After having a rush of interviews and opportunities and after several sleepless nights, I decided to take the job at the MM Hayes Company. I'm now officially the Director of Advertising and am in charge of print-based marketing media, website design, trade show organization, written and video customer testimonials...you name it, I do it. It's a little overwhelming right now. I'm still learning a lot about the software systems that they sell, and I'm still getting used to the office dynamic. My desk is located in a former receptionist's area, so there are people constantly walking by my desk and saying hello, which, if anyone knows how I work, is a bit annoying. I wish I could flip on my music and leave my desk a mess sometimes, but I'm out in the open, ready to take care of tasks for the sales team and accept packages from FedEx and UPS.
There are some great perks to the job though. The pay is great. The company bought me a brand new Mac G5 with all the newest software and a beautiful 23-inch HD cinema display. Gorgeous. I can almost hide behind the computer screen. And, since I've been tying up the printer since I started, they are planning on ordering a new color laserjet just for me. Yeah! I've already finished a few marketing pieces, and I'm talking with several printers. I love talking with printers. They have the best ideas. I'm also taking over a project that MM Hayes is doing with the Albany Institute of Art and History. The company donated several thousand dollars for the Robert Fulton exhibition that starts in mid-March. I spent a morning at the museum getting to know the director, and I got a behind the scenes tour of the museum. Very fun.
So the job is going well. It's not the most thrilling work, and listening to the brothers duke it out about sales is less than thrilling. But all in all, I'm enjoying myself so far. I'm busy, and the days go fairly fast. Give me a few more months, and I'll be fully up and running. Good news is that the people I work with have already made comments about how nice it is to have an in-house designer, so I definitely feel appreciated.
The weather here in Albany has been crazy. On Valentine's Day, less than a week after I started my job, we got hit with a major snowstorm. The city was braced for the storm the night before it hit, and practically every place was closed for the next day...except my office. Yes, I work at one of THOSE places. Luckily Brett was off of work that day, so he dug out the car and took me to work. A normal 10-minute drive took about twenty. I got to work only to see about four other people there. Everyone else didn't even bother coming in, and I don't blame them. By noon, the powers that be let the rest of the office go home in order to avoid the worst of the storm. Brett came to get me, and it took us a half hour to get home. It was nice to get the afternoon off. We spent the rest of the day watching movies and watching snow fall. After it was all said and done, Albany ended up with about 2 feet of snow.
Brett has had some interesting happenings with the airline lately. About a month ago, he received an email saying that his company was sold to another regional airline. He had no idea that Colgan was even thinking about selling. The president of Colgan contacted all the employees through email to tell them that Pinnacle Airlines now owned them. Interesting. We didn't know it was coming. All the pilots went through a period of "what's going to happen now." There is talk of forming a union, which Brett and I are against. There is a light at the end of the tunnel though. Pinnacle is buying 15 Bombardier Q-400 planes. This is really great. These are larger planes than what Brett is flying right now. Pilots will be upgrading to fly these planes soon, which means Brett will be upgrading to a pilot position soon. It's actually a great opportunity. The company is supposed to start flying these planes by early 2008, so we'll see what happens.
So now that I go to work five days a week on one side of town and Brett goes to work on the other side of town, we have started looking for another car. Here's the beauty that we have our eyes on. It's a 2006 Pontiac G6. The car model has only been made for three years, and this one is a beauty. We drove it last Saturday, and I absolutely fell in love with it. 6-cylinder engine, panoramic sunroof, 6-cd changer, power pedals, and only 12,000 miles on it. Brett has a pilot friend from work who also owns a car dealership and is planning on finding us the same car for a cheaper price at auction. We're hoping to have a car by the end of the week. Brett and I are tired of carting each other everywhere!
No other big plans for us in the near future. I will try to keep up with this blog now!
