Monday, February 12, 2007

The boss's boss's boss gets a promotion...

Is it so wrong to be sick? I never take a sick day and I had to take two last week. Of course, when you’re out sick it just means your phone rings and rings. One of my co-workers who recently joined the company decided that even though I was out sick she would call me in the middle of the afternoon to announce that a project I was leaving until Monday needed to get done and she was just “scrambling” to do it. My response. “Sweetheart”, yes I used the “S” word, “there’s no need to scramble honey…I can do it on Monday. No rush.” Hint: If someone is really bothering you at work and just getting under your skin Honey, Sweetheart, and Sugar are the worst things you could ever call them. Remember this, I reserve this for rare occasions but when I pull out these guns they never fail to ignite the reaction I was hoping for.

Anyway, it’s Monday. Again. However, today is different. At approximately 3:15 pm (eastern standard time, of course) I was told that the one person who keeps me sane, the one man who I truly respect in my company has decided to accept an offer as the General Manager of a major television channel. While everyone was floating on cloud 9 for having worked with him, I wanted to burst out in tears!!! He was my sanity. The boss’s boss’s boss. The door I knocked on to reveal all. And now he was leaving. The questions flooded my mind. Will the boss’s boss be promoted? What happens to the boss? My brief moment of potential salvation of having the boss possibly restructured was killed when she strolled by my desk, plopped down and said “Do you have any worries about him leaving? You shouldn’t. I’ll always make sure you work for me.” Great. The chicken soup for my soul. Exactly what I needed.

MTV Layoffs


I found out by reading the trades this morning and by noon I was bombarded with aims from friends at Viacom. If you ever asked me what scares me I would probably say nothing. But the truth is an article like this freaks the shit out of me. Why? Because in entertainment what’s in one day is out the next.


MTV Nets terminating 250 staffers

Friday, February 09, 2007

The wannabe MTV...

I should have known that this interview was going to be disastrous. I mean the first interview they said would be four hours long. It's not like I'm interviewing in the finance industry where they try to break you. I mean it's entertainment and events, not brain surgery. I should have turned it down then. Unfortunately, the theory I live by is interview, interview, interview even if you don't want to because you get to meet important people you may otherwise not have met this way. So I sucked it up, called in sick, and went. That was my first mistake

Interview Person 1 - 45 mins:
The first woman I met with never finished a complete sentence or train of thought. I didn't know if she knew the lingo or not but she just kept nodding and her comments made no sense. She was the head of the department and she jumped from thought to thought staring at me or to right or left of me...I couldn't tell if she couldn't focus or was drifting off to sleep (hello, anyone there)...I couldn't help but picture her weekly team meetings...everyone drinking a coffee chatting about their weekends and her sitting there picking her nose. The thought I had as I walked to the next person's office was: Drugs?

Interview Person 2 - 45 mins:
There was no question, this woman was on drugs for sure. But at least she was cool. Completely into what she did, loved her responsibilities, but I could tell that she was somewhere much cooler before this company and she missed it. I mean seriously, she was going on and on about how cool it was to meet Hulk Hogan. Honey, you used to work with superstars and now you're raving about Hulk Hogan. Next.

Interview Person 3 - 1 hour of torture, no I don't want to see what you did last month, no I don't want to ooh and aah over the the December powerpoint, kill me now:
She could have been my little sister and I'm supposed to report into her. Next.

The HR interview - 1 hour:
By far the coolest woman of the 4 and the most informative. No, they don't have a tuition reimbursement policy. No, they don't have bonuses. oh, yeah, this one is the best. No, they don't have a set vacation policy. We trust our employees. After this interview, I totally understood why everyone was on drugs.

Friday, February 02, 2007

The headhunter

Would you say it’s a sign when a headhunter knocks on your door? I’m going with yes. A week or so ago I received an email from a headhunter who received my contact info from a friend of mine. She didn’t know if I was looking but she wanted to meet up and see what my interests surrounded. Well little did she know my interests were surrounding a new job!

Headhunters are interesting people. They get commission from the company for every person they place and for them it’s all about relationships. It isn’t like a staffing agency where people tend to flow in and out of companies. It’s about placement that works because their reputation is on the line. I wasn’t really sure what a headhunter should look like. I guess I imagined someone who wore all black, read the trades targeting people who were the subject of various articles, oh and I guess I thought they could appear and vanish in the blink of an eye. I mean you hear about headhunters all the time, but you never really know who they are and where they work/live.

The initial meeting with this woman was quite interesting. It took place at a random Starbucks in a random part of the city on a random night. Needless to say our conversation was sooo random. She was short and round with a laugh that shook our table and spilled my coffee every few minutes. Most of the night we spoke about her pet puppy. This was actually kind of sad. Her puppy has diabetes. I won’t bombard you with the gory details as she did for me, but the whole conversation was kind of awkward. I walked away thinking, what could this woman really do for me?

Well, I have an interview today because of her with a film based company. Cross your fingers.