| You Are The Wheel of Fortune |
 Your fortune: Something huge is about to happen in your life, and you have little control over it.You must accept your destiny, but luckily it is good fortune that has come your way.Big things and big changes are about to come your way.And while things will be intense for a while, they will be followed by a period of rest. |
I'm catching up with news as this is my 3rd post in 10 mins. OK, so the past week meant that there was lots of drama for Rachel. She'd already had some bad news - that Trev's company was taken over so the job she'd been offered has been cut. She was bummed about that, but all was well as she could work where she has been the last few years. Except.... that last Monday she was told to leave the premises by the HR group and not return until her work permit arrived.
It transpired that because she had graduated she couldn't now work as a student. She had put her application for a work permit for work experience in last Feb/Mar but it hadn't yet been approved by the government. She had it all worked out that she was going to continue to work where she was, but they wouldn't pay her until it came through. Well, HR got wind of it and scuppered that plan.
So..... after much hysteria, crying and planning Rachel decided that she'd go back to the UK for a few weeks and take a holiday. Of course, she had no money so the Lovegrove money tree had to come out again. She planned on flying out today (Trev changed his flight specially so he could see her....at a ridiculous price!) but when we went online the only flight that was less than $1000 flew out Sunday. Here's the kicker - the moment we were about to book the flight, she'd let everyone know she was coming back to the UK - her work permit turned up! She went anyway so at least she gets a break.
The plan right now when she returns at the end of June is to continue working where she is until she can find something different. She really wants to move to Chicago, so hopefully she'll find something to do.
OK....I'm off to do some work!
So, our time has come to an end with living in Manhattan. Trevor left this morning for Chicago and I'll walk out tomorrow for the last time. Yippee!! It was awful. Not only did you have 2 flights of stairs to walk up every time you got home, there was no air conditioning (although didnt' realize that until this weekend when it was 85 degrees) and any one else staying there had absolutely no consideration for anyone else. Saturday night, the guys downstairs stopped partying at 5.30am. I really am an old fart! I would have yelled at them, except I would have had to put on a t-shirt to open the window so I didn't. I wish I had though....I would have felt so much better!
We spent the weekend packing up clothes and stuff and getting over to the new apartment in Newport, NJ. Took a few hours, but not too bad at all. Each time we do the commute by train I'm so happy it's only 15 mins to where we've bought our condo!
I'm at the Hilton for a night on Weds, then late on Thursday I'm off to Chicago when Trev and I will drive to Cedar Rapids for our friends' son's wedding. We're meeting up with friends on Friday night (Penny, not sure if you're around....), and then wedding stuff all day Saturday. I plan on getting a manicure and pedicure at the very least. I'm so proud, I've already figured out what I'm going to wear....shoes and everything. It's a miracle.
Then, when I get back to NY on Monday morning, I'm moving into the next apartment. Commuting will begin. Howeve,r we'll have peace and quiet, aircon and a car to drive around in. Fabulous!
OK, I have to braindump and get my crap together....I figure here is as good a place as any.
1. Number of staff. I have 59 people who report to me - that includes about 6 vacances. I found out this week that I'll probably get at least another 5, maybe even 10. I'm already stressing about performance review time and not sure how i can do it effectively.
2. My team leads aren't team leads. This is a constant source of frustration. they're so damn young and inexperienced. They're great at what they do but they don't strategize or think outside the box. Some of them are great, but others are "OK". They're good people, they just have to get used to me as their boss - I cannot tell them how/what to do as i don't know the financial markets or products like they do. It's almost like they want me to give them answers all the time. They need to realize that they should be looking for the answers!!!!!
3. My boss. She's great, I like working for her but sometimes I think she doesn't understand the neediness of direct reports. The people who work directly for her are like me...can handle their own stuff and don't need her. However, no matter how hard I try to be organized, get ahead there seems to be no way of being 3 steps ahead. this is VERY VERY frustrating.
4. Sheer volume of email. I must get at least 400 emails a day. By the end of the week I generally have 400-600 that I've not dealt with. Sooooooo........i'm trying a new tactic this week - I'm ONLY reading emails that are sent directly to me, rather than all. Anything that I'm copied on is getting sent to a directory for me to peruse as I see fit. Hopefully this will make me more productive.
5. Account teams and politics. Already in my short life here I've been asked to promote 2 people that I wouldn't have. Luckily one of them quit - good guy...just not what I consider a team lead. The other one is doing OK - she's just trying to be a super trainer rather than a lead. she's not taking accountability for her decisions and actions and that means her Account teams escalate to me when she's under-resourced. The fact that she agreed to certain things makes me mad as she doesn't communicate that to them. Now, I'm being asked to promote someone who's marked a 4 on their review (below average!!!!) because "he's a nice guy and can schmooze well". Now, c'mon! I ask you.....is that a problem waiting to happen. Can you imagine the message I'm sending to the rest of my team.....yeah, don't perform, under achieve and Phil will promote you. This one is REALLY REALLY making me mad. I'm hoping HR will side with me.....I have come up with a compromise....I'll take him on, but at his current level. He'll have 90 days to prove he's worthy. We'll see.
OK, I feel better now.... at least I can vent somewhere. I'm still glad I moved, these are just the challenges I face. I guess I'll find answers somewhere.......
Thanks, Penny for this one...
Four Guilty Pleasures in Books/Reading:
1. www.thesun.co.uk
2. Penny's blog
3. www.reuters.com and www.reuters.co.uk - great news pages; especially for the entertainment section
4. Time Magazine
Four Guilty Pleasures in Movies:
1. Thomas Crown Affair
2. Rocky Horror Picture Show
3. Austin Powers (1 and 3, #2 was terrible)
4. Wallace and Gromit and the case of the Were Rabbit
Four Guilty Pleasures in Food:
1. English chocolate
2. English/Scottish/Irish sausages
3. Yorkshire Pudding
4. Custard
Four Guilty Pleasures in Music:
1. The Beautiful South
2. Paul McKenna's CD "I can make you thin"
3. Musicals (shhhh, don't tell anyone) - Joseph, Rocky Horror, Grease, plus a host of others:)
4. Hard Rock (only since a trip to Green Bay for work several years ago)
Four Guilty Pleasures in TV:
1. Men Behaving Badly (UK Version)
2. CSI, Law and Order (all versions)
3. Coupling (UK Version)
4. 2 Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps (only in the UK)1. Survivor
Four Guilty Pleasures in Booze:
1. Surfer's on acid (I'm with Penny on this one)
2. Tanqueray and Tonic, lots of lime
3. Jello shots...not the boring vodka ones, but the ones that are creative.
4. Cosmopolitan
So, this was the 2nd time I took some vacation time - Tim (my brother) was in town. We became tourists for the last few days. We saw the shows: The Odd Couple, Billy Connolly and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. Pretty flipping good, was so glad we went. Did a tour round Manhattan Island - i wouldn't recommend the full boat trip but doing the lower half of the island would be good. Saw all the sites (sky line, Statue of Liberty, Empire State etc). Did a lot of eating and drinking too so need to exercise even more..... we went up to Connecticut ove rthe weekend to see Melissa and co, was good to see everyone again. Oh yeah, and we shopped til we dropped. Have lots of things left though to do for the next trip.
Back at work now though, so have to focus and my 700 emails filed and my to do list written. We're packing up the apartment this coming weekend ready for moving the following week. yeeeeeee ha - just gotta love moving.
Having taken a couple of days away i get back to work and it's chaos. One of my clients (and they're ALL big remember as I support the high revenue customers) has blown up and my team is up in arms. I'm called into a big wig meeting to sort out "how we're going to work from here on out". It resulted in my team lead securing another elsewhere (not a huge loss I might add) as well as issues with people I've hired. Not because there's anything wrong with them, rather they don't know them therefore they're a problem. Flipping ridiculous.
So.....I had to buy a suit to go meet with them. HAHA. I bought a lime green jacket too that'll go with grey or black pants. I can't believe how expensive everything is. I guess I'll need it again soon.
Tim arrives today - should be a riot. I get to take 3 days vacation, and I'm going to enjoy all of them!
The weekend went like a charm, graduation was great - lots of pics and celebrations. Penny made it for a bit which was a great surprise and I really appreciated it (thank you!!). Was a great time. Then, at lunch on Sunday that Carrieanne and Chris were hosting Chris proposed. it was very cute! I tried to put the links to the pics in here but they didn't work. If you want to see them, let me know.
On the downside, Trevor was told that his company is being bought out so there's loads of uncertainty about whether he'll be able to keep that job and travel. We've decided to march on with buying the condo on the proviso that he's meeting with a headhunter in New York to keep his options open. There are lots of jobs here, and companies are open to getting visas. the trick is to do it right in time with his green card application.
Nothing is ever simple. It's been crazy mad at work....Tim gets in tomorrow for a week's vacation which will be cool. I'm so looking forward to seeing The Odd Couple, Billy Connolly and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.....all in about 3 days. Yeeeeeha
Ok so today we've spent more money than we ever ever imagined on something a little bigger than the main floor of our house in St Louis. Ouch. Apparently, it's a great investment and we'll make loads of money. yeah yeah yeah....still scary though!
We move at the end of July. I don't really have many details, so it's hard to give any one a picture. it's 2 bedroom, 2 bath - and has at least a dozen places to eat and socialize between the train station and home. Yeah.....perfect! It has a car space and a magnificent kitchen! So here's the quirky/flashy thing about it - the elevator opens into the living room. I think it's really to give more space (no hallways)...but it's still weird. I keep thinking of Hart to Hart....
hahahahahahha - yeah! I'm so excited - we know where we're going to live!!!!!!!
OK, so we thought some more and decided we wanted to pursue one of the condos that we saw on Sunday. Apart from the fact that it's $200k more than we ideally wanted to spend we're getting the groove on and meeting with mortgage people etc to progress. Hopefully we'll have a contract in a week.
One thing I wanted was bedrooms that weren't next to each - and this doesn't give us that. On the plus side, the elevator goes straight into the living room (feels like an episode of Hart to Hart) and there's parking too. The living area is huge and that's the main thing. It's light and airy, it's 10 blocks from the train station and there are multiple coffee shops, bars and restaurants right around the corner. Perfect. the monthly maintenance charge is very low so that makes it even better.
Will keep you posted....
We've been busy this weekend. Carrieanne and Chris drove to Long Island for a wedding this weekend so we met up with them for lunch on Saturday. It was great - Carrieanne was a bit worried (to say the least) as her Mum is coming into town next weekend and staying with her for a while. She's always been worried about it, as she feels her Mum doesn't know her or even want to know her. She also feels her Mum thinks she should have stayed married to Sean even though he was violent. She's avoided her for a few years, but now she's in town she feels that she's been bullied into having her stay. We spent a lot of time doing the "you're 24 now, not 18....be yourself, you'll be fine". Not sure I believe that - but at some point she's got to stand up for herself. So, on Thursday we're driving down to Chicago and having dinner with everyone - all 5 of us plus Bethany, Peter's girlfiriend. Then Saturday it's graduation followed by a party - should be fun. Friday we're planning on meeting up with friends for a few beers as the kids will meet up with their Mum. Chris has invited everyone to a barbeque...so there's only a few times that their parents will be in the same vicinity together. It's generally pretty civil.....so we'll see.
Today we caught the train to Hoboken. It's a town right across the river in New Jersey. It's about a mile squared....and it was great. We went for some open houses to check out where we want to live and there was an arts festival on which was pretty cool. When we got off the train it felt like we'd finally found somewhere we'd want to live. We looked at about 6 places...some better than others. There were 2 we really really liked - the 2nd one was the most expensive, but it was about a 10 minute walk to the train which is awesome. the train is about 20mins to Penn Station foll0wed by a 15 min walk to work. Even better I can always get the bus and that'll take me right to Times Sq. So, we decided we wanted to live in Hoboken. Whether these places are the ones we end up with remains to be seen, however at least we know in what town we want to live in.
This weekend feels like it was a success.... about flipping time:)
There were so many things that made my day crap - and it started off so well. So, here goes....
It really started last night when I ended up having to walk about 10 blocks in the pouring rain....what I didn't realize is that it was the start of crappy things.
I end up finding that 3 people in my team have accepted jobs elsewhere. I've worked so damn hard over the past 2 months to get people hired it was heartbreaking to see people want to leave. On the upside, one of the guys leaving was someone I was forced to promote and didn't want to so i guess there's some just desserts in that.
Another thing that happened was that I had 2 people in my team have an argument AT a client site. How flipping ridiculous...it's like kindergarten. I guess next week i can knock their heads together.
The thing that really set me off today was nothing to do with work. It was with the mortgage company for the St Louis house. Man....was I mad. So, it started Tuesday when I logged into our bank account to check whether had any money only to find that our mortgage payment had been made on May 2nd. That would be fine, except that we paid the mortgage off in April - the payment shouldn't have been made. So, as i never have time to call, I send an electronic email on the website asking them to explain why it'd be taken and could they please take it back. I got back a pissy email saying it'd been forwarded to the internet support group. Now, to me it was plain as day it was a mortgage question....not an internet issue. So, I replied back saying exactly that and "could I please have my money?". I get a reply yesterday that said "could you please use the online form and press 'reply'". Now, given that you have to log on to see the message, I'm not sure how else they think I did the reply. For the 3rd reply I sent a snottogram ... in the mean time, I give up and actually call them. At this point, you'd think that all would have been well.....but oh, no. I call, talk to the guy and he says "yes, I see a payment was made on April 2nd, our process is that you'll get the check 3 weeks after the close of the house". So, I find out that a) they still have my May payment and b) they didn't do the close properly. So, I'm OK about April....just. I ask about May...it takes about 3 goes for him to process that I'm not talking about them paying my escrow back but a payment that was made 2 days ago. he then says (get this) "ok, I see madam that the payment went through and i can confirm that we will refund it. it will take 3 weeks and then a check will be issued to you". I say "3 weeks? you've got to be kidding me!!!!", he says "no madam, I'm not kidding, it'll take 3 weeks". I say "I need to speak to your supervisor". by this time I am STEAMING! It was call center days with the kid reading off a script all over again. Luckily the supervisor was great, understood the problem. She put me in contact with the office that'll offer the escrow (it'll take a week) and also the overpayment (3 days). Hopefully we'll get the dosh back soon.
Not a happy bunny!
On the good side, our new mattress finally arrived at the apartment. They took all the bedding off - and left it all piled on top. they also left all the plastic. Lucky me - I'm off to make the bed now. yeeeeeeeeeeeeha
A gin and tonic after work with my friend Heather worked....but i still can't believe the stupid mortgage company.
So my brother is coming over in a couple of weeks - it started off with a trip to see Billy Connolly in concert. Now we also have tickets to Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and The Odd Couple. Should be a riot. We'll also get to do things that are touristy like visiting the Empire State Building, Central Park, Ground Zero, Statue of Liberty etc etc etc etc.
My brain hurts again today. At the end of the month my team seems to degenerate into kids - you'd think they'd learn month on month and change their behaviour when it comes to enter their stuff in to the system. but, oh no - it's the same. At least I bonus on it....so it affects their $$$$ every quarter. It's amazing the focus that's brought.
I'm fed up with my apartment - I don't think I've slept more than 3 hours in a go and it's wearing. Trev's sleeping even worse, and given that he's having withdrawal symptoms from St Louis, and he's traveling a lot, and he leaves/arrives back at ridiculous hours it's all taking it's toll. We're out at the end of May so it's not too bad....just feels bad when you can't sleep. The new mattress that they promised over a month ago is supposed to arrive today - that'll make a difference.
eBay has come into its own again. With Tim visiting, we needed to get an inflatable bed (as ours were packed), and in the next temporary apartment we need towels and full bedding. Now that annoys me as I have to buy a comforter, comforter cover, sheets, pillows, towels etc. I guess it's an excuse for new stuff, but I already have craploads of my own but it's in storage. thankfully I found a lot of IKEA stuff on eBay which was reasonably priced. Hopefully we'll have more guests so we get to use it. hahahahah.
OK, I've gotta go do some work......it's crazy around here:)
Now, this is not something that comes along very often for any man as you know, but I have to give credit where it's due. Over the past week or so my calves have been giving me havoc as I walk to and from work and it's been very painful. I thought I needed a massage (as much as you can NEED something like that), or it was "getting used to NYC" etc etc.
Trev, last night made the comment that perhaps it was the shoes I was wearing. Now, I've admitted before that I've turned in a NYC-ite and wear sneakers and change into "posh" shoes at the office, so it never occurred to me that it was the sneakers. For those fit people and those who buy a lot of sneakers you know that you get what you pay for. Me? I've never, ever paid more than $30 for a pair - and it's only VERY recently that I've been able to say I've worn a pair out.
This morning, I experimented with wearing some good walking sandals (paid about $80 5 years ago for them) instead of sneakers. Whaddayaknow.....not one wince or pain. I could even walk faster than normal. Can you believe it?
I guess this is why people pay lots of dosh for sneakers.....I'm off to get new ones at the weekend. Who'd have thought it.
For the record: my husband was right
