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Here's me working with a motorcycle helmet on. Don't I look like some kind of a cyborg?
We also got these giant bean bags at work. I put two of them next to my work area. I sleep on it quite often. They are really comfortable. I usually get on it by diving into it.
I am a HUGE fan of The Office. I love comedy and laughter. This past weekend I had a season 2 and season 3, The Office marathon viewing. My favorite character is Dwight. He cracks me up.
I can't wait until Thursday night for season 3! Woohoo!
I'm the only girl in engineering (well, along with the product manager, but she's really quiet), so I get teased a lot. But it's all in good fun. They are all like my older or younger brothers. It's really funny. We compete in these ping pong tournaments all the time, and I just really want to crush this one guy in particular, but he always beats me. If you were to rank the 7 people that play, I'm 4th in the ranking. They tease me at ping pong, they tease me at lunch, every chance they get they try to tease me. Man, only if it were reversed, where there are all girls and one guy. But I have a lot of fun with my boys.
We are hiring about 20 more people between products and engineering, and I hope I get along with those people as I do with the current tight knit group.
So the CTO started this week. Today my co-workers and I had to interview this guy that the CTO brought in for the Director of Engineering position. They both worked at Yahoo together. I think we're going to get a lot of people from Yahoo joining our team. We already have 4 former Yahoo employees in engineering.
I never had to interview a superior. It was interesting.
We asked him what his weaknesses were and one of them he said was being a total nerd and playing War of Warcraft. I thought that was funny. If he's my boss, I'm going to so make fun of him about that all the time.
Last week none of our bosses were in the office. All of them were in Munich, Germany. So we had a very relaxed week with not much to do. But on Friday, the last day we knew that we could take it easy, we played hookie. We took a 2 hour lunch, all of us in engineering. We first went to a leisurely lunch at one of the nice restaurants on 3rd street promenade and we decided to head on off to the beach which was only 2 blocks away. We actuallywalked out to the sand and then to the water. We then decided to go to the boardwalk and play some games. We felt like such rebels! We were living on the edge!
Anyway, we figured come Monday, our new CTO will start and all the VPs will be back from Munich and it was going to get busy. So we totally went wild. The zookeepers let the monkeys out and we were going bananas.
Here are some evidence of our shenanigans.
That night after work, we all decided to go to happy hour. It was raining, but we didn't care. It was going to be the last night before our new CTO starts. We went to Yankee Doodles on 3rd street, which is a sports bar. We played pool and competed against each other in the mini basketball. Let me just tell you that I'm pretty good. I was the only girl, but I didn't score the lowest. We ate a lot of hot wings and drank beer. Fun times. Next time, we decided to go to a Karaoke bar.
Couple of weekends ago, I went to the LA Zoo and Descanso Gardens. The Descanso Gardens was a total dissapointment because there were no flowers because everything dried up. Even the rose garden sucked with dried up rose bushes. My friend and I kept saying how there should be a disclaimer that the garden sucks in the end of summer. We just kept laughing at how ridiculous our trip to see the most amazing flora turned out to be so...um...lackluster. My friend Brendan joked that the tour guides should say, "please dump your bottled water on the plant life for the much needed hydration." By the way, the most beautiful garden I have ever seen is the Butchart Garden in Victoria, BC. Asolutely the best garden you'll ever see in all of the Americas.
We decided after an hour of viewing burnt shrubbery at Descanso Garden to go to the Zoo. It was so much more exciting. LA Zoo is a lot better than I remember it. The last time I visited was when I was 9, I think. The funniest and the most entertaining animals were the giraffes. The weather was hot and the caged habitat were so small that most animals were just lying down and sleeping. Not so the giraffes. They were grazing and walking around. One even did something totally X-rated! One of the giraffes started peeing, and another giraffe came behind it and starting tasting the pee!
I was so grossed out. But it turns out that male giraffes taste a little bit of the female urine to see if she is fertile. After going to the zoo, I did extensive research on wikipedia of some of the animals I saw. It made me really want to go to Africa on a Safari. That would be so awesome.
On another note, I felt really sorry for some of the animals there that clearly are used to running in the wild. For example, the zebras looked pretty depressed in their confined cage. And so did the tiger. Clearly they don't get the much needed exercise. I don't think some animals are meant to be confined to small areas.
I love sitting on my exercise ball chair. It's quite fun sitting on it and occasionally bouncing on it. Everyone at the office has one.
On another note, people bring their pets to the office all the time. We always have a dog roaming around the office any given day. Yesterday, we had a lab/dalmatian mix. The other day, a jack russell terrier, and today a mutt. She was apparently abused and rescued. The dog was a bit shy probably because it's afraid of people. But she was very sweet. I really wish I had a dog and a cat.
Today we went to a vegan restaurant because it was a co-worker who's a vegetarian's birthday. I can't say I loved my food. It was a bit bland. He ordered a carrot cake as his birthday dessert. Who the heck orders carrot cake for a birthday dessert?
I've always wanted to try this other place called Raw on Broadway in Santa Monica. It's all raw food.
It's a lot more difficult than I thought--finding that second job. I went to the Ivy, Ma'Kai, BOA Steakhouse, and Sushi Roku and none of them were hiring except Sushi Roku. The original place I submitted my resume (Yankee Doodles) isn't hiring either. I probably won't get a job at Sushi Roku since I have no waitressing experience. And I'm only applying to expensive restaurants where the tip will be high. I think I'll try Houston's too.
In order to fund my lifestyle habits, I thought perhaps I should get a second job. I have a lot of free time and I'm not dating anyone right now, so I thought "why not make some extra money?" I get paid OK at my technology job but I'd like to save what I earn from there instead of spending it. So, in order to make some extra money for spending as well as pay off my taxes I still owe from last year, I think I should get another job.
I thought about all the options. It's hard to find a well paying job if you already have a day job. PT jobs do not pay well. "How about retail", somebody asked, since there is no shortage of clothing stores at the 3rd street promenade. The problem is, they don't pay enough and I could picture myself spending more money buying the clothes from the store that I shouldn't.
So I thought, how about waitressing? I never thought about it because I thought it was too beneath me (no offense to waitresses because I understand how tough it can be), but I'm thinking about it again because tips are good. I don't want to wait tables because I can't carry those plates and I don't think I can handle people complaining to me. I'll just get pissed off and probably tell them off. But I think I can do cocktail waitressing. Nothing too heavy to carry, good tips. There is this sports bar called Yankee Doodles on 3rd street promenade that is high volume, high traffic that might be good for me to apply to. And football season just began. High volume means, more tip. You can potentially make a lot being a waitress in a high volume place. Certainly more than your average PT job. Did you know that in Vegas, waitresses make six figures?
Anyway, I'm not certain that I want to get a second job, but I'm seriously considering it. Waitressing is not something I want to do for too long, perhaps a couple of months until I can pay off my taxes and make some extra money for spending on surplus of stores on 3rd street.
Plus, it might be a fun experience. Something different than my usual nerdy jobs in corporate america. I'll have more to blog about.
I'll interface with a lot of people that's for sure.
