A Day in the Life of a Downtown Employee: Halloween Edition

My road to the White House. (This link is hysterical):

Teaching everything I (as Sarah Palin) know about the Bush doctirine:

It just goes to show that anyone can be President. Anyone:

I'm on Fire!

Happy Hump Day & Happy Birthday Internet!

I'm having a great week thus far and am looking forward to finding out if it will continue to ride the waves of good news:

First, I got the green light to delegate the data entry portion of my sales tracking responsibilities (YAY!) so that I can spend more energy expanding my skill set and helping the client managers bring in new business.

On Tuesday, I realized that I wasted too much time over the last few weeks being a pre/post exam grump. I picked up my Operations midterm yesterday and happily discovered that I was ahead of the curve.

Bank of America's Hurricane Relief Team was recognized by Alan Rappaport and Jay Springer (no relation to Jerry) on this afternoon's all hands call. Rochester is one of the smallest cities in our market (DE, NJ, NY, PA and parts of CT) so it was a pleasant surprise that four of the associates recognized this quarter were from Upstate, NY.

In other good news, I'm only one wish away from becoming a lead wish granter for the Make-A-Wish foundation!

Highlights from Peet's Pumpkin Party!

Q: How many pumpkins can fit in the backseat of a MINI Cooper?

A: 6 pumpkins can fit in the backseat of a MINI Cooper with room to spare.

Jessica (upon arrival): "This pumpkin has neurofibromatosis and was the ugliest one in the patch."

Peet:

"Jessica, get your diseased pumpkin off my Buffalo!!"

Simon Students and Pumpkins:

Byron, Melly, Jessica, and Yankee Peet

When I got home...

Amelia (helping me carry our pumpkins inside): Mel, these are so heavy and won't fit in the fireplace! What part of small to medium don't you understand?!

Mel: I did my job! The prices ranged from $4 to over $10. At $5.50, these pumpkins are medium!

Help Wanted!

We are having a Halloween Party at work next week and I've received bi-partisan support for my costume. I'll be wearing my glasses, a red suit, and Amelia is going to puff up my hair.

Please let me know if you can help me obtain the following items by October 30:

• An Alaskan accent
• A [free] McCain/Palin pin

Feel free to leave me other costume or prop suggestions in the comments!

Tag!

I've been tagged by my cousin Sarah. Here is the fifth photo in the fifth folder on my computer:

Sophie and I at her soccer game this summer.

I tag: Clark & James, you're it!

Small World!

According to LinkedIn, I know twenty two people who can introduce me (through one of their connections) to Barak Obama, twelve to John McCain, and four to Sarah Palin. If Joe Biden uses LinkedIN, he is not in my network.

Click on their names to view the candidates' LinkedIn profiles. I recommend checking out their use of summaries, specialties, and endorsements as it makes for quite an interesting read.

Thumbs down to Microsoft Word!

Dear Microsoft,

I had no idea that it was my secret desire for you to screw up the formatting on my 3 column, size 8 font, and .4 margin cheat sheet for OMG 402. Clearly, if I type a definition, formula, and example together, I must want you to separate those items and scatter them across the page to ruin other well organized thoughts.

Thank you for all of this rework. You are the bottleneck of my education.

Sincerely,
An Unhappy Melly

How would you decorate...?

...If there was an unsightly non-removable duck bill thing screwed into your bathroom door?

<--Before

&

After -->

Study Sanctuary

I have a midterm a week from Tuesday which means I'll be anti-social until approximately 10:00 pm on October 21st.

I'm spending this evening at the "Stoffel Study Sanctuary" to prepare for my upcoming exam. Aunt Sue always has dinner on the table, snacks in the cupboard, and a never ending supply of dark chocolate desserts. I also love that she doesn't think I'm too old to get tucked into bed.

She taught me how to focus when I was little and now my study sleepovers keep me disciplined. Thank you, Aunt Sue, for the hospitality that helped me earn two financial licenses and waive the GMAT. :)

To read more about my wonderful aunt, check out Sarah's tribute!

A Day in the Life of a Downtown Employee

The following true story is proof that men DO know how to ask for directions:

While walking to work this morning from East End Garage, a man stopped me at the corner of Gibbs Street and East Avenue to ask for directions to the nearest coffee shop. Feeling sympathetic for a gentlemen who needed a morning Cup of Joe, I didn't question his sanity as I normally would have. I let down my tunnel vision because he was walking in a straight line, didn't make suggestive comments or ask me for money.

Melisa: "Java's is a great cafe and is about two doors down on your right" (points to Java's).


View Larger Map


Gentleman: "Thank you so much, I really need breakfast. Can I ask you one more favor...?"

Melisa: (Begins to walk away assuming that he is about to ask for money)

Gentleman: "....Can you give me directions to the Genesee River? I'm trying to get to Olean and need to be home by Tuesday."

Melisa: "Left on Main, Left on Exchange. The river will be on your left."

Gentleman: (Eyes wide open, looking around and up at the sky): "Thanks so much for all of your help. I've only been in Rochester for about 5 minutes. This is a cute little town. I'm a rail traveler from Washington D.C. I took a train to Buffalo and walked here along the Erie Canal. Now, I'm going to follow the river..."

Who you going to call...?

...Herbiebusters!

When I chose my second class for this quarter, I was being faceitious when I said that my GBA 411 modeling mishaps on my final exam meant that I was destined to excel in operations:

• "When the inventory falls below one, order one..."
• "Minimize costs by producing nothing..."

I'm either settling into the Simon workload or my self-inflated ego led to "good inferences" during last week's during factory simulation. Kidding aside, I'm proud of my fellow "Herbiebusters" for the collaboration that brought us to first place.

Photos from Mississippi

Click on "View Gallery" to see photos from my recent trip to Mississippi:

http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=la8opbq.754vcesy&x=0&y=115tnx&localeid=en_US

Enjoy! :)

Election Results!

Thank you to everyone who voted for me during the Graduate Business Council (GBC) Part-Time Representative elections! I am very excited about representing the part-time community and working with the GBC executive board!

Congratulations to the other newly elected representatives:

• Daniel Beth, M.S. representative
• Ranbo Chen, M.S. representativ
  
• Peter Dwyer, 1st year representative
• Ricardo Medeiros, 1st year representative
• Erik Monostory, Part-time representative
  
• Jason Reminick, 1st year representative
• Myrdna Vargas, 1st year representative