Posts Tagged ‘life

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30
Jun
08

Dog Days of Summer

By sheilamia Leave a Comment
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What a day… it’s the last day of the month and the last day of the quarter which has implications that only a salesperson can relate to.

It all started on morning walkie with Lucy.

I had a big goofy smile plastered on my face from the moment I woke up. After a relaxing, fun weekend with wonderful girlfriends, I was in great spirits.

Lucy and I set out on walkie. Lucy happily chased squirrels, and unearthed old tennis balls while I listened to my boys on KNBR, feeling good that the Giants managed to take 2 out of 3 games from the A’s… not at all concerned that today is a Monday.

I should have known the moment I spotted this threesome down the trail. The gray haired skinny woman with a sour look on her face, her husband who meekly walked a step behind her and a small, tawny collie type dog who looked like it wanted nothing more than to get away from them.

As Lucy and I passed by, the collie dog excitedly pulled on the leash trying to jump toward Lucy. Meanwhile Lucy calmly walked past with zero interest in any of them. As I walked by, the lady said to me, “you need to put your dog on a leash. It IS the law after all” – I’m sure you can imagine the sneering voice. Any other day, I would have wanted to smack this lady but today nothing could ruin my great mood. So I pretended I didn’t hear her.

Classic. Clearly she was mad /jealous ’cause her dog was so unruly ON the leash, while Lucy was so well-behaved OFF her leash.

Haters, I tell you. I can only feel sorry for people like this cause clearly she leads a miserable, unhappy life.

25
Jun
08

Same story, another day

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That is the theme for the day. I heard back from my big prospect in the U.K. that budget was not approved to purchase my product and “if business gets better” they will purchase in Q4 or Q1 ’09.

The kicker is that these people have told us this pretty much every quarter for the past 2 years. Is it time to face reality and give up? As a salesperson, I am the eternal optimist. When someone says they will put it in the budget for the next year, I believe them. Silly me.

Luckily there are days when someone will call me and say, “guess what? we got approval to purchase ahead of schedule”. Those days are pretty rare, but I guess it goes to show you that life as a salesperson is a bit like a roller-coaster ride.

On another note, my boss just fired our intern… so now he’s interviewing a new lackey to handle our technology needs. I guess we all should have known when on his first day at the job, the kid blatantly played video games at his computer! It seems like our employees either last for years or for a very very short time.

Happy Hump Day!

28
May
08

The Big Scare

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I am feeling much better, by the way… Phew! sickness aborted.

Anyhoo… thought I’d mention my big scare over the weekend. I almost lost my beloved Lucy.

I cannot bear to think about life without her… not to mention my husband would probably divorce me.

I typically let her walk with me off-leash, much to the chagrin of other dogwalkers who are obedient unlike me. She’s usually pretty good at following me or at least catching up to me if I get too far up the trail. She does have lots of distractions – the 1/2 eaten bagel near the HS, uncovering lost tennis balls, other doggie smells, and of course chasing her nemeses: squirrels! … And yes, I double-checked, nemeses IS the plural of nemesis.

On Sunday I wanted to experiment by doing a bit of run/walking. We were at one section of the trail and I started running. I looked back and saw her about 100 yards back darting out of some bushes. It looked like she was running out to catch up with me, so I kept running. A few paces later, I looked back and she was nowhere in sight. So, I backtracked, calling her, then angrily screaming her name (“that dog!” I muttered to myself). After a few minutes I started to get worried. I walked back and forth in that stretch of the trail several times and my mind started to race. Panicked I thought that perhaps she had shimmied under a fence and someone decided to take her inside. But, how could that happen so quickly? I started asking everyone who passed me if they had seen a black and white dog. Finally, two of the ladies I had asked called out to me and I saw that they were leading my little Lucy back. Thank GOODNESS I had reached out to them. Apparently Lucy ran out of the bushes, didn’t see me so she backtracked and was in a completely different section of the trail.

Tears of joy as Lucy raced toward me and into my arms. She ain’t a real baby but she’s my baby.

22
May
08

Words of 2008 in my life

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Here is a follow up to the 2008 words post… the 2008 words as they pertain to ME!
(see my previous post for reference, or you will be ultra confused)

My husband and I (verifiable mouse potatoes) strive to become Sitcoms someday. We do not currently live in Generica. However if we do become Sitcoms, more than likely that is where we will be! My parents on the other hand are Woofs… go figure.

At work, I seem to have a lot of salmon days and deal with many 404s regularly. My boss is definitely a stresspuppy.

I do suffer from an addiction to irritainment, looking forward to my US magazine delivery each Thursday afternoon.

To give you an idea of the kind of luck I have, I have swipeouts often and the Ohnoseconds come often.

Luckily I do not live in a cubicle, so I don’t have to deal with cubefarms or prairiedogging, but cropdusting does occur ’round here!

22
May
08

2008 Words

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A friend sent me this list. I guess they are new words for 2008. There are some funny ones. I wanted to be sure to save the list, so I am posting it here!

1. BLAMESTORMING Sitting around in a group, discussing why a deadline was missed or a project failed, and who was responsible.

2.SEAGULL MANAGER: A manager, who flies in, makes a lot of noise, craps on everything, and then leaves.

3.ASSMOSIS: The process by which some people seem to absorb success and advancement by kissing up to the boss rather than working hard

4.SALMON DAY: The experience of spending an entire day swimming upstream only to get screwed and die in the end.

5. CUBE FARM : An office filled with cubicles.

6.PRAIRIE DOGGING : When someone yells or drops something loudly in a cube farm, and people’s heads pop up over the walls to see what’s going on.

7. MOUSE POTATO : The on-line, wired generation’s answer to the couch potato.

8.SITCOMs: Single Income, Two Children, Oppressive Mortgage. What Yuppies get into when they have children and one of them stops working to stay home with the kids.

9.STRESS PUPPY: A person who seems to thrive on being stressed out and whiny.

10.SWIPEOUT: An ATM or credit card that has been rendered useless because magnetic strip is worn away from extensive use.
11.XEROX SUBSIDY: Euphemism for swiping free photocopies from one’s workplace.

12.IRRITAINMENT: Entertainment and media spectacles that are Annoying but you find yourself unable to stop watching them.

13. PERCUSSIVE MAINTENANCE: The fine art of whacking the crap out of an electronic device to get it to work again.

14. ADMINISPHERE : The rarefied organizational layers beginning just above the rank and file. Decisions that fall from the adminisphere are often profoundly inappropriate or irrelevant to the problems they were designed to solve.

15. 404 : Someone who’s clueless. From the World Wide Web error Message ’404 Not Found,’ meaning that the requested site could not be located.

16. GENERICA : Features of the American landscape that are exactly the same no matter where one is, such as fast food joints, strip malls, and subdivisions.

17.OHNOSECOND : That minuscule fraction of time in which you realize that you’ve just made a BIG mistake. (Like after hitting send on an email by mistake).

18.WOOFS: Well-Off Older Folks.

19. CROP DUSTING: Surreptitiously passing gas while passing through a Cube Farm.

21
May
08

Life is Good

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Today I’m “working” in the backyard while our housecleaner does her thing. Can I please get someone to turn the wind down a notch? My papers are flying everywhere… thanks!

I’m listening to baseball on the radio, staring at some beautiful redwood trees and trying not to notice the dry, almost brown lawn (there is a water ban going on in my neighborhood). I can’t complain too much.

Plus it’s a long weekend this weekend and I have fun plans on the agenda.

Icing on the cake is I’m off for vacation in about a week. 5 day cruise to Bermuda with the in-laws… hopefully noone goes overboard! Naw, I’m just joshing… I actually like my in-laws, so all should go well.
Just gotta survive 5 more work days…

20
May
08

Minor blip in an otherwise fabulous day

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I can’t believe I didn’t blog about this yesterday!

Sunday afternoon I met up with my favorite gal, A, for a quickie snack / glass of wine – BR Cohn Chardonnay to be exact (we were both craving it as they had run out of Chardonnay at the BR Cohn WINERY when were were there the day before – isn’t that against the law in California?)

Anyhoo, we were relaxing on the patio while Lucy charmed the other customers, enjoying a perfect afternoon. All of a sudden, we heard a loud bang. I looked toward the sound and realized someone had just backed into MY car! I was so worried they would drive off, so I ran over and started waving him down. Luckily he was already getting out of the car and seemed shocked that there was something behind hime.

Side note: I did notice he was wearing a Bay to Breakers t-shirt and I do remember that post-race dazed and confused state of mind (it hasn’t been THAT long since I was an avid runner)

At first I didn’t think there was any damage but then I noticed a huge crack to the side of my license plate on my bumper. His back hitch had hit my license plate and the impact caused the bumper to crack.

Luckily the other driver was very cooperative and apologized a few times. We exchanged information and he went on his way and I went back to my Chardonnay…

Of COURSE, dealing with the insurance adjusters has not be quite so smooth…. Is it just me or could these people care less about their job?

19
May
08

Post # 101!

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I was so surprised to log in to blogger and learn that I’ve published 100 posts to my blog so far!

I know there are folks out there with thousands of blog entries, but this feels like an accomplishment to me.

Mondays are always my most least inspired of days, but let’s see if I can come up with something witty, intelligent, or meaningful… fat chance!

Last week during our weekly company meeting, the topic of earthquakes came up… namely the ginormous quake that is estimated to hit the bay area in the next ~10 years. My boss then told us he had heard that scientists were actually considering pouring a bunch of baby powder down the fault line so that when the earthquake finally hits, the plates will move smoother, resulting in a less devastating situation. ???

I asked him if Johnson & Johnson was sponsoring the project. That just sounds like an urban legend if you ask me! In fact I am going to Google this now… watch this space.

UPDATE:

I could not find anything to this effect, but in the following article, they do reference looking to see if talc exists deep in the faultline core… hmmmm, verrrry interesting.

http://tinyurl.com/3ouane

15
May
08

Welcome to my new world..

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So my Eastern Medicine “Practitioner” (not sure what the correct word is) told me today that I can only drink liquids that are room temperature, warm or preferably hot…

She tells me this on the hottest day of the season so far (it’s easily 100 degrees). Gulp, just before my appointment I had devoured an icy fruitsicle.

So, now I’m blogging drinking hot tea feeling like a dumb A and I had to take all of my cold drinks out of the refrigerator. Sigh.

But, all in all, I feel positive about my new Eastern Medicine Plan. My practitioner spent 45 minutes with me talking about the various procedures in store for me. She told me they would mix an herbal remedy. And of course she described my new diet… pretty much I will not be able to eat out in an actual restaurant anytime in the near future.

There goes my social life, officially.

The good news is I didn’t have to pay a dime, the first consultation was FREE! In contrast my previous “practitioner” charged me $275 the moment I walked in the door. Guess that’s just one of the many differences between Eastern and Western medicine.

13
May
08

The do gooders in the world – can I be one?

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I have been thinking a lot about the truly altruistic people in this world. I have a great friend who belongs to this group of individuals. She is working for a non-profit that provides technology to areas which have been devastated by a disaster. Obviously they are quite busy in light of the recent tragedies in Myanmar and China.

Her influence has rubbed off on me… at least a little bit (I’m still selfish as ever). I’ve spent a lot of time in recent months searching for a suitable volunteer project that I can participate in. You’d think that it would be easy to go contribute your time to a worthy cause. Not necessarily. Many of the opportunities need help during work week hours. Many require a commitment of a few weekends in a row for orientation or training. Some of them require special technical or medical skills. Some of them just don’t call you back. I thought I found a great opportunity helping the American Cancer Society with their Relay for life event. I actually got a woman on the phone who excitedly said that, yes! They need help. She said she’d contact me when they get their initial volunteer meeting scheduled. I am still waiting for that call….

Should I take a hint? Is my selfishness that transparent?

Anyways… I guess I’ll keep looking but if you know of a worthy non-profit in the East Bay Area that will allow me to contribute time in the early evenings or weekends without bureaucratic red tape, send ‘em my way.

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