Author: admin

man, that felt good.

i finally got a new personal and business card lined out, and then called citibank today to cancel my two cards.

they, of course, passed me over to the Account Specialist (aka – the hard sell to keep the card). he pointed out to me that i pay my balance in full, and i am a 8 year member in good standing – does it really matter to me what the interest rate is when it doesn’t effect me?

and i had the pleasure of saying to him that i understood that the rate did not impact me because of how i choose to manage my finances, but that their practice of forcing such high interest rates on their existing customers – EVEN THE GREAT ONES – was a business practice I could not support and that I no longer wanted to do business with them.

he asked if there was anything they could do to keep my business, and i told him if i saw citibank make substantial changes to their interest rate and other customer-facing policies to be fair to their customers, i would consider coming back, but not until then.

eat that, fuckers. (not that i really matter, but still 🙂

it’s 50 degrees with intermittent drizzle on a sunday morning, and you think to yourself, "i can move those plants and get the garden prepped so it can hit the ground running in the spring!"

i swear that this weekend, i earned my first points toward being a true northwesterner. in previous years, the southern girl in me recoiled at the idea of mucking about when the weather was already so far gone into "winter". this year, i put on silk thermal underwear, heavy cargo pants, 3 layers of torso covering (thermal, fleece and rain coat), a hat, rain boots and garden gloves and worked in the garden for 5 hours.

i am stoked 🙂

also, i was thoroughly charmed by being in the garden out front and hearing the boy jeering or cheering the dallas cowboys as they played. even after all of these years, it blows my mind a little!

you know that feeling? when you know that you will have that brilliant idea/breakthrough but it hasn’t arrived yet? this is how i just phrased it in IM with a coworker:

the edge of my brain is tingling with the answer

i rather like that 🙂

i think i have to fire my citibank credit cards.

even though i pay my balance in full every month, and this will never in theory affect me, i received a letter today informing me that their new interest rate will be 29.99% going forward.

that is the most obnoxious thing i have ever heard, and i don’t think i can do business with a company who would do that.

radio silence for lj has continued as work has monopolized my time. but it remains ridiculously rewarding.

today, for instance, the company had it’s 50-person-all-hands-on-deck monthly business update meeting. my boss was so happy about all that my team is doing and our offsite workshop results from when i was in PA 2 weeks ago, that they asked my team to present those results at this meeting.

how you you get 5 geek boys to stand up at a full company meeting and present?

well, you make the presentation super-hero themed 😉

it was SO MUCH FUN to present it as each team member being a superhero identity and each topic had a super villain that we were trying to defeat. i’ll spare you the geektastic details, but it was over the top, and the company loved it – so much, in fact, that these are just two of the emails that our team got once the presentation was over:

Hey Guys:
Just wanted to let you all know that I thought today’s presentation was incredible – maybe the single most important step anyone’s ever taken to change the culture of this company.
Thanks,
[sales guy]
——–
I just wanted to tell all of you how much I enjoyed our business update mtg today–you ended it with a bang. Things I liked:

Just hearing from every person on the team! I’ve chatted with each of you at some point, but I loved hearing the entire team do a presentation, each person having 1-2 minutes–wonderful approach, but not too long.

Giving us a look into your creativity and insight–a lot of which applies across many groups. It was so clear you guys spent time in thoughtful brainstorming.

Giving us a sense of hope and positive forward thinking. I was sure energized after your preso.
I want to work with you guys now! You’re all awesome. 🙂 I’m working on some serious SSG marketing/sales needs, and I can’t wait for you guys to bring the message to life–doing what you do best.

[sr. dir. of outsourced staffing (not her real title)]

and my boss wrapped up our presentation by acknowledging how awesome a job the team was doing and that they were leading the way he wanted the whole company to operate. it was such a huge compliment to them, and it was amazing to see them get such well-deserved recognition. yay! 😀

and perhaps the best part of today is that i successfully forced myself to step away from work for 1/2 hr to step onto my yoga mat for the first time since i started this job – 3 months ago. let’s hope i can continue to do that…my squishy belly and my aching ass (from 10-hr days of sitting) need it desperately!

i sent that pic to my team so they could see the revised belen.

my art director’s reply included the following question:

You didn’t lose any of your goddess/jedi/nerd/goth powers did you?!!!!

the best part about that question is that each of those is the highest of compliments in isolation, much less strung together 🙂

and on a similar note, this amuses the hell out of me.

time for dead ends to go. don’t worry, it will grow back 😉

i feel like a million bucks.

we just had a 4 hour offsite workshop with my team.

i created an outline, and we treated each topic as something to brainstorm together, rather than me lecturing on it. i asked questions and the team collaboratively explored the answers and spinoff questions.

i wrote those topics on a flip chart – one on each page, and everyone had markers that they wrote down their contributions on each topic. those are our meeting notes.

i am so blown away by the session, how much came out of it, how their collective knowledge plays out and spins off each other. its humbling to see how smart, creative, and open these guys can be when asked to contribute, show initiative, and be part of the solution.

today, i feel like a rockstar who manages rockstars 🙂 better yet, rockstars who are becoming self-aware of what they are great at and what their challenges are – and they are excited about solving those challenges.

man. how awesome is that?

room service breakfast. Everything is cooked to perfection and it is a lovely start to the morning.

it’s an odd thing…being on a business trip with spending allowance.

i mean, i’m a simple girl. and i don’t eat much in the way of quantity. so it’s really bizarre to me to have $50 a day for meals, especially when many lunches and dinners are social situations where people won’t let me pay. and then i have leftovers and i might as well eat those for breakfast.

so this morning, i am trying to just enjoy the decadence of a $20 breakfast brought to my room so i can sit around in my robe and chirp to you 🙂

setup:
my friend stacie here in philly invited me for dinner monday night, and her husband sent me home with 2 varieties of his home brewed beers. (sidenote – he also is a graphic artist and makes all his own labels….these bottles are so coming home with me and being added to the bottle collection!)

challenge:
last night, i had a butter knife to pry a bottle open. tonight, i had no such tools. none. but the beer was calling, begging, pleading….

solution:
there is a retractable clothes line in the bathroom. i managed to use the metal clasp that you hook the clothes line into to pry open the beer with minimal spillage.

i feel like a rock star! 😀