The emails are coming in. People seem concerned at the long silence.
My apologies. Not dead--just busy. Working for Gidget as new clients keep coming on board, struggling through end of month reporting for the 'Nuts, facing yet another 'Nut News deadline, and a touch of food poisoning (Monday and yesterday) that just had me feeling ick.
So, on a more (or maybe less, take your pick) cheerful note, what's new at the Argonut Café? Well, I'm still light on gossip because I never know what's going on, but Gidget* attended a party of Vela's a couple of weeks ago and found out that our controller, Fun Bobby, is seeking new employment. Rats deserting the sinking ship* * is one thing, but when the Money Man starts packing for an exit, that's pretty serious.
NewBoss Anais came to my desk to talk about the S'Swest 'Nut and his Nor'East 'NutNeighbor and I told her, "I'll do whatever you decide. I'm over those two." And she said, "I'm over them too.
The S'Swest 'Nut (see June 10 entry for a reminder of this situation) actually let me manage his campaign for two whole weeks before he made me shut it down because it "wasn't doing anything." (Apparently improving performance by 400% in two weeks is nothing.) Now he and his his Nor'East 'NutNeighbor are being forced (by Jason) back into a marketing marriage and since they're both more interested in blocking the other's business than they are in getting leads for themselves, I'm doubly over them.
Y'all remember PeaNut? Well, add PeaNut's name to the list o'Nuts who are taking our toys and going off to play by themselves. For those of you keeping score, that's four locations who have quite illegally taken our (comprehensive) training and our business model and gone off on their own, leaving tens of thousands of dollars of debt owed to the Argonut Café. PeaNut, if gossip is correct, owes more like hundreds of thousands.
Anyhow. I don't have massive plans for the upcoming long weekend. I'll probably work on Gidget's campaigns all day Friday, by way of a change from working on 'Nut campaigns. At some point, I plan to go out to lunch (a usual "payday weekend" treat. And I indulged myself in a little Amazon.com splurge, so I have two new seasons of Corner Gas* * * to watch. (Hooray!)
Aside from that, I'm just plodding through the days.
Sneaking in bits and pieces of extra work for Gidget during the day as she continues to find herself unable to tell Vela, "You gave me $400 and then turned around and handed me a $4000 job. This does not entitle you to $4000 worth of our time."
Forcing myself to the computer at home late in the evenings to slip in the odd half hour or hour of work on Gidget's campaigns. I really should put in at least 16 hours a week on them. There are eighteen of them now. I mean, the 34 'Nut campaigns require about 50 hours a week, at a minimum, and they're not "new" and in need of major adjustments on the fly. I do have evenings and weekends, of course, but I'm having a certain amount of difficulty making myself put in the time. I may have to allocate an hour or two a day, as soon as I get home in the evenings, before I have a chance to get too relaxed.
As much as I love Gidget, I have to admit that money is part of the issue. Carving 16 hours a week out of my "free time" for the grand sum of $100 a month doesn't excite me. I know we're currently on "introductory" terms with these two new clients, but I had a heart-to-heart talk with her about charging people for what a service is worth.
"Start as you mean to go on, because you never get a second chance to lay the right foundation."
It seems to me that I can hear the echo of my voice saying that over and over and over again but no one listens.
Anyhow. Short week and I just lost 30 minutes of it typing this, so I'd better get back to analyzing data.
________________
* Gidget, frighteningly enough, got the flu last week. And now her doctors are saying there's "something wrong" but that they don't know what it is. She's got me, her family all worried again. Months have gone by but she cannot be said to be actually "out of the woods" yet.
* * The rat in this case is me. I'd desert if I could get out of here.
* * * The RC finally expressed a mild interest in seeing the show and I showed her the first episode last night. She wasn't impressed.
I don't think I never figured out how to describe it to her. It's sort of like Andy Griffith only Canada instead of the US and for the 21st century. Gentle, you know? Edgier than AG (my Favorite Show Ever) because it's a more sophisticated world, but the same, essential gentleness. Possibly she was expecting that something would, I don't know. Explode. Or at least happen. It's very much character-driven, and you have to give a show like that some time.
I was looking at some of the 'Nut campaigns I haven't touched yet this week, but I can't muster up any enthusiasm for writing another six dozen ads, five and a half dozen of which will fail because the websites don't have the content necessary to support the advertising.
I've been worrying about the panic attacks (arguably an improvement over having panic attacks) and reminding myself to call the doctor's office when they open, to schedule my physical. I also need to call HairMan in a couple of hours and get an appointment to get my roots touched up.
I'm making a lot of ommm and telling myself I don't care. I'm over it. I'll do whatever they tell me they want me to do, regardless of my personal feeling about how stupid it is. Caring just isn't worth it. (In the matter of intellect, the difference between an Argonut and the Indian that stands in front of the cigar shop is not spacious.* So, why fight it?)
From whence, you might ask, comes this apathy? Well, it's not apathy. It's--well, I guess it's self-interest. Having found out yesterday evening that someone I know passed away this weekend after a sudden, massive heart attack, I've decided that life is for living, not for beating yourself up over other people's ignorance.* *
Also, I'm kind of down. I didn't see Stuart often or talk with him frequently, but he was, inexplicably, one of the people who mattered. Warm, generous, funny, snarky--he had all the best qualities. The world is less sparkly without him.
I'm going to focus on the fun in life for a while. Because that's the kind of thing he would have approved of.
__________________
* Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offences (M. Twain) - paraphrase
* * Like second-hand smoke, I suspect that second-hand stress can kill you.
Posted by AnneZook at 09:17 AM | Comments (1)Just talked to a New'Nut, who said, and I quote, "It never occurred to us to go out and find customers.
Posted by AnneZook at 04:13 PM | Comments (2)The circus. I sweartogod, I'm running away to join the circus.
This morning, one nitwit 'Nut got snippy with me because he's in Kentucky and he can't claim a Webstrainer local mapping listing for a city in Tennessee. Apparently the concept of "local" is too hard to understand.
The S'SWest 'Nut was unsatisfied with the report I ran demonstrating that his campaign is pulling three times the traffic of his Nor'East 'NutNeighbor's campaign. He was unsatisfied with the report I ran showing that, during the five morning hours when he claims his ads do not show, he receives over 30% of his daily ad shows. He was unsatisfied with the report I ran showing that quality issues, most of which could be easily fixed are the root of his problem. He was, in fact, positively belligerent.
And, in spite of (very) grudgingly giving me a week to produce a series of miracles, he was back today, less than twenty-four hours later, threatening legal action if, as near as I can tell, we don't change reality to suit him.
MadBoy, still unhappy with the performance of his campaign that is now under outside agency management is nevertheless blaming us for his unhappiness. Yesterday and today, he's been screaming into our email about how his 'NutNeighbor's campaign is stealing his traffic. He asked an incomplete question of some random Webstrainer person he got in touch with and got a misleading answer--one that served to reinforce his belief that we are deliberately trashing his life.
NewBoss Anais, in spite of my hissy fit when she mentioned it, forced me to actually call our Webstrainer rep and ask if reality can be changed for these two lu'Nutics. (I mean, how humiliating is that? Who makes someone call an "expert" to ask if C is part of ABC?)
"Don't feed the bears," I told NewBoss Anais. "If you do, they'll never leave. They just keep coming back, getting meaner and meaner."
While agreeing with me, she still made me call.
I know she doesn't mean to diss me by making me get "expert" advice to prove that I know what I'm talking about, but it's still very demeaning.
Also? So embarrassing. There was no way to disguise from our Webstrainer rep that I was being made to call and ask her to alter reality. I did try, but at one point, she told me how sorry she was that I was having to deal with all of it, so it's pretty clear she understood what was going on. In response to my request. She was also flatteringly grateful to find that I'm still here. (She's had to conference in with 'Nuts before and has few illusions.)
Yesterday's wig-out might have had one positive result. This morning, NewBoss Anais told me that Jason was calling the S'SWest 'Nut, telling him that it's clear that separate campaigns are not working, and that he and his Nor'East 'NutNeighbor have to annul their (marketing) divorce and bring all their toys back to one sandbox.
Also, NewBoss Anais swears that they have a company hired to do some of this, one that will start on July 1. And an individual to replace our lost web design/tech person. And two companies who will sell the 'Nuts leads, which will hopefully keep them busy enough to shut them up.
The way this week is going? July 1 will be too late. Yesterday's panic attack happened at 2:00 pm. Today's symptoms kicked in at 11:00 am. Tomorrow's will probably commence the second my alarm goes off in the morning.
Gidget and Vela cancelled for lunch today. Vela is apparently so socially popular and active she can't make lunch for two or three more weeks. Gidget and I are getting together next week. (No word on whether or not Lina accepted Gidget's invitation at all.)
Fortunately, I have friends who are better to me than I am to them and, if I can survive until Monday, are going to help me with that talking down off the ledge thing.
Also, I have a NewBoss who saw through my feeble protestations about Fatness and who is going to provide me with almond M&Ms one day soon. :D
___________________
P.S. Sadly, NewBoss Anais also confirmed, in no uncertain terms, that they have no plans to lay me off at all. My vague vision of a summer funded by unemployment checks has evaporated.
Posted by AnneZook at 03:31 PM | Comments (2)Right now, the biggest trouble with being Me is that there is no one I can call and scream, "Talk me down off the ledge!" at.
I might just sit here and have a quiet heart attack or, as I threatened to NewBoss Anais this morning, I might run away to join the circus.
I know--generally I have a joke about it all, but for the last couple of months, my stress levels have been climbing daily. So much so that I'm now back to having at least one interval every day where I sit here and feel my heart pounding, wondering if I'm going to make it. It's starting to be harder to find any funny.
As you will realize, at least in hindsight, my increasingly frequent references to weekend shopping sprees signal a return to Retail Therapy. I've gained another 1-1/2 lbs. I can't get out of bed in the mornings because I sit up so late at night--reluctant to go to sleep so that I have to wake up to face another day.
Anyhow.
Today, it's both the S'SWest 'Nut and MadBoy. I won't bore you with the details, just assume it's more of the same.
Mostly, I'm just sitting here at the moment.
You know. Breathing. Doing a little ommmm.
Reminding myself that Big Girls Don't Cry.
Sigh.
Honestly, I just can't afford to lose an hour a day to stress. I already had to spend an unanticipated six hours (out of the last two work days) working on the S'SWest 'Nut's campaign, so I'm already behind schedule for the week.
Make people not be so stupid, okay?
Posted by AnneZook at 02:36 PM | Comments (2)I'm starting to feel a little bruised.
Last week's S'SouthWest 'Nut (the one who thought his Nor'east 'NutNeighbor's ads were stealing from him)? Well, he's back. And, no surprise, last week's round of ill-advised changes to his campaign did not fix the basic quality problems. ('X' was broken. He changed 'Y'. This, essentially, exacerbated the problem.)
While still preferring to believe that some mysterious something elsewhere in the universe was ultimately responsible, he nevertheless agreed to NewBoss Anais's suggestion that he turn his campaign back over to us here at the Argonut Café, to see what we could do with it.
She came to my desk and told me to get started working on fixing the issues ASAP. So, I did.
And hour later, he was on the phone with her again, complaining that I was making changes and he didn't know why I was changing what I was changing. He wanted to be informed.
With me so far?
He still wanted to be informed, she asked me to call him, I did. And--wait for it--big surprise coming--he didn't want to "be informed" so much as he wanted to fight.
"I'm not getting any traffic, my changes were fabulous but now my campaign doesn't work, you want to undo my changes but it's just your opinion that that will help and I disagree, someone has to help me and it has to be now because I can't wait a month, isn't it true that Webstrainer likes my Nor'east 'NutNeighbor better and he has a better area and so I'm going down in flames no matter what I do, what are you going to do and where is my guarantee that it's going to work, what makes you say my quality is worse than my Nor'east 'NutNeighbor's and don't quote me statistics because those are just numbers and I want to ask a Webstrainer employee directly why my campaign is broken because I need to talk to someone who understands these things, you don't know this but six years ago when I had five times the territory, I ran perfect campaign for forty-two cents a day so clearly I am the expert and you're ignorant and I've never liked you." At various points in time, he point-blank refused to believe in reality.
Once he got a significant amount of that out of his system, two things became clear.
#1 His idea of Doing It Myself was predicated on the expectation that I was handing him a 100% functional campaign that would run by itself.
#2 Failing that, if he could make me describe everything I was doing and planning to do--he would essentially get a free How To course while remaining free to describe me, to the 'Nut network at large, as incompetent.
_______________________
P.S. MadBoy called today as well, but he called NewBoss Anais, not me. Cursing name-calling, abusive. His old charming self. He was pitching a fit because he hasn't received a lead in a week. Checking his campaign, I was able to provide NewBoss Anais with a potential cause for this problem. His campaign has been shut off for the last week.
Posted by AnneZook at 04:28 PM | Comments (4)I've spent a lot of time missing opportunities to go out and frolic with friends in the last five months.
Partly, I blame Rapunzel, as I said once before. She recommended a new DS game to me last fall, Santa brought it to me for Christmas, and it ate my brain for the next few months. (Not the least because the buggy game file has crashed on me four times, forcing me to start over from the beginning.)
That's the sort of thing I do when life gets stressful. It used to be nothing but books--I'd go live in fictional or historical worlds when life got tough. For the last few years, the GameBoy has been right up there as one of my favorite hide-outs.
The point is that I realized, last week that it was June.
I mean, it's summer!
I have practically no memory of the past five months. It's all a sad-colored blur of work-related freak-outs and endless hours staring at a 2"x3" game screen, pretending that the biggest problem in life was keeping my cows happy.
This must cease. As the R.C. and I have been discussing for the past couple of weeks, we stepped back on the "career" ladder, taking lower-level jobs for (a lot) less money, to eliminate work stress and to help cure ourselves of workaholicism.
Gradually, I find myself sliding back into the bad old ways.
Granted, staying at the office for an extra hour a day to work on my free-lance projects (a tactic I decided on last night) isn't a sign of the apocalypse, and granted that working 4-5 hours a week to get a new business going is incredibly minimal, and granted that with the Six Month Frugality Plan still in place, evening and weekend amusements would still be limited to those things costing little or no money, but still. June!
By gosh, I decided, it's time to Get Out and enjoy summer as it arrives!
So, this weekend the R.C. and I went Out. And, yes, we Shopped. I am the proud possessor of a new beigey-champagne jacket and a complementary necklace and earring. And a shirt for weekend wear.
I'm lunching with Gidget and Vela and another former member of Team Chaos, Lina, on Wednesday. She's one of the Fortunate Few who has already found new gainful employment. I'm going to wow them with my muted but stylish ensemble.
And, as if to emphasize that Life Is For Living and that golden days and opportunities pass if we don't take advantage of them? The outdoor/walking mall we visited on Saturday we all-but plowed under by a tornado on Sunday, including massive damage to the one store we spent the most time (and money) in. (Okay, maybe not plowed under, but certainly extensively tilled.)*
It was quite a storm yesterday. About a mile from where I live, they had egg-sized hail. Fortunately we didn't quite get that. We had--not pea-sized but let's say lima-bean sized pellets. Although, they could have been larger before they landed. I was giving thanks for the carport as the hail pounded down so hard it broke on impact against the parking lot asphalt.
Yesterday I put a snap on a jacket, tightened the buttons on two shirts, hemmed a pair of pants, did a couple of loads of laundry, took out the trash, ironed, made a big pot o'soup, ran the dishwasher, did some work for Gidget, and (so embarrassing) spent at least six hours staring at a 2x3 screen, trying to make my cows happy. I'm starting to wonder if I have a problem. Maybe there's a 12-step program for recovering gameaholics?
____________________
* That's the second time that's happened to me, that a store I was shopping at was destroyed by a tornado a few hours later. Very peculiar.
It's always the one day when you forget to check your email first thing in the morning that you find one of those "come and see me" emails from Upper Level Management waiting for you, isn't it? And then, when you finally notice that you have an email from ULM, you go to their office and someone else is already in there, right? And then you sit at your desk for the next 45 minutes, wondering what in the heck is going on and who's complaining about you now.
That was how my week started.
Anyhow. Turns out that one of the Southern'Nuts had called, convinced that the 'Nut on the other side of town was stealing his business by encroaching on his Webstrainer campaign. But he didn't call me with this (idiotic) complaint. No, that would have been too sensible. After all, I'm the person who handles the Webstrainer campaigns, including the one in question, and the one who works on them every day. Asking me a question would be just stupid. No, this 'Nut contacted Jason directly.
Hey, he whined. My Nor'east 'NutNeighbor's ads are trumping mine online! Clearly he went into his campaign and told Webstrainer to take all my leads! Anne's supposed to be watching this! When did she last check it?
So stupid. Who calls the president of a company asking how recently some low-level employee has completed a routine task?
Story so boring even I don't care cut short--he's a DIY 'Nut--he chose to manage his own campaign, beginning the first of last month. I went and looked at his campaign. It took ten seconds for me to figure out the "problem."
Someone else isn't deliberately encroaching on his territory--he's made such an unholy, gross mess out of his campaign that Webstrainer has just pretty much opted out of showing his ads.
Like PeaNut from earlier entries, he couldn't wait to destroy a campaign I spent a year building, testing, and refining. And then he couldn't wait to blame someone else.
Cause and effect, people. If you make 500 changes one day, and the next day, your campaign seems broken? Maybe it was your changes and not someone somewhere else in the world sneaking in to your campaign and "breaking" it.
You know what I like? I mean, even aside from getting blamed for people somewhere else doing something I have no control over? I like working with a bunch of people, none of whom have the slightest concept of the basics, much less the nuances and complexities, of marketing, but who nevertheless have the power of 100% veto each and every step of the process.
TGIF
It's aggravating when you get a Bad Moment in the middle of what should be a triumph, isn't it?.
I'm just, you know, over breaking my heart for this place. It's hard to keep caring. You've all heard my endless whining about ingratitude and stupidity, so I won't repeat that particular theme today. Instead, I'll offer a variation.
Three locations have closed in the past three weeks. Two were owned by one pair o'nuts and the other by a hitherto unmentioned she'Nut. In both cases, I've been beating my head against the wall for a year trying to find business and drive it to these people. No matter what I drove, they just were getting enough "good" leads to keep the bills paid.
Or, so they said. Just now, I was told that these Bad 'Nuts did not, in fact, "fail" due to lack of business.
No, in fact, they seem to have had an abundance of business. So much so that they decided they would be better off taking their little gold mines and running away from the home office. Each of these former 'Nuts has, in complete violation of their non-compete agreements, reinvented themselves as a competing, stand-alone businesses.
And, yes, they left owing us here at home tens of thousands of dollars.
The pair o'Nuts are suspected of having spent the last six months funneling money into a sekrit account, while crying poverty and not paying us their contractual fees.
The she'Nut actually declared herself bankrupt--but not until a month after she incorporated her new business (operating out of the same physical location) and moved all of her assets over to it. About all she left in the old 'Nut business was her debt to us and now, via bankruptcy, she's asking the courts to absolve her of having to pay it.
Why do I even bother?
Although this is a unique situation, I honestly do feel, much of the time, as though I've spent most of my business life enriching people who subsequently pack up and move on without so much as a good-bye wave.
I was already in a funk today. It's month-end reporting and for the first time since I wandered into the Argonut Café--sixteen months ago--leads were flat last month from the same time last year. That's the first time I haven't delivered an increase.
I had a different sort of a weekend.
In an attempt to achieve 150% on their approval ratings* The Bates Motel, the RC's new employer, offered staff member f&f ** a free night's stay (and a meal, of course) if they'd come, check the place out, interact with the staff, and report back on any inadequacies. I volunteered to play.
Sadly, the RC is very popular with the handful of Managerial Type she supports. I say "sadly" because, no doubt in an attempt to be very, very nice to her f&f, they upgraded me to the Skyway--the nosebleed floor of the Motel where you find such things as the presidential suite and the speshul sekrit concierge club available only to those willing to fork out beaucoup bucks to keep from having to rub elbows with the hoi polloi.
The thing is, you see, in a place that considers outstanding service and amenities to be the starting point for how they operate on a daily business? Once you hit the Skyway level, there are just no inadequacies to report.
I did try. The free food in the speshul sekrit club, I decided, was not precisely hot either of the times I tried it. (Okay, I didn't expect the smoked salmon to be hot. Nor the cheese, although they could have made an effort with the brie--something approaching room temperature would have been enough. But the gourmet pizza should have been at least warm when I bit into it.)
The name tags, I fretted, needed to be bigger. I was supposed to identify the staff members I interacted with, but I draw the line at staring fixedly at women's chests. That's probably not something a "normal" guest would think about, though.
Someone in the restaurant was wearing pants with a raggedy hem and they delivered the wrong newspaper on Sunday morning. That's it. It took me two hours to come up with that much.
I'm not sure the Managerial Types are going to consider that kind of feedback a good return on the rather pricey room bill.
I'm sorry. The big-screen television worked perfectly, the oversized bathroom with separate tub and shower stalls was immaculate, the pillows heaped on the bed were fluffy. I took white socks and walked around the hotel room in them and they did not turn black, so the carpet was clean. The turn-down service was prompt and courteous. All the staff members I interacted with were helpful and smiling--they all looked like they were actually happy to be there.
Did I mention I fell in love? I dined in the restaurant after sampling the lukewarm hors-d'voures--dev'rous--dev'rous--snacks in the speshul sekrit club. Good ambiance, great food, and the cutest little server boy twinkling at me over my modest glass of iced tea and my Caesar salad.
Seriously, I could have just wrapped him up and taken him home with me. He was that delicious. (That's how the server in the restaurant became "someone" with a raggedy hem. At one point, I saw her nametag, but no strange woman's name is going to linger in my mind after I've been grinned at by a sexy guy.***)
Anyhow. Should I ever do such a thing again, I'm going to find a way to make myself a little less pleasant. I'll be a Problem Guest of some kind. You really need to make waves (or at least a few ripples) to find out how deep "great service" goes.
______________________
* Can I just say how much I'd like to work for a company that considers excellence to be the starting point?
* * friends and family
*** Yes, okay, he was mostly just angling for a good tip because I'm old but it was dim in there and I look younger in a dim light and anyhow I'm perfectly happy to hand an attractive man an extra buck or two if he smiles at me with any degree of sincerity.
Posted by AnneZook at 10:23 AM | Comments (4)Via email, the L-i-K-S gave me to understand that my incoherent rants about the stupidity of the 'Nuts and the insanity of the Argonut Café in general have been--well, incoherent.
Brief recap, for those not following along at home:
April -08 Two Café employees leave (one from my department). Management proves strangely slow about replacing them. Remaining staff parcel out duties (I am awarded the 'NutNews) and life continues much as before.
Jul-08 Jason decides he needs "experts" to implement the marketing changes described in Gidget's Next Level Plan, so he outsources. (He apparently feels that she is smart enough to teach him what needs to be done, but not smart enough to actually do it.) $40k, paid in advance, for new content. (New content subsequently rejected as "not working" although never actually used.)
Aug-08 For reasons I still don't understand, six months later, TeamChaos decides that the company providing 50% of all of our sales leads, across the entire company, is outrageous in increasing the cost-per-lead by $1. TeamChaos cancels the contract. The lead flow (costing approximately 25% of what we pay for leads from every other source) ceases. Two weeks later, the 'Nuts Afield begin complaining about the drop in leads received.
Oct-08 Jason decides that in-house location sales should be outsourced. New company hired ($35k, IIRC, paid in advance) but since the affected ChaosManager is on maternity leave, her position is safe and her salary continues. (60 days later, outsource company informs us that there's no market for our product and, one assumes, laughs all the way to the bank.)
Nov-08 During the Regularly Scheduled Monthly Meeting, TeamChaos stresses the "hard times" motif, blaming the economy, and discusses, in detail, cost-saving measures. We are informed of a change in health care coverage, the new plan being about 80% as good as the previous, only adequate plan. And that we are now all required to contribute toward the cost of our health care from now on.
Dec-08 First round of layoffs. Gidget goes, leaving this department 40% down on staff and 75% down on knowledge, company history, and job expertise. Simultaneously, 50% of the revenue-generating positions in the home office are eliminated. Apparently, making money costs too much. Less happy, but still cooperative, the remaining staff parcel out duties and start cramming in the hours.
Jan-09 During RSMM, the "hard times" motif reappears. We are all informed that we must take a 15% pay cut and extra duties. (I take on no additional tasks. Any spare energy I have is tied up in survivor's guilt around being employed while Gidget, who got me the job, is out of work. Which, in turn, is exacerbated by the news of Gidget's near-demise and continuing serious health problems.) (Also, Jason dreams up a truly catastrophic new approach to making money and it sucks down all of my and Vela's time for the next six weeks.)
Mar-09 After spending tens of thousands on the all-new, poorly conceived, badly designed plan to generate revenue for no cost and no effort--a plan doomed to failure and which would have enriched everyone's life had Jason just burned the money and saved us the stress--the remaining home office revenue-generating positions are eliminated, including the national sales person who was bringing on a new national account every month. Half of TeamChaos also gets the boot.
And, not incidentally, I get the boot, except I get a two-week grace period so they can actually transition my job to, well, someone who knows how. Because it finally occurs to Jason that some kind of proven sales lead generation could be considered a good thing.
In the meantime, Gidget is climbing back toward reasonable (not "good") health and starts interviewing potential clients. She signs one and I start helping her out in my spare time. Mostly just advice and consulting.
Apr-09 My lay-off is confirmed but my two weeks is extended to six weeks, due largely to protests filed by 'Nuts Afield. Many of them who complained loudly about my work over the last year now decide I am the Bee's Knees and the Cat's Pajamas.
Gidget signs another client and seven locations need campaigns created and activated.
May 09 Although confirming my lay-off, in the latter days of last month, my two weeks is extended early this month, at the annual conference. The lay-off is not cancelled - it's just that the effective date is now "indefinite."
I neither hear the announcement nor receive from Jason the invitation to chat about it that he promised NewBoss Anais he would deliver. In fact, he is clearly avoiding me as the month goes on. NewBoss Anais confirms that they continue to interview replacement companies to handle all the (as it turns out) necessary work formerly done by the now-defunct marketing department.
Gidget requests campaigns for another five locations and, unable to watch her struggle with the job, I also take on the management of fifteen active accounts.
Later in the month, after pricing what it would cost to replace me, my ChaosManager tells me I am fabulous and asks me to remain indefinitely, providing caviare-level service at my current pigs-knuckle salary.
*cough* Sorry. Ranty today.
The L-i-K-S also said that Rapunzel is feeling sick. Poor girl. Take a moment to send her some healthy vibes, okay?
This weekend I had occasion to go in and try to clean out my email inbox. I found an invitation to a party from a friend who is now probably former and who will never speak to me again. I found a notice telling me I owed a tenner to the guy who won the basketball brackets thing I was involved in, what was it, two months ago? I found a form from my insurance agent that I was grateful to realize had not gone unsigned and unsent. I found coupons for bookstores, invitations to shop at sales, demands that I protest this or that government (or opposition) idiocy. I found interesting conversations I could have participated in. I could have connected with people via twitter, linked in, blog, journal, or forum. There was information I promised friends that I never sent, lists I mean to resign from still sending me mail, and causes I would have donated to if I'd seen the notices in time.
I have got to get a better handle on my life.
I've been making a point of popping into NewBoss Anais's office two or three times a week, just to keep her up to date on what I'm doing and what issues I'm facing. And to tell her, over and over, that to do Webstrainer correctly, it has to be all I do. That's usually right before I forward her an email or tell her about some voicemail I received from a 'Nut that someone--not me--needs to deal with.
I may have to stop visiting her. When I popped in a few minutes ago, she looked a little wild around the eyes. (Hey, it's not my fault that the entire marketing department, including everyone who knew all about everything we were into, got laid off and all she has left is me.)
Tommie the Temp has been freelancing for us for four or five years. We rely on him. Or, rather, we relied on him. Because he graduated last week, already has a shiny new full-time job, and no longer considers $12 an hour exciting money.
NewBoss Anais has asked me, three times in three different ways, if I'm sure I couldn't do Tommie's tasks. And I've been honest with her. Some of it is not outside my capabilities. But it's an issue of time.
I have to focus on what I'm doing.
Which brings us around to the Potential Smartness of Me. Because it turns out that the money we spent for SEO (search engine optimization) efforts last fall was wasted--I've been told that management never got the new webpages live. Which, in turn, means that the phenomenal quadrupling-quintupling-sextupling (is that a word?) of our campaign quality scores is solely the result of my efforts over the last year.
Finally! Being obsessive-compulsive pays off!
Boy, am I glad to have a three-day weekend.
______________________________
P.S. Update to the PeaNut story!
Turns out that PeaNut was so desperate to get access to that stats package because he busted his campaign while "doing it myself" and was determined to find out what I had done to it before I turned it over to him. He clearly suspected deliberate sabotage.
Bottom line, one day, in pursuit of total insanity, he sat down and dumped his vocabulary into his campaign. As near as I can tell, every word he'd ever heard, aside from articles and pronouns. Consequently, he was spending his daily budget in four hours every day, and getting nothing for it. Instead of seeing any kind of cause and effect (yesterday I did "A" and today I see "B") ?
He chose to decide that a change I'd made for him the week before (and at his request) was the problem.
The lengths to which people will go not to be "wrong" astound me. I mean, all he had to do was to keep his mouth shut and fix his mistakes and no one would ever have known. But that would have meant admitting, at least to himself, that he had made mistakes.
What a loser.
In today News of 'Nut Insanity, we have PeaNut. PeaNut is one of the luNUTics who decided to "do it myself" when it came to managing their campaign. Today he's bitching because a stats package isn't properly directed to the (nonstandard) website he's chosen to use and claiming he needs this done instantly because he needs "real time reporting" for campaign management.
You would be proud of me. I just emailed back to him that I would pass his request to NewBoss Anais.
I did not point out that reporting in Webstrainer runs about 3 hours behind "real time" (as per the note on the front page of his campaign). I did not point out that reporting on the Webstrainer stats program runs as much as 24 hours behind "real time" (as per the note on the front page of his campaign).
I did not even point out the complete insanity of sitting hunched over your keyboard, mouse at the ready, waiting breathlessly for something to happen so you can make a change.
I mean, I'd heard through the grapevine that MadBoy (or his "I took a four-hour class and now I'm an expert" offspring) was spending "hours and hours a day" on "managing" his campaign, but I swear, I had no idea that the rot was so pervasive. I now have this image of all of the DIY 'Nuts all neglecting their businesses for the pleasure of staring at a (largely) unchanging screen of data hour after hour, determined to prove that "any idiot can do it."
(Speaking of MadBoy, I glanced at his overall stats as I scrolled down the account list this morning. He's still spending a lot of money and getting nothing in return. If that's how success is measured, someone should have told me. I could have done that.)
One of the Local 'Nuts is coming in today for a "surprise" award of some kind. I forgot, so I didn't dress for it. (I look fine - I'm just not dressed up.) This week, I'm largely focused on finding those items in my wardrobe that are appropriate for high summer temperatures. Some kind of inversion-front-thingamajig seems to have settled over Denver and temperatures are forecast to be close to 90.
I mention that by way of explaining that sitting in a building cooled by central air is, some days, something of an offset for the pain of all the 'Nuttery.
In the meantime, I have Good News I'd like to shout about, and there's no one available. Gidget is offline, and she's the only one who would really understand what a triumph this is. Even NewBoss Anais, who doesn't really understand but who is really good at faking interest, is in a meeting.
Brief background. Webstrainer assigns "quality scores" to the words you advertise with. 8-10 is Great. 5-7 is OK, with 5-6 being on the pathetic, get a life side of the scale. Below that? Google wants you to go away.
The goal is a Perfect 10, of course, but this place hasn't had a lot of experience with perfection, and no one ever seemed to care.
Improvement isn't easy--it's not just the words you choose, it's the ads you write and the web pages you link to (and how often you update said pages). When I drifted into the Argonut Café, most of their quality scores were sevens, with a sprinkling of 4-6 scores and the occasional 8 or 9, just to tease.
I whined at the rest of the department until I got them to make occasional updates to the website. We did some SEO, fell in line with some "best practices" measures, I increased bids drastically, I deleted poorly scored words when no one was watching, and, starting in January, started ruthlessly replacing poorly performing ads after giving them a week or so to prove themselves.
Today, I weep to report that I logged into one account and found fourteen words tagged with quality scores of 10. Fearing an anomaly, I logged into a different account and found thirty-two words with sparkling Perfect 10 scores.
There's no one here to care. Sigh.
Posted by AnneZook at 12:29 PM | Comments (0)I'm developing some kind of new--not exactly an ailment or a condition, but a thing. I'm calling it Mouse Heel. I spend so much time using the mouse in this job that I swear the heel of my right hand is developing a slight callous. It's very peculiar.
More 'NutNews dinking around today.
I am having my passive-aggressive revenge on NewBoss Anais, for not rewriting the piece o'crud she grabbed from someone's website. She said it was good "as it is." So, I put it in the 'NutNews just like it was. Three font colors, bolding, underlining, twisted syntax and all. (You understand, there's a 50-50 chance that neither she nor Daenna, the other surviving member of TeamChaos and the one actually overseeing the 'NutNews these days, will see anything wrong with it.)
The weekend approaches! Without those interminable and abusive NIMO meetings, Fridays are once again a thing of joy. I don't have major plans for the weekend--much depends on the weather. Forecasts vary wildly. Sometimes they promise us our seventh (or is it eighth?) weekend of rain in a row. At other moments, they speak blithely of sunshine and temperatures around 70.
Right now, I'm seeing a 20% chance of rain here on the Front Range and a high of 67. In the mountains, a 40% chance of rain and a high around 48.
Yes, the weather matters. One inexpensive and fun weekend thing to do here is to take yourself up to some mountainous area and walk for a couple of hours or more. Since it can snow at any season in the mountains, the weather forecast is important, okay?
New toys! I indulged myself in a new lipstick last weekend. It's a "lip stain" designed to keep color on your lips long after traditional lipsticks have gone the way of the dodo. I remembered to try it this morning and I'm pleased to be able to announce that now, two hours, two cups of coffee, and an egg later, the color remains! It's very exciting. It would be more exciting if they'd had a color I felt was actually becoming to me, but whatever.
No, I shouldn't be frittering away money on things like that, but after 14 solid months of dumping pretty much every spare dime I had into paying down that credit card balance, I'm seeing a tiny bit of light at the end of the tunnel. I think it's going to my head. To keep myself under control, I logged in to my credit card account this morning and dumped half my current cash assets (not a large sum of money) in as an "extra" payment.
___________________
P.S. Before I could get this posted, the first draft of edits on the 'NutNews came back. With that one gross mess of an article extensively edited. Sadly, it was edited in the same color of font the original article featured, so I'm having a little difficulty telling the edits, comments, and changes, from the original text.
I stomped into Daenna's office and told her that I'm not getting any younger, the she's wasting precious hours of my life I will never get back, and that it's a lot easier to do this stuff right the first time.
It's 'NutNews time again. As usual, I'm trying, but failing, to do the coding without actually reading the content. (I mean, forget wars and bank collapses and the infrastructure crumbling around us. We have got to do something about our schools.)
Jason's annual Argonut Address almost put me to sleep. I've never read prose so labored--not even my own when I'm trying my hardest. Among other things, it seems clear that our Jason was terrorized by a comma as a child. Or maybe just by a native English speaker.
There is one article, about a fraud warning, where I honestly can't tell if the companies named are the perpetrators or the victims. I filed a complaint with NewBoss Anais, but she reread the fraud article and said it made sense, so maybe I'm just too picky when I think that just because it's possible to understand something if you read it three times is no reason to make everyone read it three times. Just rewrite the stupid thing. Especially if you grabbed the text, word for word, from a website not written by a native English speaker.
Since I inadvertently woke up at 6:15 this morning and was at the office by 7:08, maybe I'm just tired and crabby, but I want to repeat how glad I am that I decided to take my name off of that newsletter. I would just die of mortification if anyone thought I'd written a single word of it.
Work seems too hard today. I'm trying to come up with some new creatives (ads) and stupid Outlook pop-ups keep reminding me that I have tasks not related to my Real Job that need to be done. Then I waste time being aggravated, start back to work, realize I'm editing a creative that's already successful, have to revert all of my changes, stop to be aggravated again, and then eventually get back on track. Right about then, another stupid pop-up interrupts me.
I'm not entirely focused today. I suspect I may need more sleep.* Maybe I'm not sleeping well, who knows? The problem, as I told my doctor last Friday, is that when you sleep alone, no one tells you if you snore drastically or toss and turn all night.
Sigh.
I wish they would unemploy me today. It's 85 and sunny outside.
But, no. I have to go into the database of addresses for the 'NutNews and start deleting the emails of people who no longer work here. Bert is whining at me to get that done. The emails of everyone no longer here get routed to his in-box and he got, like, ten copies of the 'NutNews last week. Made him grouchy.
If anyone cares, I've seen Jason three times this week (some kind of record!) and not once has he even hinted at his conference-inspired decision to keep me on "indefinitely." Heh. If he had the courage to talk to me about it, he could relax, knowing that I understand that by "indefinitely," he didn't mean "long-term." A coward dies a thousand deaths....
Gidget IM'd me today with good news She's in talks with a third large client. If they say yes, then the Gidget Co is good to go! Not one, but two former ChaosManagers are now at organizations that could use the Gidget Co's expertise. (Networking rocks.)
In the meantime, she sent me the info on two more campaigns for loading. I must remember to sit down and do that as soon as I get home this evening.
_____________________
* Maybe I'm becoming a geezer? Geezers have sleep issues.
I went to bed early last night. It was only 11:15. Since I don't roll off my pillow much before 7:30 (I have a fast morning routine), I should be bright and chipper today. Some old people don't sleep much, but maybe I'm going to be a sleepytime geezer?
Oh! And a stupidgeezer! I almost forgot to tell you that I was outside on the balcony last night, around 7:30, watering my plants, when I glanced at my car and realized I had left my headlights on! The poor R.C. had to come out and let me jump my car from hers, then I had to go drive around forever to recharge the battery.
While I was out, the R.C. signed me up for AAA. She's been wanting me to join for years. Somehow I was under the impression it cost hundreds of dollars, so I never go around to it, but now I'm a card-carrying member! (Or, you know, I'd be a card-carrying member if I'd remembered to put the membership info she printed for me into my purse Stupidgeezer!)
So, I got involved in one of those casual office conversations last week and somehow the subject of bringing in treats for your coworkers came up. Or, it might have been something else. To be honest, I don't really remember and I wasn't paying that much attention. Anyhow, at some point I mentioned casually that I had a great recipe for blackberry cobbler and that I should make it for them 'sometime.'
The idea was an instant hit with Fun Bobby. He mentioned it, every single time he saw me, for the rest of the week. "Sometime" became "Monday" in some fashion I can't quite remember.
Long, boring story shorter. I made it. Brought it in. Everyone loves it. Fun Bobby came over and said it was the best thing anyone had ever brought in.
This was probably less about my cooking skills than, as he revealed, the association with his childhood. Apparently his grandparents lived on a farm in Kansas and he has fond memories of roaming around, picking (and eating) blackberries, and his grandmother's blackberry cobbler. (He actually asked if it was a Kansas girl thing--we were all born knowing how to make great blackberry cobbler.)
I swear, he was almost teary-eyed. It's amazing how some scents and flavors can do that, isn't it?
I've been puzzling all day to identify a food scent that can do that to me.
P.S. They ate it all up!
Pursuant to my impending unemployment, I tried to pin NewBoss Anais down last week--after the Conference euphoria had passed for all of them--not for a final date, but at least for a date when we could actually discuss the date. She avoided the topic, saying she would be "grateful" to have me "as long as I felt able to stay."
??
Excuse me? I've been given three different "good-bye" dates. Unless I'm on the wrong kind of meds, I'm pretty sure that's a strong indicator that they would not, in fact, be grateful to have me around in the future.*
Also? I know that they're still interviewing companies to replace me, so she being very polite, but not helpful.
I'm not trying to be hard to get along with, but I do need to know if I'm outta here next week or next month, okay?
The R.C. says I work in the Hotel California. I've checked out, but they won't let me leave.
Me, I say it's even weirder. The hotel management came to my room and requested me to check out. Now they're holding my luggage hostage and claiming they think I'm a wonderful addition to the décor.
Short of assuming that they're stalling while someone in the back is rifling through my bags and stealing my Fabulous New Panties**, I don't know what to think.
In any case, I loaded up three new campaigns for Gidget's clients last Thursday, and sweet-talked her into letting me manage all of her current campaigns for at least a week or so, so my Next Big Adventure is taking shape in the wings. Now that I've been laid-off three times by this same company, the only thing I need to do is actually become unemployed and she and I can focus on getting the new company really rolling.
eek!
_____________
* Jason's announcement to the 'Nuts Afield last week, notwithstanding (another great word). Never forget that his main goal in life is either to stop the whining or to get it migrated to some outside vendor, so he can say, SEP!
** My apologies to the male portion of the audience who would rather not hear about what goes on under my clothes.
I'm going to reinvent myself online. I'm going to call myself Edwina Emerson Kaldwell and I'm going to sign all of my posts eek! Won't that be fun?
Some days, I feel the urge to be someone new.
I know you're all out there, waiting with breathless anticipation for the Rest Of the Story on the rest of the conference. (Personally, I'm over it. That was then. This is now. eek! did not attend a conference, so she has nothing to say.)
Saturday was a pretty standard conference sort of day. 13 hours long and full of long, boring intervals. The high points, as always, were the food. I arrived in time for breakfast (eggs and bacon, hooray!), got a nice lunch (roasted pork with bbq sauce, mashed potatoes, and string beans, very nice), and was fed a good dinner (Chicken Wellington and chocolate-chocolate cake).
The two roundtables I thought I was attending as back-up and support turned out to be hours when I was supposed to be making a presentation. Possibly that information was conveyed to me, previously, and I just didn't understand it. All I know is that by the time I bothered to read the program around noon on Saturday, it was something of a shock to me to see my own name down as a presenter.
Fortunately I am not one of those 90 or whatever percentage of people who view "public speaking" as something more to dread than dying. Being on solid ground as to your subject matter helps, of course, but anyone who knows me knows that a monologue is my favorite kind of 'conversation' under most circumstances.
I was depressingly successful.* I was inundated with people wanting one-on-one chats after the first session--so many so that by the time I rid myself of all of them and headed toward the bathroom, I'd completely forgotten that there was a second group of 'Nuts, already gathered.
I am bitter to have to report that after the second, similarly successful presentation, MadBoy intercepted me and, in what I can only assume was a desperate desire to be part of the "in crowd" forced me to publicly shake hands, again, and accept his weasel-worded not-quite-an-apology for, you know, calling me an asshole, telling all the 'Nuts he could get to listen to him that I was grossly incompetent, mean, and spiteful.
Bleah.
But whatever. At least that got rid of him, freeing me to visit the ladies' room, right? And he's not a long-term part of my future.* *
I snuck outside for a moment of peace and a smoke. As I arrived back in the building, NewBoss Anais stopped me to say that while my back was turned, Jason had announced to the Assorted 'Nuts that he had been "watching" me and was impressed or something. Anyhow, that he intended to keep me on "indefinitely" anyhow. ( ! ! )
Which is, you know, very nice and all, but it hasn't stopped them from interviewing companies to replace me, so I strongly suspect that we're still looking at another 30 days for the timeline and that Jason is hoping that the new agency will be so popular that the 'Nuts will settle down and stop whining.* * *
But! In today's "pursuant" moment, pursuant to the aforementioned reinvention, I met with a potential client for lunch yesterday and since he's a former Argonut Café employee (laid-off last month), I'm doing him a small, freebie favor, setting up a small campaign for him. If it's successful, he's already told his new company that they have to hire Gidget's company and pay for our services in the future, as they roll out to twenty or thirty locations.
And! Gidget emailed this morning and one of the laid-off members of TeamChaos has a new job and they are going to need--wait for it--internet marketing!
My interval of unemployment might be much shorter than I had originally feared.
eek!
__________________
* At the first session, NewBoss Anais and I drew at least as many people as Jason's "informal chat with the CEO" did. At the second one, we were SRO and people were two deep around the table. ( ! ! )
* * Just in passing, I noticed as I was doing end-of-month stats that MadBoy's campaign has actually started to perform. Not amazingly well, but amazingly better than it was performing. Someone let slip today that MadBoy is "spending hours and hours a day" working on it. Heh. "Hours and hours."
* * * Which, for some reason, reminds me! There's a certain statistic Webstrainer offers, around the "share" you got of all the traffic available to your accounts. When discussing it, one WebstrainerPro said, very casually, "of course, you'll never get 100%, but you can work to improve your standing." For the record? Last month, three of my campaigns achieved 100% And seven of them were above 95%! (We should all be so incompetent.)
I just heard from the first 'Nut who has actually started managing his own campaign. He logged into his account this morning and was faced with the new UI. Freakout! He wrote demanding to know what I'd done to it, why I'd changed everything, and what he was supposed to do now.
He's on everyone's List anyhow--the national Conference is taking place and he's not attending.
And he's dishonest. He's been complaining that he hasn't worked in "weeks" when I can see from the stats on his campaign that he's getting at least half a dozen leads a week and everyone knows he has a couple of accounts he does work for regularly. It's a lie he tells so he doesn't have to pay his royalties. This particular 'Nut owes us, IIRC, several hundred thousand dollars.
Several of the 'Nuts cry poverty every other day. Most of them are telling lies to avoid paying their royalties. Jason was hoping that the news that he'd laid off 75% of the office staff because of cash flow problems would shame these bad 'Nuts into paying up. I can't decide if he's naïve or stupid.
Today I am not at the Conference. Hee. Last night I showed up at 4:15 and stayed for three hours. Lacking any desire to bond with any of the 'Nuts, I volunteered to help out at the registration table, thus freeing a couple of other employees who did want to chat with attendees.*
Tomorrow's fun starts at 7:00 a.m., with breakfast. Shudder. I don't think I have to be there for breakfast, though. I'm pretty sure NewBoss Anais said something about 8:00 or 9:00.
Originally I had a Fabulous Ensemble picked out, but it occurs to me that a 14-hour day is going to require something special in the way of comfortable shoes, so I'm rethinking. (None of my F. E. are compatible with the one pair of shoes I own that can be worn for that many hours.)
I was overdressed yesterday anyhow. I had on my Fabulous Interview Ensemble. Everyone else was wearing khakis or black pants and a 'Nut logo polo or button-down shirt. I need to dress down a bit for tomorrow.
Gidget! Gidget had a meeting in the neighborhood and stopped by. She only had a minute, but I passed along what little Conference gossip I managed to collect last night.
She gave me money. :-( I didn't want her to pay me for the work I do for her until the business is up and running, but she said she couldn't square it with her conscience to keep asking me to do things for free. I did point out that I've done 75% of what I've done for her on Argonut Café time, so technically I'm already being paid, but she insisted. In the end, I gave way graciously. I'm going to save the money for a cash-stash for when I'm unemployed.
She's figured out which one is the madboy (there's one in every crowd) at one of her new clients' locations. When she was working with him a couple of days ago, he suggested that maybe he needed to hire "a professional" for his account. eye*roll* She's a nicer person than I am. She didn't hire anyone to go beat him up, for instance. She just told him that, in fact, she was a professional, which was why she'd been hired, and let it go at that.
I keep being glad when I remember it's Friday, then aggravated when I remember that half my weekend has to be wasted on the Assorted 'Nuts.
Which reminds me that I need to get my month-end stats done. NewBoss Anais wanted me to bring them tomorrow.
_____________________
* Fate being what it is, one of the very first 'Nuts I was faced with was--wait for it--MadBoy! He came rolling over (he's a pudgy little thing) with his hand outstretched and a big smile plastered on his face. "I'm the mean guy from (city)," he said happily.
You'd be so proud of me! Hovering there, on the tip of my tongue, were the words, "I'm the asshole you got fired for trying to help your business succeed."
I showed restraint. I said, "hello." I have him a brief, limp handshake. And I smiled. (Just a little one.)
To give him credit, he clearly saw that I was not in an all-is-forgiven-now-let's-get-drunk-and-party kind of mood. He left and did not return.
Posted by AnneZook at 09:44 AM | Comments (1)