Dream on

Ever since I could remember hockey has been a family tradition. My father never had a son so he decided to treat me as one and give me all the experiences that a father would usually do with his son such as fishing trips, four wheeling and participating in all sport events. But my favourite past time of all was every night after dinner sitting in front of the warm fire and watching a hockey game. Little did my dad know that I wasn’t watching for the brick wall hits or the crazy dangles; I was watching to pick out my future husband.

There is an old sang that says when a daughter grows up she is generally attracted to a man very similar to her brother or father. My dad is hard working, strong, funny and a sports fanatic so what better option for a husband that a pro hockey player? Unfortunately the chances of me even talking to an NHL player are the same chances of me getting drafted 1^st round in the picks (I can’t even skate). So as my mom would say, “dream on baby, dream on”.

New Job Opportunity

The company I work for has decided to hire someone new for the New Year to help us out! Yay! They are hiring someone to help with the marketing and customer service, in other words to make my job easier. My boss has interviewed a few prospects but not the perfect fit for the job yet. It will take a very skilled person to fill this position in my boss’ eyes because he is so picky and the job is very demanding of organizational, personable, acting and writing skills.

This person will also be filming and creating a lot of video blogs therefore camera skills as weak as mine are not acceptable. Essentially we are looking for someone who can do what we can’t. I am not a shy person at all and I always wanted to model but when I am put in front of a camera I have a different personality. I get red and shy, start acting like a 4 year old that is meeting a big scary man for the first time. I try to hide behind anything I can and say as least as possible. Unfortunately I didn’t know that until my boss tired to film a very short, 4 line introduction video of me. We both agreed I would never be an actress and got back to work put out job ads!

First Phone Call

I sat down at work this morning and looked out at the beautiful, big snowflakes falling from the Canadian winter sky while I opened up my browser to check my emails and do my morning routine when I heard a weird noise. I checked all the tabs I had opened and looked for a pop up virus or an auto-playing video; nothing. I checked the speakers; nothing. Then I looked to my right at the office phone that had done nothing but get in the way of my computer mouse since I started working at Econo Magnet. It was ringing; I looked at it like it was a zombie coming out of a tomb. I was confused, do I answer it? Is it ringing on my boss’ line too? What area code is that? Then I awkwardly and shyly asked my boss, “Am I supposed to get that?” He looked at me and threw his hand to his forehead before replying with, “Yes Alana that is what I hired you for.” All questions and concerns had been posted through emails and chats up until today when my boss added a phone number to the website and I had forgot he did so. Needless to say the next time the phone rang I had picked it up before it could finish its first ring.

Work Out Plan

As a tradition with my sister every year at the beginning of December we sit down with tons of chocolate bars, ice cream and junk food and pig out while watching the Victoria Secret fashion show. Right after the fashion show is done the same thing happens every year; we look at each other with a depressed look on our face and say at the same time, “Work out plan? Yup.” We then start going over the ways we are going to cut back on all the junk food we consume and what our daily work outs will be. Fortunately for me and unfortunately for my sister, I am 6’0 and have a very fast metabolism, she is 5’6 and as she would say, “her metabolism retired after she got out of high school”. I promised her that I would work out with her in order to encourage her because a piece of chocolate cake is a lot more tempting then a long, hard workout. We agreed to start taking the stairs at work. She starts work an hour before I do so when I got an out of breath phone call at 8:00 AM; I laughed at told her to suck it up (she works on the 9^th floor). I got to work an hour later, found the stairs and started my way up. Conveniently each landing had a chair beside the door where I could sit before I fainted. I work on the 14^th level; I sat down after the first flight. I didn’t think it would be such a big hassle because I was always the captain of many different sports teams and worked out on top of that. Now I can’t do a flight of stairs without having to take a seat. I told my sister I did the stairs twice because the first time was so easy, there was no way I was letting her see my weakness. As the little sister I would never be able to live that pathetic story down.

EconoMagnet's Launch!

EconoMagnet is scheduled for launch, Wednesday! Everyone in the office is all tense and rushed to get our tasks complete for the launch of the new initiative of the older products. This is my first project and I’m really excited to see how I’m going to be able to help all the website guests I met and change their lives in a positive way. I’m ecstatic for Wednesday to come so that I can show all the knowledge that I’ve learn and pass on all the great information the world needs to and will want to know. It looks great, my boss has spent day and night for the past few weeks making this website nothing less than perfect and I would definitely say it’s a mission accomplished. So without any further adieu, Houston, 3...2...1... We have blast off.

My Acting Career

Yesterday I made my acting debut in a video to go on my profile. Unfortunately my debut would also be my retirement. The weird thing is that I’m not a shy person and I’m more than comfortable giving long speeches in front of huge crowds but the second the camera turned on I froze like a kid getting caught with their hand in the cookie jar. The first thing I started out with was, “Hi! It’s me... ugh, umm.” Followed by my boss stopping the recorded and saying, “did you just forget your own name?” Well yes, yes I did and now he knows I will never leave this job for an acting career. After about a thousand tries of messing up due to forgetting the right words, blushing, squinting my eyes and not smiling I took a deep breath in, thought about how I will never be famous now, breathed out and messed up again. After about an hour of what would have been an amazing blooper reel we finally got three “good enough” takes and I was back to work putting up job ads for video bloggers that are the opposite in front of the camera then I am!

Sisterly Love

My sister and I have a typical sister relationship. She is three years older than me and definitely treats me like the little sister. When we were younger we did not get along. We fought over everything but mostly over who got to use the phone and the television. I looked up to my older sister and she always had long, meaningful relationships if there was nothing I could do to help it. Due to the fact that I am older now, I realize that the reason I didn’t like any of her boyfriends and always tried to kick them out of our house and her heart was because they were taking my sister’s time away from me. Our break through moment was at my sister’s high school graduate when I gave her a congratulations hug and she said, “You know what... I kind of like you a little now.” We still have our odd fights over the convenience and inconvenience of being the same size in most of our clothing but we are closer than ever. I believe one of the main reasons we get along so well now is because I have recently become her permanent designated driver for when she decides to have a drink and she always managed to say at the end of the night, multiple times in the beautiful language of an intoxicated person, “I love you”.

Being Spoiled has its Disadvantages

My family consists of my dad, my mom, my sister and myself. That is 3 girls and one man; he doesn’t get to make very many decisions because we have the majority vote. My dad is very handy though and we take advantage of that! All three of us have elaborate, home-made closet organizers that we fill with clothes that daddy bought for his precious, lovely, little girls. I know what you’re thinking... I’m spoiled. But my sister and I have always had a passion for fashion, hair and make-up and my father always said having a hobby is a good thing. My mother was a model until she gave birth to my older sister and my dad was a model for one runaway show when he was five years old until, “Timmy wouldn’t hold his hand and he never got hired again”. Our mother taught us the basics and we watched tutorials and took classes to obtain the rest of our knowledge. For all of my sister’s life she has been playing around with her hair, she permed, bleached, dyed, straightened, curled and put as many products as she could in it. But I never once changed my hair; I always had the same long, dark brown, straight hair until two nights ago when my sister convinced me to make a change for what she called the better. She sat down and watched a video on how to ‘ombre’ hair and then gave it a try on my hair. I was shaking the whole time because for a girl, her hair is an accessory to every outfit that cannot be taken off. Unfortunately as most siblings are, as the young sister I believe everything my older sister tells me. She told me my hair looked, “So good if she could wear it as a wig she would!” It wasn’t until this morning when I walked into my office that I realized it probably isn’t all she worked it up to be and I will have to change it back myself because I do not trust her with my hair anymore!

Christmas Shopping

This Christmas season is my first season with a credit card. Ugh oh! The problem is that my family is so easy to shop for because we are so close. When I started writing down ideas for each member of my family their totals came to about $500 each! My mom and dad prefer that my sister and I do not spend over 50$ each on them and my older sister prefers I spend all my money on her but she knows that will never happen. I work all day long on a computer plus I live in freezing, cold Canada therefore shopping online during my work breaks is the most appealing option of Christmas shopping to me. Unfortunately all good deals have an additional $20 to $30 shipping fee on top of the taxes! Everyone knows the best gifts to get on Christmas are the personal ones that people put more time and thought into than money. For each member of my family I tried to think of something they did or said that I remember smiling and laughing about for days after it happened. For example, my dad is a pen lover (I know, he is weird). One day he left for work and came back about a half an hour later because he had gotten to work and realised he left his $100 fountain pen at home. From then on my family always kids around about him loving that pen more than the rest of us. I bought him another fountain pen so that he doesn’t have to turn around when he forgets his other pen at home. Fingers crossed that I don’t get too carried away with my credit card and that my dad doesn’t read my blog which would spoil his Christmas gift surprise!

Researching Interviews

Today we had a second interview for a new position at work and I was asked to sit in on the interview again. As a teenage girl, judging people based on first impressions is an everyday task in school therefore judging in an interview setting should be a synch. But the last interview I sat in on I realized I don’t really know what type of questions to ask or how to judge someone based on other things than what they physically look like. Half of my page was filled with things like, “nice hair”, “phone is vibrating”, “seems nice”, things that don’t really matter in a job interview. So I started researching the perfect interview and I found out the best questions to ask to see how genuine or quick thinking my possible future co-worker is. I found a few questions that he or she could answer to see how similar we are and if we would get along and another few to review their work ethics. Unfortunately this candidate did not get hired either because to be considered for the job you must first show up to the interview.

Cyber Monday

This morning I woke up, checked my texts and my missed calls then my emails. For the first time in my life I got excited from what I saw in my junk email folder! Cyber Monday; the day you can shop and get all the deals you wants without getting punched in the face a few times like on Black Friday. The only problem with today is that I am at work, on a computer, all day, on websites that have sales and I cannot buy anything. On the weekend I went to see the new 007 movie and it got me thinking. Although James Bond has been through a lot of torture and pain, I think that I have to endure more today by seeing these deals and most likely purchasing these discounted items tomorrow at full price. I’m debating on whether or not I should shop online anyways and if my boss catches me I’ll say something like, “Oh shoot! I was just about to buy your gift; I hope you didn’t see it!” He can’t get mad at that! Hopefully I’m not on too girly of a website if he walks into my office because that could cause a very awkward situation.

Black Friday

Black Friday is the name given to the day after Thanksgiving Day in the United States, traditionally the beginning of the Christmas shopping season. On this day, most major retailers open extremely early and offer promotional sales to kick off the holiday shopping season. Black Friday is not an official holiday, but many... wait, what? I am sitting here on my break looking up deals and I read that, it brings tears to my eyes. Now I have to start thinking of excuses to tell my boss when I ask for the afternoon off. I would never use the death in the family excuse because I’m not a good liar and that excuse drags on and on. I could say I’m mentally ill and I can’t stop crying because no man (including my boss) would want to deal with that type of mess. Or I’ll skip work until 4pm and then run into my boss’ office and yell, “Don’t pay the ransom, I escaped!” Unfortunately my boss knows me too well and before I had the chance to leave today he said, “So what is your excuse going to be tomorrow to go to shopping?” He read me like an open book.

 

Thanksgiving Day

Today is Thanksgiving Day in America and I am stuck here in Canada at work and hungry. Thanksgiving in Canada was on October 8^th and somewhere in-between October 9^th and today I wish I had moved to the states so I could get today off. For those of you who think I’m being unreasonable I can almost pinky promise you that if I took two Thanksgiving breaks it wouldn’t be for the day off to relaxing or the amazing food I would stuff my stomach with. It would be a second chance for me to re-state and re-word what I am thankful for. Regrettably my speech didn’t go so well at this year’s family dinner and I would like a do-over. Each year my family goes around the table saying what they are thankful for in a few short sentences. My father started it off with the usual, “I’m thankful for my family and good health of all our loved ones” and everyone repeats the same phrase with a little bit of words mixed up so they sound original. I decided that it would be a good idea to say something different so I started looking around the room and thinking hard of what to say because my turn was coming up quickly. Unfortunately the last thing my eye’s looked at was my new puppy on the floor eating one of my slippers so I said, “I am thankful for my puppy and my parents should be too because she makes me not want to have kids for a very long time.” I really thought it would be a good thing to say since I am very young, living at home and in-between men. Just my luck apparently everyone’s hearing stopped working at the same time and they all missed the part where I said ‘not’ and thought I said I did want to have kids. No one informed me of what they had heard until the drive home when my sister’s boyfriend said, “So let’s talk about that shocking comment Alana made at dinner.” That will be the last Thanksgiving I try to be unique with my speech.

Interviews

My boss is looking to hire someone new to help with marketing.  Since we are a new online-based company, he is looking to hire someone who is familiar with social media and also video.  He has big expectations, so I don’t know if anyone is going to gain his approval. When I walked in this morning he told me that he had an interview with a possible new representative this afternoon. In my head I giggled a little and wished her good luck! I was asked to sit in on the interview so when she walked in so I shook her hand, took a seat in the meeting room and grabbed a paper and pen so I could take notes. First note: pretty, second note: nervous. Heck, I was too when my boss interviewed me, so I couldn’t blame her for that! She stumbled a few times on some of the more tricky questions, but she did mostly well on the interview.  Unfortunately she was not hired because she was applying for a full time position while she was still in college for another four years. Hopefully the next candidate will be a better fit if they can get past mister picky first!  It would definitely be a relief for me to have someone else helping out with the work around here.

Learning About the Magnetizer

Back in school we learnt about and studied global warming, watched The Inconvenient Truth and wrote essays on the importance of the three R’s (reduce, reuse and recycle) which was always the part in the class where every student would starting texting or falling asleep. So when I started my new job at EconoMag.net I thought there was no need to research global warming again when I was asked to but I was wrong. In high school all social media websites are blocked (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc.) because the board says that no student can learn from them and most of all they wanted to make sure we didn’t have any fun. As it turns out social media is where all the interesting topics are and the only website I have ever learnt something new on since grade two. In grade two I learnt that cars are bad and trees are good. For the following ten years of school the teachers would try to make the same statement more detailed and intelligent sounding. Such as, “Motorized vehicles cause toxins in the environment that can be crucial to the extinction of the human race” in other words “cars are bad”. That’s great, at least I can sound intelligent when I type out statistics but I don’t know any statistics so I spent the day learning some new facts. For instance scientists predict 141,000 of New York City’s citizens will be living within three feet of high tide by the year 2100 due to global warming causing high tides. I spent the rest of my afternoon studying every little detail of the new Magnetizer product so that if I was asked any questions my answers would be better than, “Cars are bad and trees are good”.

Marketing

The first task my boss gave me today was market research. Wait, Marketing? Here’s something I know about marketing: put Justin Beiber or Robert Pattinson on the box and it will be sold to every teenage girl worldwide. Here’s what else I know about marketing: nothing.  But then it turns out that all I have to do is talk to the customers on our website and ask them about their opinions. And you have no idea how much people love giving their opinions which in a weird turn of events makes my job that much easier. In other words, I have to listen to people and find out what they like and don’t like.  So let me get this straight … I get to sit down in front of a computer (which I have been told has 'the best view in Ottawa’ behind it) like I would normally do at home and read other people opinions on stuff I’m interested in?  For me this is the same as a dog getting treats to chase a cat. I was going to do it anyways so why not do it for a purpose? Generally most people would be ecstatic and natural in this kind of job but of course I have to over-think everything!

Country Girl Meets City Job

I was a little nervous that my boss didn’t like my work ethics and the quality or quantity of work I had done. I walked in the office a little shy then sat down at the conference table as ready as I could be for the morning meeting and hopefully prepared for any questions I would be asked. But the whole meeting so many thoughts were going through my head, “be yourself”, “no, never mind! Act normal”, “I bet what I just said made me sound dumb”. I was freaking out over every little thing so nervous that I wouldn’t live up to his expectations. But then I remembered what my mother always taught me. Every time I ever went through a break up or bad school picture my mom would always repeat the same advice, “Breathe. If it was meant to happen, it will and there is nothing you can do about it. Breathe.” That worked for all of three seconds and then I started thinking too much again! I started thinking how proud my mom said she was, my dad saying I am doing a great job, my sister getting fired and so much more that I almost forgot to answer my boss’ questions! I think he realised that this job was a new situation for me and that maybe I am a little crazy, so he reassured me that I was doing well and that he didn’t expect perfect which took a lot of stress off my shoulders and made me relax for once! Thank goodness the people around here are so understanding because if they weren’t my first day could have also been my last!

Starting Day

Finally, the day has come that I’m the newest member of EconoMag.net. The first thing that happens when I walk into the office is the signing of the contracts and policies so the company can be sure that I’m not going to go crazy and make a fool out of their product. Second thing is to get introduced to the product. So I research some and then take a little break to read some books on marketing to refresh my memory. I got so carried away with the work that I forgot about my lunch break and my boss had to remind me to take it. I walked around downtown trying to fit in as much as possible bearing in mind I was born and raised a country girl. When I got back to work after my break I was in a curious mood and spent the rest of the afternoon trying to stay focused with what I was supposed to be doing and not getting distracted by the weird noises and sights the city has.