Today is a busy day here at work, but I feel like just writing down a few thoughts before I enjoy my hot chocolate/coffee and get rolling. So on that note, I'll have to make this quick.

Running Fool

I'm friggin' sore this morning, or well, exhausted is probably the more appropriate word. I haven't been doing my homework for the running clinic that L and I are participating in. In fact, I was too busy to attend the clinic the last couple weeks in a row, so when I returned last night, I'm sure I surprised a few people who must've thought I quit, since so far I have only ever attended the first session.

So yes, because I haven't been practicing my running like I should, last night's run really put me through the wringer. We ran in 5 minutes intervals (the third minute of each interval was always considered a "pick up" where we had to pick up the speed and *really* run), then we would only get to walk for a single minute before running another 5. We did this four times. So in total I ran 20 minutes last night, 4 of those minutes spent really hoofing it.

While I was very proud of myself that I managed to keep up with the rest of the class, this morning my body feels abused. The thought that in another 4 weeks I'll be expected to run 10 minutes straight totally frightens me.

I notice that L is working from home this morning, which tells me that she might be a wee bit on the exhausted side too.

One is the Loneliest Number

Yesterday was DMC's last day in the office before she telecommutes from the island. We had a little send-off for her, with a card and gift certificate to Home Sense, but no one knows who actually picked up the tab for her lunch. I thought I overheard someone saying they grabbed it, but they were talking about something else. Whoops... Hopefully someone bought it for her!

Anyhow, since GC also works from home, that leaves only me in the office as our sole rep for the Marketing Communications team. Crap.

I say crap because DMC isn't here to act as my buffer anymore. Now anytime someone is looking for something or has a marketing question, instead of stopping by DMC's desk, they're more likely to take a stroll over to me. Ugh...

I just don't like being interrupted is all... but hopefully it won't be too bad. *fingers crossed*

Cha-cha-changes

Oh, I wish I had more time this morning so I could tell you all about this new interim VP. He is *wonderful*. Okay, so I'm sure the company is blowing a lot of dough as they pay for him to live in a fancy hotel for these next few months... but he's really awesome, and hopefully it'll be worth their investment if he can turn things around on this sinking ship.

For starters, he is always smiling and has a really great personality. He also has a cute blog which he shared with all of us. The blog is written from the perspective of his pet pooch who travels everywhere with him. The content is mainly the pup's critiques of the various four and five star hotels he spends his days in, while his owner, VP, runs around doing his consulting work for different businesses. Judging from the blog, VP certainly seems to live a jet-setting posh lifestyle...

Anyhow, aside from being a friendly guy, he is really good at what he does -- identifying problems and finding solutions. In just the last week and a half he has started restructuring the way we do things and putting processes and priorities into place. We now have the flexibility to push back on minor projects and eliminate certain bottlenecks. He asked each of us what we love to do and is finding practical ways to make use of our passions to benefit the company. (In my case, I'd like to do more creative writing, and he immediately found a couple great ways that will allow me to do that.) He even encouraged me to contact a temp agency here in town so I could get someone to pick up the slack and take care of the mindless but time-consuming work that always falls into my lap.

He is making big changes... and we've never been happier.

And as for ex-manager, well, he's still using "Director of Marketing Communications" in his email signature, but we hardly have to deal with him anymore. It's awesome.

Anyhow, I seriously have to get to work here... but that's the latest for now.

Hope you're all having a nice week.