two dolla

February has arrived.

Tomorrow is Groundhog’s Day and my middle school band teacher’s birthday. It’s the shortest month of the year. There’s Valentine’s Day in a couple of weeks, my grandma’s birthday and my parents’ anniversary. And since it’s the shortest month of the year, I’m giving the blog every day for a month thing yet another stab at things.

This month, I’m also taking my first certification test at work. It’s a 2.5 hour multiple choice exam. Once I pass it, I’ll be certified to do my very own job. There’s a whole heck of a lot of laws and contracts and terms that I think I knew existed, but had no idea all of the details. The last test I took that required this much studying was in 2003 when I had to switch my Missouri license to a Minnesota one.

Also happening this month? Marshall is getting neutered. He is way to proud of his little kitten testicles. We walked in today and he was having “relations” with a sparkly stuffed pony.

a happy but sad hour

Know how I know I might have had too many beers at Happy Hour? I just typed this: http://www/[ozzajit/cp, — what does that even mean?

I had Happy Hour with my department tonight. It’s a little sad, because we were saying goodbye to one of my favorite co-workers, who happens to be moving to Kentucky. Kentucky is far! So we had beers to celebrate. And it was good. I think I take for granted a lot the fact that I work in such a small department that has such dynamic individuals. Tonight reminded me of that and it was super awesome.

Now we’re waiting for pizza to get there, watching the American Idol finale, and we’re supposed to be packing for camping. I’m not sure if that’s going to happen. I just know it needs to happen.

maybe a little too comfortable

I’ve been in my current position since April 30, 2008. That’s almost a whole 8.5 months and the weeks just keep flying by. In April, it’ll be a whole year. It’s crazy. But crazy in a good way.

I’ve tried maintaining a professional approach day in and day out, but I think the ease of that has come to an end. Yesterday, I said the word TITS. To my defense, I meant to say TOTS, but I was still referring to the word tits. And it was loud. Probably loud enough for the whole back side of the office to hear. Oopsie on that.

And today, Favorite Co-Worker #1 was talking about someone named Pat.

Favorite Co-Worker #2 asked, “Pat who?”

Without even stopping to think what I was saying, I responded with, “McCrotch”.

Favorite Co-Workers #1 and #3 laughed. Favorite Co-Worker #2 was more stunned than anything, I think.

Talking about boobs one day and crotches the next? Probably something I should try to keep a little better control over. If I can get past tomorrow without referring to anyone’s top or bottom swimsuit area, I’ll be really proud of myself.

my daily tasks.

Before I started my current job, I’m pretty sure I had the ugliest resume known to man. I have a feeling I was using some type of Microsoft Word template, probably complete with fancy stationary on the side or something. I do know it was not fancy at all. Then the axe came down on my lame sales job and I was on the job hunt again. Someone from the internet, and I can’t remember exactly who and I’m sorry for that, redid my resume, and it was very adorable and exciting. Point being? I didn’t know my resume from my own ass six months ago.

And now? I spend half my days redoing peoples’ resumes. And you know what happens? They get jobs, much in part because of my thoughtful work describing their past work history. I take four pages resumes (yes, I’m serious) and condense them down, leaving out stupid things that people are really proud of. (Note: Future employers do not want to see that you were an Ear Piericing Specialist at Claire’s for three months or that you work part-time as a Sandwich Artist for Subway. They also don’t care that your hobbies include: “reading, spending time with my family, and horseback riding”. These things will not get you hired. Trust me.)

I should get paid for this. Oh wait. I guess I do.

is it november 5th yet?

There shouldn’t be any doubt that I’m planning on voting for Obama/Biden in November. Not only would I never talk to myself again if I voted for a McCain/Dumbass ticket, but my grandpa would probably disown me. Most of the people in my department at work are of the same belief, except for our Admin. Great fantastic guy that I love dearly, except he’s a Republican (and also from Arizona, so he’s especially McCain-loyal).

Today, the person that works at the front desk got a phone call that with something like this:

Front Desk Person: “Blah blah blah. Can I help you?”
Person the Phone: “Hi, this is the Republican National Committee.”
Front Desk Phone (most certainly not a fan of any committee that starts with the word Republican): “Oh, really?”
Person the Phone: “Did you know Barack Obama is a terrorist?”
Front Desk Phone: “Thanks for calling” and that was the end of that call.

Now we all know it wasn’t Republican National Committee. They may be a bunch of crazies I don’t agree with, but I don’t think they’d stoop that low. And it just sucks that this election has turned into a situation where individuals (or small politically unsponsored groups) are taking it upon themselves to encourage the mudslinging and the namecalling.

I’m pretty much ready for this election to be over.

treats of champions

Last week, my team at work did something really great. Without going into details (because, you know, I’m so anonymous and shit), I can say that we doubled some expectations that were loosely set for us. As a reward, the President promised there would be treats the next day. And somehow, I was appointed (by the President) to ask about said treats if I didn’t see them first thing in the morning.

Well, I didn’t see them, and I also didn’t remember to remind anyone about them.  I’m thinking the team can go without a bag of M&Ms or mini Butterfinger bars… or at least I knew I could. The afternoon rolls around in walks the President from a shopping spree. Out of at least four plastic shopping bags come the following:

• Cool Ranch Doritos
• Double Stuff Oreos
• a large bag of peanuts (in the shell)
• Twizzlers
• Old Dutch Pretzels
• Fisher’s Pizza Balls
• bite size Snickers
• Sour Skittles
• Chicken in a Biskit (oh, I spelled that right)
• Strawberry and cream swirly hard candies

And I know there are more that I just can’t think of.

I’m not talking little tiny one serving bags (or boxes depending) of this stuff. I’m talking, this lady went to the grocery story and probably said to the bagging boy, “Go find me the most ghetto-like snacks you can possibly think of and super size them for me while you’re at it”.

The pay may not be where I was at my last job, but I never got Chicken in a Biskit at my last job either.

my 90 day review

I had my 90 day review last Monday. My 90 Day Anniversary was actually July 30th, so we were running a tad behind before I sat down with the President (I don’t have a direct supervisor anymore) and chatted about my time there. It lasted close to two hours, but when talking with the President, time seems to really sail by without even noticing you’ve been in there for all that long. I think that’s good.

Without trying to sound a tad too egotistical (but I will anyway), I’m really good at my job. April 30 was the first day I’d ever had any type of experience in this position and it’s the most natural fit of any position I’ve ever had in my life. (Work related, of course.) I was hired on without a college degree and without a single day of experience in the field, but I feel like I’ve proven myself and continue proving myself.

I got a print out from the President of my strengths and “areas of improvement”, which I’ll share, because I’m proud of them and they only do so much good hanging from the refridgerator by four Vegas poker chips I turned into magnets:

Strengths
1. Natural leadership qualities
2. Intelligence
3. Retention and recall
4. Customer service skills; relationships
5. Willingness to jump in and learn new things

Areas for Improvement
1. Urgency and prioritization
2. Assessing candidates (finding the detail)
3. Professionalism
4. Using your leadership to take the group in a positive direction/promote urgency

At one point, the President mentioned coming down too hard on me for someone that had only been there 4 months or so, but it wasn’t like any of it was bad at all. I just think it was a way of saying I’m being held to higher expectations, and in this instance, I appreciate it.

There’s not much else to say except I love my job so much, dudes. If there was ever a natural fit for me in a position, this would be it and I only wish I didn’t have to wait until I was 30 to find it!

getting reviewed for the first time

Tomorrow at 10:00 a.m., I have an appointment with the CEO of my company for my 90-day review. It’s about a month late, but I had a ridiculously awesome week for numbers last week, which will hopefully end up in my favor for my first review with this company. I’m kind of excited since my last company gave us one review a year if we were lucky.

I’m working on filling out a form that we’ll discuss during my review. I have to answer questions like:

1. List five strengths and five areas of improvement
2. What do I like and dislike about my job?
3. What are your key motivators?
4. What are your overall feelings about Awesome Co.?
5. If you could change one thing, what would it be?

You get the idea… THEY’RE HARD. I really love my job and can’t find one single aspect that I dislike about it, which is making parts of this form extremely freaking difficult.

I really love that the powers that be are this interested in their employees’ opinions. I’m overly excited about working there and can’t imagine doing anything other than this for a long time to come. It’s just really hard trying to convey that in a written form without sounding like a total kiss-ass. WHICH I TOTALLY AM NOT.

look, it’s my previous job!

Dear Job Seekers,

I found a job for you all. Despite the lengthy job description, they forgot to mention things that I would like to include for you:

• Must be able to deal with a giant douchebag, who needs to be kicked repeatedly in the balls, as a manager.
• Will have to work with a team of people that are so complacent with their lives that they have no goals, other than sit around and mooch on someone else’s hard work and commission.
• Must be willing to work with upper management that tell more lies than the current administration and/or Pinocchio. Combined.
• Willing to give up any type of incentive vacation to some fancy pants island because all of a sudden the Vice President of Sales decides he has a different plan. And must be willing to accept that plan might quite possibly be getting fired for things completely beyond your control, despite the fact that you’ve achieved everything on your lovely performance improvement plan.

BUT I’M NOT BITTER. And enjoy your new job!

Love,
Wendy

(And P.S.? Getting fired from that shit hole place? Possibly the best thing that ever happened to me, especially considering I have the best job ever now. And I’m not just saying that because I think some smarmy co-workers enjoy telling everyone about my blog, like they did in the position that I just linked to above.)

an update on my job

July 30th marked three months for me at Awesome Staffing Agency. (Man, I wish that was the name of it.) I figure there are about 62 billion staffing agencies in the Twin Cities, so I’m not too concerned about any crazies out there figuring out which one it is.

1. I seriously love it a lot.
2. It makes me happy to go into work and rarely am I late; if I am late, it’s by 10 minutes MAX and I think that’s only happened once.
3. I’ve won ridiculous Twins tickets and third row orchestra tickets just for being there.
4. We get birthday cake once a month.
5. We have staffing meetings every two weeks, but we get free lunch and the staff meetings are incredibly productive, so I don’t mind them at all.
6. My co-workers? 98% fabulous. You should follow my Twitter for those tidbits of information.
7. My direct supervisor? Always full of positive feedback and open for coaching opportunities. (Such a change from my previous Douchebag Asshole Manager.)
8. The President of the Company? I’m totally in love with her in like a Utmost Respect from a Business Standpoint way. She’s kind of everything I want to be when I grow up and just a little bit more. She’s tough as nails, but it’s just easy to work for her. In my three months, I feel like I’ve learned so much about the actual business world, work attitudes, team communication, and anything else you can think of.

So, yeah. I love it. I have five billion awesome work stories to tell, but, well, I love it so much I have no desire to get fired just for talking about it. Kinda not worth it!