Wait...lower is better?

First, work guy: I had lunch with Boss Foxy yesterday (kind of a long one, we walked over to the North End for pizza and then split a canoli...I love Boston!) and she filled me in a bit on what went on. One of the other partners admonished him pretty harshly for being unprofessional, and Boss Foxy thinks he was probably told to apologize to me, although he hasn't yet. He seems to be sort of avoiding me, but that is really not news.

But, I have a plan. I am going to try and have lunch with him, just him, tomorrow and let him say whatever it is that he wants to say. Maybe if he gets the chance to vent right at me, he will feel better and we can move on. I don't really worry about what he has to say...I am a big girl and can take criticism...I just don't want to have a person in the office that I just can't be around. So, if I don't hear from him by about lunch today, I am going to send him an email that says something like:

"Dear Work Guy,

I was wondering if you wanted to have lunch tomorrow. In light of what happened earlier this week, I think it would be a good idea to sit down and talk about whatever might be bothering you. If I ever did something to anger you, I am sorry and would like to know what it was. Otherwise, I would at least like to get to the point that we can have a productive working relationship.

Let me know how your schedule look, I can make time whenever you are free

AM"

So we will see how that goes. Now, on to golf...

I remember a long time ago, when Munchkin was like 4, my Mother and I took her mini-golfing. We told her that, like most sports, higher scores are better, so she won by getting the highest score. Well, under those rules, I came in a solid second place last night...lol.

The first hole was pretty indicative of the night. Turns out that golf courses have different tees to make the course longer and shorter for different skill levels. So, like the red tees on every hole are the closest to the hole, and the blue tees are the farthest. This course has four sets of tees, including a shortest-of-them-all yellow set. Sign me up for that.

Smoking Hot Roommate usually plays whatever are the hardest ones, but she joined the rest of us to be part of the group. So, we started on hold #10 because...um...I am not real sure why. We only wanted to play 9 and that is where the guy told us to go. So...we let Munchkin go first, and she hit like a big clump of grass and popped the ball pretty much straight up in the air. But it went a little ways out and was in the fairway. Pretty good start for her.

Big Sis went next, and she hit it a little bit better, but it didn't get very far off the ground and it scooted to the left side of the hole over into the rough. But not too bad. Then I went, and I actually did pretty good. It was a little bit ugly, but it went straight and it got out past the other two...so I was feeling pretty good about myself. Then the following exchange deflated my bubble entirely:

Me: Hey SHR, how come you aren't hitting a driver like you told us to?
SHR: Because the hole is only 235 yards from here, and a driver would go too far.
Munchkin: Show off.
Big Sis: Bitch.

Needless to say, she hit the ball further than all three of us combined, and right straight down the middle onto the green. This is just one more reason boys love her.

Anyway, I think we all did OK. We hit some good shots, and a lot of bad shots. I almost got one par, but not quite...that will have to wait until next time. My putting game is just a complete lost cause...that is really, really hard. And the chipping is brutal, too. But we all had lots of fun, and it wasn't too terribly frustrating (although I can see how it would be). Smoking Hot Roommate said that we did a good job of not playing too slowly:-)

Final scores:
Big Sis: 65
Accidentally Me: 63
Munchkin: 61
Smoking Hot Roommate: 33

I am ready to go out again!

More on Work Guy

After I wrote yesterday's post, I got a note from Boss Foxy asking if I had heard about what the guy said in the meeting the day before. I said that I had, and she asked me if I was overly offended or whatever, and said that she and the other partners were aware of it and were trying to decide if they needed to do anything.

I told her that it bothered me, but also that I didn't want her or Papa Bear talking to him about it. The problem is that he already thinks I am the favorite, and he knows that I am quite close to Boss Foxy as well. So, my concern was that he wouldn't react well to being reprimanded by either of them, and would somehow project his anger onto me over their "protecting" me. I know that whatever happens to him, he is gonna consider it my fault, but I just feel like it would be worse coming from one of them.

(Incidentally, if Big Sis had already started working here, I would be concerned about letting him go out on the balcony for fear of being tossed over the railing:-))

So, sure enough, late yesterday afternoon, he was in Partner #3's office for a while in a clearly heated discussion, then came out of the room and left in kind of a huff. He is back in his office today, but I haven't heard anything about what may have gone on. And as usual, he didn't stop by my desk to chat this morning;-)

Honestly, I think he just got yelled at for bad-mouthing people from the firm in front of other companies, but I don't really know. Today is lunch with Boss Foxy, and I assume she will fill me in on what happened (although she doesn't have to, and may not). Whatever it was, I hope that none of it is gonna be taken out on me...

In other news, tonight is golf night...hide the women and children! Smoking Hot Roommate (who is ridiculously good) is taking us, and hopefully she doesn't get too frustrated with our suckiness. Munchkin is coming, too....12 is just old enough to be allowed to play.

I will try and not hurt myself:-)

Being the Boss' Daughter (kind of)

I haven't written anything about work in a while, and there is no real reason for that, other than things have been going pretty well and I haven't had a whole lot to write about. But basically, it is going well...I have been working on some interesting things, and the Partners and VP's keep giving me new stuff to do that I have never done before.

As a firm, we have been doing really well (we have kind of changed business models a little bit, but that is a long story...I will be happy to share if you are really interested, just ask:-)) which means that everyone is busy, and that there are probably some big bonuses in our future:-D We have added two new people over the last year to the Investment staff, and both were really good hires and fit in very well.

There is, however, one issue. There is one guy who just doesn't like me. I am not real sure what his problem is, but he has just always been really condescending and kinda mean to me. I can't say that I have any specific reason to dislike him...he is smart, and works hard...other than his dislike of me.

In the two years that I have been here, he has never asked me to help on any one of his projects (the way it works is that the VPs, principals and partners "request" the associates or me, and we get scheduled with them) and has kind of ignored me if someone else asked me to work on something that he was working on. And then last winter during review time, he wrote a really nasty review of me.

Everyone here reviews everyone else...so, I had to write like 23 performance reviews last December (including Papa Bear and Boss Foxy:-)) and I got 23 written about me. Virtually all of the reviews I got said the same things..."Works hard, always available, great interpersonal skills, needs to continue developing technical skills" and then usually suggested some specific courses or seminars or books or whatever that might help me.

But then I got one review that said all kinds of bad stuff about how I got preferential treatment, and how I didn't pull my weight because I leave at 5:00 every day (I am not the only one...there are three or four other people who have daycare issues that do the same) and how it wasn't clear that I would ever be able to be a functioning member of the team. The reviews are anonymous, but I obviously knew who wrote it, as did the five partners. And all of that is fine, I guess, he is entitled to his opinion.

But, I guess he said something to the executives at a company we are involved with the other day. One of the other people mentioned that he would be out there later this week with me, and the guy in question said something about "She's the boss' daughter, so we have to drag her around, but she doesn't really do much." This really irritates me because it is wildly unprofessional and it makes it very difficult for me to go out there now and do anything useful.

(He is probably going to get into some trouble for that, I will keep you posted)

And for the record, I do get treated differently than everyone else for two very specific reasons. First, I am the only person with my job. There are four associates, for example, and five principals, but I am the only analyst. The title implies that I am a lot more limited than everyone else, and I am paid accordingly (I make about $125,000 less than the associates, who are the next lowest ranking people). Obviously I can't do everything that they can, nor do I claim to.

Second, and this is really what he was getting at...being "the boss' daughter" is probably the most valuable thing I do here. His implication was that I have less responsibility and more leeway because of my relationship to Papa Bear. But in truth, Papa Bear has a bit of a temper, and the biggest value that I bring to the firm is that I am the only person he won't yell at. If something important doesn't go the way he wants and he is in a particularly bad mood, the other people in the office know that they can ask me to talk to him about anything that needs urgent attention without getting my head bitten off. It makes everyone's life easier...

Anyway, I am not sure why this bothers me so much...the guy clearly just doesn't like me, and I shouldn't care about it that much.

But for some reason I do.

Spring Cleaning

I had a really, really fun weekend, even though we didn't really do much. Smoking Hot Roommate, Munchkin and I packed up my car on Friday with a whole mess of stuff and got on the road at a pretty good hour, got to the ferry pretty quick and got to the beach house with no real problems.

The house is, frankly, enormous, and there is a certain amount of "opening up" that needs to be done at the beginning of every year and we did a lot of it. Stuff like stocking the cupboards, putting out clean sheets and towels through the house, and random odds and ends like that.

Saturday was actually a decent day...kind of overcast, but very warm, and the sun came out in spots. But then the air really changed dramatically and it got COLD Saturday night into Sunday. Mostly we just hung out and giggled a lot. We teased Munchkin about boys, looked through trashy magazines (US, OK, Star, etc...) ate cheeseburgers, potato chips, cookies and other horrible food, and basically just hung out. We took the jet skis out for a bit just to get them warmed up...but I am still a little freaked by the Marquise Hill story from last week, so I wasn't really much in the mood. And the water was cold!!!

Big Sis and I were supposed to make our long-awaited debuts on the golf course yesterday afternoon, but it was too cold and a little rainy, so that will have to wait. We have gone to the driving range a few times, and SHR took me to a course that has a practice green last week to teach me to putt and stuff. Turns out that is a lot harder than it looks! I figured it was kinda like mini-golf, but it's not...

Munchkin came with us to the driving range, and she is going to get some lessons at camp this week. So, we may bring her with us, too...we will have to see. Anyway, Big Sis and I are going to try and play one night this week after work if we can swing it. I will let you know how it goes!

In lieu of golf, The Boy, Papa Bear, his lady friend, Big Sis and the Brain Surgeon and the Rocket Scientist came over for dinner and we had a little impromptu party:-) And then I had me a little dessert, too...:-D

Meanwhile, it is an absolutely foul day...cold, windy and rainy. Makes going back to work on Monday a little easier...I don't feel like I am missing anything good outside!

Noticing the Obvious

I had kind of an enlightening walk to work today. I think all of us, when we do the exact same thing every day, start to miss out on some of the details. I take the same route to school and then to work every day, stop at the same Dunkin Donuts, and do it all at almost exactly the same time. The last two days, however, have been a little bit different.

Munchkin has gone to her friends' house each of the last two days, which means I have dropped her off on the T instead of at school. I will admit to this being a little bit scary...she has ridden the T by herself a few times, but never at rush hour. So, being the overprotective Mom, I walked her down to the platform and made sure she got safely onto the right train (the station - Park St. for the locals - is a zoo in the morning) and off to Brookline for the day.

It must have been because I was out of my routine, but I took special note of a couple of things. First, I walk by two cemeteries on the way to work, and that doesn't even count all the people buried under Boston Common. One kinda big (and I think sort of famous) one next to the Park Street church right near the Common, and another on a little further up (Tremont and School St maybe?). It's not that I never noticed them, it is that I never stopped to think how weird that kind of is. There are cemetaries next to the Financial District. One of the tombstones had a date of death of 1596, I think (it is a little hard to read...but even if it was 1696, that is still pretty fucking old.)

And then I took special note of the Old South Meeting House on State and Congress Streets. Again, I walk by it every day, but never really stop to think how strange it is that a tiny, couple-hundred year old building is completely surrounded by skyscrapers.

So that is my lesson for the day: take a second to look around and notice all the things you may miss in your daily routine!

Other than that I don't have much for you. Munchkin's friend came back in town with her for chicken fingers and french fries last night, and I drove her home rather than put her back on the train (even though the Green Line is pretty safe at 8:00pm). It dawned on me that this was the first time I had driven my car anywhere but to the airport and back in about two months...

We are planning on going to the beach this weekend, even though the weather is not going to be great. As long as the forecast doesn't get much worse, we will go...otherwise we will stick around. The Yankees are in town again, which whips the city into something of a frenzy...even though the Yankees are like a hundred games behind the Red Sox (this is the cue for Jordan to get into a war or words over the Red Sox and Yankees with GreenLineBoy, Smoking Hot Roommate and PovosGirl).

So, I guess that is all:-) Have a great weekend!