So this afternoon, I booked time with my friend Katie to go over the procedures for her department. As many of you know, we work fairly closely at our office and this can be both highly productive and entertainingly distracting with nothing coming from it depending on our moods. Today so far has been productive. Mostly because I’m sleepy and just want to go home and neither of us would rather be at our desk trying to accomplish anything else so it’s get this done or get in trouble. No one wants to get yelled at around here.
Katie’s department has recently been broken out of the Interactive department into it’s own little group. While this has been exciting for her and her growing team, it means more work for me. We used to have one 2-3 page document for PPL which over the course of time grew to somewhere around 15 pages. What we are now trying to do is break that down into individual procedures and put it in it’s very own section of the procedures manual. I know this is all extremely exciting to you.
We have moved into the “Dorm Room” for our meeting. This room was once upon a time, the office supply closet. Way back when I first started working here. Back when we were small enough to fit on one floor. As we grew, they decided to take my supply closet away, have me cram everything into a tiny two door cabinet, and turn my closet into an office. One of the first inhabitants was our fearless Agency Director, Darryl Mattox. He moved in here with his Nebraska posters, mini fridge, dominatrix barbies and old school boom box and the room was from then forward dubbed the “Dorm Room”, I’m sure there’s no more explanation needed as to why. Eventually he moved out and into Greg’s office with him as we grew again and someone else took over the room, but it has retained the name nonetheless. Until we grew to two floors that is. At that time, the New Business department moved in just outside of here and decided that they needed somewhere quiet to make sales calls and re-named the room the phone booth. I hate that name. I refuse to adopt it. They weren’t here when we originally named it so they don’t know. The room is now empty except for the abandoned desk and the binding machine so we tend to move in here and work from here as often as we can. It affords a small amount of privacy that we don’t get at our own desks.
We also named what is now Mike’s office the Oak Room because we all hated the person that inhabited it before Mike moved in. It sat empty for some time so we had to name it. I’m not sure where that name came from? But it will remain for as long as I’m here.
Well, Katie has returned from her potty break so I guess I’d better try to finish these silly procedures…sigh.
So the title might be a slight exaggeration. On Saturday, my friend Katie (who had just gotten back from a client visit/road trip late the night before and really only wanted to stay home and nest) and I started the day with a foray into Kansas in search of cowboy boots. Yep. I’ve gone country. Back to my roots. I’ve gone country. (OK, I’m done singing old Alan Jackson songs to you. For now.) As per most of our trips across the state line, we got lost and wandered around Kansas for a while trying to “feel” our way towards where we thought we were supposed to be going. Apparently Katie didn’t see a need to remember ALL of the directions, just the first half. But that was OK because I was in no hurry to be anywhere and driving around in Kansas with Katie almost always entertains. Eventually we ended up there (by sheer luck I’m pretty sure) and wandered in to the “western wear” store to acquire said boots.
We were pounced on immediately by an over zealous sales woman who thoroughly annoyed me. She didn’t have anything in the womens section in my size but repeated herself about 20 times trying to convince me to try the next size up. I said “sure, I’ll try it” after about the 2nd repeat but that didn’t stop her. I was getting close to leaving. I finally said “I said I’d try it!”. They didn’t fit so she told me to try the kids section, that those run in my size. This my friends was devastating. I wanted big girl boots!! (Pout.) She wandered away and a gentleman replaced her to assist us. What a relief!! He was nice and didn’t seem to mind at all that I was being somewhat high maintenance in my refusal to wear children’s boots. He went so far as to go and get their book and walk down the isle with me pointing out which ones they had in a size that I could wear. Unfortunately, none of the 6 he pointed out were boots that I wanted. I eventually settled on a black pair of ropers (I had gone there to purchase brown boots, not lace ups but they were way too hot to not wear out of the store), and a pink pair of children’s boots and a brown pair of children’s boots. I convinced myself that this was OK after all because they were about half the price and they fit and it’s not like I’ll be wearing them with shorts or anything so no one will ever know. Except that people read this blog and I made Katie swear on her life that she would never tell anyone. So 3 pairs of boots in my pile and it was time to convince Katie that she needed to try on the ones she’d spotted as soon as we had arrived. She did, she purchased, she owes me. See her blog. I’ve since decided to just return the two kid pairs. I can’t wear them. I don’t want to! (Pout.)
After our excursion to Kansas and a bit of a rest at my house in which I’m pretty sure the boy got mad at me about something, we drove up to Kearney for the 14th annual Mule Run. Now, I don’t know a whole lot about it yet but I’m working on getting some background history. I’m prety sure it’s just a reason for a bunch of motorcycle clubs to get together, camp out and drink. There were a couple of bands, some raffle prizes, some beer and some rain. Neither of us were dressed appropriately either. I had on a really cute pink top and she had on a black sweater. Our fellow lurkers wore all black and looked like they were ready for the rain. We were not. So we wandered down to the stand where they were selling t-shirts and hoodies and purchased our own. Now we fit in!! All we really did for our time there was stand around, play with our phones, talk to random bikers and their biker chicks and stand out by the road with Steve asking questions and just being a general annoyance. It was so much fun though!! It was an adventure!! IN THE RAIN!! It really wasn’t raining that much. It was mostly just a light rain all day but it was enough to dampen the attendance. I’m interested in going again next year just to see what it is usually like. We also spent quality time giggling at each other and deciding that we’re going to establish our own group. “Ho’s Before Bro’s”. We’ve mentally designed the shirts too. More on that to come later!
It’s finally here. Football season has come out of hibernation and has brought joy back into my life. OK, so maybe I’m exaggerating a little but I love this time of year! LOVE. I can lose about a day and a half watching football. Thursday night, all day Sunday and Monday night. And I don’t feel like the time has really been lost either! There’s good food, better weather and all of my boys are back in my life.
So last night I watched the Giants beat the Redskins. I have no personal feeling one way or the other about the Redskins but the Giants I love. They started off really well and it’s a good thing too because they completely lost steam in the second half. But that’s OK and do you know why? Because it was the first full game they’ve played so far this year. I don’t expect full throttle on the first game. They’ll gear up soon enough.
I didn’t get to be involved in a fantasy league this year and that is disappointing. I was invited into one at work but it was an auto draft and that didn’t appeal to me so I opted out. I now wonder if I should have participated just because but it’s just left to chance what players you get and that can make a season crap right off the bat. I would have likely had to learn about players I am not familiar with and well, learning takes effort. Katie and I discussed starting our own but that too takes effort. We’d have to recruit. Ick.
So needless to say, I will be spending this Sunday (two days before my birthday thank you very much!) on the couch watching TV. I can’t wait!!