Seriously?

So a couple weeks ago I was in Brooklyn, NY traveling for work and managed to get robbed in a store parking lot.  The perp broke into my car and stole my computer bag and purse managing to take everything that identified me, all my work documents, camera, cell phone, and a very important Ipod.  I will save you the most of the details…if you want to full story visit here. He does a lovely job summarizing the events.  All you need to know is that it was terrible and no one should ever have to go through it.

I managed to get everything replaced with little difficulty and am left with a mild paranoia about the location of my purse and where my car is parked.

So this week, on another work trip, I am in Ft. Lauderdale, FL staying in a nice area at a respectable hotel minding my business.  This morning I walk out to my rental car and to my surprise the front passenger window is broken.  SERIOUSLY???  This time, the perp managed to only take the GPS system from my car not my identity and $4000 worth of stuff.  Really though, who gets their car broken into twice in one month?  To add insult to injury,  my boss is with me and is very grumpy in the morning AND I just cost the company $4000 to replace everything that was stolen the first time.  Needless to say, it was a sucky morning.

To make things a little better, my car was not the only one… a Lexus on the other side of the parking lot had thier GPS stolen as well.

Word to the wise…NEVER leave ANYTHING in your CAR!  NOTHING, even if it is useless.

Early AM call

First off, you need to know what constitutes early in my world.  Anything before 9am is generally unsafe territory because I am either still in bed or have not had a sufficient amount of coffee (After 8 years, I still cannot convince my boyfriend of this fact…)  I know, I sound lazy and I think a lot of people secretly think that about me but I don’t really care…my life.  You see, I work from home and have no one to really tell me when I need to be “at work” aka our guest bedroom in my pj’s.  Generally I travel every week to cool places like Indianapolis, Pittsburgh, and Columbus but lately I have taken some time off of the travel schedule to tend to more important things (see previous post).  The travel usually balances out my sleeping patterns at home because I generally have to get up in the 4am range to make flights.

 I digress.

Anyway, I have had this strange feeling lately that something is up at work.  I actually do have bosses and responsibilites and a corporate HQ but they are all far away and I don’t see them often but we talk multiple times a day.  The last couple weeks though, the phone calls have been at a minimum if at all.  Things have been a little crazy with a BIG project in the works but still, they always call. 

So today at 8:59 am (still in bed) I get a call from my boss.  I let the call go to VM and wait for my voice to clear and call him back.  Here’s the convo “Abbie, there is something I need to tell you” Abbie-Oh shit I am losing my job. “I wanted to let you know that as of last week I resigned” Abbie-THANK GOD!  Still have a job “A lot of things are going to change but everything will progress as usual” Abbie-How on earth with they go as “usual” since you have to put your stamp on every little thing? ”There will probably be a lot of new opportunity for you but everything is still in the works” Abbie-Probably?.  Anyway, I congratulate him and wish him well and hang up.

So now I am sitting here wondering what acutally is in store.  I know this happens all the time but my company is weird.  First off, I am one of 2 women in our division and one out of probably 30 in the whole sales force (250ish people).  The company is super old school and I really don’t know what to expect.  Don’t get me wrong, I love my job most days but this is going to be interesting.

At least I still have a job.  Bonus!

Member of the club

So it is for real.  I am an official blogger.  After months of “pressure” from friends and my very obsessed boyfriend I took the plunge. 

Now that I have this thing I am not so sure what to do with it.  I am afraid I won’t have anything witty to say like my fellow bloggers but you all will be the judge of that.  

I have a feeling that much of what I will write about will be consumed with desperate pleas for help.  You see, we finally adopted a dog.  After close to 2 years of pro/con lists, financial analysis, pursuading of the landlords/boyfriend’s parents we FINALLY did it.  Seriously, I think we have issues.  So anyway, we get this dog and he is perfect in every way.  Oh, except when we leave he barks his head off.  This wouldn’t really be a concern if we lived in a house in the suburbs BUT we live in a condo in downtown Chicago with 6 other apartments within a 20ft radius and one very nasty neighbor below us.  I have to give props to the people on our floor, they have been nothing but understanding (we hope this isn’t just a front).  However, the man that lives below us is not so understanding.  The first attack came in letter form with a threat to report us the the property management company.  We went down, placed a nice apologetic letter on his door with our phone numbers.  The next day, we see him and apologize (well, Ben did, I don’t really like this man so I left the dirty work to Ben).  Everything is right with the world, right?  Wrong.  Two days later…phone rings “Umm, excuse me Abbie, your dog has been barking for several hours” FYI we had been gone for 1.5 hours.  Needless to say, we flew home.

 When I tell people this story the first response is to say “oh, well you need to try this and this and this and this and this…” PEOPLE, we can read, we are doing everything we can.  I think this frustration comes mainly from speaking to a very annoying co-worker who thinks she knows everything…you know the type. 

He is fine when we are home, he is in a crate with toys, a peanut butter filled kong, food, water, crate covered up, radio on, shock collar, citronella collar (not at the same time), our clothes in the crate with him (apparently it helps if he can smell us) and we have even gone so far as to do separation anxiety training.  With that said, if you have any other suggestions, please pass them along.

Wish us luck in our dog training escapades…I’ll keep you updated.