New Houses and New Beginnings

Feels like it's been a long time coming, but L and I have finally moved into a house together. We discovered the most perfect not-so-little three bedroom in Westchester, CA, a tiny residential community where kids ride their bikes all the time, and you have expect a neighbor to bring you a freshly baked apple pie. There aren't many communities in LA like that.

We instantly made the house our own, despite the fact that it's only previous resident was a 90 year old woman we've named "Dorothy", who owned the house since 1948. I presume that she raised her family there, and we are now renting the house through a management company. Everything is original and impeccably maintained, and amazingly solid. They really knew how to make things in the 1940s. We are putting our touches on it, from shelves on the walls to searching for a new dining room pendant lamp, but we instantly felt at home.

One of the most satisfying things was seeing how much Z loved it. He's an urban city dweller, and has spent his scant lifetime in condos and apartments. I hadn't yet had the opportunity to give him grass and green, and now I do. We went to Home Depot, bought a board and some nice climbing rope and built a homemade swing in the backyard. He helped sand the board and keep the rope straight while Dad was working. When it was all put together, the smile on his face was utterly captivating.

The smile on L's face when she comes in each day is equally captivating, and she's adored making use of our rather over-sized kitchen, which even fits her beloved leather couch. We had our second Thanksgiving together, and are making a home. A home that we hope to be in for a long, long time.

It's where we are meant to be.

Another Mozart Moment

This year I was tasked with starting a new business vertical for my company. As a result, I divested myself of many of my other job responsibilities as this project grew and grew and grew in scope. The first route we took was very one-dimensional, and mid-way through the summer, we realized that monetizing this vertical was not as simple as slapping up a simple website and driving traffic in and out of it (what you would call a pass-through site).

We reset out ambitions earlier this summer, and then I spent the summer envisioning, designing, and devising a plan for where to take this business. Now, I didn't do it all on my own, but I was the driving factor, the one getting things done, creating ideas, building the designs and plans, and generally being the engine to this little engine that could.  Our goal by the end of the quarter was a full-fledged marketing plan - the vision of where this is going, what it's going to be, and most importantly, why it's meaningful. 

Today was the big day to present our whole year's worth of work and seek his backing to make this a larger company agenda moving forward. At stake is, frankly, my job. The reason goes back to that first point I made - as this grew more complex, I divested myself of so many other key elements of my job. If this doesn't get the green light and the doors get shuttered... uh, hello...? I'm still here, right? On the upside, I'm well liked at my company, and people would likely find some way to make me "of use", as Dr. Larch would say. But this is my baby, my project, and what I get excited about at work, and where I'm making a difference and a stamp. So, it's not hyperbole to say today was a crucial professional moment. 

And, in short, I nailed it. The company CEO came in a skeptic, and came out a believer. He frequently stopped me to bring up his own ideas, and to express how he thinks we've hit on what makes it important and valuable. You could see the twinkle in his eyes. Now, this doesn't make it a slam dunk, because we have some challenging headwinds as a company, and we have parent company concerns to deal with. But we got his emotional backing, and his commitment to find a way to get this done. 

Later tonight, the CEO sent me a note that says, "And best of all your passion for the initiative left me inspired and ready to join your team myself.  It was a pleasant reminder of one of the fundamentally great reasons why I love working here – there are smart, passionate people out there who can inspire me every day.  So thanks for that."

No, Mr. CEO, thank YOU for that.

Definitely a Mozart moment.

Sometimes you feel like a Wolfgang...

Sometimes you don't. Lately, I haven't felt like a Mozart very often.

But yesterday I felt like something even better - a rock star. I work at a company of about 350 people, and though I've moved up the ladder fairly swiftly, and seem to have the respect of my peers, and am well-liked, I sometimes wonder if I really... noticed. There are a lot of people around me who are true rock stars - the kinds of people who run companies, are on top of their game 100% of the time, shoot up the ladder at a speed that'll blind you, etc. I sometimes feel like I'm 90% of that, but that something truly special's not there.

Then again, maybe I underestimate myself at times.

We have quarterly company meetings, where a small set of awards are given out to people who have distinguished themselves from amongst the crowd, and it's based on feedback from your peers, etc. It's called the Golden Cart (we're a comparison shopping engine... you might have heard of us). Because of how my role is structured, much of my work involving outside vendors rather than internal people, I never thought I'd be in contention for one of those. But I got one.

And it felt pretty damn good. It didn't hurt that it came with a cash bonus, too.

So for that particular day, I felt like a Mozart.