Christmas 2007: Part the First

(December 22, 2007)

I'm in New Jersey chez Kowalski. Sitting on the blue checked country-quilted bed in Joe's old room, listening to muted conversation as Joe and his brother try to get their mom's cable modem working, I'm relaxed. Surprisingly so. We got here last night, via Amtrak from Back Bay. The train was sold out, but not obnoxious. The seats provided plenty of room and even had a plug for my laptop. Train travel is pretty cool. Joe's dad picked us up in Philly, and here we are in Cherry Hill. Today we woke up around ten. I baked about a thousand cookies (just from pre-made dough), played with the world's cutest dog, took a shower, and now I'm just doing a little writing before we eat the Chinese food we ordered by way of an early dinner/late lunch. "Don't you want to look at a menu?" Joe's mother called up the stairs. "Orange chicken," I said to Joe. I don't need a menu for Chinese food, they all have the same thing unless you're at some fancy upscale Asian fusion place. This place will have Orange Chicken, it'll either be good or it'll be bad, depending on whether Cherry Hill has a strong Asian presence. One that cooks anyway. One that cooks in the kitchen of this particular Golden Blossom Garden Chopsticks Island whatever-the-fuck.

Mmmm, Orange Chicken. I hope it doesn't suck.

I really needed to get out of Boston for a few days. It's been a rough month...couple of months, actually. Work has been insane -- our factory claims "it's always been like this" as we face new challenges of impending stock-outs, constant mis-ships and badly-timed sudden changes in build materials with no forewarning. As though the spate of factory problems weren't enough, we moved our offices and it couldn't have gone less smoothly if my boss had actually (rather than figuratively) tripped me every ten steps.

Not to mention, I'm just not feeling it. The job, I mean. I am starting to think about starting up the job hunt again. Maybe there's another start-up who needs my particular non-expertise in a wide range of areas. Three years ago this place needed my web skills, customer service savvy, database management, process management, logistics and transport experience...oh, a whole bunch of other stuff. There was nearly *nothing* in place when I became the Office Manager. Just eighteen customers and a partially-done Filemaker database. Me and the boss handled everything from making the coffee to tech support. Now we have a tech support staff, developers, and account management. It's quite something to be part of an entity that's so successfully growing. But I just wish we didn't have to do EVERYTHING so half-assed.

Take this week's officemove, for example. What would it have cost to hire movers? Excuse me, relocation services, as they're now called. But nooooo, Andy says why not use the same guys who did the construction work. Nice guys. Speak no English, but we communicate with charades and sheer pluck. But these guys were already engaged in the construction work! So the day of the move I'm on the 4th floor waiting for movers to come, except that they're still friggin' painting on the 7th floor. We fucking moved half the shit ourselves, with a LOT of it hauled up by "the new guys," who are just awesome. I love my guys. But they shouldn't have had to do heavy lifting. That's not what I hired them for, and it wasn't fair. It took like a week to get everything moved, with the seedy building manager up my ass the whole time about not having everything totally out of the old suite yet. Great, I love it when that guy comes around harping on something over which I have zero control. That's just it -- every half-assed move we make ends up coming out of my hide. I'm the one who has to listen to people bitch at us, I have to absorb the ire, I have to do tons of research instead of just order the most convenient option...

I swear to god, the boss is the kind of guy who...I need to think of a good example.

Okay, imagine that he wanted to rollerblade. Instead of going to a sporting goods store and simply buying a nice new pair of rollerblades, he would look into used ones, look at every kind available in every market on the planet, then he'd price out wheels,bearings and plastic boots, hire a cheap contracter to give him proposals on custom-made inner foam booties. He would have one pair built, reject those, have another built, scrap the whole project and start again. This activity, normally a very simple swipe of a credit card, will drive everyone crazy and take five times as long to finish. But it'll cost eighteen cents less than if he'd done it the normal way, be a one-of-a-kind solution and he'll act all smug about it.

Infuriating.

On the other hand, the company's very beginnings are based on this insane behavior. There would BE no product if he didn't act this way.

But it's a challenge.

After the new year I'll figure out what I'm going to do.

Here's Joe...he has come into this room three times since I began writing this entry...if he bears good tidings, the cable modem will be operating and I can actually post it tonight.

Cheers.