Tuesday, October 25, 2005

More wallowing in 'Yay me'-ness

(because if you can't do it on your own blog, where can you?)


1. The company owner and president was not supposed to announce my promotion Friday. I guess he was just too excited for me and couldn't hold back.

2. New official title will be Account Executive. This rocks. Here's why: in the post where I talk about my initial interview (and bet myself I can get promoted in 4 months), the CFO said that one could expect to be promoted to Assistant Account Executive after 6 months. I get to skip a grade! (again--gotta love us RHPers)

3. My raise is proportionate to the number of rungs I'm climbing. Am very excited that my income is starting to exit the 'paying my dues' bracket.

...that being said, it is now past midnight and I'm still working on a client-requested presentation. I did take some time out to go to chorus rehearsal and stop at the market to get myself carrots for the anticipated stress munching, but still. 12-hour+ days suck.

...that
being said, I'm totally billing the time I took to write this post to the client.

Saturday, October 22, 2005

Local Employee Misses Announcement of Own Promotion

WOODLAND HILLS, CA--Adrienne Graves, a former account coordinator at a local direct marketing agency, was not present Friday when the company owner and president announced her promotion to basically everyone else.

"We have a staff meeting every month for birthdays and bonuses, and since a. neither applied to me and b. it's just a good idea for me to stay away from cake, I didn't really see a reason to leave the meeting I was in and go."

Despite Ms. Graves' error in judgment, she managed to smile and say thank you when she received congratulations from people who had actually been present, because "like, that's just what you do, even if you have no idea what they're talking about."

When asked if she had already known about the promotion, in which case one would think she'd have had the good sense to attend the meeting so she could at least brag about it to a larger audience, Adrienne replied, "I kind of knew it was coming, but my boss was out of town and hadn't said anything and I figured it wouldn't become official until the following week."

Ms. Graves has worked in the capacity of account coordinator since she started her job four and a half months ago, and is looking forward to the slightly more respectable title of whatever comes next.

"I doubt the day-to-day work will change too much, because we're hiring on an account coordinator to do the stuff I don't have time to do now. I'll totally get to boss them around though. Sweet."

Upon being asked additional questions, Ms. Graves started getting irritable and said, "Look, it's already past six on a Friday and I've gotta give comments on these concepts, okay? Go away."

Looks like it's going to the bitch's head already.

------------------
In all seriousness, yay! I got a promotion! And I wasn't too far off when I bet myself I'd make it in four months. Don't have details like new title, raise, etc., though I have my suspicions and definitely have my own ideas about what they should be. I find all that out next week during an official review process (scary).

Meanwhile, celebration plans look something like this:


(photo courtesy of this friggin' awesome website... don't be fooled by the german)

Sunday, October 16, 2005

Unfuckingbelievable

Yesterday's game has to be the most intense I've ever been to. EVER. I'm going to have post-traumatic stress flashbacks every time time I see clips of USC playing Notre Dame until forever. Let's have a quick look at what these will entail:

Standing (no one sits) in the Notre Dame student section, wearing bright red USC gear that made us an easy target for all the Irish surrounding us. That and our lone cheers and screaming every time USC made a good play.

Complete shock over the fact that we were trailing most of the game, compounded by a sudden burst of penalties the likes of which we haven't seen since the days of Paul Hackett.

A raging battle between hope and fear, each to such a degree that it's a wonder I didn't spontaneously combust.

The whole 4th quarter, with the entire stadium on its feet, screaming at the top of its lungs no matter what happened.

The end of the 4th quarter: the clock running out, Notre Dame rushing the field, standing there believing we'd lost, and then watching it all happen all over again but with a different ending, and not being able to believe we'd won, then seeing the flag thrown and believing again that we'd lost, and then missing the extra point, and then standing there for the kickoff to Notre Dame in the final 3 seconds of the game convinced they were going to run it back for a touchdown and take our victory away again.

I can't handle shit like this. I'd still be in shock now if I weren't so hung over.

Sunday, October 09, 2005

Gonzaga Karma, or, How I Got My Ticket to the USC-Notre Dame Game

I find it somewhat ironic that, now that I'm back living in LA and could theoretically go to every USC home game, the first game I'll be going to this season will be... back in the Midwest. Despite the best of intentions, a stressful job and lack of cable have conspired to keep me relatively in the dark when it comes to, well, current events of any sort (Supreme Court, what? Is that like a new Taco Bell menu item or something?) and the life and times of Pete Carroll in particular. I never know if games are home or away, if we're playing someone who might be worth paying attention to or not. And the quality of my trash talk when it comes to Pac-10 rival coworkers has suffered considerably. Comebacks now uniformly consist of a very forceful "So?!"

But no matter; I'm headed for Chicago next weekend, and will attend the USC-Notre Dame game all decked out in my USC gear, along with Brendan and Becky... the three of us will make a nice-sized red target in the green and yellow Irish student section. (I'll show you team spirit.)

Next week's brush with death comes courtesy of what I'm convinced is Gonzaga karma. Brendan has been a fan of Gonzaga's basketball team for years (and I have to admit that I would be too if I cared at all about basketball... I picked them to make it into the Elite Eight in a random pool back in high school because I thought they had a funny name: that was the year they won). And thus he has his share of Gonzaga gear to show his support, and asked me to pick him up something from the school, if I had the chance, while I was passing through Spokane on my way back to LA from Chicago back in May. And I did, and had planned to give it to Brendan next time I saw him. Am glad I didn't get him a t-shirt, because he already has one--at the beginning of this school year he became friends with an ND 1-L who was a Gonzaga alumna because she saw him in the t-shirt. And it turns out that she's the one I'm getting my ticket from.

Next weekend promises to be a good one (if I can stay awake for it--am taking the red eye on Thursday night and it includes a 4-hour layover in Vegas). I'll be at the Notre Dame game (and ESPN College Gameday, if the rumors are true), I'll see my friend Meredith's brand new baby, Roxanne Helen (the Helen is in homage to fellow Trojans Doug and Meredith's alma mater... if it was a boy he was was going to have Troy as a middle name), I'll get to see some of my grad school friends and I'll be back in my favorite city in the world.

...That is, if my roommate doesn't kill me when she gets back from her weekend climbing trip and sees the mess I made of our apartment in my attempt to paint my bedroom. (Am considering just leaving the primer and calling it a day.) DIY my ass.

Whole27: Seven (Eight?) Months Later

Breakfast this morning was cinnamon rolls. In fairness, I'm sick right now with something resembling that monster flu--hopefully it...