My mid-year review

Well...it went better than in December, which is good. Overall I'm rated superior again - if it had been "OK" like in December I think I would have cried (well, internally at least).

We talked a lot about how I can't be great at anything but average at everything because of the situation I'm in with the number of direct reports. While at the beginning of the year the plan was to hire some managers to take the day to day crap away that's not occurred, and it's unlikely to before the end of the year with the number of changes that are taking place.

In synopsis
- I've done well at getting projects underway on how the team are focused
- Senior mgt have noticed that I can not only produce fancy dancy reports, I really understand the inner workings. Apparently I should do more of it:)
- I've done well getting rid of bad staff and developing the "OK" peeps to good

As my followers will know I've wanted to change my role for a while and get back to what I'm really good at. We talked last week about maybe engineering a change for the both of us but who knows what will happen. I made it clear today that if my dream program management job landed on my desk I'd take it in a heart beat. Hopefully something will turn up.

She really didn't have any complaints - and that's good.

Carrieanne

Carrieanne had surgery last week on her knee - on my birthday of all days. While we couldn't be there I'm glad she has a blog, can take pictures and of course call us. It appears that her knee was a bit screwed up but now it's all cleaned up and lovely.

She has to rest for 10 days and her fiance has to look after her. Sounds like he's doing an OK job - but I'm glad her friends are dropping in. I feel awful I can't go and visit so easily but just having had a holiday, and with a trip to the UK in September it's not easy to arrange. We're hoping that after the next 2 weeks that she'll be able to come and visit in NYC for a couple of weeks - we can wait on her hand and foot.

We missed her on vacation so this will be a nice way to see her. Let's hope the doc gives her the all clear.

Anyway - get well soon....

Funny thing

So, this morning I'm in the elevator and a guy walks in, wearing black leather shoes, emerald green pants (!!!!), a short sleeved shirt that's got strips in emerald green and pale blue. To top it off he was hairless.

Good look, or what? I think not.

What's your inner gender?

You Inner Gender is Female

You're sensitive, caring, and willing to connect with anyone who's open to you. You make friends easily, and you enjoy all sorts of conversations. You understand most people you meet - better than they understand themselves. You're totally a woman... or at the very least, your soul is female.

What's Your Inner Gender?

Salt Potatoes

Oh wow! A central New York state tradition these are amazing. This link describes them
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_potatoes

I didn't put as much salt in the water when I cooked them, but I have to tell you they are AMAZING. You should try them. They are the nearest thing to English "new potatoes" I've found since living in America.

Thanks to our neighbours for introducing them to us. I'm hooked.

Condo Party

Went out Saturday night with some neighbours - had a fantastic time. Needless to say, feeling a tad fragile today.

Top left picture, L-R: Me, Joel, Rich, Nick, Jackie, Trev.

We had dinner at The Sushi Lounge here in Hoboken, then we went on to a bar that I can't remember the name of:)

As always, we had a riot. Love these guys.

Meme

Jenness tagged me - so here we go....

"Each player lists 8 facts/habits about themselves. The rules of the game are posted at the beginning before those facts/habits are listed. At the end of the post, the player then tags 8 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know that they have been tagged and asking them to read your blog."

- I'm still mad at myself for not completing my MBA. I got an extension, but I still need to find the time to do it.

- Nails. Ever since I was little it's been an uphill battle not to bite my nails. Now, if I paint them with strengthener every day they grow long but quite frankly I can't be bothered.

- I wish that I was as bendy as all the other people in my yoga class. Not only are they all stick thin, but they are sooooooooo bendy.

- My recovery rate after a great night out now takes a full day. That's the one thing that your 30s bring you - blinking huge hangovers. While Beechams Resolve works, I forgot to take it last night:) Great night out though!

- I wish I didn't work so much. I can't seem to stop, never have, probably never will.

- I'm bad at keeping in touch with people. I remember birthdays but I rely very heavily on IM and email. Sometimes I wished I just picked up the flipping phone....finding time is the challenge.

- I'm very proud of my achievements at the gym. I never ever thought in my life I would be fit and my trainer is so fantastic at driving me to challenge myself. I'm constantly amazed at what I've done and where I'm going.

- That said, I wish I was more driven on my own to pump the iron. Problem is I have no drive. I do go to the classes but when it comes to strength training I have no will. Hence why I have a trainer. It's worth it - I don't want diabetes, high blood pressure, knee replacements etc......and that's my investment in myself.

.Now I'm supposed to tag 8 people to do this same thing. Not sure I know 8 people who have a blog - however I do know 2. Penny at http://spider21.blogspot.com/ and Carrieanne at http://carriesconversation.blogspot.com/

If I think of anyone else I'll add them.

My Personality

Thanks Jenness for this - what a cool website. Who knew I was that musical?

40 is the new 20!

I remember thinking 40 was sooooooooooo old. It's not though - well, that's my view now I'm here.

I had a good day. It started at the gym, followed by a 90min massage. Then Mum, Dad and I headed to Soho - I went and got my hair done and they walked around Soho, went to China Town and Little Italy.

We hung out having a few cocktails at the Soho Room - that was a cool bar and then we headed to dinner at Buddakan. FANTASTIC. The pics are from the restaurant. The "Happy Birthday" was on the dessert plate - cute huh?

I had some great gifts this birthday - Mum gave me Gran's wedding ring, lovely eh? It's with all my other jewellry - I seem to have quite a collection these days. My white gold jewellry collection is also now complete - I had my 3 stone ring for our anniversary in June, Trev bought me a journey necklace for my birthday and Mum/Dad/Tim bought me diamond solitaire earrings. I feel blinged out - and if you can't feel that at 40, then when can you.

Learnt something

Did you know that you could actually hide text in an email? Who flipping knew that?

I don't even know HOW I did it, but I sent a note to my team that had the bottom 2/3rds wouldn't show. If I opened it you couldn't see it all - however if you then forwarded it you could see it all. But....if you then sent it and tried to open it you couldn't see it.

Weird huh?

Only by pasting in Word and realizing that it was hidden text did I figure it out.

I still have no idea how I did it......what a genius I am! One does have to ask though - WHY ON EARTH WOULD YOU WANT TO HIDE TEXT IN AN EMAIL? Isn't the whole point that the receiver reads it?

Hmmmmm

So, I found a job on the internal website that I liked the look of - VP of Program Management. Right up my street - kicking butt to get projects delivered. My only concern is with changes at the company I always believe with project management it's hard to demonstrate value in this field - until it's gone.

Not sure if my boss saw the job description on my desk or what but we were talking yesterday and we've both decided we want different jobs - ideally operational support working globally for our big bosses. We complement each other well and could do such a kick ass job. I've told her honestly that I'd give my current job up tomorrow....and I mean it. I'm quite excited - so hopefully we'll pull it off:) The one thing that was cool is that her boss said "I need a Phil"......kind of funny really. However, makes me feel that someone knows my worth!

I really am fed up of all the whiny people working for me. I can honestly say I've taken more control over my own career in 2 years than they have in the whole of theirs. They seem to want to blame everyone and everything for their career - at what point do they realize they can control their destiny?

Stolen

I have been working in NYC for over a year. When I left work yesterday I had my office badge. It was in the holder attached to my waistband. When I was on the bus only the holder was there...I had it to get out of the building.



Can you believe it - it was stolen. That sucks...



From now on I guess I take it off before I leave the office.

Jamaica

Finally! I've found a moment to upload photos and can write about our holiday to Jamaica. We had an AWESOME time. Seven of us made it: Trev, me, Peter, Rachel, Mum, Dad and Tim.

The pictures:

Top: The beach, our villa, a sunset

Middle: Bob Marley's place, Trev and Phil in Bob's bedroom, a view from Trev and Phil's hotel room

Bottom: Rachel, JR (our barman and trip organizer), Trev, me, then a group pic doing a "Kevin" aaaaggghhhh from Home Alone and then the final pic is all of us at our favourite bar on our last night looking suitably relaxed and tanned.

Trev and I went a few days early and got to know the place. The drive from the airport was an experience - I can honestly say I've never been on a coach where the driver thinks he's on a go-kart track. These guys over took on bends, chucked the thing round corners etc etc - it was an experience. The resort was about 90 mins drive from the airport so it took a while. It was a small resort, friendly, clean and the food wasn't too bad. The cocktails were fabulous. The food was all buffet style, but in addition to the Jamaican food there was always ribs, steak or chicken available. I was diappointed there weren't better desserts, but let's face it - a banana daquiri fixed that!

We hired the villa on the resort plus one room. Well worth it. The cost of the villa was about the same as hotel rooms but we got our own pool so we didn't have to fight for sun beds or the floaty things to lay on. Incredible.

Our days went like this....get up, go to breakfast around 9, hang out on the beach or by the pool (I got to the gym once around 11), go to lunch around 12.30pm, get cocktail, back to beach/pool, Get a Siesta around 5. Around 6.30, head to Legends bar to watch the sunset, back to room to change for dinner, have dinner around 7.30ish, back to the bar for a few cocktails. At 11pm, go and get pizza ready for a couple of hours in the night club. Difficult, wasn't it?

We met some new friends - Tony and Sarah. They're from Blackpool, England - we had many nights in the club, at the bar - so much fun. They had arranged a trip to Bob Marley they kindly invited us on - it was a riot. After a night clubbing and getting to bed rather late (or early if you think about it), we headed out at 10am on the trip. JR picked us up, and first things first we headed to the gas station for supplies (Smirnoff Ice for me, Beer for everyone else) and we set off. It took 90 mins to reach the Mausoleum but it was well worth it. How can you go to Jamaica and not go and see Bob Marley? It was nicely done, trip to see where he was born, where he lived, where his grandparents graves are, saw his bed, chair and also the Mausoleum. It was a moving experience and I'm glad I went. When Tim arrived and wanted to go I repeated the experience a few days later.

We also went shopping in Ocho Rios. This is one of the big resorts in Jamaica and I can honestly say I would never stay there for a holiday - it's crowded and lots of places to be ripped off as a tourist. As it was the rum was double the price of the duty free (found that out on the last day) so won't be buying from the stores again. On the way back we had a fantastic meal in a Jamaican restaurant of Jerk pork and chicken - awesome.

The rest of the holiday was at the resort doing nothing. Fantastic. Would recommend to anyone and can't wait to go back. Mum, Dad, Peter and Rachel visited Dunns river which is a big attraction but we never seemed to make it - doing nothing was too flipping good.

The one thing that I found funny was the abundance of weed....it was everywhere - it's not something that I've experienced too much so it was quite funny to me how open it was. Staff, holidaymakers etc. What's also telling is that with all that free booze and cheap weed around I didn't see anyone make complete asses of themselves (well, apart from one woman in the nightclub but that was it). That was nice.

All in all, very restful and want to go back soon.

I'm back

It's been a quiet couple of weeks. I haven't had time to post pics or anything yet of our vacation, but will do so soon. Suffice to say we had a brilliant time and I'm really sad to be back here.....

One piece of good news is that our travel document for our green card has already been approved. should have that in the mail any day. This is BIG! Sooooo excited!

Braindump and catchup

Ok, I've been meaning to post for a week because so many things I've done and wanted to update everyone. Here it is, July 3rd, I'm off to Jamaica tomorrow and I've not caught up. So grab a drink, sit down and read away....this will be a long one!

Visitors. Mum and Dad arrived last Tuesday and have been shopping, out and about in Manhattan etc. We went to a show last weekend to see Angela Lansbury (aka Jessica Fletcher) in Deuce. It was OK. Quite disappointing really, although she did alright. They've been on a boat trip, a walk around Times Square and have lots of other things planned so they're having a great time.

We're all looking forward to Jamaica. Trev and I leave tomorrow morning with everyone else arriving on Sunday and we'll have a blast. I'm so sad that Carrieanne's not going to make it - she has to have knee surgery at the end of July and will be off work for 4 weeks - ouch! Not something that is going to be fun, but hopefully in the long term it'll be great.

An achievement at the gym. So, as you know I'm quite fit these days (if not thin) and have quite a lot of energy etc. Last Saturday, my usual pilates class was canceled. For a moment I considered going home.....until Billy challenged me to do an hour on the stairmaster. Yes - an hour. You have to understand, I probably do 20 mins usually at a time....then soemthing else. An hour is a huge undertaking. I think I was intimidated by this - Billy's good at getting me to realize I can do more than I think and this was no exception. I negotiated and he deducted the 15 mins I'd already done before our work out so I had to do 45 mins. And you know what? I did it! On level 4, not my usual level 8 but even so - pretty proud of that. Cool eh? have to say my toes went numb and I got bored witless.....but I still did it. Makes it all worthwhile. Let's face it - what would I have been doing otherwise - working, watching tv or eating.

Work. I don't even know where to start. I feel like I have a bunch of babies working for me. Some days it's good, other days I just want to punch lights out. I really don't understand why they can't follow instruction or be self sufficient in their own careers. I can honestly say that I wasn't this needy - I never have been. Phew! I keep thinking of Jamaica.

I have a new Blackberry - again. This time it's w/Verizon but it's a world edition. Means I should be able to be reached internationally by phone and email etc. I'll be testing tomorrow. can't wait.

Our building. the bill is up to $500k. We're having to pay money to cover bills - I just hope we can successfully sue the builders. I think we will, it will just take time.