Chronicles of a Corporate Intern

Yes, that is the word I have chosen: Epic.

Today was epic.

Not necessarily the good kind of epic, but epic, none-the-less.

Let me walk you through this, step by step.

I headed home from Renton last night and fought my way through stop and go traffic. Why? Oh yeah, because 405 North is under construction and I ALWAYS forget.

So I get home at around 12:30 (I left around 11:00). Awesome, yeah? An hour goofing around and dragging my feet, an hour tossing and turning in bed, asleep by 2:30. No big deal, I can sleep in a little because I haven't got much work... But my battered, broken body has other plans.

I wake up 2 hours later, at 4:30, with pain and pressure in my ear. Now, I'm no stranger to pain, and usually if I ignore it long enough it goes away. So, I lay there for an hour, waiting for it to go away, but no. Send a text to Dan, and lay back down, waiting for it to go away, but no. So I lay there for another 2 hours, and finally start drifting back to sleep around 7:30. And there I lay, dozing, never fully asleep, but not really awake either, until 9:30.

At this point I decide this is probably bad, so I give my doctor's office a call and tell them I want their earliest appointment available. It's with the PA, but that's okay, because an RN treated my ulcerative colitis when no one else could. So into the doctor's office I go.

Now - the only reason I have this doctor is because of a viral infection in my lungs that caused a respratory infection that prevented me from breathing. This happened in the past month or two. Un-cool. And now I'm back again. Woohoo!

The PA, a very nice lady if I may say so, informed me that I have an ear infection that has created a hole in my ear-drum. Awesome. So she prescribed me some super-strong antibiotics and told me to come back in a couple weeks for a hearing test and let her know it didn't work. And next time don't ignore chronic ear-pain for a year. (Apparently it's a dumb thing to do, who knew?)

So - back home I go, contemplating the fact that I have had 3 infections in the past 2 months. So what do I do? Ring up my gastroenterologist - "Uhhh, is there a link between colitis and the immune system?". Of course, I have to play phone tag for a couple hours before I finally get the question to someone who can get the question to someone who can answer it (It had to go through two other people first).

While waiting for the person who can get the question to someone who can answer to get the question to someone who can answer it I decided to head down and pick up my prescription. So I mozy into my Safeway pharmacy, where I get my Asacol refills - a place I've used enough times that I wasn't too concerened about it.

They grab my prescription and ring me up - $20. Sweet, that's okay, 'cause I have $300 in my bank account and a check! Yeah, except not. My debit card gets denied. So, slightly confused, I run it as credit; denied.

Now, at this point I'm freaking out. I think I had the right to do so, apologizing to the pharmacist and telling him I had to call the bank I step off to the side and pull out my handy little PDA-style super-fantastic overly-pimped-out phone and head to my online banking.

Available Balance: $289.90 - Correct
Pending Balance: $-91.90 - Not So Correct

What the fuck?

Freaking out even more I booked it home (a short drive luckily, because I was having trouble keeping myself composed), and spend about 3 minutes panicking. I phone the bank and get put on hold, and then get put on hold again, and then get put on hold again, and for good measure, get put on hold a fourth time. (It was okay though, their hold music was instrumentalized gussied up Backstreet Boys songs - and oh yes, I was totally singing along, out of tune.) Explaining my situation yet again, I was informed that the transaction already went through, and they talked to my branch and they won't have any more information until tomorrow.
What the fuck?

I HAVE BLOODY FRAUD ALERT. That, of course, didn't occur to me at the moment. At the moment is more of a "Uhhh... What?", so I thanked the lady, hung up the phone, and sat in stunned silence for a few minutes.

And then I did what any composed, grown up young lady would do. I cried and called my daddy and my boyfriend.

My dad came home and lent me $10 to go get my prescriptions (I had $15 in cash in my wallet from bowling the other night). So I took a shower and headed out to get my prescriptions - which were still on the counter waiting for me - by which point it was 4:00. I left immediatly after that to make it to Renton by 5:00.

My evening faired well, luckily. (I even remembered to take I-5 home instead of 405, and I had leftover wedding cake, and I get to yell at bank people tomorrow for not calling me despite the fraud alert tag I know is on my bank account, since I do pay LifeLock $10 a month to make sure it's on my bank account. Idiot bankers.)

One thing though: Do you see work in there anywhere?
No, me niether.
My boss going to be unimpressed.

Labels: Boys, Ramblings, Sick, Work

Yesterday was my boyfriend's 21st birthday.
It was also his cousin's wedding reception.
A bit selfish of her, perhaps, but we had fun (and he got his beer).

They had their wedding in Jamaica and it looked absolutely beautiful. On a beach, in the sun. The only thing that could've made it better was a horse or two.

All of us silly little girls plan out our weddings. I don't even know why - I've never been the kind of girl who's in a hurry to get married or start a family. I don't even know if I want to start a family. Not to say I'm completely giving up on the idea, I just don't feel that that's a decision I'm ready to make nor a decision I should make on my own.

As a pretty ambitious young lady, academic-focused and career-driven, I still have my strange little domestic dreams. Like to have a giant log-style house in the forest, with 2 horses and 2 mules in the back, and to own a '67 t-top Camaro so I can make my Jeep into an honest-to-God ORV (that counts as a domestic dream, right?).

As such, I still have my dream wedding. And they pretty damn near hit the mark - a small wedding on a beach somewhere warm, or in the mountains; an exotic honeymoon; then a huge, fun reception somewhere meaningful.

And it makes me wonder - why do we have these dreams?

If I haven't made it clear, I'm not exactly the type of girl to think about this stuff. Not to say I'm not a sop and a total romantic, 'cause that'd be a lie. I'm creative and dreamy - but I've always considered men relatively disposable.

I should be careful with that, because the man I'm with is one I'm madly in love with and never ever want to lose and plan to keep for as long as he'll have me (finally one I'm willing to put effort in for and am willing to drop the walls for, that's a first).

But I was always taught that career comes before men, and that I should always be able to stand on my own two feet. And I plan to remember that - maybe less so the career comes before men, because honestly, if I'm in a happy marriage I'd keep the happy marriage over the career (oh yes, you heard me, I admitted it, love before money.). But I will always always be able to stand on my own two feet. I don't want a man I need as much as I want a man I want.

Labels: Boys, I'm Female, Work

Finally, I can breath again.

I was pretty upset yesterday when my card was rejected trying to get a Dairy Queen combo meal. Luckily my sweetheart of a boyfriend (I never told you that, he's big and manly and an asshole) was there to help me out.

Labels: Boys, Work

(Written Thursday, June 26th, 7:30 am)

This morning I braved the hell that is the Seattle public transportation system. Bravely I boarded the bus for the first time ever, over paid my fair (while everyone else had swipey cards, I want a swipey card) and was deposited downtown.

Luckily I know the area around Westlake Center and Pacific Place well, and once I made it out of the bus tunnel onto 5th and Pine I could quickly navigate to the old building on 4th Street that is the Hotel Andra.

I looked stressed enough that some nice guy said "hi" and gave me a smile, just 'cause I looked so down. The valets here are cool too. Perhaps the morning is not a total loss.

I still dislike going places without my little green Jeep, I feel incomplete.

From my phone in the lobby of the magnificent Hotel Andra, this is Shelley saying "screw you Seattle".

(Sadly, the "Publish Post" button doesn't work on my phone for some reason.)

Labels: Ramblings, Work

I should've seen it coming. I shouldn't have gotten my hopes up.

There will be no New York trip for me.

It would have been awesome - and a good learning experience - but mostly just awesome. Because I would've gotten to go to New York. No parents, just my mildly alcoholic bosses.

But, there's a conference at the Hotel Andra later this week where I get to spend a day in a fancy hotel with free catering; and get paid $15 an hour for it. Perhaps more, because it might be overtime by then.

So, really, what am I complaining about? I've got it pretty good.

Website's going to beta this week. I'm excited, all my hard work is going somewhere. It's so nice to know all the money we're spending is actually getting something done!

This is why I'm in Marketing. That's right - I spend money like it's my job. Because it is my job.

Take that accounting majors.

Labels: Work

"Hi, I'm Chad. I just wanted to let you know that we have a script over here named after your dad. So if it sounds like we're saying bad things about your dad, that's not it. We're having troubles with this script."

"Haha, okay."

"I think about it every time I say something. I don't want you to think we blame him for all our problems."

"I blame him for all my problems."

"Well, in that case, we should all do lunch sometime and talk about how he causes problems!"

I still wonder how he got his head over the cubicle wall...

Labels: Family, Work

I work at the same company as my father. How else would I have gotten my job if it weren't for Daddy the Mid-Level Project Manager/Software Architect?

His protege lives in the cube next to me. A guy named Chad who smokes cigarettes from an orange container and drives a little light blue VW Bug. They go out to lunch once a week and talk geek talk, the only language my dad knows.

Even though we work at the same company, my dad's cube is in the second building, so it's not like he's always around. This I'm thankful for, since I worked in my mom's office last year and she drove me crazy.

Finding himself in my building for meetings he dropped by my office this morning. Overrun with case summaries and stress I was a little less congenial than usual, but we still had a nice chat. As he walked away Chad said loudly, "Then there's Bruce. He always makes us work too hard and too much and gives us these crazy deadlines we could never meet." Or something to that effect.

My Dad laughed and kept walking, while Chad and his buddies resumed a much quieter conversation regarding my father's actual status in their little word. "The Sarge" they called him, a play off our last name that I have heard many times.

Maybe I'm a little more like my Daddy than I thought.

Not that we're bossy, per se, we just like to see things done when we want them to be. I'd like to think I taught him everything he knows about that.

Labels: Family, Work