Category Archives: Work

Last week I was perusing LinkedIn and stumbled upon this potential connection. The profile photo seems more appropriate for Grindr than LinkedIn.  I couldn’t help but hear my parents voice ringing in my head, scolding me and trying to make me understand what constitutes appropriate behavior.  I get that this guy is a personal trainer and in many ways his body is his business card, but hints of pubic hair in a mirror reflection seems more appropriate for Guys With iPhones than a professional site designed to help connect personal networks.

I didn’t write this post to criticize this guy or to solicit such criticisms from others. Actually what I’m hoping is that when one sees a friend showing poor judgement like this young guy, you will speak up with consideration rather than contempt.  After all, if our parents have failed us – it is up to our friends to help us so we don’t continue to make the same mistakes.

Last week I passed a professional milestone when I hit my five year anniversary with my current employer.

I’ve never worked at a firm for five years, always finding a graceful exit to work for another company after 3-4 years had passed.  I’ve enjoyed the first five years and have learned an awful lot.  I’ve also been able to do some amazing things like meeting President Clinton last spring in Boston, but who can say what is around the corner.

How long you have worked at your current job?  Does five years sound like a long time to you or have you been in your current role for far longer?

I’ve spent eleven of the first fifteen days of this month traveling.  I know tens of thousands of professionals spend their lives on the road traveling, but I find little joy in working on the road, and I’m very much looking forward to coming home. I’m a firm believer that traveling is a great opportunity but best realized when done for leisure and not for work. Have a great weekend everyone. I know that I will enjoy seeing friends and relaxing on my couch.

Was this an excuse to post this gratuitous photo of this handsome man in his bathing suit? Perhaps, but the reality is I’m falling behind at work.

Earlier this week, I was on vacation and yesterday I spent nearly all day flying to San Francisco for meetings. When am I going to get my work done?  ARGH!!! Strangely writing about my frustrations and the image of this man are working like medicine, and I can feel the tension already leaving my body.

Now that the holiday season is over, it is time to get back to work.  I hope that these past few weeks were relaxing, and I want to wish you all the best in 2013.

Work this week and next has taken on a new sense of urgency as everyone prepares to go away for the holidays.  My company officially closes for the year on Friday, December 21st at 2PM an will not reopen until January 2nd.

This is an unofficial perk that my employer has provided each year since I joined the firm and one that I enjoy.  However, to off-set the time out and away the workload becomes insane.

Since I work from home, most of my meetings come in the form of calls.  Today I did something I rarely do – I had two phone calls at the same time; careful use of the mute button is essential in this situation. I think I would have gotten away with it too had I not inadvertently taken the wrong phone off mute and responded. While my answer was very intuitive it had absolutely nothing to do with the PR call and left the web-strategy team on the other call scratching their heads wondering why I was not responding.  B-U-S-T-E-D   :-/

While I do not expect any sympathy I have to admit that after being away from the office for more than two weeks, I am absolutely buried with work.  Everything has piled up in my absence and deadlines are hitting fast and furious.

I’ll use the memories of Brazil to motivate me and dream about my next trip to distract me from my hum-drum routine.  Watch for posts for the next few days about my time in Florianopolis and Sao Paulo Brazil.

BTW – thank you for visiting my blog both while I was away and now that I’m back home again.

My firm has made a concerted effort to go paperless both to be more environmentally friendly as well as to save costs.  Many wholeheartedly embrace this but clearly this colleague finds the policy disconcerting. I wonder if the A&E show Hoarders would consider coming to this office. One can only imagine what their home looks like.

I don’t comment much about my work because as much as I enjoy my job, this blog is an opportunity for me to escape that part of my life.  However, this spring I was part of a small team to organize a program for senior executives that was hosted here in Boston.  Fortunately, the nine months of planning and countless meetings paid off since the program was a great success.

The event concluded with our keynote presenter, Bill Clinton.  Because of my role, I interacted quite a bit with the Secret Service and had the chance to meet Clinton.  Its mostly for that reason, I wanted to show off share this picture of me with Bill Clinton. I actually dislike the photo. I think I look uncomfortable, but in fact I was just exhausted.

Below are a few more photos from the program including a picture of the Boston Public Library where we hosted a dinner / cocktail reception.  If you are looking for a restful oasis in the middle of Back Bay the Italian courtyard which you see lit up in one of the photos is a perfect sanctuary to relax, have a coffee with a friend or just think.

It is Thursday afternoon and after tomorrow I will be out of the office for an entire week.

I can hardly wait to turn on my email out of office message and turn off my computer.  It has been a very long month and I’m ready to let go and relax for more than 48 hours.

Do  you have any plans for the coming weekend? Do tell.

I’m back off to Gotham this morning for a quick day trip to NYC. The purpose is to get training on a tool our firm is piloting that will help me with our SEO strategy (search engine optimization).  Essentially this tool will help me discern how people are searching for subject matter that is important to them so I can ensure our web pages achieve higher rankings and therefore more web traffic. It sounds interesting, but I’ll reserve judgement until after I’ve been trained and have used it.

I wish I could leverage this sort of thing for my blog. I’ve been typing away for the past few years quite content in my own little internet bubble, but it amazes me how little I really know about how to leverage my site. I may have to make a mental note to look into seeing if WordPress or others provide in person training. As my trip to NYC shows, I’m not really one for virtual training – I still like to be there with the trainer and in a class where I can more directly interact.  We’ll see how this goes and if there are any tidbits I can pick up and apply to my own blog; wouldn’t that be nice.