Monday, October 20, 2008

A Busy Week 10/13-10/18

One day doesn't make a busy week. A busy week makes a busy week.

I told you about Saturday. Now, I'm going to get in my Delorean and flux myself back to Monday 10/13.

Monday 10/13 marked the first day of Six Sigma Greenbelt training for the first wave of 10 guinea pigs at my company. We traveled to Bellevue Community College - North Campus - from north, south, and west at 7 a.m. We arrived promptly at 7:30 thanks to lighter than usual traffic on Columbus Day. We set up shop and proceeded to listen to the Six Sigma Blackbelt teacher - a former naval officer - drone on about Six Sigma as we collectively attempted to balance the requests coming from our office - on IM and e-mail - and the topics our teacher was covering. We got food from Burger Master, a Northwest fast food place made mostly for drive up. In other words, there were stalls into which cars parked and the servers come out to the cars. A throwback. We returned to the droning and sat. The teacher's a good guy. And an average teacher. I came back to the office thinking that I'd head out to the gym. No luck. We went to Carpet Liquidators instead to see what they could offer as far as carpet goes. We found something we liked but didn't commit (we like to have options for comparison). Then, we went home. And what to our wondering eyes did appear? An Evening to Forget

Tuesday 10/14 marked the second day of Six Sigma training. We arrived a whopping 15 minutes later downtown for the carpool and arrived a whopping 15 minutes later at class. Still rather light traffic. There was more interaction on that day. More questions. More activities. Thank goodness. Most of the group went to Dixie's BBQ. A warehouse and garage where you order southern BBQ. Good stuff too. Waited in line for about 30 minutes (worth the wait) and brought it back to class. Made respective messes of ourselves and proceeded to get droppy-eyed as the teacher spoke. Returned that afternoon knowing that I wasn't going to the gym because we had to get home to meet a guy for a carpet estimate. Lenny, by name. Lenny was a bit sarcastic. And he had no financing. Still we listened, and he gave us a good deal. But no financing. Bye Lenny. Joseph left for volleyball. I worked from home for another two hours and then wrote a tribute to my Grandfather.

Wednesday 10/15, I went back to work. I was immediately pummeled by the 5 active projects for which I am responsible. Most associated with clients, which means hard deadlines. I got myself in order and assessed each project. At 10:30, we had the bStar meeting. A meeting to review the progress of the company and to reward those who deserve a cash award for their hard work. The company? In short, it looks like we'll be opening a second office in Lake Mary, FL to do collections on dismissed accounts as well as mortgages. I won't go into the long version here. But I suggest you re-read Corporation...Continued prior to my next lengthy discussion of where my company's going. We went home - stopping at Safeway along the way - and found a woman from Empire Today in our driveway; Joseph had set up another carpet meet and greet. I let him do the work - which he does so well - and I tried to do work. But I hit a brick wall (mentally) and started looking at youtube. I found Gordon Shumway.

Thursday 10/16, work again. Trying to get a handle on the projects. I felt like I made some headway on each of the projects. But five things at once is too much. I was tired. Joseph started class that evening. I got a ride home from a neighbor by happenstance, and I can't, for the life of me, remember what I did that night. It was my braindead night. Oh, and I did TD's Weekly NFL Picks.

Friday 10/17, was a day of bureaucratic admin. I accomplished almost nothing because I was in meetings all day. Fun. One of those meetings happened to be a two-hour meeting devoted to the project that will be opening a second office in Florida with another line of services foreign to this company (described above). The President of the company (not to be confused with the CEO) was named to head the charge into FLA. And we were all told - there were about 15 of us in the meeting - that we might be assigned to some part of the project. And any one of us might be traveling to FLA. The day ended. I went home. Joseph went out with some friends. I began moving items off the furniture for the Saturday carpeting job. I then picked up Joseph. We bought the most recent Indiana Jones flick and a Papa Murphy's pizza. We settled down at home and enjoyed a quiet night before the storm that would be Saturday 10/18.

That's what I mean by a busy week.

No comments: