We all know ‘em and love ‘em so much that we almost hate them… our Blackberries.

The cell phone was invented and all of a sudden everyone was reachable no matter where they were.  The Blackberry (aka The Crackberry due to it’s addictive nature) took that concept and multiplied it by about 10000000000.

Text, Picture mail, Voice Mail, Call, even email and the internets all come from this magical little device.  “They” say with great power comes great responsibility…. and “they” are right.

Do:

• Use your Crackberry to reach your work world when you are away from your desk…but only when you are responsible about it.

Don’t:

• Answer calls or send text messages during a meeting. It’s rude and it’s distracting for those who are trying to pay attention.  I once sat in a meeting where a guy answered his phone call.  He didn’t even bother to step out.  When he hung up he just looked around like he had done nothing wrong.  Moron.
• Take your work Blackberry with you when you are out drinking on your own time…. at least for the first couple of years of your Corporate Life.  I know a guy who drunk dialed one of his company’s big-wig clients after a night out with his boys.  His boss wasn’t pleased when word got around to him.
• Forget your charger in the hotel when you are traveling for work. They are eff’ing expensive to replace!
• Forget to keep your ringer/alert tone at a reasonable volume. You don’t want it annoying the coworkers who sit around you, or disrupt the meeting.  It’s so annoying when someone’s phone keeps ringing and ringing and ringing… and it’s LOUD and there is no one to answer the darn thing!
• Have an embarrassing ringer. I once heard a co-worker’s cell phone play the chorus of Colour Me Badd’s “I Wanna Sex You Up”.  I’m assuming that was his girlfriend calling and it was a personal ringtone and not his default for all callers, but still…

A little over a decade ago, I entered the workforce at the tender age of 16 as a cashier at a local fast food restaurant.  My allowance was great, but I just wanted some extra spending money for all the fun things that high school can bring.

Throughout high school and most of college, I held a couple of jobs that required me to be in a ‘customer service’ type position and as such, I wanted to make sure the people I was in contact with had a pleasant experience.  I always greeted them with a bright smile, even if their complaints of movie late fees made me want to punch them in the face, and I always ended our conversation by thanking them and wishing them a great day.

That practice followed me into my first Big Kid role at the corporate office of a major Fortune 500 company.  I was in constant contact with suppliers and they always seemed a little stressed out (to put it lightly).  I wanted them to know that I sincerely cared about our partnership and worked hard to create and maintain great relationships with them because I knew there would be times I would need their help.  I figured I am a lot nicer and more quick to respond to those who are nice to me, so I always ended emails and phone conversation with “Thanks & have a great day!”

It was a signature line… something only I did, and I took it with me everywhere I went.  Now that I’m 2.5 weeks into my awesome new role at Present Company, I’m beginning to think about changing it up.

There is a woman in my office that I’ll be working closely with in the transition and uses the “Thanks & Have a Great Day!” phrase.  She uses it so much that she has it in her Outlook signature.  (I always typed my out ) I guess I’m worried that if I use that line – even though I’ve used it for a little over a decade now – that she’ll be miffed by it.

She doesn’t have it trademarked or anything, but I don’t know if it would bother her.

I’ve mentioned before that I’m one of those people who has a million ‘tag lines’ and at Former Company, Cee-isms slowly infiltrated the office and they became everyday phrases by people who were constantly around me.  It didn’t bug me… “they” say that imitation is the highest form of flattery after all.

I can’t decide if I should spice it up and do something different (new job, new start!) or not worry about it and stick with Old Faithful.

This is going to be a long one, so sorry about that.  I have the attention span of a 3-month old puppy, so I try to keep my posts short.

I guess I should preface this post by saying I don’t do drugs…  not even in my craaaaazy college days.

So, I was a little surprised when I received my new-hire paperwork that New Company required a drug test – not your standard pee-in-a-cup drug test…. a hair sample drug test.

I guess I should have done some research beforehand because I figured they would pluck out a couple of strands from the top of my head and I’d be done.  Nope! That’s most definitely NOT how it all went down.

When I went into the clinic, the lady was super nice.  We were chatting and at the end of the conversation she said, “OK now, don’t freak out on me!”

I didn’t say anything but I thought “huh? freak out? Is this going to hurt?!”

Instead of the one or two hairs that I thought would be plucked, an entire section of hair (about an INCH LONG) was CUT OFF super close to the scalp.  The little section is well hidden on the lower part of my head about an inch or so from my neck, but I have to ask:

“WHAT THE HELL?!?!”

Was it absolutely vital to take that much of my gorgeous, healthy hair?!  I didn’t freak out at first.  I waited until I left the clinic.  I sent my hair stylist a frantic message and told her the story and begged for a super miracle that would help me grow my hair back super fast…. so I’ll be taking biotin supplements until it’s all figured out and hope for the best.

Like I mentioned, the area is totally undetectable, but the fact that I know it’s there is driving me absolute bonkers.  I hope like heck this job is worth that 1-inch chunk of hair!

After getting home, I did a Google search and found that apparently hair sample tests are done to detect super hard-core drugs… I guess it leaves residue on the scalp or the hair or something.  No wonder Britney said “screw it” and shaved her head before a chunk was taken of her locks.

Well, unfortunately I didn’t get the best job in the world.  Dammit.  I guess they weren’t kidding when they said swimming was a requirement.  “Island Caretaker” is a pretty lame title anyway.

Let’s keep our fingers crossed that my phone interview tomorrow goes better

Driving a green-colored car doesn’t make you ‘green‘” – My good friend, Master Yoda

I was watching Oprah today and today’s topic really struck a cord with me. 

Did you know there was a giant swirl of garbage twice the size of Texas that floats around in the ocean from California to Japan? That’s pretty nutty.  Texas is pretty eff’ing huge.  You can drive for 9 hours and still be in the same state.

They said in some areas, the garbage goes almost 90 feet deep and most of it is plastic.  Plastic bottles. Plastic bags. Plastic containers.

It’s so unbelievable.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve always wanted to save the Earth.  I remember once when I was younger… 9 or 10, my mom bought me a book about saving the planet from the book fair an I loooooooved it.  I used to imagine myself as a kid stopping one of those ginormous 18-wheelers and telling them to stop polluting the Earth. In my imagination, they also listened… haha.
Today’s Oprah Earth Day special really made me think about some of the things I do that I could change to be a little bit more green.  I already use those handy dandy reusable totes from the grocery stores. I think most of my trash comes from packaged foods and ‘to-go’ containers.

Yes, I’m 27 years old and I eat like a college student.

So, I’m doing what I should have awhile back.  Not only will it make me more ‘green’, it might help me lose a few of those lbs as well

That means no more Jell-O pudding cups.  No more fast food. It won’t completely eliminate everything, but I think it would be a considerable impovement!

Well behaved women rarely make history” – Laurel Thatcher Ulrich

Yesterday evening, I was watching the news when a story came on about companies monitoring Twitter.  They aren’t doing it to stalk people, but rather as a customer service tool.  They aren’t doing it out of the kindness of their hearts, they are doing it because if 1 person speaks badly about something, it takes on average about 9 good experiences to obliterate it.  That’s a lot because usually people are more inclined to tell their friends about BAD experiences.

I thought that was pretty interesting.  The woman in the story was a 20-something, and had a bad experience with her health insurance company.  She didn’t even have to call them.  All she did was tweet to her followers about a bad experience, and seconds later, a representative sent her a response to her via Twitter that asked “Is tomorrow morning a good time for a representiative to get in touch with you?”

This girl didn’t have to call the 800-number… or wait on hold for 20 minutes for a rep.  How awesome is that?!

I never in a million years thought this would ever happen to me.  Last night, I was reading my friend’s Tweets when @MichaelWaisJr asked what people thought of Craigslist.

I was in a pretty fiesty mood, so I responded that Craigslist is really creepy… ’cause well… it is.  He linked to a blog he wrote and I responded back that Craigslist was pretty much only good for counterfeit designer bags and scary old men looking for booty calls…. neither of which I’m interested in.

Within SECONDS, I kid you not, a Craigslist person replied to me and asked me to help them understand my Tweet.

Uhhh… scary!

I think I’ll let them know what I’m talking about!

If you want to join the Twitter fun, follow me @ceo08!

Am I the only one on this planet who doesn’t give a furry squirrel about Twilight?!

I think it’s a bit obvious that I heart paperclips.

Something you might not know is that I also heart Natalie Dee’s website.  Every day she cracks me up!  I have my younger sister to thank for introducing me to Natalie.

When you put the two together, well, it’s a little bit of heaven:

Check her out at www.nataliedee.com !