The Story of My NEW Job

About a month ago I started my new job.  How everything happened, I think it was meant to be.

As I had mentioned before, I applied and interviewed for a newly created manager position in HR.  I spent hours preparing and creating a whole notebook of information that I planned to use when I started the job.  I was a little nervous during the first interview but I was so excited about all of the work I had done to prepare I blew them away before the interview officially started.  I was offered a second interview in which I spent a great deal of time preparing.  Again, I rocked it.  But now I am getting ahead of myself.

My first interview included only HR people, but the second included one woman that was not part of HR.  We were introduced and she described what she did.  While I am standing at the front of the room ready to present listening to her explain, I found myself thinking… ‘wow, that sounds really fun.  I think I would like to do that…’  Probably not the best thoughts to have when you are about to give a presentation for a job interview!

I left the interview feeling very proud of my presentation and responses to the questions I was asked.  I believed I really showed them what I was capable of and really hoped they picked me.

Well, I wasn't picked.  And I found out I wasn't picked the same day I found out that my Grammie wasn't doing so great.  A double whammy of bad news for sure.

But it allowed me to go and see my Grammie without being distracted about maybe being picked for the job.  I am glad I was able to fully focus my last visit on seeing and being with her.

Fast forward a month or so.  A friend asks me to check out a job posting she was interested in and to give her some tips.  After I was done looking at the posting she was interested in, I thought ‘oh, why not check’.  Well, my ‘oh, why not check’ attitude changed to ‘HOLY CRAP THE DEPARTMENT OF THE WOMAN FROM MY INTERVIEW IS HIRING!!!’  Of course I had to run it by my dad to get his okay.

I applied and then had to wait.

As I left the office one afternoon I received a voicemail from a work number.  I didn’t recognize it as an HR one so I listened to the message right away.  I was offered an interview!!  I was so excited I called back right away to schedule it.  I was on cloud 9.

I then realized I would have to tell my boss that I had an interview and might end up leaving… that was going to be a shock.  I have to say she took the news very well and told me that I would do great and they would be very lucky to have me.

Well, they must have realized I was a catch because they offered me the job!  Which ended up causing drama in HR (there was a massive move based on me leaving), but I think at this point everyone is situated and going on with their working lives (just in a slightly different seat and with different work responsibilities).

It was sad to pack up my desk and know that when I left I wasn’t going to be coming back the following Monday.

My HR co-workers threw me a little going away party and everything was so thoughtful and wonderful.  It made it that much harder to leave.  But I have to say the change was a good one though and I am very glad I did it.

This was a very specially made gluten-free cake!  The cookies were gluten-free too!!  Both were delicious.

I love the new place.  It is 1000 times different than HR and I am getting to do fun manipulations of data.  My co-workers are awesome and very nice.  I am not answering the phone, though.  I did very much enjoy that in HR.  Since I have moved to the new job I have received three phone calls (from non-department people), two of which were wrong numbers and one from the person who took over my job in HR.  So a month and three phone calls, not good odds if I want to talk on the phone anymore.

And (just in case you were wondering) my ducks made it over here too.

I have a large enough work space that they all fit and I have TONS of room left to spread out and work.  I was initially worried about bringing them over, but everyone has said nice things about them.

I already have a fairly massive OneNote of all of the things I have learned so far and it is starting to rival my Records one!  I hope to be able to share it like I did with the Records one.  I know it will help out with all of the files we have notes on.  Right now they are scattered all over in different binders for different terms = much to disorganized for me.

I hope to continue impressing them with the speed with which I learn things and my ability to get them all super organized!!

My Ducks have (FINALLY) Moved In!

So this is what my old office looked like.  Yes, I have a bit of a duck collection.  And no, I did not buy all of them myself.  It started with one that I had gotten from homecoming in 2004.  It was in my car along with a few others that I had aquired over the next few years.

Fast forward to my year teaching.  In Kindergarten all of the teachers had a different animal theme to set them apart from each other and to help the kids.  One of the other teachers already had pandas, so I couldn't go with that.  I had a difficult time coming up with something until I remembered the ducks in my car and decided why not?  It could be cute.

My collection grew that year as the kids would bring in ducks to be put up in the classroom.  It was fun and I now have two duck rugs too.  My career of teaching came to a crashing end due to a bastard of a principal that didn't renew my contract and didn't bother to try to find me a position at another school.  So I had to find another job.

Lucky for me my former boss knew of a job opening and told me about it.  I was the chosen applicant and the ducks came with me.  I didn't have near as many when I started but as my co-workers learned of my collection they starting picking up ones for me.  I moved to a new office and had more overhead space and the picture above is what I had right before we moved to our new location.

The idea of moving did not leave me feeling all warm and fuzzy inside.  We were getting smaller desks with only one small overhead.  I knew that a probably wasn't going to be allowed to have my ducks proudly displayed on the overhead.

And I was right.  So I moved everything else into my new space and my ducks home (for the time being of course... I had a plan).  Kinda cramped but I knew my ducks had to come back.  I mean my co-workers were asking when they would be back for heavens sake!  My plan was to buy a bookshelf type thing to place on the left side of my desk.  I wasn't really using that space effectively anyway.

I searched and searched.  Bed Bath & Beyond, Target, Staples, JoAnn's, Michaels - they all had NOTHING.  I was getting upset and realizing that I might have to actually design and build it myself.  Not exactly in my wheelhouse but I would do it.

I was doing just that two Sunday nights ago when I was supposed to be going to sleep.  I realized enough was enough and drowned my thinking out with music.

That following Tuesday I was on my way home when I realized that Jon wouldn't be home until really late so I could check a few other places.  Big Lots was a bust but there was a second hand furniture store next door.  I was worried of the prices, however I went in anyway.

Oh my goodness that place was unorganized.  It almost caused me to walk right back out.  I did not and I am glad I pushed through.  I walked around and around not really seeing anything the right size or shape... until I walked around one of the many makeshift corners and saw this.

It. Was. Perfect!  I immediately took a picture and texted my mom.  I know silly.  I decided the price was worth it and walked out knowing that my ducks would be coming to work with me the following day.

I spend that evening cleaning if off and practicing setting it up so I was ready for the next day.  I didn't want the surprise that they hardly fit at all.

The clean bookshelf traveled with me to work the next morning. Yes, I was just a little bit excited.

Once at work I placed it in my cubicle and it acted as a baby gate the entire morning.  I hate payroll pause days and I hated this one even more because I literally couldn't take the time to set everything up until after the pause time at noon.  It was torture.  However, being baby gated in was highly amusing to me and made the waiting okay.

I probably looked a bit crazy with all of my ducks all over my desk.  But hey, whats new?

 

Once my babies were all set up and felt a huge relief.  I didn't realize just how much work didn't feel homely to me until I got these guys back.  I finally felt that my desk was mine again.  I am at peace at work again.  I didn't even realize how much I missed that until I had it back again.

Word spread the duckies were back and I had many visitors that day.  They all couldn't believe how perfectly the bookshelf fit in the open space of the desk.  I was very proud and glad that I had the intuition to search in that furniture store.

Now I just need to get some wood blocks to raise up the back rows so that you can see them better.  The whole window thing isn't working for me.

Now I just have to decide if I want to take the time to sand and stain it a better color...

I will just enjoy it for now though.

Have a great day!!

Last days in NYC - Be ready for a photo bomb!

This is my last post about our actual trip to New York.  I have one more post up my sleeve in regards to New York but it is different.  I promise.

So on our last day in New York (a Monday), we headed out to the city with Liz and Mike.  They both had to go to work so we all rode on the Subway until their respective stops.  We managed to make it to where we wanted to go just fine.  Even with a subway line change that made us get back to the street level and walk quite a few blocks before re-entering the subway for a completely different train.

Our first stop was the museum district.  We walked a little through Central Park and toured a children's playground before officially heading to the Metropolitan Museum.  Only to find out it was closed on Monday's.  Bummer.

Instead we decided to check out the Guggenheim Museum (as it was one of the required stops that Jon wanted to make anyway) and prayed it was open.  Lucky for us it was.

The ceiling of the building was quite impressive.  There were a few very famous artists work in there (like Monet and Picasso) and a lot of other works that I was not exactly impressed by.  I mean, some of them I could have done.  And if you know me, I don't draw well at all.

Afterwards we  knew we had some time to kill until we met Liz for lunch so we moseyed around Central Park.

We walked around the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir and admired the buildings on the other side of the "lake".  Jon thought this building might have been in one of the Ghost Busters movies... I have no idea because that is one of the many movies I have not seen.

Can you tell I am loving PicMonkey?

We walked on and found a bridge running over a very disgusting looking pond/waterway.  The green was so still and bright it almost looked fake.  If you looked closely though you could see turtles moving around in it.  Yuck.

We rushed over to meet Liz for lunch at a sushi place.  It was yummy.

Afterwards we went over to The High Line.  It is a park created from an old above ground train line.  It is very pretty and you get to walk through the buildings far above ground level.

They make the sidewalk run between the old rails.  You can even still see them.

I was fascinated by all of the street art around New York.  This was on a side of a building that you could very clearly see from the High Line.

This is one of the really cool buildings that Jon loved and wished he could live in.

We had to leave The High Line because we saw massive rain coming and didn't want to spend the rest of the day soaked.  We hid in a burger place and watched the New Yorkers run around in the rain.

Thankfully the rain stopped so that our walk back to the train was nice.

We packed up and prepared to leave the abode at a ungodly hour of 5am.  We made it there and found a horribly long line to check in.  Hell happened.  We finally made it to the counter and checked in.  Then we had to get at the end of the line for security.  Well the end of the line started at the beginning of the other terminals line.  So by the time we made it through and to the gate we found out that our flight was cancelled.

No explanation.  So we carted our stuff back to the line to wait to reschedule our flight.  We waited for like two hours.  Oh, and did I forget to mention that all of the other flights into Florida were cancelled that day.  When it was pretty obvious that the people in line were about to have a freak out, I started hearing strings.  Like violins.  I thought someone in line for security must be bored and is practicing (yes the line was still that long and moving that slow).  Only for the sound to multiply to a couple violins... to a while group of them!

These kids were supposed to be on their way to Disney to perform the next day.  I felt horrible that they were going to miss out on performing.  The leader thought it would be a good idea to perform in the airport for all of us others that weren't able to leave too.  I think so that at least the kids got to perform for some people.  They were really good too.

Once we finally managed to reschedule our tickets for the next day we headed back to Liz and Mikes.  On the way we had to stop at her brothers for the spare key.  Talk about being obnoxious to everyone involved!

We didn't get to have breakfast during all of the drama (I did eat a little bit because I would have gotten very angry without it).  We went to a really cute place for lunch Le Petite Cafe in Brooklyn.  It was so cute!!!  They had a rock wall waterfall.

Since we had extra day in New York we decided to head to the Met since we had missed it the day before.  I was so excited because there was an Egyptian exhibit!!!

This guy was 9 TONS!!!!

I loved checking out all of the artifacts and we even spotted a duck!

And I became part of the exhibit too. :)

Jon really liked the modern art area. This table was molded by an injection process by a 3-D printer.  It looked like broccoli to me.

This was painted with dots.  From far away it looks like a complete picture  but up close you can see the dots.

This was my favorite piece in the Modern Art area.  It was a huge curved bowl made out of tiny hexagon steel pieces.  It depended on how you looked at it, you could see yourself semi clearly or completely distorted.

My favorite section besides the Egyptian was the musical instrument exhibit.  I just wanted to reach in and touch all of the different flutes.  I wanted to play them to see how much they sounded like the one that I played all of those years.

An open holed piccolo!  I didn't know they existed!

A piccolo clarinet!  How cute is that!

The porcelain one was beautiful.  I don't think I could bring myself to play it if it was mine.

The clear one apparently was brought on hunting trips... I don't know the thought process behind bringing a glass horn on a hunting trip... but okay!

Once Jon was able to get me out of the music room we had just a handful of minute left before the museum closed.  We found a fountain of a boy holding a (you guessed it) duck.  There are ducks at the bottom too spitting out water.

After the museum we headed home to to with Liz and Mike out to dinner.  We found more unique street art on the way.

We had a view of the city from out table.  We had hoped to eat on the roof but it was too long of a wait.

We did a mini tour of Red Hook again and we missed the sign.... again.

We went to a pier and more street art.  It was much larger than this and covered the entire expanse of the building.  This was the only area really well lit in the night.

We had a clear view of the Statue of Liberty again.  That is a ferry on the water to the left.

And our night would not be complete without seeing my favorite building again. :)

We did make it out on our flight the next day.  The airport was completely different.  No crazy long line, security went quickly.   The only problem is that somehow when we got rescheduled Jon's name got screwed up in the system.  I freaked a bit but the guy that helped us was great and got it all sorted out.

Thanks for sticking around!  I will have a fun gluten-free day tomorrow!