Monday, April 28, 2008

I got the job!

I'm back from Dallas and... I got the job! I interviewed with three people at the company and they all went very well. I received my offer letter on Saturday and I signed and faxed it back today. Everyone at the company seems incredibly smart, happy to be there and just plain cool. I feel like I fit right in with everyone and just had a ball. I'm really looking forward to working with them. I think this is going to be a fabulous opportunity. I am really excited about all the possibilities! And apparently, I really need to practice my Call of Duty 4 skills. I really suck at that game!

I'll basically be doing the same type of work I'm doing now, but not for a manufacturing company. The company I'll be working for is a consulting company. I'll be the CFO/HR/recruiter. I'm especially intrigued by the recruiting because I've never actually done that before. The CFO/HR duties are very similar to what I've already been doing, so that should be no problem!

The best parts about the job:
  • The new company is awesome and fun. We went bowling for two hours in the middle of the day on Friday. Somebody lost a bet and had to do a can-can up and down the bowling alley and let's just say it wasn't me! :-)
  • I'll be working from home (or wherever I am at the moment) and the schedule is extremely flexible. As in, there is no schedule. So long as I'm getting my work done, they don't care if I work during the day, at night, four days so I can take three days off, whatever. They just care about the results. (Yay! More cons?)
  • There is no vacation/sick pay/holiday policy. See Extremely Flexible Schedule above. If I'm getting my work done, that's what matters.
  • I will have much more control over the direction of the company instead of just taking orders from the corporate office!
  • Traveling to meet with potential recruits will allow me to explore other parts of the country!
  • Less stress than my current job!
Overall, this is going to be WAY better than my current job. My last day there is next Friday, May 9th and I am counting down the days!!

And how can you pass up this view? Two of my interviews were held out on the balcony that goes along the whole office where this is the view:

View from the office balcony

The rest of the weekend was totally fun too. The Mavericks won the play-off game we went to Friday night, we played poker for 13 hours on Saturday and we saw the most amazing sudden death outcome at the Byron Nelson PGA tour! The winner, a hottie named Adam Scott, (and yes, I just called a golfer a "hottie"... if you don't trust me, OMG just check out that link!!!) sunk a 48-foot putt for the win. You should've heard the crowd, it was amazing!!!

I was exhausted by the time I got home, but it was worth every second! Oh, and I got that chicken biscuit on Saturday!

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Upcoming Interview

I am very excited about my upcoming interview on Friday in Dallas. I fly out Thursday night, right after work. The schedule after that is complete and utter madness!

Friday: Interviewing with the three partners of the firm & probably meeting many other employees as they'll all be in the office for a training day. They have a PS3 and xBox 360 in the office, so I'm hoping to squeeze in some Rock Band and/or Guitar Hero too, although I'm SO out of practice that putting "Guitar Hero shredder, proficient at Rock Band" on my resume under "Special Talents" may be an overstatement at the moment!

We'll hopefully wrap up training early that day and go bowling for a couple hours. Then we'll be going to the Mavericks playoff game that night. We turned down invitations to two home poker games and being able to watch the baseball game from the office.

Saturday: We had several options, but decided on going to Oklahoma to play some poker! Yay! I'm happy with that. I believe I'm also getting a personalized driving tour of Dallas to check out all the areas with the really cool, older homes. I love those! Oh, and I think a chicken biscuit for Chick-Fil-A will be in order Saturday morning.

Sunday: I think we have a PGA 18th hole tent party to go to, but I'll have to check. I come home Sunday night and it sounds like I will be downright tired after running around all weekend.

But, hopefully - keep your fingers crossed for me! - I'll have a new job by the end of it!

Saturday, April 19, 2008

Recharging my batteries

I've been home alone the last couple days, recharging the batteries. Last night, I chatted with a couple friends, watched some TiVoed programs (yay!!) and went to bed before midnight. That pretty much qualifies as early for me!

Today, I went into the office from 6 AM - 9 AM, then had an eyebrow waxing appointment. Then I went to Costco!! I haven't been there in ages! I also did six loads of laundry, re-read the book that I'm leading a book group for tomorrow and have been catching up on my Food Network programs. I also did something I haven't done in months! I swept my balcony! It looks so much better.

I watched an episode of Barefoot Contessa today that really made me want to make her Coq au Vin recipe! Oh my, it looked so delicious! After making her Beef Bourguinon a couple months ago, I'm itching to use my Dutch oven again. Oh, I wish I had taken pictures of that stew. It was delicious!!

Tonight, I'm going to just clean up around the apartment (and maybe play some video games) and go to bed early. Tomorrow is my first Ultimate experience and then a couple MyPC meetings, so I have a pretty busy day tomorrow. I'm glad I've been able to relax some today. It's been sooooo nice!

Thursday, April 17, 2008

I'm resigning

I've been at my job for what would've been 13 years next month. Unfortunately, the job functions and stress levels have changed dramatically during the last four months. I feel like I've turned into a report generating cog in a big, boring machine. Ick. Also, they frown on me taking time off. Double ick.

S0... today, I resigned. I gave them my notice that in two weeks, I will be moving on. I don't have a job offer yet, but I have a promising interview next week and I'm hoping that works out. That job sounds perfect for me. However, if it doesn't, I will find something else.

They're asking me to give them a month and I think that will be too long for me. However, I might compromise and do three weeks, to get them through an upcoming audit and closing of April for my company. I would basically be doing this for one of the guys on the East Coast that I do like. And I would feel bad for making his life a living hell if I really do leave in two weeks.

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Scratch that, make it 77 hours!

When I was tallying up how much time I worked last week, in my brain mush, I must've totally forgotten about an entire day. Marilyn let me know that I worked seventy-seven hours last week.

I'm working on my resume tonight.

Saturday, April 12, 2008

Sixty-five hours

OMG - I finally sent in both sets of books for my companies. I worked 65 hours this week! Wow! The only consolation is that I earned 15 hours of vacation time, but still, I don't think I've ever worked that many hours in one week for a single job. And there's still tomorrow... I really hope I don't have to work tomorrow. I have plans to play games ALL day tomorrow and I don't want to change those.

I gave the East coast people the option to contact me between 7 - 8 AM Sunday morning. If they don't call me by then, I'm outta here!

Thursday, April 10, 2008

It's Crunch Time

Work has been insanely busy this week due to (a) the fiscal year closing on 3/30 and (b) it's the first time I'm completely responsible for the books of one of the other companies I'm responsible for. And their accounting practices are awful. I love the guys that run the place, but they are not accountants. I think I'm going to have to start coming down here once a week to check on things.

I'm down in the OC working right now and instead of wasting two+ hours driving back and forth to home, I'm spending the night at the president's house tonight. And getting up super early to try to finish these books by noon tomorrow.

But, to brighten my day, Marc sent me this bacon-riffic link that you HAVE TO check out!! It's certainly ONE way to attract a carnivorous man!

Tuesday, April 08, 2008

Ultimate Frisbee

I know two people who play Ultimate and love it. I joined the Yahoo group for the LA Women's League sometime last year because it sounded like fun, but then never did anything about it because anytime they had beginner's clinics, they were on weekends I would be out of town.

Not so this year! There's a beginner's clinic on April 20th and I'm signed up and ready to go! I also signed up for the Women's League that is a whopping four weeks long! Four? But it'll be perfect for me because I'll get a chance to check it out and see if I like it or not. I guess at that point I can decide whether or not I want to sign-up for the co-ed summer league.

It's been a while since I tried something new, so this will be my new thing for the summer. And for bonuses, I'll get some exercise, get to meet new people AND it's played on the beach! So for four weeks, I will be at the beach for a few hours! I looooove the beach!

Wednesday, April 02, 2008

My First No-Limit Poker Tournament

As part of the continuing birthday celebrations, my friend Edward entered me into my first EVER poker tournament! It was especially exciting for me because it was also the first time ever that I've played no-limit poker! Both times I played poker in Vegas were at the $2-$4 limit table.

First off, I LOVED it!!! There were 110 entrants. I went all in on the very first hand, chasing a flush and lost. There was one rebuy allowed, which I promptly took advantage of and then managed to stay in until about halfway through, which for my first tournament ever, I think is pretty good! Edward ended up placing 13th in the tournament and won some money.

During the tournament, I sat next to "Hollywood" Tony Kayden and he was giving me tips and answering my questions. At one point, he said he was going to quit giving me tips because otherwise I'd have all his chips! It was awesome. I loved the betting! It's SO much better than the limit poker. I'm sold on the no-limit and can't wait to play again.

It's funny, I feel like I've been training for poker by playing strategy games for the last couple years. When I'm playing, it feels just like a game, just with real money instead of the fakey paper stuff! Travis lent me "Super System" so I can read about theory and what not. I think with a little practice, I could be pretty good at it. I'm willing to at least try!