Shitty Day

I must say, this day has got to be the one of the worst in my short history here on Earth. I went down to get some clothes that were in a duffle bag and some boxes. When I opened the boxes, the clothes were damp…same thing with the bag. The outside of the bag was completely dry. So needless to say, I have tons of clothes that were packed that were moldy, mildewy, etc…including my favorite Ralph Lauren Polo leather coat and Calvin Klein leather coat which had green all over it. So those are at a cleaner’s and hopefully will be clean and stuff. The clothes have been put through the laundry with bleach and are okay, but that’s after I washed them once already and discovered via google the best thing to do is use Oxy clean and bleach (color safe bleach for colors).

Then I bought two game systems…really cheap quality…but they had Dr. Mario on it and my best friend Jamie and I used to play all day long, so I got one for her and one for me. Neither one of them work…so now I have to take them back.

Oh, then to top it all off, when I was pulling out of my garage tonight, I knocked the door handle off my car on the driver’s door when my foot came off the clutch prematurely and my car slid out of the garage with my door open. I mean to just pull up a foot, not all the way out so I could look in some boxes for a replacement credit card.

So all in all, I feel like punching a wall, kicking a door, and smoking a pack of cigarettes while drinking a fifth of vodka.

Blah

I’ve been feeling kind of blah lately. Work has its challenges and they’re not appearing to get any easier and I’m running into brick walls. It’s VERY frustrating not knowing the system and having to navigate blindly. There is a consultant guy that does revenue and has taken a management type of role. He solves conflict by yelling, sometimes degrading people, and kind of being bitter. He doesn’t talk to me like that…we actually get along. I told the GM/owner that I want total control of operations and have this guy step back into only doing revenue and sales. He said that would be fine. So my goal is to have that done my January, that way when Hilton comes around to do their brand inspection, I have nobody but myself to blame.

I guess that it’s kind of odd because the guy that I’m replacing is still there, which has allowed me some time to get some stuff done. However I’m implementing change and he’s standing in the way of that. It’s frustrating in that regard as well. Anyway, hope that things change soon because I’m about ready to yank my hair out. I’m going to be gone for a week when I’m in Disney, so hopefully that will help. Pleasure Island and all you spas, watch out!

Friday….ahhh

This week has been really long. I feel like I’ve been living at work trying to set things up, watching training vids, and just generally doing whatever needs to be done in order to make my days short in the long run. I still like the job, so we’ll see.

The house thing is a recovered disaster. The original sales woman quit and moved with her husband out of state. So instead of the company keeping up with her files, they let them sit until someone else came in. Well upon inspection of the house, there are some things that have been paid for…archways, surround sound, upgrades, moving of doorways, etc. that did not get done. So the other agent there took the file over and we went over everything…again. So then a new guy came in and the file went to him…so again I had to go over it, but this time I wasn’t really nice about it. Without losing my cool, cussing up and down, or copping an attitude, I told him that even though he’s new here (transferrred in from somewhere else with the company), I hold the company totally responsible for not getting done what I paid for. I told him that his supervisor should have been on top of this and I shouldn’t have to be telling him that things aren’t right.

So to make a very long story short, I met with the builder today and he pretty much saved me from backing out of the house and making a complaint with the builder’s association and the Better Business Bureau (yes, I was that pissed off). Just a side note, there was supposed to be a pre-build meeting…the framing is done and there was no meeting…the next meeting is the framing meeting which happens when the framing is done. The builder was really cool and explained everything and apologized for it even though he has nothing to do with the sales and meeting side. Anyway, I’m going to the design center tomorrow to change the color of the counter-tops from an oceanic color to something more neutral/natural…brownish/tannish looking granit stuff.

So busy week. I go to Disney on Monday, so I’m excited about that. I booked Christmas plane tickets…from here to norfolk to greensboro to columbia to houston. I see atlanta 4 times in that time period…hopefully no delays!

Lately…

So lately I’ve been feeling pretty good, at least better than last week. I miss my friends terribly, but finding a way to occupy my time…aka a job…has helped. I don’t know that I would hang out with anyone from work, in fact right now I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t. However it’s nice to once again have a work-type relationship with people. That way when they irritate me, I can either leave, shut a door, or fire them. I really like this group though.

I have been trying to keep really busy during down times and that seems to be helping. Everyone keeps saying that I have to check out Austin. I haven’t even really checked out Houston, but I might go on a small road trip to Austin just to see what it’s like. I know that the music scene there is FANTASTIC and I would really like to see an episode of “Austin City Limits” when there are really good people on there, like Dave Matthews, David Gray, or someone like that.

I really like the area that I live in though. Although there are no zoning laws here, I feel as if the area is acceptable. There is a trailer park down the street from where the neighborhood is where I’ll be living, but there are only about 15 of them and they’ll probably get bought out when a developer buys up all the land around there. I’m excited to be so close to so many areas where people actually spend money, so the big stores come!!! I can’t afford it, but it’s nice to look anyway.

My grocery store, H.E.B. is still the best. I did my second trip there last week and spent two hours in there this time. I get caught up looking at all of the stuff they have. The only thing that they don’t have that I want is the whipped flavored cream cheese. So I’m ready to hunt that down now, but don’t really want to betray the closeness of myself and H.E.B. (or HEEB as my friend Laura calls it). Yes, it’s really pronounced letter by letter.

Okay, bed time. Yay for coffee in the morning!

Working Hard For the Money

So I have taken a job as a Front Office Manager at Homewood Suite by Hilton. I really like the product and the hotel itself is great. It’s set back in the woods and is only 6 years old and in great shape. I have no schedule and I can work whatever hours I want and if I can get my work done in under 40, that’s great and I don’t have to be there. So then why have I put in 52 hours in 4 days with one more to go? That would be because I’m doing the training and Hilton’s training programs suck and kept crashing I had to take 5 hours of my day to do one section with only 23 scenarios. Oh well, it’s done and tomorrow is a short day.

I like the job a lot. I didn’t think I would, but I really do. It has rooms, meeting space, catering, pool, weight room, basketball court, bbq pits, business center, laundry facilities, and is all two- and three-room suites. I love it. They serve a full and hot breakfast everyday and then a full, hot dinner Monday – Thursday. It’s not bad food either. Lasagna day is apparently the best. Everything is made from scratch!!! I can’t believe it. As long as I don’t cook.

I sat in my first staff meeting (manager meeting) last week and to my surprise there were ten of us. It’s huge. The owner has no problem spending money in order to get good people and plenty of them. He’s a developer by trade and is looking to hand the hotel off to someone in the very near future. He had no intention of running it when he first opened it, but now he is and he just got approved to develop a town center on 63 acres of land that he owns, and which he is planning on opening a Hilton Garden Inn on as well…which I told him I wanted if I were still working for him. All in all, not a bad place to work.

As for the other stuff, things are going well. The house is coming along, but probably won’t be done until January….ugh. Our sales lady resigned and moved out of the area, so we have a new guy. The company that’s building the house did a horrible job of making sure things transitioned well, so I’m having to fight with them on a few things.

Houston traffic still sucks, but at least I don’t have to drive in really bad areas anymore for work. I went to the Galleria Mall (look it up) and have met my match. There’s a Neiman Marcus, Sacks Fifth Ave., Lacoste, a for real Ralph Lauren where the suits are more than my paycheck, etc. There are several jewelry stores with large and heavy doors which have security guards with guns in them. There’s an indoor ice rink as well. It’s totally crazy. Thank God for the Westin Hotels that are connected because by the time I was done, I was wiped. No, I didn’t get a room there, but I can see that as a HUGE source of revenue for weekend shoppers that come in from out of town or whatever. It’s close to everything and the Galleria area is the way-too-trendy-area-to-be-true spot.

Anyway, looking forward to the weekend. I get to rest and get caught up on some errands that I want to run. No complaints so far…at least major ones. I’m sure that once summer comes along, I’ll complain about the weather.

Oh!! Land Rover is coming out with the LR2 (thanks Rich)!!! I love it. I really had my heart set on a Range Rover, but after I realized that wasn’t possible for several realistic reasons, I was going to buy a 4-Runner because it had blue tooth and xm radio. But I might have to reconsider and get this LR2. It still has blue tooth, but instead of XM it’s Sirius. I don’t know the dimensions yet, but once I find out, I’ll decide whether or not to consider it.

Drive!!

So drive times today were about an hour to get out of downtown, an hour to get around 1/2 of the loop, and then about an hour to get out of the loop. So, if I worked in downtown, it would have been about 3 hours to get home (which normally takes 30 minutes). What amazes me is that the feeder roads are three lanes wide and have a speed limit of at least 50 mph and you can ride them all the way down as they are always parallel to the interstates and highways here. So that means 5 lanes of the interstates/highways and 3 lanes of feed road, going in one direction mind you, were just slammed to all hell today. Ahhh, Houston.

Color Everywhere!

Here is a link to a real time traffic map that can tell you all kinds of stuff. If you can, take a look at it during rush hours (remember, this is central time). The various colors you see look awesome, unless you’re driving in it.

http://traffic.houstontranstar.org/layers/