What Rain?

Man, I've been here more than 1.5 weeks, and it's only rained once! I keep forgetting that the current season is "Fall," not "Rain." To top it off, today it was about 60 degrees.

Work has been intense this week. Yesterday was only my second day on the client site and, wouldn't you know it--they had a CritSit (short for critical situation, in Micro-speak). Talk about learning fast! There are so many different processes (and tools) involved in my new job, but I'm clueless about most of them at this point. Well, let me tell you--I learned fast yesterday! First thought: "Holy crap!" because I was all alone at the client site when the situation arose. But my original fear quickly turned into an adrenaline rush, and I was all over it--for five straight hours! (There's something that gets a person moving when a client says, "Yes it's a Level 1 severity--we're losing f---ing money!" At Microsoft, a Level 1 means everyone in Redmond drops what they're doing to fix the problem. Ok, I exaggerate slightly. But when my TAM partner gave me the OK to escalate if it came to that, I quietly panicked on the inside, "Oh, great, does this mean Steve Ballmer's going to be calling my cell???")

It was great. I loved every minute of it. I felt empowered. And valued. And useful. I was right there, in the heat of the action, doing what I could to see the case to resolution. I was there for the customer. Gawd, this beats technical writing all to heck! I'm in New York! I'm in New York at a major brokerage firm! I'm in New York at a major brokerage firm and I'm making a difference!

This has got to be the greatest job in the universe.

This morning when my TAM partner showed up at my client site, one of the employees there chided him, "Susie's done more work in one day than you did in a month!!" It was so funny. We were all laughing, even my fellow TAM (who's been doing the work of 1-1/2 TAMs for the past several months, until I came along to relieve him of this account).

By the time I got home from work Martin had already attempted to feed himself by knocking the tupperware container of dried cat food off the kitchen counter onto the floor. I'm sorry he wasn't successful in breaking open the container...but then again, he could stand to lose a couple more pounds. Besides, it was only an hour after his usual feeding time. He's such a drama queen.

I can't believe SteveB still hasn't called....