a quick update

Okay, a few people have been asking and I am sure those of you that didn't are on the edge of your seat wondering what happened with my meeting Friday.

I will post more details later because I am about to run out the door, but....the meeting went well! I definitely do not need to be in fear of losing my job and I although the client didn't sign a renewal yet, I am 99.9% sure they will once we make a few revisions.

Like I said, I will post more details later!

Totally stressing

I am sooo freaking stressed out. I have a meeting on Friday with my biggest account and I am totally scared out of my mind. Their contract is up for renewal at the end of this month and although they love the food and service they are receiving, their budget is super tight and may not allow for us to continue with them next year.

If we lose this account I have no idea what will happen to me. Just the one account easily makes up 75% of my revenue during the regular school year, so without them, I may not have enough going on to stay employed. All 3 of my bosses have told me not to worry, but I am just so on edge. I can't focus on anything, my google reader has like 40 unread items. This all really hit me last night and poor Nathan had to deal with me tossing and turning all night. He finally convinced me to take my in case of emergency muscle relaxor so that I could get some sleep.

I want to apply for some jobs just in case, but I am having a really difficult time focusing on wrting cover letters and tweaking my resume. Plus, I feel like I am going to throw up with all my nerves.

Eek, two more days until my fate is decided.....

It's 10:30 pm and I am still awake

I think it is some kind of miracle that I am still wide awake at this time....especially after 3 large berry martinis and a 13 hour work day.

Funny story of the day:

Their was a board of trustees meeting at the college where I work today. They always have a nice catered dinner beforehand in the president's office area and I usually help out in some way, shape, or form with it.

Tonight Boss #1 and I were picking up the food and china from the event and Mike Owens of News channel 5 was waiting with camera man to try and catch the president of the college. (I have no idea why....).

Anyway, Boss #1 pulls out a cart of dishes follow by me with another cart. Owens says to him, "So what was for dinner tonight?" Without skipping a beat Boss #1 says, "Fish, but don't quote me on that!"

Maybe it was the 13 hour work day catching up with me, but I thought that was freaking hilarious!

Open letter #2

Dear Nathan, I hope you really did enjoy your birthday yesterday. I am still a little skeptical.


Dear Co-worker, If you have something to say just say it! Don't be like, "Well I was going to tell you something but I think you would mad." Ah, hello, that's like saying, "I have a secret but I can't tell you." Actually, you know what, don't tell me. If it is some kind of criticism I would rather be blissfully ignorant since it wouldn't really serve any person then to just make me subconscious.


Dear Yard, You obviously took my last letter to heart. Thank you so very much for the small sections of grass!! But if you could stop growing so many weeds in the other sections that would be great, thanks.


Dear Roxie, You are so darn cute, but please, please, stop being such a huge PITA. Your evenings of barking and constant needs for attention are getting tiresome.


Dear Job, Thank you for allowing me not to arrive until 6:15 am on Monday. It was really weird to arrive without it being dark, but that was fabulous. In addition, thank you for giving me a relatively normal day.


Dear Wii, You shall not defeat me. I shall master Mario Kart, boxing, and tennis.

Dear Blogspot, Thank you for doing scheduled posting! I heart it and am using it for this post!

My emotional roller coaster

I have actual sat down to blog about 4 times in the last five days, but everytime I do it is all work, work, work. Work has freaking consumed me yet again. This week should have been great, but more theft occurred and a super ugly termination that directly affects me.

I was proud though, because I feel like I really held myself together. I used to be not be able to handle stress at all. I would totally freak out, cry, puke, the works. And although this week I came close to those points I never really hit them full blast.

However, it has still been a stressful few weeks and I had never looked more forward to a weekend. Especially last night because Nathan and I were just going to run a quick couple errands and then watch a movie. We had both been wanting to see "Feast of Love" with Morgan Freeman and it had just been sitting at our house for over a week waiting to be watched.

What a bad idea. That movie was an emotional roller coaster and that was all it took for me to really let out my emotions. I only occasionally cry while watching movies, but last night I became almost hysterical. The roller coaster of love, death, and a cute English Setter just got to me and I just let it all out. I had one of those cries that makes your throat hurt and get all dry.

I guess in some ways I needed to do that and at least I did it at home and not at work. I just wish I could handle stress in a better way. I have certainly made a lot of improvement, but I am still not at an acceptable level of stress handling. I am sure this will be acquired over time, but I wish it would come quickly.

One big positive I can say is that the past few weeks of work have shown me that I have an amazing support system. It has been great to come home and see positive comments from bloggers. In addition, even though I have mentioned dozens of times that Boss #1 is awesome, the past few weeks have really made me appreciate him and the other couple star employees that have been ready to help me with whatever I need. Thank GOD for good people.

Crazy ass day

Today was the craziest and maybe worst day of my work life. I am not going to go into details because you never know who is reading......but I am exhausted.

On top of all that, we no longer ghetto in our yard, we are SUPER ghetto. Tuesday we realized we were the only people on the block that had yet to mow their grass. So Nathan pulls out the mower yesterday and gets the front yard complete. It looked so much better! He than starts to do a path to the backyard and oh, oh....the mower dies.

We knew the thing was on it's last leg, but now our front yard is done and the yard going to the back looks super goofy with part of the lawn complete. Even with that problem I still think I am going to try to talk Nathan out of mowing and let him pamper me since I had such a bad day.

I'm alright, I just need to vent to someone.....

Cards game with a side of embarrassment

My company did a really great job with the St. Louis employee appreciation this year. Boss #1 gave Boss # 2 the idea to rent a party room at a Cards game complete with buffet, beer, soda, the works. Totally great considering they could still do the meeting portion in one of the stadiums conference rooms before and then have a get together that almost any St. Louisian would enjoy.

Of course, it rained most of the day Friday, which in combination with St. Louis traffic caused me to be 5ish minutes late. Ick, five minutes late I hate being late, especially for a work function (nope, not the embarrassment referred to in the title) but many were running late so I didn't feel too bad.

When I arrived at the conference room I was greet by boss #2 and #3 in addition to some higher ups of the company including the owner. The meeting finally started and we all introduced ourselves, said what unit we were at, how long we had been with the company, and our favorite thing about working for this company. Then, the company did some awards. The last was the biggest one, kind of like the employee of the year aka Outstanding Achievement for 2008. Boss #3 announced my name and I was totally shocked. I blushed and smiled like an idiot (nope not embarrassed yet) and listed to him talk about me for about five minutes. I was totally honored and ecstatic. While others may not of felt like that was a big deal I definitely did. Not only will this look great on a resume but I got a kick ass glass plaque.

After a wrap up we headed into the game, which was amazingly starting on time. The President of the company was just now joining us because his flight had been delayed. We all dug into the food and tried to stay warm, because unfortunately our party room was open air. Which would have been perfect on a warm day, but it was a little cold and windy. I began socializing and introducing myself to a few of the higher ups, and getting reacquainted with the ones that already knew me.

Unfortunately, no had a ton of no shows and a lot of people left around the 3rd inning. I was shocked so many were leaving because we were playing great, it was a Friday night, and we still had lots of food and beer to consume. I wasn't going anywhere because Nathan, Jenn, and Brian all had great seats and we were going out afterwards.

At about the 4th inning I asked boss #3 if he would care if I went and got all three of them and brought them into the party room.

The conversation went like this:
"Um, boss #3, would you mind if I grabbed a few of the extra tickets and brought my husband and two friends up here?"
"Yeah! Lets go get them!"
"Are you sure Mr. President won't mind a few crashers?"
"No, no, he won't freaking care!"

And believe me, he didn't care. About 10 minutes into Nathan, Jenn, and Brian joining us all introductions were made and they began drinking and socializing. I walked away for about five minutes to chat with a couple other co-workers and I turn around to see Mr. President laughing with Nathan, Jenn, and Brian who were just a tad tipsy. Then I hear Brian say something, something, shit. And then Nathan with something, something shit. Que embarrassment. I walk back over to the four of the name laughing hysterically. Mr. President turns to me and says, "Teresa these guys are great!" Um, ok. They precede to talk about scotch, baseball, and other random topics.

A few minutes later Mr. President realizes he is spending more time with my friends then the people that actually work for him and he excuses himself for a bit. I pull on Nathan and Brian and say, "You guys were fing cursing with the President of my company!!!" They proceed to tell me that before they started Mr. President said, "Come on, we've got to drink this beer! I paid for this shit!"

It was a long and interesting evening that I won't forget anytime soon.

Um, can you say gorgeous?

The weather today has turned out to be wonderful! This morning I was scraping frost off my car and bundled up in my coat, but now it is warm and sunny! Woohoo!

In addition, today was a good day at work. Again, for every bad day I have it always seems like another one is right around the corner. I got a phone call early this morning from Boss #3 congratulating me on a doing such a professional job presenting new pricing and information to one of our clients, that had many problems with another manager in the division, but will now be one of my accounts.

Yay for happy days!

It's official

It's official, I haven't blogged in 6 freaking days! Terrible, I know. I mostly blame Nathan. He has been home in the evenings and doesn't appreciate me being on the computer for a couple hours. In fact, all of my computer activity has suffered. Wayy less time on forums, e-mail, and just quick glances at Google Reader to make sure I don't totally fall out of the loop.

Personal updates- The yard is still needing a ton of work. The grass going over the drain just doesn't want to grow, and I can't blame it, the weather isn't cooperating. Speaking of which, I don't know if anyone else was up at 5 am today, but as I was getting in my car it was starting to snow. Yep, snow. Of course it didn't last, but still, snow in April is just wrong, period. (Julia, I don't know how you do it, I would go crazy.)

Work isn't too fabulous still, but no need to get into specifics. I am sure once the regular semester is over for the college things will be better. I don't like being hated by anyone (yep, it is that obvious now) but I guess that goes with being a manager, sometimes you have to be the bad guy.

On a brighter note, I am getting some fun stuff in this week. A few friends are coming over Thursday night for a dinner party and I've had so much fun planning it. I think I am going to make a whole separate post about the planning and the menu and all that good stuff.

The "quest to be healthy" is going pretty well. I few minor set backs this week, but no biggie. Nathan is really doing great! As soon as he adds just a few more veggies into eating him will be set.

Ok, more later.....I vow not to go six days again.

An update

Well, today was a long 10 hour day, but I am ok. No job lost, no big confrontation, it's all good.

As some of you have read in previous blogs I and my immediate boss had to give our reviews with our head chef. All went well we thought. But a particular employee was upset about some points that she had been deducted off. My boss felt like he addressed the issue with her, but she didn't feel the same way and called the person above my boss. I don't want to go into too many details, but it is obvious this employee is dealing with depression and she had a down week. How the discrimination thing ties in makes very little sense, but for the time being it looks like my name is in the clear.

Even though no one from my job knows about my blog (cause, yeah, they are old/technologically challenged and have no idea what a blog is) I won't go into anymore detail.

I really appreciate the comments of concern, last night and this morning when I had no idea what was happening was definately scary, and getting some moral support really helped me.

The bad feeling

Well, readers, my bad vibe was not a false alarm. I had been trying to get a hold of my District Manager to touch base on a few things since yesterday and he just called me a few minutes ago. An employee that is at my unit, but I don't directly surpervise, apparently accused myself and my immediate boss of discrimination. I don't know what her reasoning is and very few details; however, no matter what it isn't a good situation. And while I don't think I will get fired over it, its not like this is all going to go away. I am about to go look at job listings just in case.

I don't think I am going to get much sleep tonight. Freaking sucks.

:)

It seems for every bad day at work I get a good one. This week my boss and I have been preparing to give annual reviews. Our company does them at the same time for everyone, regardless of hire date.

Today my boss gave me mine. I got a 4.2 out of 5 rating. :) I knew it was going to be good, but I was kind of thinking high 3s. But since I just started this new position in December my raise is pro-rated. And we don't get very big annual raises (ah, what is cost of living?) so it really isn't much. But either way, more money is more money.

Tomorrow I have to give a review that I think may result in tears from the employee. I am mentally preparing for that. Ick, sometimes it really sucks being someone's boss.

All the serious life stuff.....

I have heard a lot of people say you do a lot of growing up your first year of marriage, for me, this really wasn't true. I felt like the first year of marriage, although sometimes being tough wasn't really a huge adjustment. I think the big change came over two years after the wedding when we bought our house. Lately I have been thinking about this change a great deal. It has only been about 9 months since this major life changing event and I think if you put my life pre-house next to my life now, you would see two very different people.

For one, my priorities are totally different. This time last year I was thinking about how amazing it would be to get new furniture and a TV. And while I would still love to get rid of all our heavily used furniture and our TV that takes five minutes to turn on, it is in no way, shape or form on top of the priority list of what we should spend our money. I think the only way we could justify it now is a smaller purchase like buying that used couch that is still in good condition since ours is on our last leg....I would post a pic but it is pretty frightening I feel like we should put more towards our huge debt (house, car, student loans) or get a good chunk into savings then spend money on material stuff.

Another thing is the actual house itself. It is a great house, but when we bought it we kind of considered it just a jumping off point. I told DH living here 5 years would be my max, and I would probably start looking at new houses around year 3. That just seems ridiculous now. First of all, we probably won't have kids by then, so why in the world do we need to move to a bigger house? This house is plenty big for the two of us, the dog, and even a child. We have plenty of room to entertain and we live in a neighborhood we enjoy. Plus, while a bigger house would be awesome, it is just more to clean, up keep, etc. and I seem to spend a ton of time doing this to our current home so I can't imagine the effort I would have to put into a bigger home. If you put into the equation that if we stick to our snowballing debt plan we could own the home in about 10 years, that makes it very tempting to stay as long as possible and then make the most money when we do sell it.

While I have always been very aware of money, I feel like now I am extremely financially aware and I didn't think so long term with money pre-house. When you shell out a ton of cash in 10 months for things like a water heater and a sewer line, you definitely start to think about the importance of a paycheck. What is so crazy is that right out of college when I worked for Red Lobster as a manager I made the same I make now and I felt like that was soooo much money. Nathan and I actually looked at buying a luxury car right before the wedding because I could afford it. I mean my fabulous apartment wasn't that expensive, so we could afford it, right? THANK GOD that didn't happen, since I decided a few months later that I was terribly unhappy working for RL and I would spend three long months without any kind of job to speak of and then right after I found something Nathan lost his job. I pray that never happens again, being jobless sucks.

Speaking of jobs, another recent revelation is that even the most fabulous jobs are going to have a downside, but sometimes you just need to tough it out and put in your time. I love my job now, but definitely didn't 6 months ago. And had I not hung out and tried to make it would have been that much harder to find something steady or a "real job" because I didn't have any long term experience with any one company, I just job hopped after college. I am not saying that everyone should stay at one job forever, but you have to realize and accept there is always going to be at least one idiot, two slackers, and one person that REALLY needs to get a clue at any place you are employed.

So what is the moral of the story? Think really hard before you buy a house because all those blissful "live in the now" emotions will be gone. You will have to start thinking long term and it kind of sucks.

Snow = Stress

I, like so many other residents of the great St. Louis, are totally sick of this weather, especially after the gorgeous weekend. But I think that I maybe one of the most tired of it. Snow is a HUGE source of stress for me.

With the exception of MoDot workers, and people that HAVE to be at their jobs (aka doctors, nurses, police, etc.) I think when it snows I have one of the biggest headaches.

Part of my new job is running a school foodservice. The foodservice is ran out of a community college kitchen and then delivered to two schools. In one day, my staff makes and delivers about 600 meals, which from day to day is stressful in itself. But when you add snow into the mix watch out!

First of all, if for some reason the college is closed and the school we deliver to is open, technically I am supposed to call the school and tell them we can't deliver. In order to get all this info the college has to cancel classes before my school makes the call. Luckily, most of the time the college makes the decision earlier than my school program. But regardless, it is stressful. I usually go to bed between 8 or 9 and get up at 4:15/4:30am to be at work by 5:15am. On days it could possibly snow it is not so easy. My current alarms are set for 12:15 am, 3:45 am, and 4:30 am. 12:15 is usually when the college posts online if they are closed. 3:45 is about the time that I have to check and see if the school program is closed and if it isn't I have to make the decision of if we can deliver because I should notify the Principal by 4. 4:30 is when I will get up and get ready for work. I also usually get about 3 phone calls through the course of the evening. My main cook calling to see if she has to come in, the principal calling me on the phone tree, my boss calling to see if I have any updates, etc.

On top of all that is the normal stress of driving in bad weather. But honestly, with everything else going on that is usually the least of my problems even though if the college is closed and so is the school program I should really go in and catch up on paperwork.

Oh, and I was tagged by Julia, and I fully intend to share my 7 things, but I think it would be better to do it when I am not so stressed.

Yay work!

I am really upbeat today. Not only is it B-E-A-U beautiful outside, I found out at work today that I had awesome numbers for the month. For those of you not in Vending Management, the business is all about good numbers. Meeting food cost, labor, etc. January wasn't so great for me, but February was right on track! Woot!

I am also in a great mood because even though I worked a long 14 hour day yesterday, I got a lot of great compliments on some garnishing and table presentations that I did for a really important meeting on campus. Even though I may not be a practicing chef anymore, I occasionally help with some events and it is always nice to get compliments on my "work".

Here are some pics:

These really aren't some of the best that I have done, but the event coordinators were blow away by everything (I also did a pretty fruit display, but I don't have a pic :(.) which is always nice to hear.

One of these days I will try and post a blog with more food pics since they are kind of like my "art".

Happy Friday!

Favorite things (part 4 of 83)

In August if you would have told me I would call this one of my favorite things on Feb. 13 I would have probably slapped you in the face. Well, not really, even in my most negative times I am not that violent. :)
What a build up....anyway, it's my job! Crazy I know. If any of you were part of my life a few months ago you know that my job totally sucked. I was over qualified for what I was doing and under appreciated by patrons. Plus, when I would meet someone for the first time I was ashamed to tell them what I was doing. But now is totally different.
I can proudly say that I am the Manager of all the St. Louis vending and K-8 school accounts for my company. Dream job? No way. Do I still long for a job where I can use my public speaking and creative skills and be making twice my salary? Absolutely. But for this time in my life my job is pretty freakin sweet.
For one, I went to school for management. I even got a great job right out of college. I was making good money working for the 5th (or something like that) highest volume Red Lobster's in the world. I had over 100 people under me. I was losing weight, getting married soon, and living in a fabulous apartment. But I was totally miserable. I was so stressed that I would cry almost every night after work or sometimes in the bathroom at work. I could only think about my job on my days off and couldn't even put work behind me to enjoy a bridal shower.
About five weeks before my wedding I put in my notice. My boss was disappointed and told me I was doing a good job. He tried to convince me to stay 6 more months just to see if things got better. I said no, I was miserable. He then told me if I stuck around until right before the wedding I would get a decent quarterly bonus. But I just couldn't, I couldn't do that. All I did was sleep and work. In fact, that is why I lost so much weight, because I was too stressed to stop and eat. After explaining that I gave him 3 weeks notice. I left there having no idea what I would do after the wedding. I didn't care.
Three jobs later, here I am. Even though I have been with my current company almost two years, I am finally starting to really enjoy being there. They acknowledge a great potential in me and when my job came availiable they didn't even open it to anyone else. They just put me in it, which was a big compliment.
One thing that rocks about it is my schedule. While so many of my friends think I am crazy for waking up at 4:15 am and getting to work around 5:15am I really like my schedule. Most days I can leave right at 1:30 and on a totally busy/crazy day which rarely happens I leave at 3 by the latest.
The other element that I love is working one on one with only a handful of clients. When I was cooking I had to deal with sometimes 100 different people everyday. And usually not people that were in a good mood.
Sometimes my job gets pretty stressful but now my worst day doesn't even seem so bad. And when times are tough my awesome boss steps in and does what he can to make things not so rough.
Well, I actually have three bosses. Usually have multiple bosses is a bad thing, but not for me. My immediate boss is the one I was just referring to and again let me stress that he is awesome. I work on his account's campus and we actually share part of an office space. He has really been supportive and helpful in my transition to this much higher up position. He constantly pushes me out the door saying, "Leave! Seriously, you have worked hard and long enough today....the rest can wait until tomorrow." He also always make sure I don't have too much on my plate. We help each other out and really make a fabulous team.
My second boss doesn't really deal with me all that much except with a few key items from each account that he oversees. He too is good to work for because he is very encouraging.
My third boss is the big one. He is the District Manager for all of the St. Louis. And while I don't need to report to him directly on most issues, he is my boss for my vending accounts. We've had our ups and downs since I have been with the company, but today I received the nicest email from him:
"Sounds good. Keep me posted. Also I wanted to say THANKS FOR DOING SUCH A GREAT JOB. I enjoy working with you more closely. You are a true professional."
He typed in all caps! Compliments from your boss are always so much better when they are in all caps. Plus, I love the phrase "true professional". I think for a 25 year old that is fresh in the game this is a truly great and hard to live up to phrase.
Yep, job is good if you can't tell or have poor reading comprehension. Thanks as always for reading!

Stuck at work

Ick, it is 3 pm and I should have been gone about two hours ago. I hate waiting on people especially when I have plans to go out tonight.

Oh, and I think my favorite forum just got blocked. :( I normally don't get on it at work but since I am here killing time it would be nice to be able to browse.

I am starting to feel the fact that I have been here for over ten hours.