Me in the morning

I walk into work every morning feeling like this. There are two girls who are here before me and they are always so depressed and don't say a word. Guess which one I am.

The long weekend catchup

We had a public holiday on Friday (Heritage day) but everybody knows it as Braai day. So needless to say there were braai's going on all over the country. We had a birthday party on Friday out in Stellenbosch which was great. On Saturday we met a friend of mine who has a new boyfriend. I am so happy for him. They look very happy and in lurve...

The long weekend was good to rest, but I feel so tired this morning. At least I got to drive around in my nice new car often this weekend. Yes yes, I promise to post a pic of my car here soon.

So now I am at work preparing for my trip to Johannesburg again. I enjoy going there coz I see my family and my friends, but its not that much fun anymore travelling away from home. And on top of it all I am going to have to go to Amsterdam for 2 weeks in December on my own for work. At least Tristan is coming to Johannesburg this weekend to celebrate my birthday with me and the family!!!

Time flies when you are having......fun?

It has been a very long time since I wrote a post, and the main reason is just that I have been so busy. I got this amazing new job that keeps me busy from the minute I get to work until I have to leave. It is really good though because I finally get to use my brain a bit and I am doing so well. My traveling has increased as I now go to JHB at least every 3 weeks or so, but I still really miss Mpumalanga sooooo much. I have been here only 5 months and already things are happening for me. We are all going to Amsterdam in December for the Christmas party at HQ...

Then at the beginning of the month I bought a new car. A Volvo S40. And I LOVE it. It is so amazing. I am so happy with my purchase. I will post a photo of my car soon. Other than that there is not much else that has happened. I will start posting again from now on so keep an eye on it.

Speak soon.

The day

Well yesterday was a slightly crap day. We had a meeting at work and we were told that there are some people in the office that gets distracted, so we are not allowed to have our cell phones on anymore. We are already not allowed to receive private phone calls at work, so between the hours of 08:00 and 16:00 we are to drop off the face of the earth. Then we were told that we should limit our private conversations in the the office as this is also distracting others. I just started enjoying this job, when they changed my area, putting more pressure on me and giving me an area which is not as cool as mine was, and now they are forcing us to work like we are in a Chinese sweatshop. I am not sure if I am just a little over sensitive to this, and if this kind of thing is happening all over the business world, but I think its archaic to make someone completely unreachable during office hours. When the hell must we do things and organise stuff. I understand the balance between work and private life, but this is also no balance. Then I went to gym and realised I gained weight, body fat and my BMI is up....All in all its been a shit day....At least I am getting a new car next week.

Keeping you updated

Its been a very long and very tuff few weeks back form Spain, and its now culminating in me resigning from work and leaving the same day. I have a month to find a new job.....Will write again when I have something to write about.

That time of the year

Its that time of the year where I am about to go away on holiday, all the companies I have to call on are in the same holiday mood as I am in, so they don't want to confirm appointments. Therefore I am sitting at work and doing nothing. I am supposed to be catching up on admin. Yea right. My admin has been done for a bout 4 months now. I need some creative ways of looking busy at work, while still having fun and not being bored. HELP ME!!!!

Where am I going

I don't know what to do with myself, and what to do with my professional career. I am in a position at the moment, where I work for a very good company, that looks after its staff members. I sell a really good product, that almost sells itself. The problem is I am not enjoying my job. The basic day to day function of my job is so frustration, that I find myself on Monday mornings wanting to cry when I have to go to work.

I cant help but think, every day, that I do not want to be in this same position when I am 35 or 36. I do not want to be a 35 year old sales rep who is still trying to get 20 sales calls a week of new business. Where am I going to find the new business in 2 or 3 years time. I am feeling so frustrated and upset, because I really don't know what to do. I am not a corporate new business executive. I am a Key Account Manager. I like looking after accounts and making sure the relationships are strong and keeping business.

So my issue at the moment is, do I go for another job, again, where I have the job description that I enjoy and I love my job, but I might not have the great treatment or great company I work for now. Or do I stay at the great company that really looks after me, with a fantastic product, but I hate my job everyday....

Days like today

I hate days like today. Outside the weather is odd. Its sort of hot, but its over cast and its hazy and rain and cold is looming. Inside I am getting flu, and I am all snotty. I am also trying to get my sales calls for this month sorted out. I had to make flight and car reservations for next month to Johannesburg and Durban, just to fill the day up. I hate days where I have no work out of the office. Office days suck!!!

So we (work and I) have decided to go to Johannesburg once a month now as there is allot of business out there. It was a decision from my side because it solves my problem of trying to find people in Cape Town to meet with me, and there is allot more business up in Johannesburg for hotels based in Cape Town, then in Cape Town. From work side, I am scoring big time brownie points as I show the drive to work and even go to Johannesburg once a month to get the business.

We (Tristan and I) will asses the situation and if it takes strain on our relationship, I will stop immediately. Now to try and get off work early coz I have nothing to do here now!!!

Dear....

Diary,

Squirrel,

GB,

Frank,

Lord,

Universe,

and anything else I have missed out on....

HOW THE HELL DO I GET MORE BUSINESS FOR MY COMPANY SO THAT I DON'T GET FIRED!!!!!!!!

I hate this feeling of helplessness, when I am doing everything I humanly can to get business, and its just not happening.

Should I or Shouldn't I

I am in a bit of a dilemma at work at the moment. I am a sales person for a hotel group, and work my ass off from Monday to Friday to get money into the hotels. I have from the beginning of my career stated that I do not work on the weekends. The weekends are mine to spend with my family and friends and to relax from work.

I was asked by my manger to host a dinner and site inspection of one of our hotels on a Saturday night, as the sales rep responsible for the client, is not in the country and neither is my boss. I told her I am sorry but I am not doing it on a Saturday night. Now there is a bit of an issue. I am being branded as the one they cant depend on, and there will be consequences if I keep on refusing to do it.

Our directors are all ex hotel staff, so they just believe that everybody should be on call or available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Its not a legal issue I have now, its a moral issue. There really is nobody to host this dinner, and my boss told me she would never ask me if they had another plan, but they really have nobody at all to do it. Do I say yes now, and sell my soul, or do I stick to my guns and risk getting a warning.

I don't know what to do. I hate compromising where I feel I am loosing, or I compromise an ideal I believe in so strongly, but then you get people who force you to compromise with the imminent threat of "action" against you.

My lucky day

Ok, now I am going to try my best to not be sarcastic, as it is still lent, but if I happen to slip, its written and doesn't count. Today is my lucky day. Working in a hotel, we have plenty of trainee hoteliers coming through our doors. Once in a while you get one that wants to learn about ALL the facets of the hotel. These are the ones that I get to drive around with me while I do my sales calls. First problem with this is, I have to introduce him as what??? This is a trainee that is my tail for the day??? Second problem is they are inevitably some youngster who I have nothing to talk to about. I don't relate well to kids anymore....

Everybody in our office is going on about how lucky I am because they think this boy is hot. Let me paint the picture:

He has a small head, with Joburg hair (the picture exlaines Joburg hair). So his head looks huge with this little face. Then he has arms as long as my....car, and it looks out of place with his body. The worst of all however, is he is wearing Grasshopper shoes. Those black ones with the little trim on the top of the show....UGLY...

I have been told that he is very intelligent and very eager to learn. All I can ask for is that he is able to have an intelligent conversation and can talk about more than the clubs he frequent on the weekend, and which chicks at head office are hot!!!!

Its gonna be a long day....

Midweek Crap

This Wednesday has started really crappy. We are going to migrate to Vodacom and get a blackberry from work, and they want to keep our numbers when we leave.

So many problems with this. I have just upgraded my contract to a higher monthly so that I can cope with the call load, and if I loose my allowance, I would never have paid the R780 on my own. Then there is the fact that I will not give them my personal number, as that is my number I have had for many MANY years now. This means new number, and two phones again. Then I don't want to even start talking about going to Vodacom.

I will get the Blackberry and it will lay in my car for ever, as it is way too big and bulky for me to carry it around.

I am not a happy camper at work at the moment. It seems that everything that I was told when I started, is being changed.

Run down thursday

I am having a very run down Thursday. It seems like everything anybody says gets me either flared up, or chocked up. I feel extremely tired at 11:00 in the morning, and want to collapse in a heap and stay like that for a while. What is it that gets me like this. I feel like gym is not working, I am stuck in a rut, I am frustrated, I am sad, I am feeling sorry for myself, I feel like taking someones head off. Its a bit of a roller coaster at the moment.

Live with it!

Work related

I have been working on an incentive program for our clients at work, and it warms my heart to see it taking shape and having to present it to the clients in the next few weeks to come. I am a real sales person who thrives on results, as this kind of thing really blows my hair back. I now just wish that I could get incentivised on how much my clients give us.....that would be even sweeter.

'Tis the season

Last night was our company head office end of year function. Yes, it is that time of the year again. I, fortunately, did not attend due to various reasons. One of which is that I don't socialize with work colleagues. No need for that. Another is that no partners were allowed, and I see absolutely no need to go out with work folk, if I cant bring my partner along. I see them everyday, and it is nice to meet everybody's partners. However, because it was the event last night, have of head office strolled into the office at 10:00, and then still didn't stop talking about what happened last night, as if they weren't there and now they are telling each other about it. Now I cant say for sure that I would not be as excited about it, had I been there, but at least I would be working today. They are all either nursing hangovers, or telling each other how drunk they were. Another trait of drinkers I love so much. They have no lives, so they drink at night, and then in the morning they tell each other how much they drank. Just like drug takers. Moving along..... So I cant speak to any clients over the phone until at least 12:00 when they have all settled down and I can hold a conversation. Also I am now branded as the boring kill-joy because a) I wasn't there last night and 2) I am the only one working this morning and not going on and on and on about the night last night and my alcohol consumption.

GROW UP AND GET BACK TO WORK

Selling Skills

I had a meeting with a prospective client today and took one of the banqueting managers along. His job was supposed to be to give the client some info on our banqueting facilities and ideas on what to do and where to do it. Problem is he was stumbling over his own words and got a little flustered, especially because the gentlemen we were seeing was a gay man, and openly so. Now I think being in the hotel industry (one of the gay "safe service" careers) and being in banqueting and event co-ordinating, he should be used to dealing with gay men. I realized however, that it boils down to selling skills. Fortunately I can say with great pride, that I have the selling skills to sell water filters to dessert dwelling nomadic tribes, and this guy doesn't. I am able to adapt and change the conversation to my liking, and reign in any person who is dragging the discussion off in a direction that doesn't exist. Also I am able to adapt my approach to straight, gay, green, blue, CEO and secretary. This I believe is a very special gift I have, and that I share with most or any sales person out there. Some people do not have that however, and still try to sell something. This is why this poor bloke was way out of his depth and kept on stumbling and eventually the client asked my who is higher in rank as he didn't want to step on this guys toes when he asks me about the properties. Poor bloke.

First day back

Today is the first day back at work in Cape Town, after I have been in Joburg for business the last week. I had such excitement in my veins while in Joburg, as business went so well, and I was out and busy the entire time and never really had any time to sit or do anything. In my car all the time and driving around from meeting to meeting. Now back in the Cape Town office, I have lost all of that enthusiasm, and want to go home and sleep. I really need to get myself motivated to work here in Cape Town, and just go balls to the wall and start phoning everybody i can get my hands on.

Problem is in Cape Town, people are already busy going into Christmas mode, and want to only see me in next year.

What to do...

Friday downer

So my sales & marketing manager resigned to be with her husband in George, but was working for another 2 months till the end of November until they would find someone appropriate. In the last month, the bosses have been grinding her and pressurising her so much so, that he had been overworking herself and doing everything to give them what they wanted. This afternoon, at 15:20, she got called in by the MD and told that she doesn't have to come back again on Monday, and today is her last day. This is shocking as she has got so much running at the moment that she has to hand over, and now she has to rushly do it in an hour. I have never seen anybody being treated like this, and it is horrible, and it makes me question my decision to be here.

Natural light

You might think that plants are the only living organisms that need natural light to survive and grow and prosper. Well that is not true. In fact ALL living things need natural light. Especially humans. Studies done in Canada on primary school children have shown that kids in classrooms exposed to natural light show better attendance, because they are healthier. They have better dental records, they grow taller, and have increased concentration. It keeps people calmer and tests done in a Veteran's hospital showed that patients exposed to natural light suffered less depression and healed faster. Natural light also has been shown to reduce eyestrain, increase productivity and even decrease absenteeism in the workplace. It also lifts the spirit and people just function better in natural light filled spaces.

This brings me to my new office. We used to be away from the head office staff in our own office that had so many windows and natural light. It was great. Someone then thought it would be a great idea to move us downstairs to be in the head office, and now we are in an office without a single window in sight. Its depressing, morbid and makes my mood very bad. I have been cranky since we moved down here and its because of the space we are in. I am seriously considering speaking to the big bosses about this issue, as it is affecting my work, my health and my life.

A glorious morning

It has been a very good few days. Yesterday I got R5 in the parking machine that someone left behind, I signed up a corporate company that is going to bring us big bucks, I got a load of appointments set up, Lucca's ears have been doing very well, growing nice scabs and he was being very calm and not shaking too much. Then this morning happened. I woke up to Lucca shaking his scabs off and bleeding all over the place again. I know I have said this many times, but I really cant explain how I feel. I am so fed up with this. There must be something else to be done!!! I have never seen any dog with this issue for so long, so there must be a way of stopping it. Then there is the weather this morning. Its all rainy and cloudy and I have to be at work. Its the perfect weather to be at home under the duvet watching Dstv. I just feel so helpless, and if one more person tells me "there is nothing you can do about it, so stop stressing about it" I am going to punch them in the gut. OF COURSE I STRESS ABOUT IT, HE IS MY BABY!!!! Even more so because I cant do anything about it. I want to go home and sleep...