Dumb, Part II

A week ago or so, my Powerbook began making chirping noises — like there was a bird trapped inside the hard drive. After losing one hard drive following the sudden onset of weird noises, I got panicky. I asked Google, “chirping noise powerbook hard drive.” Google answered back, saying my hard drive was probably about to fail.

But then the noise stopped. I stopped panicking (and stopped the process of backing up info).

This morning, I heard it again.

Then, I saw the Weatherbug icon flickering on my screen. I’ve been receiving weather alerts, which make the chirping sound.

Awesome.

-isms

Sexism, racism — really bad things.

So is ageism. But I find it quite funny when a coworker, who is five years younger than me and reports to me, accuses me of ageism.  Because yes, I do tell her what to do. I don’t do it because she’s only 25. I do it because I’m allegedly her boss.

Not that that’s meant anything around here.

Welcome to the real world…

The new job offer came through after all. What was that thing a friend always told me in college — 90 percent of the things we worry about never come true. Yes, again, that statement rang true.

So I accepted (only after trying to negotiate more money. I didn’t succeed. But maybe that’s not easy to do while briskly walking to the Metro at 9 a.m. Hey, at least I tried.) Then I turned in my resignation letter. Then we had a very late-afternoon staff meeting where my resignation was announced. And then I said I was taking a comp day on Friday.

I had mixed feelings about leaving. This was the first time I left a job feeling like it could’ve been good–if only. When I left the newspaper, I felt a bit of the same, but mostly because I had been groomed to be a reporter. Leaving the college — after almost four years, it was obviously time to move on. But really, with current job — there’s no way I could’ve made it work. Not given the ongoing situation.

SOOO new job starts first full week of November. I have a few days to relax in between my last day and another first day — including an appointment to get a hair cut and highlights. No doubt buying new and totally unnecessary clothes will also be important.

As for today, it’s travels to Baltimore for a college friend’s bridal shower, and I get to do it with Lao. Woohoo! Yay for old friends.

New again

I will soon be starting a new job. I’ve been at this only nine months, but I felt the need to move onward. I’m a little sad, but I know it was a good decision. I’ll still be in DC, still working in the association world, still doing communications. But this is a much bigger organization — my office alone is the size of my current association. I’m nervous, but feeling good.

Friday night was a blast. I went to happy hour, then saw my usual two improv shows. Caveat is simply a terrific show. The four guys are fast, witty, smart, clever and ultimately hysterical. After the shows, we headed back to RFD, where we had more drinks and closed the place down. It was then off to Five, and I was tragically underdressed. Looking completely schlumpy in my running shoes. Amazingly, I still got hit on by drunk guys. Classy.

The Metro had stopped running, so I crashed at a friend’s house in Virginia. The next day, I lazed around for a good several hours, going out of the house at about 6 to learn how to do the lights for the improv shows. Saturday’s shows were just not as good as Caveat on Friday. I know they are the mainstage acts — but no. Maybe it was an off night.

All weekend I fretted a little over the job offer, if I’d get it. I skipped k.ball on Sunday because I just felt so nervous and wanted to have my own space. Monday, I just dreaded returning to the office.

Luckily, things are all starting to go back uphill again. New job, new roommate (yes, I’m staying in Silver Spring. I think it’s a good move), and an awesome vacation happening at the end of November (Mexico? Las Vegas? Wha?).  Now, if only I knew what is going to happen with my car.

Good head

The Capitol City Carnival was a good time. Lots of great beers and breweries to sample. Most of them were beers I’ve already tried before, but it was good to get fresh from the tap tastings, rather than from bottles.

I had a VIP pass, which allowed me to get backstage and get my hands on all I could drink beer and food and even catch a glimpse of George Clinton. I wasn’t, however, able to get as many beer samplings as I wanted from the “commoners’ area.” Next time, they need to give the VIPs at least 50 wooden tokens.

What’s Happenin’?

I often say, “Hey, I should write a blog post about this,” but then I forget because life continues on and I just don’t make it a priority.

Well, in a month since my post, I did my first big work-related travel trip. I’ve only previously traveled for work twice. The first time was as a reporter. My editor selected me and two of my friends/colleagues to attend a Poynter Institute writing seminer in Wilmington, Dela. In a nutshell: Awesome. Inspiring. Motivational. But after returning to work for a week, and getting all my ideas, hopes and dreams squashed by editors, it seemed kinda pointless.

At my most previous old job, I attended a three day conference on media relations. But it was in Baltimore, so it was actually more annoying than a real travel-trip. I had to drive into the cityeach day, and because I didn’t stay in the hotel, there really wasn’t much of any networking opportunity.

So in May, my job took me to Kansas City, Mo. I went to college in the midwest. My opinion of the midwest is that it blows. Chicago was a fabulous city; one of my favorites. But I despise the flatness of mid-America’s landscape. The east coast has hills, valleys and mountains. It’s an easy drive to take a weekend trip from DC to New York, Philly, Baltimore, Richmond, New Jersey, the beach, and America’s Most Livable City — Pittsburgh. If you’re in Chicago, and you want to take a weekend jaunt to another locale, you can go to Milwaukee and Gary, Ind. If you live elsewhere in the midwest, you have to hope you can get on your conestoga wagon early enough in the season before the rest of your party dies of typhoid fever or dysenteria.

Much to my surprise, Kansas City is hardly the flat, lifeless, midwest town that I came to expect because of my experiences driving in a car cross-country or playing “The Oregon Trail” on an Apple IIe.

It has hills! And designer shopping areas! And fine dining! And houses that are really, really expensive and huge!

I had to do much work during this trip. But it was fun to see another city and expense ice cream on an account. I’d probably not like traveling for work every week or so. But the occassional trip is a good time. I head to Chattanooga, Tenn. next month. I’m excited because I can explore and play for a few extra days in the Great Smokey Mountains. I hope Rachel Ray stayed in one of the quaint towns nearby, so I can follow her adventures on $40/day.

Cough. Cough.

i have bronchitis. It sucks. That’s all I want to say.

What can you say?

There is so much out there already about the shootings at Virginia Tech yesterday. News reports, blogs, facebook and myspace memory pages.  The way the story has unfolded now is even so much different than the last time the nation shook its head in dismay about a mass shooting, when two high school boys decided to take their own lives as well as their classmates in a quiet, suburban Colorado town.

I was a senior at Northwestern, watching the news with its security tape footage of the incidents at Columbine.  I remember sitting in the living room of my house, dismayed, but wondering what we’d do if two disgruntled NU students decided to take out their anger and pain on Mark Witte’s Intro to Macroeconomics class, a very, very large class in a very, very large lecture hall. Or worse, what if they decided to make their way across campus, going in and out of classrooms and study lounges with relative ease.

There was so much talk in the aftermath about what high schools and elementary schools were doing to prepare for and avoid a Columbine repeat. But I don’t recall much chatter from the administrators at NU. I only hope they were talking about it, planning for it. I’m sure if they didn’t before, the grim reality is now on the next meeting agenda.

I know I feel more sadness than I would otherwise because so many of my friends are Virginia Tech alums. And they are really, really proud of it. I know NU alums are pretty proud, but they’re nothing compared to the spirit of those who graduated from VT. My friends Katie and Robby even played the Hokey Pokey at their wedding, and invited all their VT alum friends to join in. It’s difficult living in DC-ish and not feeling a bond with those around you who have their own memories of sitting in a French class or listening to an engineering professor. Those who are right now thinking, “That could’ve been me.”

When I was working at a college previously, the thoughts of what-if-a-student-did-something-really-bad after came into my mind. A few times I told higher ups that we needed to plan for this. What would we do? I was, of course, thinking of it in more of crisis communications sense. But because we had so many other things to deal with — increasing enrollment, starting new programs, etc. — the idea of crisis planning was always tabled.

I don’t know all the details of what happened and when regarding the administration’s response. I’m reserving judgment (unlike TV and blog pundits). I’m doing the same with blaming guns, video games or Prozac — I won’t do it. Unfortunately though, the shooter fits a profile that we’ve heard and read about way too much — a reported loner who expressed anger and violence. And his family — I’m sure they’ll be blamed too. But it’s so much more complicated to fault parents who no longer live with their grown-up child, who can’t watch their every move, mood and purchase.

I don’t really know what to say or what conclusions to draw. It’s an awful, terrible, horrible thing that happened. And as sad as it is, I’m sure we’ll hear the news reports again, alluding to the day in April 2007 when a college student shot and killed dozens.

Generational?

I’m having some challenges with a colleague who came on board a few weeks after me. As we all know how dangerous it can be to blog about work, I won’t get into details. (This is where the old-fashioned journal beats out the blog. You can reveal everything there.) But there’s definitely issues of “I graduated college! I already worked for a year or so in another job! So of course I have to be in charge!” Yep, the dreaded entitlement issues of 20-something recent graduates that I have read so much about has become a workplace reality for me.

From a NewsHour segment last December.

I put it this way: The baby boomers are “work, work, work.” It’s a very important part of their live. Gen X is “work, work, I want to work some more, let’s talk about it.” And Gen Y is “work, work, you want me to work even more? How lame. I think I’ll I.M. my friends and tell them how lame you are, asking me to work even more.”

So man. That is so true.

The recent adult products of our coddling and overly protective, nurturing society seem to be all grown up and instead of observing, learning and growing, they seem to think they know more than everyone and they can do everything. Now, I’m not that much older than most of these older kids. I’m 30. My colleague, for example, is only six years younger. Wooha is her age, some of my other awesome kickball friends are her age. I know her behavior isn’t indicative of all of them. Woo is mature, despite her infatuation with cheeseball VH1 shows. (Actually, I was really into “I Love New York” until Mr. Boston got the boot, she that’s really not a good measure of maturity.) But the entitlement doesn’t seem to be singled out in just the case of colleague.

I’m also looking for an intern this summer. I’ve posted the ad in a few places, and I saw on one of my email discussion lists, a college student from the area, looking for a PR internship. “Woe is me,” she writes (I’m paraphrasing.) “All my friends have one, and I’m denied because I’m told I don’t have enough experience. Boohoo.” Whenever a college student posts a generic, “How do I get a job” message to the list, it’s usually a red flag. But I wrote a personal email to the girl, asking what is she looking for? I have an internship position available for the summer.

No reply.

OK, I thought, perhaps she’s away for the rest of the day. Pounding the pavement, networking, getting some good contacts and experience to set her up.

I check my email group today and someone posted to her on the list, offering a network resource, and she wrote back, offering an answer of why she can’t do that.

No reply to my email.

Why is that? Maybe she google stalked my organization and shunned the possible job aside before even finding out info about it because she thought our association is too small? That’s my thought. She’s not getting an internship because she has no experience and wants only to work at the big places — the large associations or PR agencies perhaps.

Another case of entitlement.

If this is all true, it’s really sad. Every generation says that about the one following them, it seems. I’ve read that they are all very close to their families and don’t value the innate need to rebel like the Boomers in the ’60s and ’70s. It’s great that their families value them and treat them like prince and princesses. But it’s really interfering with my ability to do my job. I know that I have to work hard and prove myself to get to the next level in a few years. They need to know that too.

Remember when Gen X (which I seem to fall at the very end of) was the slacker generation? Everyone decried our work ethic, our sloppy dressing and our lack of ambition. Thankfully, I believe, most of us turned out OK afterall. I hope the same thing happens for this next generation on the rise.

Too much green?

While I don’t work for an environmental organization, I do find myself working with some issues related to hot environmental topics. I’ve been doing a lot of reading up on climate change, fish management, etc. — stuff that comes up with new job’s work.

I think I need to take a break.

Last night I had this dream that I was basically kidnapped and made a member of some super fighting squad. I was implanted with some kind of crazy skills that made me a combination of the chick from “Kill Bill,” guy from “The Matrix” and a Charlie’s Angel. I kept running into other women from my life — a girl who rode my school bus in high school, an old college roommate, and some current friends from kickball. We were all part of the thousands of women being “built” to fight and destroy.

I walked over to a group I was assigned to, sat down and was given a green wool cape and beret … kinda like something a generic girl scouting-like organization would provide.

I was being initiated into the super elite ESA — the Environmental S-Something Association. Think of ELF, the Earth Liberation Front, the group that has burnt down big, expensive houses to make some point about development, or the guys who did “Project Mayhem” in “Fight Club. So yeah, I was being recruited to be some kind of environmental mischief maker who was designed to kill if I must. I couldn’t believe my friend ME was one of the ring leaders. She has led such a normal, 20-something life.

ME approached me, took away my cape and beret, told me that I didn’t pass whatever tests I needed to score high enough to be in the ESA — instead, I had to go to some other group that supports the ESA efforts but doesn’t actually get to kick ass with their programmed martial arts and skateboarding skills. (Skateboarding? Yes, I was “taught” has to skateboard. I have no idea why.)

So I find out the whole thing is also a giant Repbulican cult. Thought the extreme left is a liberal thing? Nope, not in my Dreamworld. We all went to a church-like meeting where we sang songs about smaller government and whatever else the Republicans really like.

It was one of those bizarre dreams that felt so real. Time to cut back on off-hour research about energy/environmental policy and the political process.