My life and times in Corporate America

My dealings with life at a corporate job straight out of college and fooling my employers into thinking I'm really smart. Rantings about my co-workers, work, and life in general.

Thursday, February 22, 2007

Suzie Grammar on gchat

me: danny
you are very unchatty this morning
Sent at 10:02 AM on Thursday
Daniel: I was away from my desk
and unchatty is not a word...
Sent at 10:12 AM on Thursday
me: it is a word now
Sent at 10:29 AM on Thursday
Daniel: if you can just make up words then I can say "me and bryan"
Sent at 10:41 AM on Thursday
me: no
that will never be ok
people sound so much smarter when they say it the right way
Daniel: well being smart and sounding smart are two entirely different thing
thins
things
damng it
dang it
Sent at 11:01 AM on Thursday
me: that was classic

Sunday, February 18, 2007

Headhunting

Well kids, a lot happened a few weeks ago that I’ve been dying to blog about. In a brief moment of inspiration and perhaps after reading too many Dilbert comic strips, I decided a few weeks ago to follow the advice of a co-worker and hire a headhunter. I felt the time had come to start exploring job options outside of my company. Also, I will be most likely be forced to move jobs in June, as a continuation of my rotation/management training program, and I’m none too happy about the prospects of where I’ll be headed.

So I met with the little headhunter, who ended up being the same age and me. We met on a Tuesday for coffee and I told him about my career goals. By the end of that day he had emailed me six job openings that fit my interests, and by the next Tuesday I was interviewing at a small company. I didn’t really take the interview seriously. I’m not unemployed and not desperate. It took me about five minutes to find the company’s front door, because it was so small. All I can really recall is that the office was 99% guys, and that the Assistant Controller spilled coffee down his shirt during our interview (this may be related to the former issue.. I don’t think they’ve seen many girls recently.) I interviewed with three different people and then went on my merry way back to work. A few hours later, my headhunter Bill called me. They wanted to make me an offer! I decided to high-ball the salary I asked from them, and they matched it. It was all very tempting and I went through a few days of mental torture, where I asked everyone I knew, including random people on the street, what they thought I should do.

I went back to get another tour of the office to help make my decision. This time I found a girl did indeed work there: the receptionist. After giving her a once over, I decided she was not going to be the kind of girl I could go get pedicures with on my lunch break. Strike one. And unless I wanted to make nice with all the nerdy boy software engineers, I had fears I would be eating a sack lunch in the bathroom alone for the next year. Strike two. The VP then took me back to the accounting department, AKA the dungeonous, windowless cave, with meek looking individuals shaking like chihuahuas who squinted up at me from their desks as though they hadn’t seen sunlight in a few days. Maybe I’m vain and naive, but I’m a girl. I like windows and sunlight. I don’t like wearing jeans to work. On Friday, I turned the job down.

So now I’m going to stick it out at my current job for a while longer, hopefully finish my CPA in the next few months, and then apply again to other, better fitting jobs. Luckily my headhunter was fairly understanding and I’ll probably use him again. So in the next few months Corporate Suzie might not be so Corporate and may be leaving the big corporate world, for a smaller corporate world. Stay tuned.