Kristabella: Full of Snark Since 1977

Posted By Kristabella on May 17, 2007

So Wednesday was my unofficial first day at the new job. They asked me to attend a sales meeting for some of the sales reps from the company.

I know you were all wondering, but yes, I did get up before 6 AM and made it downtown in plenty of time. The public transportation Gods were smiling on me and I even got there like 20 minutes early. Actually, seeing as that means I could have had more time to sleep, I think the public transit Gods were playing a cruel, cruel joke on me.

Anyway, the meeting went really well. I met about 20 of the sales reps that were in town from all over the country. (And drank most of them under the table that night!) It was really informative and everyone seemed really cool. It was good to get a feel how their sales team works, since it is huge. Ginormous, if you will. The company I’m working for is big, big, big.

I’ve been to my fair share of sales meetings. The Dirt People had one at least once a year, usually more. And when I was with the Niners, the PR meetings are the same kind of thing. Getting together to network, see people you haven’t seen in awhile, discuss issues, talk about what’s upcoming. It’s all the same. And all sales meetings involve lots of booze.

The last one I went to was with Consulting People. Back in Seattle. Remember? Overall, the meeting part of it was good. But as you’ll see in that old post, I felt a little out of my element. IT consulting was is such a foreign world to me. And some of the people were different than the sales people I had been used to dealing with. They are all nice people, but something just didn’t feel right with me on that trip. I based a lot on the fact it was like my second week on the job. And that I wasn’t comfortable with what I was doing yet at the time to bring anything to the table. Add that to the completely unnecessary sales training, and you have a not so fulfilling trip.

I can admit this now because it’s in the past. I couldn’t admit it then because I just couldn’t stomach it. But as I sat in that sales meeting in Seattle, I thought on a few occasions “I just made a huge mistake.” (Big mistake. Huge.) Something about it never seemed right. I loved the people in Chicago. And I worked my ass off and did a good job. But I always felt off kilter. I could never get into a routine. I thrive on routine. I wasn’t sleeping enough. Something just wasn’t right.

So getting fired, albeit for the DUMBEST reason ever, was a good thing. I said it then when it happened. Everything happens for a reason. And I needed to get out of there. I needed to be in my element.

Sitting in that sales meeting with new company felt right. I felt like I had a clue. I have absolutely no clue about what we make or what we do, but it’s right. And I’m going to enjoy working with these people. And everything just screamed at me “RIGHT DECISION!”

And they had a group dinner that night. You’ll never guess where it was. Nope, not in Slalom’s offices. Because um, that would be weird.

None other than Howl at the Moon. Yes. The same place I was at Friday night. And now the bartenders think I’m stalking them.

And I’m sure you’ll all be happy to know that I fit right in with these people. Alcohol Unites, bitches. And you could put that on a T-shirt!

Category: A Day in the Life of Me, General, Worky Work | 1 Comment »
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Posted By Kristabella on May 16, 2007

That’s all I have left of Slackerdom. And after (counts on hands) (has to get up to look at calendar) four weeks (to the day) of sitting on my ass, well, let’s just say I’ve gotten really used to it.

I’ve literally turned into a sloth. Or, more apropos, a cat. I spend all day just sitting around. Either on the computer. Or watching TV. Or reading. And I can usually only stay awake for about an hour at a time before I fall asleep. Like a cat, see? I’m so exhausted that I can’t even stay awake for 8 hours. How freaking sad is this?

I know it’s because I’m sooooo bored that when I’m sitting there on the couch, a little cat nap sounds fan-flippin-tastic. And what’s to stop me, right? Except that at 11 o’clock at night, I’m wide awake becoming intimately acquainted with late night TV. (Read: Nick at Nite) (How have I never realized your awesomeness before? Oh right. Sleep. Work. Job.)

And I know, I should get out and do something. And some days I do. Like yesterday, I had to drive to new office to drop off some paperwork. But that just made me angry. Because it was fucking 90 degrees in May (MAY!) and I don’t have air conditioning in my car. And I decided I didn’t need to shower (don’t judge) and really? It was like the smell of rotting meat in the sun. Jesus woman. Hygiene is a good thing.

I’ve been unemployed before. From February 1, 2005 through June 28, 2005. (Not to be specific or anything) That’s almost 5 whole months. (Math + me = good friends) But I had things to do then. I spent all of February in California packing up my shit and burning right through my severance with lunches and dinners and movies! Oh my!

I didn’t spend a second of that month looking for a job. I knew it wouldn’t be easy to be all “oh, silly hiring person-man, I won’t be there for a whole ‘nother month. Can you pencil me in for early March?” (Oh, and don’t tell California unemployment that. They’d be mad at me.)

Once I moved back to IL and moved in with my brother and sister-in-law, I hit the pavement. Nose to the grindstone. And all that nonsense. The thing about looking for jobs is that doing it every day doesn’t do much. Most companies post jobs at the beginning or end of the week. So you spend one solid afternoon applying and changing cover letters, and you’ve pretty much hit it all on Monster and Career Builder.

But when I was unemployed then, I showered. I did things. Because I lived with people. Including a three-year old and a pregnant woman. A three-year old who just wanted to play! With his Auntie!

A lot of days I did stay inside and work. I busted my ass trying to get a job. Talk to any person who has left the NFL or sports and ask them what it is like trying to get a job in the corporate world. That first job after sports is not easy. People think that working in sports is just parties and drugs and watching games and dicking around on the Internet. Well for some people, maybe. But not for most of the people I know. But corporate people are either clueless or jealous. Or a little of both. Hello, corporate goons? Public relations is public relations. McDonald’s or football. SAME.

Some of the days I wished for the days of living by myself. It’s hard to go from living by yourself to living with people, let alone family and a child. But looking back on my lazy ass for the last (has to look up to first sentence because still doesn’t know how many days it has been) 4 weeks, I wish I had that. It forced me to interact with people. Using my voice. And not my fingers. And damn! My brother’s desk chair is so comfortable! And mine? Well, there’s a reason why it was $19.99 at IKEA.

Wednesday I have to go downtown to officially “work” for my new job. They are having a sales meeting (it better not be one of these types of sales meetings.) And want me to come down and meet people. Also, these are the type of meetings I’m going to be planning in my new role. So yay!

But not. I have to be downtown at 7:30. IN THE MORNING. And let’s just say, in the last 4 weeks (didn’t have to look up! I rule!) odds are better that I’ve stayed up until 7:30 AM than actually got up at that time.

At least it will be nice to wear grown-up clothes. And maybe heels? (Yes, dork, you should wear heels. Flip flops are not proper business attires. Especially as a first impression.) And will be good to interact with people. Like face to face and all that.

Oh, and I also found out that new company is having an outing on June 1. To the Cubs game.

Look. Out.

Category: A Dash of the Crazy, A Day in the Life of Me, General, Rants & Rants | 8 Comments »
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Posted By Kristabella on May 15, 2007

Or the continuing saga of “How Kristin drank herself into oblivion last week.”

So we left off yesterday with our trip to the Cubs game. And the hilarity that ensued. Natch.

I don’t think the rest of the two days were as nearly as entertaining. (I know. It wasn’t as entertaining as I thought. Oh, but you’ll read anyway.) (Please.) But they usually aren’t after a trip to Wrigley. All those years I told stories to Lori about my outings to The Friendly Confines and I don’t think she quite understood. Now, she gets it.

Poor Lori was actually here for work. She had a conference to go to. So she actually had to wake up the morning after the game and be coherent. She gets Trooper of the Year Award. Because really? When you spend 3 days drinking with my unemployed dumb ass, you really deserve some kind of prize.

Thursday night we were going to have a low-key evening. We were saving ourselves for Friday night and a trip to Howl at the Moon. And we know all about Howl, don’t we? Well, at least this was the plan.

We ended up at Harry Caray’s for dinner. They have good food. Lori likes the Cubs. It was close to her hotel and not a chain. Dinner was great! We were both still feeling the effects of the game the previous night, so no drinkies with dinner. But after dinner, was a whole other ballgame.

Holy Cow, we drank a lot! (Gettit? Holy cow?)

We ended up in the bar, watching the Bulls decide that being up by 19 points was not nearly enough so they decided to just let the Pistons walk all over them. Again. It was nice. (Not the game. And the 8 guys yelling “Deeetroit Basketball” about every 10 seconds.) Lori and I got to catch up. We really miss living near each other.

So time flies. We talk and drink and drink and talk. By last call, each of us has had 6 glasses of wine each. EACH! That’s like a good bottle and a half for each of us.

Heeee! We tip well. And always be sure to hydrate kids.

(Do you remember how I said yesterday that this is only funny to Lori and I? Do you understand now?)

After Harry’s, we decided that after being all good and drunk, with 3 bottles of wine between the two of us, that we would do the totally logical thing. Go to sleep? No, no, silly rabbit. We went and drank more! We went to two more bars (TWO!) and drank 4 more drinks each! And not wine! Nooooooo. We switched to martinis. The two of us? Pure genius.

I think we left sometime after 3. I’d share more about those two bars, but 1) they are only funny to us and 2) well, I don’t really remember much. We sang Journey, met some Australian and his German friends, met a dude who was too tan to be from Chicago and finally some dude who like owned all of Banco Popular. (No, not all of them. His tan friend exaggerates a touch.)

Needless to say, neither of us was feeling up to anything on Friday. The funniest thing is that Friday was the day I had to take my drug test for my new job. This should be interesting. HA! I hope they aren’t testing for the hooch.

After spending the day inside watching TV, we headed out to Howl. Because that was the plan all along. Looptopia be damned! And Schwerer and Jenn were making the trek in from Iowa, so we couldn’t leave them hanging.

Plus, we needed to return to the scene of the crime.

Nope. Not her coat. We checked.

If you’ve never been, you need to go. They are all over the country. Drinking and singing Journey, Bon Jovi and Neil Diamond with a bunch of complete strangers is downright awesome. Oh, and hot bartenders dance on the bar. Um, yum! And the people watching is first rate.

There was the woman who was NOT 22 who got up on stage to dance. And shake her bon-bons. And the tambourine. And this NOT 22-year old? Was NOT wearing a bra. Which was why we knew she was NOT 22. Because honey? They aren’t so perky anymore are they? And really, no one needs to see them shake around like that. In the world’s ugliest top no less.

There was Wilma Flintstone with her ginormous pearl necklace. (What the fuck, woman?)

There was the 50-year old man. Not necessarily an oddity in itself at Howl (they take all ages, kids.) But checkered pants! CHECKERED PANTS! (What the fuck Grandpa!) With a mock turtleneck no less.

We had a great time. Minus all the actual 22 year olds in there. Which prompted me to yell out, possibly more than once, “I could be yo mamma!” (I don’t know when a bit has gotten old. See coat story, bitches, etc.) (You think I’m lying. There were all these recent grads from Loyola celebrating. Cause they grad-gee-ated. Mostly by drinking too much and bumping into me.) One of us got some action (and it wasn’t me. Shocker!) with a dude from Detroit.

And no one? Lost their coats.

(Oh shut it. I know I’m a bitch.)

Category: A Dash of the Crazy, A Day in the Life of Me, General, Hooch Hilarity | 7 Comments »
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Posted By Kristabella on May 14, 2007

I know. Where the fuck have I been? Well, for a simple answer, I’ve been trying to drink myself into rehab. (Because Britney and Lindsay seem to have so much fun there!) Or try to flush my liver out my nose. Or something.

Sometimes, jobs? They are a good thing. Besides helping pay the bills and all that. You know for the stopping you from drinking until 3 AM three nights in a row when damn, woman, you’re 29 not 22!

So my friend Lori was in town from Arizona this past week. She was here from Tuesday until Saturday. So you will see why I haven’t posted since Wednesday. Lori has been part of a few drunken escapades featured here. So if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

Wednesday night we went to the Cubs game. Lori, who is a huge baseball fan like myself, has ALWAYS wanted to go to Wrigley. So I figured I’d help her out and we’d sit in the bleachers. Since that’s a cool experience for a person who has never been. Or not. I’m not a big fan. (The bleachers. Not the Cubs.) Unless you get inside super early, you don’t get a seat. And you need to be really drunk otherwise you actually care that you can’t see a damn thing going on. (Good thing for me, I’m usually pretty sloshed.)

I got to Wrigleyville before Lori, you know to make sure that the drinks were cold and that everything would be perfect for her visit. I mean, if it meant sucking it up and sitting at Murphy’s by myself for an hour or so drinking beers, so be it. I am a team player.

But since sober KJ isn’t much of a let’s-strike-up-conversations-with-strangers-in-the-light-of-day kind of person, I just drank. The options were to A) start chugging so then I could start talking to strangers, B) hope a stranger would talk to me (which can be a little touch and go) or C) drink my overpriced Bud Light and send text messages.

I chose C. And Schwerer was lucky enough to be the recipient of such gems as:

• I meet the weirdest people. I just met this ticket broker. Who works on the side as a private investigator spying on married people that cheat. (Side note – this guy gave me his card and said to call and he’d give me free tickets. He also asked if my friend was “hot” (which she is) and when I told him she’s married he asked “does she cheat?” (NO!) Hence how the PI thing came up. I don’t think I need to add that he told me he’s a Sox fan. I think that’s assumed.)
• Lesson learned today. Can’t sit at a table by yourself and get up and get beers. Risk losing table. (Which? I did.)
• I’m going to text you commentary to put up on my blog. I just overheard “I texted you man. I felt all high tech.”
• I’ve gotten so fat my watch doesn’t like to be in the fourth hole anymore. Too tight.
• People still wear Tevas? (Yes. They do. Why?)
• Dude! My phone just blew up and shut itself off. (Should have taken this as a hint, no?) Also, my 5 key on my phone is all jacked up. I must type a lot of JKL.

Senor Beavis also got one that people wearing NASCAR jerseys (that said Earnhardt across the chest) should NOT be allowed into Cubs games.

After all this nonsense, it got interesting. There was this dude standing in front of me. He looked vaguely familiar, but most of the guys around Wrigley do. Plus, I can’t even remember most days if I remembered to put on clean underwear, let alone know where a guy looks familiar from.

That is, until this dude started talking. And I remembered where I knew him from! He is a consultant for Slapdick Consulting. (See what I did there? With the same initials and all? And seriously? Slapdick makes way more sense than Slalom. You know with all the skiing in Chicago.)

I think I saw a little bit of recognition in his eyes. But I could have been wrong. It could have been a little beer glow. Either way. I just laughed because I wondered “if he does recognize me, am I a cancer on the company? Because that? Would be awesome.”

And yes, I could have started talking to him. But really, texting people and giggling to myself was probably going to be way more entertaining.

Not soon after this, I got my liquid courage levels up and started talking to strangers. Well, just one. He was cute and wearing Crocs. I hate these shoes. Yes, I know they are sooooo comfortable. But people? They are U-G-L-Y. But since cutie was wearing them, I decided to ask him how comfortable they really were. (Cause I? Have mad game, fools.)

And then I realized why I should stick to texting. When I asked him, he’s all “they sure are comfy! Want to see?” And then he proceeded to take his bare foot, BARE, out of his shoe for me to try on. Feeling like an ass saying no, because I mean he was offering me his shoe and all, I put my bare foot, BARE, in his shoe for a hot second. (Teri, did you just throw up in your mouth a little?) OK, fine, I already knew they were comfortable. But I didn’t really want to be all “Um, I don’t know how they do it in Memphis, but we Chicagoans don’t much care for the sharing of the foot sweat and cooties.”

Thankfully, right then my phone rang and it was Lori. And she was here. Yay! So we had a drink at Murphy’s before heading across the street to the stadium.

The game ws pretty uneventful. It was a 1-0 win for the Cubbies (yay!) and Jason Marquis had a no-hitter going for some amount of innings. Which you don’t know when you’re sitting in the bleachers. Like under the scoreboard. And we missed the only run of the game, a home run, because we were in the feed line waiting for hot dogs and more booze.

But it was fun. We ate peanuts! Lori drank Mai Tais! (only non-beer option at Wrigley. And Lori does not heart beer. She so could never have been a Midwesterner. She’s not much of a meat fan either.) Lori got beer spilled on her! Good times all around. Pretty much a typical bleacher experience at Wrigley. She was christened in the name of Old Style.

After the game we went back to Murphy’s. It’s like close and shit. We had some more drinks. Ran into some people straight out of North Dakota, accents and all. They were from Bayer-Don’t-Call-It-Tylenol on some work trip. And I realized talking to them, that when I hear an accent, I immediately adapt. They think I adapt. It’s mostly mocking.

(And also, I think all those years drinking with Julie has turned me into a Minnesotan when I drink. I need to go drink in a bar on the South Side to regain my Chicago accent.)

We also met some dudes from Cleveland. Who, when told Lori was from Arizona, immediately asked about Oreganos. (Which will only be awesome to those who have been lucky enough to be there.) And we talked about the pizookie. Which was deemed by Cleveland man as “Sex in a Pan.” Which? Awesome. And so true.

We spent most of the rest of the evening/early morning with some dudes we met outside the bathroom. Some Tall Drink of Water stared at me coming out of the bathroom. Like full-on staring. And not the creepy old man up and down stare. You know, the My-Eyes-Are-Up-Here stare. But like locked eyes for like what seemed like a minute. Which? Also creepy. To which I replied “can I help you with something?” To which he responded with silence. Um, okay.

After we got our drinks I say “do you always  make a habit of staring at girls coming out of the bathroom?” And he said “only the ones that are really cute.” And then I melted into a puddle because I? Am world’s biggest sucker. And was also quite toasted at this point and he could have said “just to make sure they washed their hands” and I would have still made out with him.

Because did I mention he was tall? Like 6-5 or something. Tallllll! Which was when I realized that if you’re that tall, that’s about all I need. And he had all his teeth. Bonus! And my standards? Have gotten lower as I’ve gotten older. So Rich? There’s still hope for you yet.

And I just went on and on about one night (one!) in our drunken week. So you’ll have to stay tuned for the rest of the stories. Which are probably only funny to me and Lori. But did include a return to the site of the missing coat.

Must go now. To sleep. Because I only have 5 more days to be unemployed. (Yes, I am a little sad about it.)

Category: A Day in the Life of Me, General, Hooch Hilarity, Sports | 6 Comments »
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Posted By Kristabella on May 9, 2007

If you want to be with me.

Which is good. Because I? Am now gainfully employed. Or will be in a few weeks time.

Aiiiiiiiieeeeeeee!

I was offered (and accepted) a job today! That’s about all you’re getting. (It’s not consulting. Or mulch.) I’m going to be a Marketing/Event Coordinator. It basically sounds like a great job. (I say “sounds like” because, well, I thought the last one ruled. I was all kinds of wrong, wasn’t I?) It combines all the things I enjoy doing into one job – writing, marketing and event planning.

So yay to me! And I’ll be celebrating with my girl Haro tonight at the Cubs game. Which will be my first of the season. And I’m sure my presence will send them into quite a downward losing spiral. Seeing as they have done a whole hell of a lot better so far than I imagined they would.

So yeah. I start on the 21st. As long as the background check and drug test go on without a hitch. So no wine the night before that test. Must. Remember. No. Pot. Brownies.

And now commence with the well wishes, bitches!

Category: A Day in the Life of Me, General, Job Search | 13 Comments »
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