The Office

Today, I thought I would write about my office, and how great the people I work with are. I enjoy coming to work, and I've attributed that to the people I work with. I thought I'd start by saying we could possibly have the coolest compliance team ever. We have three teams in the compliance room. There's Pimp My Data, also known as the Early Morning News team, then there's the Outbound team, also known as The World News Team (which really doesn't make sense because they focus on the people in the States while we focus on people in the UK), and the Afternoon News Team.

"Pimp My Data" is the team I'm on. Tom, Zach and Chad get here at 2am so they can speak with the UK, and then Tammy, Emily, Mike, and I come into work at 5am, and Stephanie comes in at 5:30am. Tom is the newest member of our team, and he is hilarious. He can make the funniest voices ever, and makes the best jokes. Even though he's from Idaho, he's still pretty cool! Lol. Zach is new too, he's fun but seems to be asleep more often than not. Chad is great, and he's also from Idaho, but he's fun to work with too. Tammy is our team leader, and we worked together in the past at a daycare. In fact, she's the reason I got the job here at good ol' Security Metrics. She's hilarious, and can do one of the best "black lady" impressions I've ever heard or seen. We call her CICOTW (kicktow) which stands for Chief in Commander of the World. She is a great team leader and is a lot of fun to be around. Emily is awesome too. She's my "partner in crime" whenever I do something crazy, like making snow angels in 6" of snow without shoes on in the parking lot. She can make anything funny, and is really easy to talk to. She's always dressed the best too, which is so funny, but she always looks nice while the rest of us just kind of show up. Mike is another story. He pulls hilarious pranks on everyone, including sending weird phone calls to our phones. Stephanie and I got off to a rough start. I'm pretty sure she really didn't like me there for awhile, but I think we've gotten past that now, and she's fun to be around too. She has 2 dogs, one's a giant, and the other is a cute little mini schnauser. The best thing about our team is that we can just laugh and joke around with each other all the time.

"The World News Team" consists of Dallin, Kelin, and Joe. Dallin is the team leader in that group, and he could be one of the funniest people I've ever met. Literally. He's been kind of upset since Hog Posh disappeared, but still has his sense of humor. Kelin and Joe are both pretty funny too. They have a team mascot they call Hog Posh, and Tammy, Emily and I kidnapped them and demanded a ransom. It was hilarious the way they reacted and the way it all played out. Joe is the "shred Nazi" who never lets anyone shred anything unless they ask him. It's really funny, but he does sit right by the shredder, so he thinks he has some right to control it, in a funny way. The whole team is sarcastically hilarious, and I love it.

The Afternoon News team consists of Chris, Randi, Laurel, Devon, Dave, Larry, Jordan, and Whitney. Chris is the team leader for them, and he is pretty funny as well. He's a democrat, and I'm not, so sometimes we butt heads, but most of the time we get along great. He's a very strong Hilary supporter, and I am definitely not. Merchant also tend to think he's a woman, so when they call back and ask to speak with Chris, and we say he's a man, they say it was definitely a woman. We all laugh about that, just because it's funny, and Chris is a good sport. Randi, who is married to Chris, is a very timid, quiet girl. She has a cute personality, but she tends to keep to herself most of the time. Laurel knows how to get really good water that supposedly helps put your body's PH back to where it should be, but besides that she doesn't really talk much.

Devon is "the shiz." No, really, he is a lot of fun to be around. He can make a joke out of anything, and tends to be a little out of control when it comes to girls. Lol, not really, but the girls do love him. He will be going on his mission this year, so I'm preparing myself to be sad, but until then, we enjoy him a lot. I don't really get to see Dave that much, but he's a cool kid. He's really tall, 6' 6", and is really good at vollleyball. He hits so hard that I actually get scared and shield myself instead of going after the ball, which is a very rare event. Larry is kind of like the guy that does whatever he wants. He is really funny though, and adds to how much fun it is here. Jordan is hilarious. He's the only guy I've ever met who knows so much about cooking. He's funny, and is good at making something serious into a joke, which can be very helpful around here sometimes. He's getting married in March, but still isn't too boring. Yet... Lol. Whitney always works the late shift, so I very rarely see her, but she is an awesome girl too. It's really funny though, because she has a hard time sitting still sometimes. She will get up and move around even if she's on a phone call. I laugh every time, because it is so funny.

I also can't forget to give a shout out to Abby. She isn't exactly apart of the compliance team, but she works in our room, and is a lot of fun. She's just a part-timer, because she's going to school. Abby tends to bring a lot of drama with her when she's here. Not necessarily bad drama for the office, but her life has some dramatic moments in it that we all talk about and discuss. She has a fun personality and helps bring some spice to the office.

The people here love to tease me, especially about my "holey hoodie", but they make me feel like Security Metrics is a second home to me. Heck I could even shower here if I needed to. Lol. I feel like I work with some of the best people in the world though. We have fun, and do some ridiculous things in the office. I really think that we are funnier than "The Office." Anyway, I just thought I'd blog about how much I love "my office."

Reality shows...

American Idol is a household name now. I don't think I've met anyone recently who didn't know what American Idol was, and how the season was last year. But at the beginning of each season I find myself being more and more bothered that making fun of people has become America's new favorite past time. Last night I happened to see the last few minutes of auditions in Philadelphia
I will, of course, admit that I love American Idol, but I love it for a different reason than many people. I love American Idol for the quality singing competition that it once was, and hopefully will be this year, and not for the horrible singing auditions at the beginning of the show, or even Sanjaya's horrible performances from last year.
It seems to me that we have become a society bent on pointing out others failures and weaknesses, instead of pointing out their strengths or positive attributes. Now, I will also admit that some of the people who audition for American Idol are completely ridiculous, but it bothers me that what sells here in the US is making fun of people. Do I laugh when these ridiculous people get on American Idol, of course I do. But how would I like it if I was shown on TV having people make fun of me? Frankly, I wouldn't.
I also understand that these people bring this type of ridicule on themselves, and they should know better than to embarrass themselves in front of the entire nation, but it still makes me wonder what this society has become. I don't think that God meant "make fun of others" when He commanded us to "love our neighbors." Anyway, I'm not trying to preach, or tell people that they're bad people for making fun of these people, because I do it to. This is just something I've been thinking about and wanted to share some of my thoughts on.
I also wanted to write a little bit about the Biggest Loser TV show. I really think this show is great, because it shows extremely overweight people that there is hope and they can change. It also shows people that losing weight isn't easy, and sometimes it isn't fair. So many Americans today want the "lose weight quick" scheme, or the easy way out. Let's face it, wouldn't we all love that?? But the truth is, it just doesn't work that way, and we (including me) need to realize this. I really need to learn to discipline myself more than I am right now. I need to learn to stay on my diet plan, even when I feel like eating a king sized bag of M&M's, and I need to make myself workout even when I'm exhausted (which is pretty much every day, since I wake up so dang early). Anyway, the point of this is to show that I am grateful for The Biggest Loser TV show. Kinda Ironic... Lol