Hey Everrrryyyyybooooddddy!!!!!

(Think little blue Grover from Sesame Street, yelling at the top of his lungs and flailing about.)

I am moving over yonder: http://kerfuffleknot.blogspot.com/

This blog is old and dusty and I am ready for some new digs. Follow me on over if you please!

Are you someone I would want to have lunch with?

Dear New Hire:

Thank you for accepting the position as a newly minted agent with our really big insurance company. We are SO excited to have you on our team. You seem like a team player if ever I saw one.

There will be much to learn in the coming days. Please try to remember that I have been doing this longer than you. Which isn't saying much, since you have been with us all of two hours. Bear with me while I try to impart what little knowledge I have obtained in the past three years with this company and the past 10 in the industry.

I realize that XYZ company did things better/quicker/faster/newer than we do here. We hope that you will be able to make due while you learn the ropes with us, your new employer, the one you left XYZ and all their fabulousness for. If only we can live up to your expectations.

You don't have a day planner you say? Never really cared for them? You just keep everything in your head? Good for you. I'm glad you have the brain capacity of a pachyderm. However, in case you hadn't noticed, we are kind of in a high volume industry. I add things to my list all the time. And change them. All the time. And you seem to have trouble remembering what I told you we were doing tomorrow. Since you have asked me twice now. Just since you got back from lunch.

And speaking of lunch.... I don't take lunches with my new hires unless forced by my boss. Not that I have something against eating with my agents. I eat lunch and get coffee with other team members all the time. And when you are no longer the new hire, I may just eat with you too. But right now I want you to leave me alone for 30 minutes. For the love of God. I just want silence. Just me and my Chicken Tacos. Maybe sneak a cigarette or two before I head back in. Cause for the love of all that is good and holy, as much as I want to quit, it ain't happening while I have a new hire in training.

Oh, you need vacation time the last week of the month. Did you really mean Thanksgiving? Cause we are closed on Thursday and Friday. No? The week AFTER? Oh. Sure. No problem. Not that I could tell you if there was. You being an independent contractor and all.

And there is the part I hate most about new hires. You remind me all the time that you are an 'independent contractor' when I call you out on your bullshit excuses for why you can't work. But when you run out of money, suddenly I am a bad trainer because you didn't write any business this month. I can't make you do your job. I can show you how to do it and how to do it well. I can't (and won't) do it for you.

All that said, eventually some of you turn into great agents. Agents who work really hard and that I really like. Agents I actually look forward to having lunch with. Can you be one of those agents? Time will tell. In the meantime, buy a day planner already!

One more thing...

My blog ate my links!

I was fussing with it last week trying to make it change colors (yes, to pink. What else?) and I think I may have screwed some stuff up.

So if I had you in my links before and now you are gone, it's not personal. It may just take me a few days to track you down and put you back. That space was like my contact list in my phone. I put all my frequently read blogs in there so I didn't have to remember where to find anything.

After all, my functional brain space is full of other crucial bits of info. Like the story line on Desperate Housewives and weather or not it will be dry enough to wear my really cute shoes tomorrow!

Peas Me

My youngest nephew turned two on Saturday.

Apparently his life is destined to be mared by birthday tragedy.

Last year he fell out of the front door and face planted on the brick planter on the eve of his 1st birthday. Resulting in a black eye and the looks of a beaten child.

This year he decided he really wanted to go home with my parents, rather than stay with his own. As my mom was gathering up her purse and jacket he ran to her and held out his arms demanding, "Up! UuuuuPPP! UP!"

My mom picked him up and he looked at her and smiled his charming smile.

"Me go you Mah-ma!"

She told him not today and that he would be over on Monday while his mom was at school.

"Me go you peas! Peas me. Me. Pease. Me Mah-ma. Peaaaas ME!"

His pleading grew louder, sadder and more pathetic by the minute.

My mom tried to hand him off to my brother. Great saddness and suffering ensued. And as my parents walked out the door, they were followed by the wails of a tragic birthday boy.

"Meeeeeeee! Peeeaaaasssss! OH MAH-MA! PEEEEAAAASSSEE!

The trials and tribulations of being two.

Seriously? FAN-TASTIC!

So, um......I have a blog? And sometimes (once or twice a quarter) I write in it.

Seriously.

Okay, fine. It's been months. I have been busy. (And really, who isn't?) So enough with the pretending that I have only been gone a short while and with the idea that I have vastly important musings to add here. Nope. It's been forever and a day and I have nothing to say that would be earth shattering, monumental or even possibly life changing. Really.

*whew* Now that I have that out of the way.

Have you ever noticed how you find yourself saying a new word or phrase? A lot? Constantly? And really, you don't know where this tidbit came from or from who you co-opted it. It's just there. Constantly. Jumping in and about your vocabulary as if it were the word of the week.

Currently, my word is 'seriously'. I found myself (over)using it last Thursday. I think I used it no less than five times in a three minute window while in traffic. "Seriously? You're just going to make that lane change like I'm not even here." "Seriously? You can't possibly think that I am going to let you merge in front of me if you can't get up to the current speed of traffic." "Seriously? I know that bookstore was here the last time I drove by here." "Seriously? She did not say THAT!?!"

You know when you have stolen someone elses vocabulary, it kind of sneaks up on you. Out of nowhere. All of the sudden you are just saying it all the freaking time. I for the life of me could not figure out who I had stolen this new word from. Seriously.

Yesterday I was on the phone with my best girlfriend when she dropped the "Seriously" on me. Twice in two back to back sentences.

"You! It's you! You gave me the seriously!!!!"
"What?"
"Seriously. You say that all the time. I couldn't figure out where I picked it up."
"Oh. Well, you gave me fantastic."
"Fantastic? When did I give you that?"
"I don't know, a while back. My husband noticed it last week. And you have our boss and two co-workers doing it too."
"Seriously?"
"Seriously."
"Well, that's just.....fantastic I suppose."

I stole 'fantastic' a few months ago from another girlfriend. She believes to have picked it up at work. The thing I like best about 'fantastic' is its multiple uses.

Something may truly be 'fantastic':

"You snagged that new account? FANTASTIC!"

or ironically:

"Oh, the spreadsheet doesn't balance. Fantastic."

or in lieu of the swearing I wish were acceptable in more places:

"For the love of.....FAN------TAS-TIC"

So, seriously? I think it's fantastic that I actually remembered I had a blog to post in!

Back in the saddle again

So I have been back for a few weeks now, and spent that time catching up. Because isn't that the point of a vacation? You bust your ass for a week or two before you leave so you don't have any lose ends. Then you go on vacation for a week or two and come back to a pile of poo with your name on it.

Now that I have caught up, it's Power Weeks again. (See four posts below to experience Power Weeks from 2nd Quarter.) So excited I can hardly stand it. And yes, we are behind. And no, I don't think we can catch up this time. But what the heck, we will try anyway.

Below are some pictures from our actual vacation in Savannah, GA. The Aflac trip was fun, but NOT a vacation. It was a lot more like work. (Show up on time, in the clothes we tell you to, listen to the speakers, clap, stand up, sit down, GO TEAM GO!!!!)

Down on the Riverwalk in Old Savannah

A really cool window

The Savannah Cotton Exchange

Sorry Charlies Bar (which was closed for renovations, darn it!)

Horse & Carriage Tours

Anyway, I just wanted to say hello before the crazy sets back in. I have all sorts of stuff I could talk about, but I think for now I will file my weekly reports and go home and make some dinner.

Atlanta

If anyone is still reading my rarely updated blog, I am looking for suggestions of things to do in Atlanta. I qualified for a trip to Atlanta via Aflac and we are leaving next Wednesday. Aflac has us scheduled every hour of the day, except for Saturday. I am looking for suggestions from anyone who has been there and has things they did and loved, wished they had done or skipped.

So far we have the following on our must do list:

Phillips Arena- home of the Atlanta Thrashers (crazy hockey fans)
Atlanta Aquarium
Botanical Gardens of Atlanta
Atlanta Underground

Anything else we should cram into our one day of freedom?

DONE!

I hit my fucking numbers!

Good Lord, I am exhausted. But once I get my bounuses it will all be SO VERY worth it!

Happy Dance!!!