bits & pieces

First, a picture of The Necklace:



Gawd, I just had the craziest day today. Yesterday most of my day was tied up with meetings and presentations (funny how I don't really get nearly as nervous when I'm presenting my own work), so today was a real mad scramble to get some actual work done. Most of my morning and part of my afternoon was spent assisting the director of my department with this reporting project for one of our regional sales managers. Actually, I did all of the actual work and she most of the liaisoning, but who wants to split hairs? Anyway, this all set me back for the day and made my afternoon a bit frantic to get the stuff done for today that I had wanted to get done. A little bit stressful, but it all worked out in the end.

Was speaking to my former-currently-temporary-maybe-permanent manager this afternoon and he kept going on & on about what a great job I'm doing. That's a great compliment, I guess, but I don't feel like I'm working any harder or better than I ever did before, it's just being noticed somewhat more because of a few factors:

A) A bunch of my projects have reached critical phases where they've graduated to the stage where higher-ups are more involved and the projects have thus become higher profile and I (as a result) have also become higher profile. Higher-ups are pretty quick to express their pleasure (or displeasure) to people who matter. And their input is taken more seriously too.

B) With the situation with Lou as it is, there is very little buffer between directors in my department and myself and my willingness to chip in and help out anywhere and everywhere (while it's always been there) is more noticeable because it is desperately needed, now more than ever.

So, I don't know whether to be complimented or insulted, so I'm a little bit of both. Mostly complimented though (but a small part of me can't help but be the tiniest bit peeved). I'm not one to honk my own horn at work, I really hate all that phony crap, so I guess it's nice that some of my honest good work is finally being recognized a bit without me having to jump up & down about it all. Former-currently-temporary-maybe-permanent manager told me this afternoon that they want to send me to our yearly User's Conference Summit thingie next year. I've always wanted to go and it is a bit of a perk, but not a fantastic one. You have to share a room and work all the time and proctor labs and since I've written all the business intelligence for the app that runs the event, I will mostly have to be on-site to trouble-shoot, do adhoc reporting and other last minute work as it comes up during the event. Frankly, I hope this is not my "reward" in lieu of a raise or something. Sheesh.

Unrelated comment: if someone "compliments" you by telling you, you look like Elizabeth Taylor, it's not really a compliment at all, but "nice" way of telling you that you look fat. Of course, it could be worse, I've been compared to A) Rosie O'Donnell and B) Roseanne in the past. But Whatever.

Lastly: I order an iPod today!



(Lola, staring at a cookie)