Kingfisher Cove

Stuff!

Remember the “chamber of horrors?”

I think I mentioned before that those spikey things would eventually support shelving. John spent last week making the shelves out of cedar (the house smelled of nasty stain when we arrived Friday night) and we started placing some “stuff” on them! It’s haphazard right now until we bring down some of our favorite books and other items (and unpack some of my glass), but it gives us an idea of how it’ll look:

John can also raise or lower the heights of the shelves. It’ll be pretty fun once we figure out what we want where. A few groupings of books here and there, but nowhere near the number we have in the Des Moines house. John emptied out one shelving unit of books there and it’s just a fraction of all that we have!

Jeeze.

I think it will eventually look pretty cool! The secret will be to not go overboard with “stuff.” (Less to dust that way, too).

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Ugh, it’s Sunday afternoon already! At least this will be the last Sunday night that we have to hot-tail it back to Des Moines for my horrible Monday morning commute to Day Jail. Just look at that countdown clock, would ya?!

Nothing to Report (yet?)

So, here’s the thing. I have continued to look for jobs in the vicinity of Harstine Island (Olympia is most likely since it’s the only “city” of any size nearby, plus it’s the state capital. It’s an hour away, though). It’s been a frustrating exercise, mostly because I DO NOT want to do A/E marketing anymore. I am retiring from THAT, thank-you-very-much.

So, a month ago, I applied for a part time administrative position for an engineering firm in Olympia. I liked the idea that it was part time (and NOT marketing!), plus it’s for a firm that I’m familiar with—they are nationwide. That’s where I’m experienced—with engineering firms! I’m familiar with how they operate, what they do, the lingo, etc. and they are all pretty much alike. I’m not qualified to do medical billing, for instance. Or even accounting anymore, since it’s been many years since I used to do that. So I’m somewhat limited, and did I mention I DO NOT WANT TO DO A/E MARKETING EVER AGAIN??

I didn’t hear anything, so I dismissed it from my mind and focused on the Super Bowl (boo) and giving notice at work (yay!) Yesterday, I noticed a voice mail on my cell phone from Texas. (Texas?) I get a lot of spam calls so I was skeptical, but I listened to the voice mail and it was the HR recruiter for that engineering firm I’d applied to a month ago. (Apparently they handle HR from their Texas office). Anyway, she said, “I’d like to speak to you about your resume you submitted last month regarding a number of roles with our company.”

You know what this probably means, right? Because, after all, my resume is loaded with A/E marketing experience (because that’s the experience I have). Even though I’m sure I could manage administrative work just fine. (And especially PART TIME). I kind of felt some dread about calling her back this morning because I could just imagine the possible scenarios: Full time marketing coordinator position IN OUR SEATTLE OFFICE. Or, even in the Olympia office. Ugh. I’m OK with taking less pay, but I also don’t want to work so damned hard! And part time, please!

But, my call to her went to voice mail where I left her a message to call me back, and she never did. Possibly took today off?

So I don’t know anything.

SIX MORE WORKING DAYS

I am obviously getting OUT of this goddamned company at exactly the right time. The last two days I’ve witnessed so many tears and it’s because the asshole CEO has made an edict that 90% of all administrative staff across all of the offices (read: non-billable) are to be fired. Admin assistants, project coordinators, receptionists [“we’ll just do automated voice mail”], part of the accounting staff (which was lean to begin with) — mass forced exodus. Many of these are single-parent women. MANY of them have been with the company for a decade or much longer. They weren’t paid high wages—how will this honestly benefit the bottom line? Actually, I don’t think it’s the bottom line he cares about. He just moved his family into an 8,000-square-foot mansion, so it’ll likely free up enough cash to provide him with a decent raise. Oh, and make it easier for him to afford the payments on his $100,000 car.

Who knows, maybe I was on the line, too! I’m overhead. I may have just cheated myself out of 2 weeks’ severance pay.

I’m also mired in an ugly proposal and finally today, after fighting with subconsultants and staff engineers who refuse to cooperate—I stopped caring. Chucklehead will apparently be taking this over and have at it, BUDDY. My give a shit factor is now sub-sub-zero².

The office manager who sits adjacent to me filled me in on something  hysterically funny. At the weekly corporate meeting there was discussion regarding the company’s upcoming 40th anniversary party this spring, which will coincide with a board meeting and will be sort of an open house, with clients invited, so it’ll be a professional shindig. Chucklehead said at the meeting, “We should all bring our kids! We could hire a clown!” Yes. He said that. (And meant it, in all seriousness). I had this clear vision of Chucklehead himself with a clown nose. Chuckles the Clown.

I won’t be there to deal with that, either! Hallelujah!

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Late today, separate from this company’s insanity and buffoonery, something developed. I will find out more about it tomorrow (hopefully).

Watch this space.

*Sniff*

So close! Lost the Super Bowl with an interception on 2nd and goal with just over a minute to go in the game. There has been a whole lot of controversy over the play call (“why not hand off to Beastmode to run it in instead of passing into the end zone?”), but it was what it was. If the pass had been successful—like all of those crazy / risky play calls in the NFC championship game—those same critics would be referring to the offensive coach (or Carroll, or Russell Wilson) as geniuses. As it is, the media plus many of the fans have been scathing in the aftermath. But we had plenty of opportunities beforehand. Came into the 4th quarter 10 points ahead and completely lost that lead. Do we blame the Legion of Boom? It was a good game among two excellent teams, and we just ended up on the short end of the stick. We are not pre-ordained to win every game—this isn’t scripted! And, it may actually be a good lesson learned for our young team—and many of our fans—that this doesn’t come easy. Shit happens, and we have had our share of great luck come our way in addition to the amazing talent of our players.

It’s easy to be a “12” when we’re winning. I’m here to tell you that I am still a proud “12!”

Oh, but it hurts. Yes, it do.

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It was so nice to actually be able to WATCH the game (you know, until it wasn’t…):

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Back to the grind today, but one day down until my last day! Chucklehead was back in the office and he must have taken the weekend to cool his heels because he stopped being pissy (at least to my face). I have a big proposal to begin (it’ll be due after I leave), and three others that were imminent have been pushed back (that he’ll have to deal with!) I’m being good about consolidating easily-accessed examples, templates, advice, how-tos, etc. But I doubt he’ll give it the time of day. I believe they will be posting for my position, but there’s nothing on the website yet. So, who knows? (Not my problem!)

He did bring up the possibility of me “helping out” remotely, which I am keeping an open mind about. I’m not sure if the CEO would go for that, but I could see helping with graphics, QA/QC, proofing and editing, etc. down at Harstine on my laptop! No commute. My own hours. Working on a contractual basis part time, as needed. Maybe. We’ll see.