she's just saying...

Shooting

One of the favorite parts of my job is shooting. Commercials, that is. I've been involved in tons of commercial productions and they're always challenging, fun, creative and fascinating. And frequently silly and often ridiculous. From brushing blusher on peaches to cueing seagulls with crackers to finessing the curds for a cottage cheese spot, it's always something.

Today I wrangled a goat. That was fun.

The classic line is "never work with animals or children" so of course all my shoots these days include both. Here's a shot of Hans shooting another Melissa with a red-tailed hawk.

Stay tuned to your favorite (Bend) station to see the spot.

Working from home

Photo from an old Bulletin article: see the busy ad exec!

I love working from home. I have an efficient, comfortable office, a big-screen monitor and all the latest equipment, a nice view out the window, and my kitchen nearby. I'm pretty disciplined at settling down and working steadily, though with a few little forays on the web now and then. And very so often I get up and put in a load of laundry or sit in the sun for a break. It's cozy and quiet and very pleasant.

Unfortunately, most of my current work is managing others, which you can't really do remotely. Or at least I can't. Henry describes my work as sitting in front of a computer and talking all day, which is pretty accurate. I spend my time meeting with folks, brainstorming ideas, solving problems, answering questions and providing "constructive" advice.  I shuffle a lot of papers too. All of which works best when I'm physically, not just virtually, on site.

So mostly my days of working from home are over, except when Henry is sick or school is closed (like today). Then I can happily settle in and blog be a SOHO* again.

*biz jargon for small office/home office

Baseball, TIVO and the eTrade baby

BIG baseball game tonight, if you just beamed in from another planet.

Unfortunately, it's the same time as Henry's Sunday Night Park & Rec League Flag Football Game. Oh boy. TIVO time! If you don't have a TIVO (or other digital video recorder), go get one. I'll wait. It will change your relationship to TV completely.

The advertising community was slow to grasp how TIVO and the like will soon wipe out the current broadcast advertising paradigm, built on :30 spots priced by ratings and daypart. They're beginning to get it now, but no one has an effective alternative. We still buy airtime based on the Nielsen books, hoping that our creative is so compelling, people won't fast forward through it.  Right. The only spot I slow down the fast-forward button to watch is the baby and Blackberry eTrade commercial. I could watch that repeatedly. And any beer spot with a dog, pretty much. And my stuff, of course. I don't have anything running right now, but stay tuned...

So, nobody text me about the game tonight, please. I'll stand far away from any dad with a cellphone, to avoid possible score updates. Then I'll come home, assume the playoff position, and watch the inevitable Bosox victory. Yes!

Leeches (the non-human kind)

"What I did at work today" is turning into an interesting post topic, one that deserves its own blog, possibly.

Yesterday, we set up a photo shoot for a newspaper ad to announce the opening of a new exhibit. The focus of the show is frontier medicine. We've got all kinds of gruesome tools like amputation saws, tooth extractors and so forth, as well as a kids interactive area, etc. One of the show's curators got ahold of "medical" leeches, who swim around in a large jar undulating like little eels. What a great idea for an ad!

Our programs VP, Greta, volunteered as latchee, as she is insane has lovely pale victorian hands. One of our museum volunteers acted as the doctor hand model and another volunteer shot it. The leech played himself.

Here's the "Making Of" photo:

The curator was concerned that Greta might contaminate the leech, but the leech didn't seem to mind.

Just another day in the life of a marketing gal.

Top Ten: High Desert edition

Ten things I've learned in the last three weeks:

1. Regurgitated owl "pellets" must be frozen for a month before use
2. Centipedes are venomous, millipedes aren't (or is it the other way around?)
3. Foxes have stinky scent glands and smell like skunks
4. There's a bear named Henry at a gas station in Mitchell, Oregon
5. Badgers buck and rear when they're mad
6. Hissing cockroaches really hiss, loudly
7. "Hoofstock" is the preferred term when referring to horses, elk & antelopes
8. Porcupines "scent-mark" everything with quite pungent urine
9. Badger fur is really very soft
10. Bobcats like to poop in water

Top Ten Tuesday: Fantasy Jobs edition

(you thought I'd forgotten, didn't you?)

I really love my new job, as much as I can love an 8:30-5:00 job in an office. I'm surrounded by beautiful wilderness with an animal refuge complete with owls, eagles, bobcat, lynx, porcupine, fox, an otter and horses. (They're all "special," which is another story.) I work with smart, funny people who are dedicated to what they're accomplishing. And, there's a cafe on the premises!

But sometimes I think about the paths not taken. Or not open to me due to lack of talent or independent income. Forthwith, my:

Top Ten Fantasy Jobs:

1. Backup singer for Stevie Wonder
2. Doggy daycare worker
3. Food & wine writer for a travel magazine, or travel writer for a food & wine magazine
4. Pastry chef
5. Mural painter
6. Voice-over talent
7. Yarn shop owner
8. Divemaster on a live-aboard boat off the Great Barrier Reef (wait - I did this already! But I'd do it again)
9. Goat farmer: you got your goat cheese, goat's milk and cashmere wool. No goat meat though.
10. Professional flamenco dancer

How about you -- what's your dream job?

Back in the saddle, and dreams

First (official) day on the job! Mostly I've been cleaning out my inherited office and trying to find the bathroom. So far I'm loving it. I have yet to get outside and see the critters, but I'm making it a priority for this week. More to come on the cool stuff.

Do you have recurrent dreams?

I tend to have two dream themes that recur: one involves planes and trains. I get on the wrong ones, miss them, go the wrong way, get lost in train stations, etc. (It used to involve packing problems as well, but I guess I've gotten over my "baggage" issues.) These aren't necessarily bad dreams, they're just tedious. (The details of traveling these days are bad enough - who needs to dream about them?) I never make it to my destination or even remember what it is when I awake.

 

The other one centers on missing class at some prestigious private school and panicking because we're getting tested (a classic). It's always calculus or physics or something I haven't done any work for and can't fake. I'm late for class or I haven't gone all semester or I haven't done the reading and so forth.

Very anxiety-producing, a feeling that stays with me through the next day. Not surprisingly, I had one of those last night.

Someday maybe I'll dream that I arrive at my destination or that I'm prepared and pass the test. Til then, I'll keep getting on the wrong train and walking into the classroom unprepared.

Big news, big changes

I've been working my consulting gig since the Big Globe swallowed us and spit us out, but we can't live balancing on that tenuous tightrope. So, back to the corporate world I go.

The big news tonight is that I accepted a new job as VP of Marketing for our local cultural gem starting in early Sept. I predict the quantity of blog posting here will drop precipitously.

Whoa! We interrupt this news update to say that those Jamaican relay runners are very FIT! Those green shorts make it all very clear.

Whew. 

Oh yeah, so work, it's gonna begin again. Good times.

Quickie

Major report due to the client tomorrow - guess who's been procrastinating? Well, at least I got the waterworks completed. There's something to be said for professional-grade procrastination - a lot gets accomplished. Just not the right lot.

Add to the catastrophe list from Sunday: a leak in the pond. Must save tadpoles!

Baby kitties, baby frogs, (big) baby dog, baby mosquitoes; we're all just a big bunch of babies around here.

Top Ten advertising edition

Since I've worked in the ad business for 20somethingorso years, certain key lines of dialogue from TV spots tend to stick in my brain and pop out of my mouth at random moments. Since most of them get a blank stare in return, I'm putting them down here for your future reference. Some I've worked on, some I haven't.

Not mine, but favorites:

1. Dunkin Donuts with Fred the Baker: "It's time to make the donuts..." Useful in many situations.

2. Whiskas: "Kitty cats, read my beak." I could watch this over and over, and do.

3. Vicks 44: "I'm not a doctor, but I play one on TV." I said this to my doctor once (who's maybe 12) and got the blank stare plus the humor the patient look. It lost something in the explanation.

4. My latest favorite: the eTrade Mobile Baby: "Bad girl!" I love how his eyes widen at this.

Spots I've worked on:

5. Knudsen Cottage Cheese:  "Don't be wiggy!" We had no idea what this meant, but we liked it.

6. Butchers Blend, with "stew-like goodness!" There were legal reasons we couldn't say "stew," but "stew-like," no problem.

7. Reach Toothbrush: "Bad news at the dentist!" (He says we aren't getting our back teeth clean enough.) Tragedy strikes the family.

8. Knorr Soups: Frank Langella saying "Leeeek sooooup," getting all the housewives hot.

9. More recently: Edge Wireless: "It's for you!" with endless variations of intonation.

10. And my finest hour: working on the Ren & Stimpy Talking & Farting Dolls and coming up with the phrase "rude underleg noise" (can't say fart on TV). Thank you.

 

Top 10 Work edition

Today is my department's official last day at our company, though we haven't actually been there for awhile. The swallowing and digesting of Edge by the Big Blue Globe is complete, and we've been spit out. Today we turn in keys and go to lunch, this time with margaritas. So, to mark the day:

Top ten things I'll miss about Edge:

1. My team, my peeps, my kids - I miss their energy and their stories.
2. Working with smart, motivated people who all like each other.
3. The candy in accounting.
4. Casual Friday every day.
5. Playing with the latest "devices" (cellphones)
6. Brainstorming on silly radio spots.
7. Hanging in PJ's office talking about knitting.
8. The warmth and openness of our CEO.
9. The company plane, stocked with donuts and beer.
10. Getting a paycheck every other week - sweet!

I'm sick...

of being sick. Combination of allergy, sinus infection, cold, sore throat, whatever - it's been dragging me down for a few weeks. I'm one of those people who ignores stuff like this as long as possible, but I'm going in to see my nose doc tomorrow. [Funny that different body parts have different doctors.]

We tossed out the marketing department today. We went through files, cabinets, drawers, shelves and desks and threw out 7 years of hard work. It was quite dismaying. First to review all the work that had been done and recall how important it seemed at the time, then to see all the garbage it turned into. We kept saying "Won't they want this stuff? Shouldn't we be keeping it?" But no one actually cares.

Good lesson in the Buddhist principle of impermanence. Things change.

latest installment of...

When we last left our intrepid team from the marketing department, they were anxiously awaiting notice of their fate in Globeland. They were under cube arrest, chained to their computers, with little work to occupy their time. Their fearless leader [me] kept their spirits up by regaling them with fearsome stories of all her previous layoffs and how she endeavored to survive them.

The Globe has rotated again, and our status has been revealed: surplus. Mother Globe has been generous in her decree, so we're under no immediate threat of catastrophe. We've been freed from cube arrest to seek our fortunes elsewhere.

They all lived happily ever after, we hope. The End.

me me meme

Okay, I'm piggy-backing on the meme on Knit One Quilt Too. Hey, Kristen!

1. What was I doing 10 years ago?
Um, let's see. 1998. Dating Bruce. Driving to Portland every other weekend. Working at the agency-that- must-not-be-named. Training Flash. Thinking about adoption. Wait - it might have been Kev. Who can remember?

2. What are 5 things on my to-do list for today?
1. Work on that darn entrelac bag! Whose idea was it, anyway? Oh, right.
2. Write back to my friend Maurice in Hawaii - I miss him.
3. Hit Safeway for the third time this week.
4. Look for work.
5. Attend the Knit-Up at PJ's tonight - highlight of my week!

3. Snacks I enjoy.
Cereal, plain yogurt, fruit and maple syrup.
Cheese and crackers (my staple single-girl meal).
The little candy bars that are in accounting. Have to come up with reason to visit accounting.
Is wine a snack?

4. Things I would do if I were a billionaire.
Get a housekeeper.
Give a million dollars to Heifer International. That's a lot of chickens! (and ducks, bees, geese, goats, rabbits and of course heifers).
Fix the potholes on 16th Street.

5. Places I have lived.
In reverse chronological order: Bend, Los Angeles, NYC, Boston, Fairbanks, Vermont, Florence, Paris, Vermont, Pittsburgh PA.

6. Jobs I've had.
Are you kidding? OK, titles only: marketing manager, marketing director, consultant, account director, management supervisor, account supervisor, account exec.(right on up the ad agency ladder), scuba instructor/divemaster, temp secretary, traffic manager (newspaper, not cars), bookstore manager, pipeline inspector, restaurant manager, pizza cook, waitress, figure drawing model, girl scout camp counselor.

OK, who's next?

top ten tuesday

Ten phrases I hope never to hear again:

1. Ping me  As in: "Ping me next week and I'll give you an update."   Contact, call, email.

2. Populate the form factor  As in: "Once we get the layout determined, we just have to populate the form factor." Write the copy.

3. In my silo  As in: "Sales training is not in my silo; you need to talk to Charlie."  Area, department, responsibility.

4. Long pole [of the tent]  As in: "Obtaining the permits is the long pole in this build-out." Longest lead time.

5. Ideate As in: "Let's set up a conference call and ideate on this." Come up with ideas, brainstorm.

6. Socialize As in "I'll take this recommendation back and socialize it."  Send around for review.

7. OOO  As in "Ping me Monday on this as I'm OOO til then."  Out Of Office.

8. Day Alpha  As in "We need to get this accomplished by Day Alpha."  Launch date.

9. Bandwidth  As in "My department doesn't have the bandwidth for that right now."  Capacity, resources.

And last but not least;
10. Surplus  As in "Employees who are notified of surplus will receive severance."  Laid off.

Wacky day

all over the place. Work, friends, money, jobs, dogs all a little off kilter today. Not in a bad way, just different. Which I enjoy, change-junkie that I am.

A friend is here for the weekend with her new adorable sweet black lab puppy, who Flash immediately bit, getting in that pre-emptive strike.

Work is kind of unraveling - people are leaving either short term or for good, everyone's working with different and new folks from Big Globe (there are a million of them!), the payout is happening, and we were notified that we'd be notified about our jobs next week. Plus ca change... (that's french without the accents, fyi).

Here's a cool photo of a few of the entrelac bags in progress:

Mine is the one in the upper right. PJ (who just learned to knit) has pulled well into the lead, so we get to learn from her trials. MUST FINISH before heading back east for two weeks in late June. Shouldn't be a problem, though I tend to slow down near the finish line with these things.

Done!

Nothing feels better than finishing a consulting project. The stress, anxiety, guilt, doubt, nervousness, all washed away, and the feeling of relief floods in. It's always a time for me to celebrate a little bit: buy a slightly more expensive bottle of wine, splurge on some fresh seafood for dinner, maybe order a little something on line (I have a bad Amazon habit).  I deserve it! I worked hard! It's done!

Of course, it's never really done. I usually walk away with some more work to do, a little more polishing, a bit more analysis, just one more draft. Very annoying.

But this time, I walked away clean. They seemed to like the work. And I got another potential assignment from it. Sweet.

Excuse me while I go open a bottle and steam some mussels and clams for dinner.

into it

I'm working on a new assignment for BendFocus. It's a straightforward project, all secondary research (meaning I'm not actually asking people anything). It involves digging into demographic and business statistics as well as analyzing a particular industry's outlook and potential.

As usual, I procrastinated furiously, but once I get going I'm completely caught up in the process. The house declines into term-paper mode: laundry piles up, food is reheated, mail goes unopened, phone calls ignored. I sit down and hours later I've produced one PowerPoint slide. Other times, I'm whipping them off furiously. It's completely solitary work, a break from years of managing, handling, collaborating and negotiating with others.

I love the work, along with the primary research aspect of designing surveys and analyzing reams of results. I'm lucky to have it, but not so lucky in that it can't fully support us. If it were just me it would be no problem, but I have a child and cats and dogs and a mortgage all balancing precariously on my shoulders.  Where's that second income? Somehow I forgot to marry one! I'm on my own, with all the benefits and hazards that come with that. In the end, however, I do have to say I like it just fine.

Cube arrest

We're still in this weird limbo, waiting for the word from the Big Globe on our futures. We are to be assigned one of three categories, which are basically "needed," "needed for the time being," or "not needed." (or as they refer to it: "surplus.")

Meanwhile we still report to the office every day, though there's nothing to do. Since some here still have real work, we can't wander the halls bugging people, so we're stationed at our desks in a sort of a cube arrest. (OK, so I have an office -- it doesn't sound as good though.) We are still on the payroll and we think they know we're still here, but who knows?

I sure wish I could knit at my desk.

getting back on the (work) horse

My consulting gig just got a nice new contract. Work is a good thing, I've realized yet again. What with parenting frustrations and relationship failures, it's about the only arena I get consistent positive feedback.

And parenting is the only time that I constantly doubt myself, regret my actions, and generally feel like I'm screwing up. But I digress.

I like the work I do, and I realize every day that I'm lucky to be able to say that. Unlike so many others, I know what I want to do, and I'm pretty much doing it. Unfortunately, not quite enough to live on, but that's a different post.

Labels: solo parenting, work