Did I Really Say That?

I swear, sometimes I think I must be the world's worst interviewee.

On Friday I had my second interview for the transfer position I want in my company, Admin Assistant to the Practice Management Consultants. Only three PMCs came to the interview, and since these are all people I know, I didn't feel nervous or angsty or anything... I was a little tense, I mean I want this job so bad I can't stand it, but I was generally relaxed and myself. And I'm wondering if being myself is a good thing.

For example, when we got around to the "what are your long-term goals" cliche, I cracked a joke. First I answered with the truth (was that wise?) that I simply don't plan that far ahead... in fact if you told the ten-years-ago me that I would be working where I am and loving it, I would have laughed at you. Ten years ago I thought I was going to be a teacher (and looking back, knowing what I do now about the teaching professions, having worked in a community college teachers' union and a public school district's HR office, I'm glad I'm not). My only long-term career goal is to find one company I can stay with until I retire, and I'd like for that company to be this one.

But after I laid all that out, I threw in... "well, I do have one other long term goal... there's this couch at Restoration Hardware I want... I can't afford it and have nowhere to put it, but someday I will and it will be mine." And they all cracked up. Actually, when I was talking to the receptionist afterward (remember I work with her now in my interim position), she told me she'd never heard so much laughter in a panel interview... I had them in stitches the whole time.

Again I ask: Was that wise? I mean, a sense of humor is a great asset, especially in a service position; but one also has to be taken seriously. Will they think that someone who jokes so much will be capable of handling serious business?

Well, we'll just have to see. I'll be finding out about the job later this week, yea or nay, and I'm sitting on the very edge of my seat until then. The anxiety is killing me, I must say. But at least I have this fallback position... if I don't get the job I want, I'll still be employed... at least until mid-September; and they seem willing to keep me on as a floater after that, as well. We'll have to see what we'll see.

In the meantime, I'm tired. Anxiety really takes it out of me. So I haven't got any work done on the Magnum Opus. But I don't have any work to do today, and a new way of developing the rest of this section I'm stuck in has occurred to me, so I think I'll go over and do some scrivening for a while.

Toodles!

I really NEED this! I need it NOW!

Tell me, how am I supposed to live without a diamond-covered human skull? I ask you!

In case you were wondering what to get me for Christmas, Damian Hirst's "For the Love of God" is currently for sale at a measly little $100,000,000.00 (plus sales tax, one assumes). And aren't I worth it?

A Little Tidying-Up

Hey, Kids! OK, so I'm having some work drama these days, I'm changing positions in my company as things didn't work out with the compliance department; on top of that I've been dealing with some serious depression issues. And so I've been ignoring you. Well, not ignoring... I'm just too wrapped up in my own issues and emotions to pay any attention to you. Which amounts to the same thing.

On the other hand, I've had some spare time on my hands at work these days (I'm holding an interim position, covering for someone on indefinite sick-leave), so I've been working on the novel. Nothing to post yet, but I'm getting close to finishing Chapter 9. And today I had a bit of idle moment, so I updated the links on this page so you get real pictures instead of those little red Xs.

Innywhoo, I hope to spend a little more time here in the near future, if only to give you some more pretty-pretty to look at.

Cheers!

Hey! Where'd Everything Go?

You may be wondering what happened to all the decoration around here... did burglars come in the night and steal all the graphics?

No, it's much more mundane than that: I unfortunately forgot to renew my domain hosting services in a timely manner, and didn't notice until the domain was turned off. And since getting it turned back on would require calling Scotland at eight in the morning, I eventually decided to let Mannersism.net just drop dead.

This blog will continue, however. I just have to reword the codes for the graphics... hell, maybe I'll just redesign the whole thing. I have a new domain host, and a new domain name (www.robertmanners.com) and everything will be back up and running fairly soon.

In the meantime, since Blogger's image hosting works just fine, here's something to keep you amused:

Oh, Just Say Something, Already!

Hello, Possums! I've been away from this diary for a while... still finding my feet at work, coming home rather tired, and not much to talk about in my life. On the other hand, I have been working on the novel, so that's where much of my blogging energy goes. If you haven't already, go on over (there's a link just above here, it says "Novel in Progress"... go ahead and click on it, it won't hurt at all!) and have a gander.

I've run into a bit of a snag... I've introduced yet another completely ancillary character, and I can't decide whether or not I should even keep him. He came to me in a flash of inspiration, and I don't like to ignore inspirations, but I just don't see how he furthers the story. I've had to dump loved characters in the past when they didn't fit into the story, I may have to do that with him. Maybe I should do what I did with Kiki the jailhouse trannie, go ahead and publish that version and see what the readers think. If it stinks or doesn't fit or doesn't work, I'll rewrite it.

So anyhow, not much else to talk about. I've become all hermitty again, I've decided it's not the particular mood stabilizer that's doing it, just mood-stabilizers in general. And since I discovered that the one I'm on now, Lamictal, costs eighty cents a pill, and I have to take eight a day, I'm going to go back to the Depakote when this one runs out. My insurance covers it, but at a cost of five hundred some-odd a month, I don't think it's fair that they should have to. Especially since it's making me sleep funky. And I've only lost ten pounds. Phooey on Lamictal, sez I.

And how are you?

See Robert Go To Work! Work, Robert, Work!

I know you've all been sitting on the very edges of your seats, waiting to see how my new job is going. Well, it's going great! And I just got a paycheck, a fat one, which makes everything nicer.

Anyway, since I'm a visual person and expect you're also a visual person, I have some visuals to let you know what my new job's like!

Here's the building in which I work. It's gorgeous! Well, I think it's gorgeous... I love the curve of it, the size of it, the bluey-greeny-ness of it. Count up nine floors, slide over to the far right, and that's where my department sits... the company takes up the whole floor, and we're about to take over the second floor as well.

Actually, I come at it from the other side, but I couldn't stand in the middle of a four-lane thoroughfare to get a picture, so I took it from the shoreline park beside the building (which is much prettier when the tide is in).

Here is a shot of the lobby of our building. Again, I come at it from the other side, since I park in the garage behind the building, but this is what visitors see (that glass balcony is the second floor that we're taking over; my boss hopes that our department gets moved down there, so in case of a fire we can get all the way outside without having to schlep down a lot of stairs):

Then I take the elevator up to my floor. I have to have a security badge to make the elevator work, and it's coded so that I can only press the button for my own floor... I can't get off anywhere else. It's a little irritating, particularly when the card-reader is being lazy, but it's kind of cool, too. Then I get off the elevator, and say "Hi" to the receptionst while picking up my department's mail; the tiny black dot just visible over the reception counter is the backup receptionist (the regular receptionist would be a gray dot, but she's on vacation); behind her is the Directors' boardroom. One always likes to be aware of when the Directors are there, because they get catered meals that we get to share.

Then I stop off at my desk, which I love! It's so comfortable, especially now that I've added a few homey touches to make it my own (sharp-eyed readers might recognize some tchotchkes from my old office at the union):

Sometimes, if I get bored with my own cube, I go look out the windows. We have spectactular views from every window on our floor, there are no taller buildings nearby to block us (and so I hope our department doesn't move down to the second floor, where the only view is of the trees blocking the windows).

The first window is the CFO's window, which I can see from my desk and which I look through quite frequently; the second window is in my department head's office, where I spend a lot of time:

And finally, here I am sitting in my cube (we call them "cubes" rather than cubicles... and they are roughly cubic, though not quite as tall as they are wide and long), posing for the New Hires feature in our internal newsletter:

So there's really not all that much left to tell. I'm still learning some of the details of my job, but I am fairly secure in knowing what I'm doing most of the time. I am still enjoying myself, still looking forward to getting to work in the morning, and not nearly as excited about getting off work as I was at previous situations.

In other news... well, there really isn't other news right now. And I have a headache (my allergies finally kicked in this week), so I'm going to cut this short. Have a beautiful day!

Alanis Morissette Rocks My World!

I was never a huge fan of the whining and weeping, though I have enjoyed some of her songs; and then there's the fact that she took Ryan Reynolds off the market, for which I'm not quite sure I can forgive her.

But then I found this video on YouTube, and my entire opinion of her has been revolutionized. To me, the greatest personality trait anybody can have is a sense of humor about him- or herself; and the following clip is not only a wonderful spoof of the song it covers, but a spoof on the usual dark gravity of Ms. Morissette's genre.

Not entirely safe for work, but by far the most brilliant thing I've seen in I-don't-know-how-long.

Could you just die?!

So anyway, the new job is going amazingly well... everybody is sooo nice, each and every one of them seems genuinely happy to be there, and the work isn't at all difficult but is complex enough to keep my interest, and the coffee machine (a Flavia system) is the coolest thing ever! I keep waiting for something bad to happen to balance out the unspeakable joy of my workday.

But I'm tired! All this exaltation takes it out of a girl!