him if anyone calls him the Gangster of Love. He said no, but some do call him the Space Cowboy. So he’s cool. 🙂 He took me to a very nice lunch (company tab) and filled me in about lots of work stuff I didn’t know. He also told me that when I travel for work, if I’m going to be gone for a long time, I can take Teenie with me & the company will pay for it. He said that a lot of times if he’s going to be somewhere longer than a month, he & his wife will drive down with their cat & dog and all stay in the hotel together. (His wife is a writer, so she has flexibility to travel whenever/wherever she wants. Must be nice.) So that’s good, worrying about pet-sitters is honestly the one thing that had been making me not want to travel. But Teenie is a really good flyer, so if she can come with me, the problem is essentially solved.

4) I’m going to Vegas tomorrow, for an employee meeting for the western region. It’s only for one night, and I have mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, I’ve never been to Vegas, and I’ve wanted to check it out for quite some time. Mo warned me to plan on getting (a) very drunk, and (b) very little sleep. I told him that I had no plans of getting drunk with my co-workers and he said “Oh don’t worry, you will. You know that expression, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas? That’s true for these meetings. You probably won’t even go to bed that night.” So THAT part sounds totally awesome – although somewhat scary, since I can’t remember the last time I stayed up all night. And my flight back to Seattle doesn’t leave until 8:00 on Friday night, so Friday is going to be one looooooong day for me.

On the other hand, I have to share a hotel room with someone I don’t know, which is a bit awkward. And there are some things on the agenda that the HR ladies have been sending out, with phrases like “team activities involving creativity and fun!” that sound like absolute hell to me. I am not a fan of those “let’s get a bunch of grown-ups who don’t know each other to stand in a circle and play a game” types of exercises. One of the events is bowling – which, if there’s going to be alcohol involved, I’m going to have to politely decline from participating in, because I’ll end up seriously hurting someone, most likely myself. I do have weird carpal tunnel-esque issues with both of my thumbs (years & years of typing), so I think I can use that as an excuse. Oh well, damn near any event is tolerable as long as there’s an open bar.

need happy thoughts

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I’m taking a Microsoft certification exam tomorrow. It’s my first test on Windows Server 2003, so it’ll make me an MCP, or a MS Certified Professional. Six or seven more exams (I forget exactly how many) & I’ll be an MCSE (Systems Engineer) in 2003. I already did this years ago with Windows NT, but I have to stay current with the latest & greatest software or I’ll be relatively unemployable. With this stuff, I’ve been studying the material for months, but I wasn’t willing to fork over the $125 to pay for the test myself. And what do you know, my current employer is more than happy to provide vouchers to pay for the exams so they don’t cost me a dime. Yay!

Anyway, it’s been a while since I’ve done one of these things, and I’m really nervous because it’s only my 2nd week, so I really, really want to do well to make a good impression. How much would it suck if I flunked my first exam on my 2nd week? That would NOT look good. So I’m sending out a request for all of you who read this to send me your best “you will remember everything you’ve crammed into your tiny little brain and won’t mess this up” vibes. It’s much appreciated.

A few random things:
* There’s an Elastica song being used on a hair color commercial. I don’t know why that strikes me as so strange. If the Cure can do HP, Elastica can do Garnier. It’s just weird to hear those types of songs in advertising.
* My boss has a bumper sticker on his door that says “My kid reads your honor student’s email”. I like that. It’s much better than that “Got milk? This room reserved for nursing mothers” sign at my last job.
* The mirrors in the ladies’ room here totally wig me out. They’re like circus mirrors — I look skinny, but my head looks like it’s shaped like an eggplant. I can’t look at myself in them, it’s too freaky.
* The cable guys came last night to fix my TV. This is the 4th or 5th time someone has been there in the 2 weeks since I moved in, and no one seems to be able to get it working. Yesterday, they sent 2 technicians out. I met them at the front of the building to let them in, and when we were all in the elevator, I said “Wow, I get 2 guys at once? Lucky me.” After I said it, I realized how completely dirty it sounded & I couldn’t stop blushing. I have no idea what they thought of me. I’d rather not think about it.
* I have this idea for a tattoo that I really want (no, it’s not the Winnie the Pooh thing, I gave up on that), and I can’t get it out of my head. I even have the picture saved as the wallpaper on my laptop. I figure I’ll stare at it for at least 2-3 months, and if I’m still in love with it, I’m going to get it.

the typical morning commute

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* Average number of people I see who are walking their dogs: 4
* Number of times I see people with dogs & wish that I had one: 4
* Odds that’ll happen in Teenie’s lifetime: 0 (she likes being an only child… I mean cat)
* Average number of people I pass who are smoking on the street: at least 5 – This number would actually be way higher, but I’ve learned to avoid the 2 sort of sketchy blocks where a lot of homeless guys & day laborers hang out on the sidewalk. I find this statistic kind of surprising since we’re in the allegedly health-conscious northwest. Everytime I’m about to pass someone now, I check their hands. If they’re holding a cigarette, I take a deep breath and hold it as I walk past them. I count to 5 or 10 before I figure it’s safe to breathe again.

Not much else going on. Work so far is pretty cool. I have an office, but it’s not really mine, it’s the office of a lady who’s on maternity leave, so I have it for the next few weeks while they figure out where they’re going to put me. Still, I have my own room with a door, which is more than I’ve had at most places where I’ve worked. Oh, and I have business cards. They’re purty.

The sparkless Republican Canadian emailed me, so I wrote him back and told him that I just wasn’t feeling any sort of click, but I wished him well. Actually my email was much nicer than that last sentence, but you get the idea. So he’s gone. Oh, and the boy that I kissed in the bar last week never called, which doesn’t surprise me a bit, and I can honestly say that I don’t care.

Random: I had a sex dream about a former employer last night. Only in the dream, he wasn’t my ex-boss, he was Dave Matthews. But there was this whole “now that we don’t work together anymore” thing, and it was kind of hot. I guess it makes sense, I’ve changed jobs twice in less than 2 months so my work life is kind of in upheaval, and I have always had a bit of a thing for Dave… Still, it was pretty weird. But hot.

another Seattle yuppie, walking home from work in the rain

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I survived the first day. It was all orientation stuff, I didn’t actually do any real work. I got a new laptop, though — and a nifty little backpack to help me carry it around. The backpack seems to be relatively waterproof, which is fortunate since it drizzled on me the entire walk home. I think I like walking to & from work, it’s just going to take me a while to get used to it. Allowing twenty minutes to go one mile is a little foreign to me.

I can’t really think of what else to say about my day, except that it was good. I’m completely exhausted — I guess staying up half the night worrying about the new job will do that to you. So I’m crashing early. The end.

nervous tummy

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I start the new job tomorrow. I feel scared, unprepared, underqualified…. It’s weird, I can’t remember the last time I felt this way about starting a new job. I’m usually excited and looking forward to it, but this job just seems way too good for me. Like halfway through the first day, they’re going to figure out that I’m not smart enough and fire me. I have never questioned my own intelligence before, it’s one of the few things that I’ve always been confident about, so I don’t know why I suddenly feel shaky now. Maybe it’s because I’ve never done this type of work before, and I’ll be working with hundreds of other engineers who have been doing this for years, and I’m worried that they’re going to think I’m a moron because I’m not walking in the door knowing all of the stuff that they know. What if they think I’m dumb? (For some reason, the mother from Carrie, saying “they’re all going to laugh at you!” keeps looping through my mind.)

Oh, screw this. I’m going to Ikea to buy a medicine cabinet for my bathroom.

Unrelated: I had a date on Friday night. This was the 2nd date with this particular guy. The first date, I was 5-10 minutes early, and he was 5-10 minutes late. No biggie. This time, I was 5 minutes late, and he was TWENTY MINUTES late. I made a comment about how I was going to give him 10 more minutes before I left, and his response was “oh, am I late?” Are you kidding me? You know you’re late, just grow some balls & apologize and be done with it. He’s a nice enough guy, I guess, but he’s sort of boring, and there’s no click or spark or attraction or whatever. Oh, and I think he’s a Republican. Which I find amusing, since he’s a Canadian. So, that will be the last date for him.

However, the place where we had our date was about 2 blocks from my apartment, and I was worried he was going to try to walk me home, so as we were passing Safeway, I made a comment that I needed to just dash in & grab myself some breakfast for tomorrow. So we said goodnight (quick, awkward hug) and went our separate ways. Only I didn’t go to Safeway — I went to the bar across the street, which had been recommended to me earlier in the week by Cute Mover Boy. This bar was a pretty fun place, I got hit on at least 10 times in the first 15 minutes. Many drinks were purchased for me (always a plus). An hour or so later, I had met a very cute guy, given him my phone number AND kissed him goodnight. I seriously doubt he’ll call, and I’m not sure I even want him to because it seems kind of sleazy to pick someone up in a bar like that. But the attention was nice, and I thought it was funny that I had a date and ended up kissing someone who was not my date. Yep, living downtown is going to be fun.

more job news!

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Ok, this is why I never put in a link to my new company, because I had a feeling that something like this would happen, and I didn’t want any of my co-workers to dig up my website like they did at the last place (hi, Karyn!) and find out about this ahead of time. Here’s the deal: on my last day at my last job, I got an email from a company that I interviewed with 2 months ago — since I hadn’t heard back from them, I had assumed that I didn’t get the job. Wrong! They’re just slow in the hiring process, apparently. But they wanted to set up another interview with me. Keep in mind that this happened on Friday the 19th & I was supposed to start the new job on Monday the 22nd. This was a really awesome opportunity with a great company (oooh, I am dying to put in the link here so y’all can see how impressive they are, but I won’t), and although under ordinary circumstances I would’ve just said “no thanks, I’ve accepted another offer,” I knew I couldn’t turn this one down. So I set up the interview, which was last Wednesday (my 3rd day of working here, for those of you keeping track). They called me yesterday & offered me the job.

It’s such a cool company, they actually work as a consultant for Microsoft with some of their enterprise customers, so I’d be working on 3000+ user networks, which is bigger than anything I can even imagine. And they’re international. I’ll be west coast-based, so I can stay in Seattle, but I may have to travel to San Francisco, L.A., Phoenix & Denver. (Cool!) The first project they want me to work on is a rollout of MS Operations Manager (MOM) 2005, which isn’t even available to the public yet, but because these guys work with Microsoft, they get to test & deploy all of this stuff before anyone else. (I know this is totally boring to a lot of you, but oh-my-god this kind of thing is enough to make me all a-quiver with joy.) And the project is downtown and will last at least 9 months, so that gives me a justifiable excuse to move into the city, which I’ve been wanting to do for a while. Oh, and the benefits package… Well, I won’t get into all that, but I must say that it totally kicks ass.

So obviously, I had to give my notice at my job today, after only being here for a week & a half. And I feel like such a flake doing that, because I never would’ve started here if I knew I was going to be leaving so soon. And there was basically no good spin that I could put on it, I knew I was just going to look like a really crappy employee and I just kept apologizing for the whole situation. My boss was surprisingly nice about it and even congratulated me on the new job. I told her I can stick around for 2 weeks while she finds a replacement, and she said she appreciated that. Kind of odd that my notice is actually longer than my time as an employee.

Anyway, YAY!

Oh, and an update, per Sally’s request: I ended up emailing Miata-boy and telling him that things were starting to get serious with one of the other guys I was seeing. Which is a complete lie, and I was totally chicken shit about it by emailing him & not having the nerve to say it in person or even over the phone. But I rationalized this by thinking that since we only went out twice, and the only physical contact we shared was one very quick, awkward hug at the end of the 2nd date, I didn’t really owe him an in-person explanation or anything like that. He was nice about it. He’s a sweet guy, just a little too much of a car dork for me. So instead, on Friday night, I got Greek take-out with Nate & we watched that Cate Blanchett/Tommy Lee Jones movie “The Missing.” It was good. And thus ends the brief cameo of Miata-boy in the story my life.

quote of the day

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If a tree falls in the forest, do the other trees laugh at it?

I read that on a sticker in someone’s office today, and I thought it was funny. I have to say, I really like my new job, but it’s been a strange shift to this whole watersports/factory environment. It’s not like anywhere that I’ve ever worked before. A lot of guys have posters in their offices of women in bikinis posing on wakeboards, which is admittedly tacky, although I guess it’s technically somewhat work-related. And honestly, that doesn’t really bother me so much, I’ve never been threatened by photos of hot babes. Even in non-work scenarios, I’m not the type of girl who gets upset if her boyfriend looks at porn or anything like that. I’m generally pretty cool about all of that cheesecake stuff. But there is one guy who has a sticker on his office door that says, “Got Milk? This room reserved for nursing mothers.” And I must admit, that one kind of creeped me out.

I feel a little sorry for the HR lady. She’s only been there a couple of weeks longer than me, and I think she’s freaking out at all of the potential lawsuit material that’s around every corner. She used to work for one of the local vineyards before she started working here. I’m guessing there probably weren’t cheesy posters of women in bikinis handling expensive bottles of wine in her male co-workers’ offices.