Typical Tuesday
Feb. 5th, 2013 07:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
aamusedinatxIt's 7:30pm and I'm still at the office. Meetings started at 11am and ended at 5:40pm! I got nearly a full day's work done in 100 minutes this evening. Eh...I can't complain too badly. It really is rare that I stay late (or has been til now.) I'm returning after nearly a week off. My boss leaves for Chennai India on Friday and is frantic, so part of my meetings today was my 1/1 with her before she leaves.
I spent last week in Chicago and the western hinterlands of Chi-town getting my sister settled and oriented in her new surroundings. It's the first time I've been gone for more than a day or over official holidays since I started in June. I had two personal/professional, emotional epiphanies: 1. Austin has become HOME! I was thrilled to be returning after a week in the cold. This was the first remote trip I'd made since I arrived here over a year ago, so that was good to know and to experience. 2. People at work noticed I was gone and it wasn't because things broke while I was away. That may sound stupid but it was good to hear and experience. People notice me when I'm here and when I'm not here. Remember, I've spent the last 9 years working in a 6-person office. Now I'm in an 800 employee global company. It is sometimes difficult to feel 'significant'.
We had our all-hands meeting this morning. This takes place each quarter after our earnings calls with investors and analysts. We've beat street estimates and blown the lid off our revenue projections for 12 straight quarters. Still in light of that and positive news on the wires, our stock dropped nearly $4.00/share today (at one point). WTF?! This is almost like being at Apple again. As our CEO says "Investors are Stupid!" Apparently so. We beat our aggressive revenue target by nearly 4 million and one analyst had the nerve to ask "why only by that much?" It feel odd working for a public company again--good but odd. Meanwhile we secured our quarterly bonuses and for that I'm happy.
I got out of the car last night and looked up at the branches spread over our drive way. On the tips of the branches were the first light green buds of spring. I was thrilled. This in combination with getting my Chicago trip out of the way also means the launch of two home-based projects I wanted to do last Spring and didn't: 1. Empty my bedroom, scrape and paint and 'make it my own'. This includes buying a new bed and frame--the current one I'm in is KILLING me!! So Expect some DIY posts with before and after shots. 2. Herb Garden. We're going vertical using wooden pallets and landscaping cloth in order to plant kitchen herbs like tarragon, thyme, chives, oregano, sage and several varieties of mint. We also have plenty of larger spare pots to plant rosemary, basil and perhaps a lime tree. These, in combination with the very large fig tree will give us a lovely bounty this year!
An amusing anecdote about the fig tree. Dharma kitty fell in love with it last year. When fall came and the leaves fell off, she had a conniption fit. I opened the back door one morning to let the animals out while I had coffee. She sat there staring up into her naked fig tree and then turned to look over her shoulder at me. She proceeded to lecture me loudly and obviously unhappily, about her naked fig tree and why was I just standing there?! Why didn't I DO something?! For the next few weeks she would go sit out there and sigh, and mutter. She'd get up and stroll to another part of the yard to look at the tree from a different perspective--nope STILL naked--and she'd protest loudly all over again. With our front tree budding (I forget what variety it is) then hopefully the fig tree isn't far behind. That'll make her happy again!
Meanwhile I ripped the band-aid off a long festering personal wound of history in FB today. I am chuckling to myself and wondering if my Mother will even notice. The only time she ever 'likes' anything on my FB it either 1. is me saying I have a migraine (instant LIKE!) or 2. I have featured or mentioned my sister in a major way. I basically went idle on FB the first of last year while doing the job hunt. Then when I returned to posting I spent a lot of time hoarding my real thoughts and shares behind the 'friends' list which excludes my Mother. Lately, however, I'm like 'fuck it!' I say what I want in my own item, as I want, when I want. OUT LOUD. Hasn't that always been my Mantra? So I notice her interacting with me less and less in FB because she truly hates my perspective, my principles, my politics, my pro-active voice for causes dear to me, and my anti-ignorance, anti-hate, anti-FauxNews stance. *Shrug*
It's hard to believe that next week is Valentine's already and that also means family birthdays. My sister, my cousin Sue, her daughter Julie, Carol's son Steven, my Mother All happen between the 8th and the 16th of February. Seriously people??!!
Screw that! I'm going to hear Suzanne Vega on Valentines and call myself happy!!!
Head Geek just yelled for us to get the hell outta here and home, so...off I go and thanks for the warm notes!!
~ Meri
I spent last week in Chicago and the western hinterlands of Chi-town getting my sister settled and oriented in her new surroundings. It's the first time I've been gone for more than a day or over official holidays since I started in June. I had two personal/professional, emotional epiphanies: 1. Austin has become HOME! I was thrilled to be returning after a week in the cold. This was the first remote trip I'd made since I arrived here over a year ago, so that was good to know and to experience. 2. People at work noticed I was gone and it wasn't because things broke while I was away. That may sound stupid but it was good to hear and experience. People notice me when I'm here and when I'm not here. Remember, I've spent the last 9 years working in a 6-person office. Now I'm in an 800 employee global company. It is sometimes difficult to feel 'significant'.
We had our all-hands meeting this morning. This takes place each quarter after our earnings calls with investors and analysts. We've beat street estimates and blown the lid off our revenue projections for 12 straight quarters. Still in light of that and positive news on the wires, our stock dropped nearly $4.00/share today (at one point). WTF?! This is almost like being at Apple again. As our CEO says "Investors are Stupid!" Apparently so. We beat our aggressive revenue target by nearly 4 million and one analyst had the nerve to ask "why only by that much?" It feel odd working for a public company again--good but odd. Meanwhile we secured our quarterly bonuses and for that I'm happy.
I got out of the car last night and looked up at the branches spread over our drive way. On the tips of the branches were the first light green buds of spring. I was thrilled. This in combination with getting my Chicago trip out of the way also means the launch of two home-based projects I wanted to do last Spring and didn't: 1. Empty my bedroom, scrape and paint and 'make it my own'. This includes buying a new bed and frame--the current one I'm in is KILLING me!! So Expect some DIY posts with before and after shots. 2. Herb Garden. We're going vertical using wooden pallets and landscaping cloth in order to plant kitchen herbs like tarragon, thyme, chives, oregano, sage and several varieties of mint. We also have plenty of larger spare pots to plant rosemary, basil and perhaps a lime tree. These, in combination with the very large fig tree will give us a lovely bounty this year!
An amusing anecdote about the fig tree. Dharma kitty fell in love with it last year. When fall came and the leaves fell off, she had a conniption fit. I opened the back door one morning to let the animals out while I had coffee. She sat there staring up into her naked fig tree and then turned to look over her shoulder at me. She proceeded to lecture me loudly and obviously unhappily, about her naked fig tree and why was I just standing there?! Why didn't I DO something?! For the next few weeks she would go sit out there and sigh, and mutter. She'd get up and stroll to another part of the yard to look at the tree from a different perspective--nope STILL naked--and she'd protest loudly all over again. With our front tree budding (I forget what variety it is) then hopefully the fig tree isn't far behind. That'll make her happy again!
Meanwhile I ripped the band-aid off a long festering personal wound of history in FB today. I am chuckling to myself and wondering if my Mother will even notice. The only time she ever 'likes' anything on my FB it either 1. is me saying I have a migraine (instant LIKE!) or 2. I have featured or mentioned my sister in a major way. I basically went idle on FB the first of last year while doing the job hunt. Then when I returned to posting I spent a lot of time hoarding my real thoughts and shares behind the 'friends' list which excludes my Mother. Lately, however, I'm like 'fuck it!' I say what I want in my own item, as I want, when I want. OUT LOUD. Hasn't that always been my Mantra? So I notice her interacting with me less and less in FB because she truly hates my perspective, my principles, my politics, my pro-active voice for causes dear to me, and my anti-ignorance, anti-hate, anti-FauxNews stance. *Shrug*
It's hard to believe that next week is Valentine's already and that also means family birthdays. My sister, my cousin Sue, her daughter Julie, Carol's son Steven, my Mother All happen between the 8th and the 16th of February. Seriously people??!!
Screw that! I'm going to hear Suzanne Vega on Valentines and call myself happy!!!
Head Geek just yelled for us to get the hell outta here and home, so...off I go and thanks for the warm notes!!
~ Meri
