Summer Projects





I have put aside many more important things this summer to try and finish up a mess / project i started last summer but did not complete. So - over the course the past 8 weekends [?] i have been trekking down to our campsite to finish the driveway. At various heavy lifting points, i have ensnared Eric and our friend Jeff to help out. We are getting close now. Our *first* 22 ton load of stone arrived and Eric and i spend a part of saturday dig-shovel-toss-spreading in order to get ready for the second [ fingers crossed we only need one more load...] This is all in effort to finish for the campground's illumination weekend coming up mid-august. rush rush. Of course - while we worked, i laughed to myself as we spread stone. Golly - where could have i gotten this event-driven-project gene from? who? My mind is just a blank. ARTHUR. MY FATHER. We have many stories from the distant past of painting-bathrooms-on-Christmas-eve and 22 tons of stone arrving in the backyard shortly before sibling's weddings... I just hope Eric decides to put up with it....

New Gig [lonnnng blab......]

A couple of people have been asking about my current employment gig. As some may recall, I started working as a Kitchen Designer at Lowes back in February. I had been talking about working for Lowes or home Depot since I was laid off from Xerox. I know that aspiring to a retail job is a bit offbeat - but during my house remodel - I was at one or the other [ or both] at least once a day. I figured - if I stayed a couple of hours, i could get a paycheck, a discount and save some gas money along the way. Lowes had been very helpful during my remodeling. I pestered their flooring guys ALOT. Not every employee at those stores knows alot, but if you find the right ones - they can be very helpful. SO - the idea was work at [Lowes] and find something to rehab and work the discount to the max. I have worked retail before, I know the demeaning beat. Crappy hours, Management by idiots and daily anarchy. I thought that with the idea that i was there by choice and actually being creative -[ i love kitchens..btw...] I could rise above or be insulated from it.

[ insert laugh track here..]

NO SUCH LUCK. After my first 6 weeks of some very stressful fly-by-the-seat training in kitchen design sales and some very positive feedback from my sales manager, associates and customers, I was walked into the office by another manager and told flatly that there was no budget for me to remain in kitchen [ 7 minutes after the sales manager said i had a great first month!] and i was to be moved to plumbing.

Plumbing.

The black hole of Lowes. I knew squat of plumbing and was now about to be one of those idiot employees who knew nothing about what they were selling. GREAT. I was quite taken aback, but did manage to say that "the crash training was stressful" and i expected better if I was moved.
"Sure" "OF course" "two weeks at another store before you start...." yada yada yada.

So - predictably, I was dropped in plumbing 2 weeks later like a wet sandbag. Meanwhile, I had a operations manager who considered me an F#&$%K up and never has anything positive to say to me. Talk about ruining your mood. And day. And week.

And here I thought I was sorta smart and stuff....Masters degree, shiny thesis, a couple of US patents.... And I was right back to 1983, 16 years old and my [former felon] Burger King manager berating me.

Talk about a tailspin. Eric told me just to quit. Which i could have. But leaving without a backup just would have made things worse in my mind.

So - sorta fast forward to May. One month since the store grand opening, store moral dropped through the floor and fellow employees who had options - were leaving... quickly.

Go figure - treat employees like they are a commodity..and .... [ you can the insert logic here... ]
[ and then mail it to Lowes please.] It will be news to them....

I, in the interim, am getting written up for 11 minutes of overtime and as well as spending my "training time" out in lawn and garden sweeping up leaky mulch bags.

Gotta be a team player.

Meanwhile - i get a note on my LinkedIn profile. [ i never expected it to do anything for me...]
a recruiter I spoke with in December says a client I interviewed with in December wants to talk to me RIGHT NOW. errr... OK - so after a little scrambling to actually finish my website - I head in for a 3.5 hour interview and TA DAH I started at WelshAllyn the following monday.

WelshAllyn is a medical device company in upstate NY about 25 minutes from here. I am the UI designer at the company now working on 3 projects, a computer workstation software and 2 touchscreen projects. When I left Xerox - I really thought i was doen with the UI stuff. But I am finding it all interesting. ....And get this.... people are glad I am there! Go figure! I walked into a meeting the other day and a coworker says "Thank god you're here" AND They think my previous experience is valuable. Quite a contrast to Lowes - i think my managers thought i just got out high school... or something..or whatever..... they never really cared or asked.

:O)

I have had several other positive comments like this since I started - which has gone a long way to help the mood. I am hoping by next year - i will have forgotten the Lowes trauma. Meanwhile - Eric and I have our weekends back and I managed to book the entire summer's worth already. Stay tuned for pics!