There's no place like home... unless the pipes are broken.

Well, Vanessa and I have been living at the Residence Inn in La Mirada since Saturday. It’s actually pretty nice considering. We have a full kitchen and a small living room. If we leave a grocery list, they will pick-up the groceries at no additional fee (other than the cost of the groceries). We haven’t done that, but it is nice to know. Breakfast is included and they clean the place everyday. And it’s only 4 minutes for me to get to work. It’s almost better than home. Except it’s not home. It sucks. I want my Tivo, my living room, my BBQ, and my cat. A home cooked meal would be nice too.

Our landlord told Vanessa to extend our stay here until Saturday, so that will be the earliest we can move home. The landlord is having the entire downstairs re-piped (she had the upstairs done a couple of years ago). I have already hired movers to move my dad’s stuff to my place on Saturday. Hopefully they will at least be able to move the desk upstairs. I think everything else will have to go in the garage. Even I we get to move home on Saturday, we will not be able to do much downstairs. The carpet will not be put in until sometime later next week. Probably later than earlier. This is not going to be a fun weekend.

Work is going well. I had a talk with Barney on Monday morning about communication. I’m having lunch with Barney again on Friday, so we’ll see how that goes. I’m busy from the time I walk through the door until I walk out, so the day goes by much faster. Unlike my last place, I feel like I will actually earn my paycheck here.

Splish, splash I was taking a bath...

So much has happened since Wednesday, I don’t even know where to start. Just to sum it up, I had lunch with Barney, been learning a lot at work, went to the BBQ, and our condo flooded. Not just flooded, but to the point where Vanessa and I will be living in a hotel for at least a week. So let’s start with lunch…

Barney picked the restaurant – Norm’s. I guess he’s well known down there, which I didn’t seem to think was impressive. He told me about his 13 year old kid, his truck, his motor home, his motorcycle, his knee injury, blah, blah, blah. Then he kind of surprised me. He came right out and asked me what my management style was. I’ve never had to explain it before, but I think I did a pretty good job of explaining it, while keeping in mind the things I have heard about him.

I told him I was very detailed and at the beginning I will be checking a lot of what he does so I can understand how he does things. I went on to tell him that since he is in a management position I expect for him to be perfectly capable of doing things without me checking on him and micromanaging him, so once I have been there a couple of weeks and see he is doing things correctly and following up, I will stop watching him so closely. I don’t think I will ever be able to really do this with him, but maybe he’ll surprise me. Today he took a 1 hour and 45 minute lunch. I was going to talk to him about it when I was leaving, but there were people in his office and it wouldn’t have been appropriate. I will definitely sit down with him on Monday.

The BBQ was nice. It was and island theme this time (sometimes there are themes and sometimes there aren’t). There was chicken, chips with mango salsa, guacamole, island style black beans, coconut rice, salad, Sweet and sour pork chops, pineapple and ham pizza, walnut rum cake and Mai Tai’s. I’m sure I forgot some stuff, but you get the idea.

The next morning the shower wouldn’t get hot. It was warm, but not hot. It sounded like water was running somewhere, bet neither Vanessa nor I could figure it out. I walked into every room, listened, looked, etc. Nothing… until I got home that is. There was just a little bit of water around the outside of the front door. “Probably the sprinklers”, I thought. I walked in the house, carpet seemed fine. Then I saw the downstairs bathroom. Flooded and more water was coming out quick. Oh crap! The white tile was brown, so you can imagine what I thought when I saw the water was coming out of the base of the toilet. It wasn’t shooting out like a garden hose, but more like if you were pouring a 2 liter bottle of soda into a glass. Since the water was about an inch deep, I went the the couch and took off my shoes. That’s when I felt it. Squish. Squish, squish, squish. The carpet pad was soaked. It tried turning off the water at the toilet, but it didn’t stop anything, so I went outside and turned off the main valve to the house.

If you don’t know where this valve is at your house, apartment, or condo, stop what you’re doing and find it right now. I have had to use it several times and you don’t want to look for it when water is shooting out. I already knew where it was so it wasn’t a problem. As I called the landlord, I started walking around the downstairs of the condo and looking around (squish, squish, squish). The entire downstairs from the front door to the backdoor, including the kitchen, closets, and first couple of steps was completely soaked. I grabbed a neighbor and started moving furniture out to our garage while Vanessa moved smaller things upstairs. After a couple of hours, we left the place, locked the door, went to dinner, and stayed at my dad’s condo for the night.

Today the landlord called me back. She had an emergency water damage company come out, tear-up the carpet, take all of the baseboards off the wall, and drill half-dollar size holes every foot in every wall (to dry out the walls). My neighbor (the quiet ones) had some damage as well, so my landlord will be picking-up the tab for their damage as well. They were still there when I stopped by after work. From tonight through next Tuesday there will be 3 high-powered fans and 3 dehumidifiers running 24 hours a day to dry the place out. The plumber came out and said the pipe broke under the slab, so they will have to tear-up the concrete under the bathroom tile. The plumber can’t be back until Tuesday. My neighbor gave her the number for another plumber he knows, so maybe it will happen sooner, but I doubt it. Then she has to have someone come out to repair the drywall. Then she needs to have someone lay new carpet or flooring.

She was very apologetic throughout the day and has offered to pay for a hotel room (take it out of the rent). We are staying at my dad’s again tonight and Shamoo (the cat) is having a slumber party at my mom’s for a couple of days. Tomorrow, I will find a hotel for us to stay at. Hopefully I can find a place with a small kitchen and a microwave, so we can at least keep a little bit of stuff around. I have to find something reasonable since the landlord will be picking up the tab. I have a couple of friends who work for Marriott so I will be calling them tomorrow for a favor.

That’s enough for tonight. I’m sure there will lots to talk about over the next couple for weeks.

Lunch with Barney

I’m so tired. I worked until 6:00 today, picked up Vanessa, and headed down to James’ for the Wednesday BBQ. I just got home at 10:30 pm. Too long of a day.

Lunch was fairly uneventful. I’m too tired to go into the whole thing, but basically he told me about his family and I just nodded my head and said, “Oh” and “Yeah, I know what you mean”. He asked me about my management style, so I went into that with him for a little bit.

You know what… I’m too tired to write all of this. I’m going to bed, and I’ll do a recap this weekend. Good night!

First day of work…

As you may already be able to tell, I will not be able to post messages during the day, or at least not as often as in the past. My office is not ready yet, so the next couple of days will be spent learning, asking questions, and meeting people.

Tomorrow I will have orientation with Human Resources. Once I get my security badge, parking stickers, benefits, payroll, and other crap set-up, then they can request computer access for me. That may take until Friday to get done. This place is security crazy. You can’t walk for more than 30 feet without having to use a badge to open a door, use the stairs, or open the elevator. You have to sign in twice to get into the building and they make you open your car trunk as you leave. This is the “don’t even think about it” security set-up.

I spent 99% of my day in my dad’s office and I will probably retain only about 40% of the things he taught me. On top of remembering all of the things I knew when I worked there previously, I have a lot to learn. I think once I am settled in my own space and am working on the daily stuff myself, I will learn quickly and can ask questions about the things I still need to learn. It is the odd-ball stuff that only happens every 2 months that I will need to pay attention to the most.

I met the Inventory Control Supervisor today. For all future purposes here (and there will be a lot) I will call him Barney. Barney now, or will soon, reports to me and there are 4 union employees who report to him. I have been told a lot of negative things about him, but for now I am keeping an open mind. We’re going to lunch on Wednesday. Today I gave him 3 things to do. Each time I would check back with him after 1 or 2 hours and by some amazing coincidence he had someone working on it at that exact moment that I checked on it (bullshit, achoo, bullshit).

There will definitely be lot’s to write about with this guy…

5… 4… 3… 2…

My last day at this company is finally here! I slept well last night for the first time in weeks, so I woke up refreshed. The other nice thing was how light the traffic was this morning. I was able to stop and pick-up donuts and still get to work a couple of minutes early. Lately traffic has been so bad I have been getting to work about 15 minutes late.

I’m still not sure what the agenda for today is. The VP asked me to invite about 10 people to today’s meeting, but then the Director of MIS said the VP told him it will just be 3 people and I won’t be one of the 3. Who knows? Who cares? My understanding is they will be giving me my check around 1:00 pm today and that should be it. Usually when I leave a place there are people I will miss, but not here. I liked my boss and I worked well with one of the programmers, but that’s about it. Everyone else sucks.

Carwash! It’s just the wine talking…

Another Wednesday and another BBQ. We met-up at James’ and Steve’s place last night for our weekly BBQ. I needed to relax and after a couple of glasses of wine I was feeling much better. Maybe too good. I was making some comments even I couldn’t believe were coming out of my mouth. The food was great, as always. There were pork loins, kabobs (shrimp, scallops, and lobster), rotelli pasta with a homemade pesto, pasta salad, drunken brats, (barbequed, then boiled in beer and butter), Chinese chicken salad, and chimichurri. Mmmm good!

I have been busy at work handing things off. The Director of MIS and my boss are trying to get as much information out of me as they can. I feel a certain level of resentment from some of the people while others are genuinely happy for me. This last week I have started to see what a clown convention this place is. I guess every place has its problems.

I’m looking forward to this weekend. Friday, is my last day at work and I’m playing poker at my neighbors place. Saturday night, Vanessa and I are taking my dad out for dinner. Other than that, I’m just planning on organizing our place and helping my dad with whatever he needs done at his place.

Monday, I’m looking forward to not getting up at 5:15 AM, not driving for over an hour in traffic each way, and not having to deal with the VP.

Not sleeping…

I’ve had a lot of trouble falling asleep lately. At first it was the stress of having to find a new job. Then it was thinking about what to say during my interviews. Then it was the excitement of starting my new job. Last night I couldn’t fall asleep, because I was thinking about all of the stuff going on for the next month. Both my dad and Ed and Tiffany are moving on July 2nd. Somehow, I’m going to try and do both. My dad is moving from his condo to a corporate apartment in Brea. Most of his stuff is coming to our place. Ed and Tiffany are moving from Diamond Bar to Chino Hills, but they are leaving some of their stuff behind since they will be renting-out their old condo.

I’m hoping to arrange for one moving company to move my dad’s stuff in the morning, then Ed and Tiffany’s in the afternoon. The more I think about it, the less likely it will be. I think it will have to be two separate teams. Between now and then I need to rearrange our place to make room for the new stuff, help my neighbor lay his new hardwood floors, and have a garage sale with my dad. No problem. Today I started putting everything on a calendar to help plan my time.

Work is odd today. I don’t really feel like telling people this is my last week. I’m sure the news will get around soon enough and I know the VP will make an announcement at the Manager’s Meeting tomorrow.

Done and done

My drug test came back clean. What a surprise! So this afternoon I turned in my resignation, effective next Friday. My boss and the VP were very complimentry and so on. Next week I'll be busy handing everything off. I'm not sure who I will hand it off to since they never hired anyone, but that's something for them to consider this weekend. I'm going out with Vanessa and my dad to celebrate either tonight or tomorrow night.

What a relief all of this worked out.

Email I received today from VP of Operations

This was waiting for me in my email this morning...

To repeat myself, you did a great job with the presentation earlier today. I have re-considered my position with regard to your standing with the company and would welcome you to remain as the Warehouse Ops Manager. I realize that I may have set in motion an "exit strategy" on your part and that you may already have interests in other opportunities elsewhere.
We should discuss this and more as soon as possible.

Today should be interesting...

He likes me, he likes me not, he likes me...

So this is the message I got from the VP today. Not in his words, but summarized.

I don’t like your work and were interviewing people for your position, but I want you to head-up a project discussing a new allocation program which will take months, train the users on the current project you successfully presented to 25 people today (which the company has tried unsuccessfully to get going for 3 years), and meet with UPS to talk about new integrating new systems.

Uh… okay. So do you want me here or not?

Later on he talked to my boss and said he wants a commitment from me about whether I am going to say on to complete all of these projects he is assigning to me. I found that a little strange since two Friday’s ago was supposed to be my last day and he hasn’t given me any kind of indication since then.

My drug test results should be back tomorrow or Monday at the latest. I’m really looking forward to letting the VP know (in a professional manner) that I am moving on and his projects will not get done.

Looking forward to sleeping in on Saturday…

Take this job and shove it...

So I received a call offering me the job yesterday, and yes, I did negotiate higher than the original offer. In the afternoon I met with Human Resources and signed the offer letter. It’s not official yet because I need to pass the physical and the drug test, so that was my next stop. They weighed me, checked my height (still 6’ 5”), took my blood pressure, took my pulse, checked my vision, had me pee in a cup, touched my toes, twisted from side to side, blah, blah, blah. I'm healthy.

I was told ahead of time they would need a hair sample for the drug test. No problem. I watch CSI. I know how much stuff they can get from one hair. WRONG. The hair sample had to be a clump and it had to be at least 1 ½ inches if it was from my head. Well there’s a problem. I just got a haircut Saturday, so my longest hair is an inch. Other options? Shave all of the hair from my chest, or my armpits, or one leg. What kind of an option is that? Oh… and I couldn’t do it, some guy did. I chose my left leg. I think anything else would be too itchy or look odd. Not that one shaved leg and one hairy leg would look good. Plus, the idea of some guy shaving my armpit didn’t appeal to me.

Anyway, my left leg from the knee down is now somewhat shaved. He left bits and pieces, like a stripe of hair going down my shin. I felt too odd to shave that piece off to make it uniform, so my left leg is just going to look odd for a couple of weeks. I’ve never done drugs, but I will wait until the results come back (Friday or Monday) to officially resign from my current position.

Strangely, there hasn’t been anymore talk of me leaving from the VP. I actually received an email from him today explaining that he wants me to lead the system integration for some new UPS software. Good luck on that one. I’m trying to stay positive for my remaining days and not take the “I don’t care” attitude. I have no problem working with my boss next week to give him some direction for future projects, but I’m not going out of my way to do extra stuff for the VP. I’ll be polite, but that’s about it.

I GOT THE JOB!!!

I just received my offer. I will be going down to sign the offer today. After the drug screen comes back (Friday) I will work out my start date with them. What a relief...

Thank you everyone for your support!

Dinner, wine, and a movie

I surprised I didn’t get more responses alluding to how crazy I am on that last posting. Vanessa and my dad called me on it. I guess you guys either empathize with me or you are being polite and not saying anything.

Saturday night, we invited my dad over for dinner and to watch Sideways. I saw the movie when it was in the theatre, but I wanted Vanessa and my dad to see it. My dad is the one who originally sparked my interest in wine. I brought out 8 bottles of wine for us to choose from and we settled in to watch the movie. Our wine food pairings you ask???

Appetizer: Potato Skins (cheese, bacon, sour cream, chives, tomatoes) with a Pino Noir

Dinner: Fillet Mignon, gilled corn with garlic butter, homemade wasabi mashed potatoes with a Clos du Val Cabernet Sauvignon and a Syrah from Hart Vineyards.

Dessert: Angel Food cake and sweetened strawberry slices with a Black Muscat

Everything turned out delicious. Unfortunately the Muscat didn't go with the stawberries. Oh well. My dad and Vanessa both really enjoyed the movie. Watching for the second time with 4 glasses of wine in me was just fine.

Sunday night we watched Ray. I thought it was well done, but not amazing. I thought Jamie Foxx did a good job and was convincing. The other movie I saw recently was Garden State. We both really enjoyed it. It starts off a little strange (which I like), but it just kept getting better. definately one of the best movies I've seen recently. Who knew the guy from Scrubs was so talented? He wrote the movie, starred in it and directed it.

My paranoia

I have been thinking paranoid thoughts since Wednesday afternoon. Actually, it is probably safe to say that I am always paranoid (just ask Vanessa), but it has been exaggerated since my interview. So you can follow along, I’ll put the thoughts going through my head in italics…

Wednesday
I arrived early to fill out some paperwork, but even after the paperwork I was still ready about 10 minutes early. They called the VP of Finance (my first interview) and told me she would be right down. Ten minutes go by. Okay, it’s still only 1:00 pm and I wasn’t supposed to start until 1:00 pm. No problem. Where should my hands be? Should my briefcase be on my right side or left side? When she appears make sure to smile. How will I know it’s her? Smile, shake hands, pick-up my brief case, go with the flow of her conversation. Now 20 minutes have gone by. Okay, now it’s only 1:10 pm, but she knows I’ve been waiting for 20 minutes. Why is this taking so long? Maybe she’s purposefully doing this to show me she’s in charge and can make me wait. Maybe she’s doing this to throw me off. Is there a camera in the lobby? Maybe she’s watching me. No, I don’t see any cameras. Maybe this is a test to see how “take charge” I am. Is she waiting for me to have the receptionist call her again? No. Just wait. Where are my hands? Should I have my legs crossed like this? I better uncross them. I want to be sitting up straight, but not look uncomfortable. Now 25 minutes have gone by. What’s going on? Oh, there’s somebody… At that point the VP of Human Resources came out and apologized for the confusion. The VP of Finance thought I was waiting for her upstairs and couldn’t find me. That’s odd, I would think she would call the receptionist to see where I was if she couldn’t find me. Oh well.

Through all of my interviews…
Be friendly, be confident, eye contact, where are my hands? Am I smiling? Are they saying these things to test me or do they really believe what they are saying? Do they like me? Am I convincing them that I am the right person for the job?

Immediately after the interviews…
That was pretty easy. Why didn’t they ask me any hard questions? I wanted them to ask those questions, because I have good answers. What if they just make assumptions about things on my resume, since they didn’t ask me about them? They didn’t really give me much of a chance to talk about myself. Maybe it’s because my resume is so thorough. She said I should expect to hear back from them quick. How quick? That went well. I think I did a great job.

Thursday morning…
Maybe I screwed up. I should have put my answer that way. I wish I could do that part again. I wonder if anyone else applied for the position. I checked my messages at home about 10 times during the day hoping they would call. No call. That day I sent off my Thank You letters to all four people I interviewed with. I tried to make each one sound unique and catered them to the conversation I had with each person. I think they turned out well. That afternoon I heard that two of the people I interviewed with liked me a lot. That boosted my confidence. I also remembered they still had to do a background check on me, run my credit, check my resume, call my references, and so on, so it might take a couple of days.

Friday
I checked my messages at home again throughout the day. No luck. No celebration dinner tonight. Just be patient. I didn’t put much thought into it this weekend, other than thinking about the disappointment if I didn’t get the position and that I should be looking around for other positions just in case.

Last night
Can’t sleep. It’s midnight. I need to get up in 5 hours. What did the VP of Finance think of me? Did I leave a good impression? She seemed to like me. Maybe she was just being nice. Is there something I said that killed my chances?

This morning
It’s going to take some time. They may still be interviewing. Maybe they’re still running my background stuff. I know the VP of Finance is really busy, plus she has multiple positions she is interviewing for. They don’t really need to hire someone for a couple of weeks. If they really wanted me they wouldn’t wait though. Right? Maybe I should see if they checked my credit yet. No. Just wait. Should I call my professional references or old employers to see if they have been contacted yet? No. Just be patient.

Yes, I really am this paranoid sometimes. I know I just need to relax and be patient, but I just want to know what’s going on. Hopefully, I won’t give myself an aneurysm today. I also need to remember my rule. Everything takes 6 times longer than I think it should. I might not even get a call this week.

My interviews...

My interviews went well yesterday. I felt confident when I left, but nothing is definite. I didn’t receive any hardball questions, which was somewhat disappointing, because I felt prepared to answer almost anything they could throw at me. Most of the interviews consisted them talking about their management style and how they see the position I was interviewing for. I would wait for them to pause, give feedback on my thoughts and try to interject something positive I wanted them to know about me related to the topic. I think (hope) that my resume answered a lot of the questions they may have had.

Things I think went well
They had a lot of positive things to say such as, "you have an edge over the other applicants" and "your background and experience is what we are looking for". All of the people I interviewed with wanted to know if I was offered the job, how soon I could start. The HR coordinator had never seen anyone meet with 4 people on the same day. As I walked through the warehouse for a tour, every single employee (about 10 total) we saw stopped what they were doing, walked over, shook my hand, and told the VP of Operations that they hoped I got the job. As I was leaving I was told I should hear from them very soon, so hopefully I will know by the end of the week. In the meantime, I have 4 thank you letters to write and get in the mail.

After the interviews, I had a BBQ at our place. Despite me telling everyone “just bring something” it turned out great. There was cheese and salami, pita bread and a red peeper dip, bbq chicken leg quarters (leg and thigh attached), two types of brats, mushroom risotto, Asian salad, and two desserts. Almost everyone came up to me to ask discretely which neighbor had the cops over on Tuesday morning. I found out from another neighbor, the cops had actually been to his place 4 times in the last 2 weeks. I’m going to call our landlord this week, since she is friends with the other guy’s landlord. Maybe we can get something done.