my grandparents are in town!

Mi abuelito Chava (Salvador Gonzalez) and mi abuelita Licha (Hildelisa Gonzalez) are back in Los Angeles and this time I actually get to visit them and see them!!! Unfortunately for Evey, she only got to see them one day. Thank you Evey for taking your camera!

I'm so lucky to have a job

Today I met a girl who just graduated from Cal Poly and she was starting as a signer, working from 6am-3pm for minimum wage. I felt bad for her because she already has her degree. At the same time, it made me place a stronger value on MY degree from the best public university in the country. This feeling was confirmed later in the day when I found a picture of my store manager wearing a Cal cap. When I asked him if he was a bear too he said no, but he would much rather wear a Cal hat and with more pride than wear a hat from his own school.

Can you think of how I felt? I felt proud, accomplished and honored! I felt like the luckiest person! I wanted to yell out - I GRADUATED FROM UC BERKELEY!!!

Later when I went to go see my grandparents, my grandpa told my dad outside that he was proud to see that my college degree was paying off with a good job and that he loved my car and license plate!

I was reminded today THREE TIMES of how lucky I am to be able to say I AM A CAL ALUMNI. GO BEARS!

P.S. I'm considering Accounting Online Courses: http://lahc.edu/classes/fallsched09.pdf

How You Know You Are No Longer at Berkeley

This list was written during finals week in May by Landy and Me. I just found it hidden in my OneNote pages. Thought it would be funny to share it!

1. You wish you were still in college
2. You don't run to catch the bus
3. You don't need to memorize bus routes or schedules
4. You can't get Thai, Japanese, Mediterranean, Italian, India, Mexican, Healthy, Hawaiian, Vietnamese, Korean, Chinese foods; Pizza, Intermezzo (salad on salad), Crepe's, Frozen Yogurt, or have so many Café's within a 1 mile radius
5. You're not willing to stand during football games , you're just sitting down
6. You don't spend holiday's at the library
7. Weather and work stops you from going places
8. Can't stand steamy, very tight humid parties
9. You're not at a donut shop singing at 2am with bums for your friend's birthday (Mariah Carey, We Belong Together)
10. You are not easily convinced to follow strangers to a bar and play frisbee with them when you have work to do
11. Your furniture matches and it wasn't from your "ex-boyfriend"
12. Most of your meals don't consist of chicken and pasta
13. You're not on facebook all day everyday
14. You don't have many random moments
15. You're at work doing work instead of working at lakes, parks, or memorial glade
16. You don't carry around a towel, frisbee, and a nerf football
17. You don't talk about laundry without thinking about lingerie
18. Can't nap during the weekday's
19. Weekends are no longer 3-4 day's long
20. You don't go to banks to get quarters to pay for laundry
21. You don't get as many discounts
22. You don't get confused for a high school student
23. When you're asked where you're from it just means ethnically, not where you grew up
24. People don't go around asking "what's your major", "what year are you", "where do you live"
25. You don't move once a year
26. You don't ask people to take off their red shirt
27. You don't shop at Dollar Tree for your necessities
28. You no longer get 4 weeks off for Christmas, a week off for Easter, nor three months to celebrate 4th of July
29. Spring Break doesn't exist
30. There are actual penalties for skipping work, unlike skipping class

*The first one was changed.
This list may continue as time goes by, but hopefully we'll be able to contribute a "what you don't miss about Berkeley" list.... which probably wont be long and just consist of papers, midterms and finals.

First Paycheck : End of Second Week

Rachel: Who's FICA? And why does he get all my money?

I officially received my first paycheck as a trainee with a career ahead of me. With all the meetings, trainings, and interviews I think I have genuinely received a great vibe for the job. I love my co-workers, Del Amo 511 has an extraordinary team, I would not change anything about any of them. I love the fast paced atmosphere, it's so fast-paced that I'm a tiny bit scared of falling behind with my trainee assignments since there is so much shadowing to be done. Aside from having a crash course in EIC/CIC and SOS with the Scorecard, I have learned a great variety of on-the-job tasks, such as mainframe programs, the reminders and DML's, I have participated in 2 black box walks and a retention board meeting, I have a led a rally, pulled my numbers up in time for POD, I've learned how to manage schedules and I've even had time to role play with my associates and observe them long enough to hand out a Thank You For Being Outstanding Card. Today I was part of a Fine Jewelry Trunk Show, put on by Iber Hoja Diamonds. I'm learning a lot about everywhere and everything, up and down. Last week, when my mentor was the zone manager, I assisted in a call from Women Shoes where the customer was returning a pair a shoes without a receipt and with a previously returned CRL. I was surprised at how calm I was during the entire situation (except when I was heading toward shoes because I was nervous). Nonetheless, the customer was a Spanish speaking customer who did not understand very much English and was in the middle of this dilemma. I was able to return the pair of shoes after locating the CRL history and calling the credit card company, she left the store happy with a new pair of shoes that she bought after a hundred thank you's for being patient with our team.

One thing that concerns me is Junior's business. We're not getting much traffic down there and that is affecting our numbers. Although it is the responsibility of the girls to interact and sale to the customer, it is impossible to sell to people who aren't around!!! I really hope that our Back To School event this Sunday will bring our numbers up, as well as our Friday and Saturday Preview and One Day Sales.

For now - I'm off Saturday! and it looks like I may be off Tuesday and Wednesday and from there I don't get a break until the Friday after training at the SouthBay Galleria, yikessss!

P.S. I received around 250 compliments on my dress and make up today! My dress was purchased at RTW Suits a week ago and I purchased 2 more suits today! I am slowly building a wardrobe! Now I need colored shoes :)

Updates Updates Updates

• 1 Month and 1 day after Heart Surgery: I feel great! My heart has not gone at 220+ bpm in this past month, my HUGE bruise is gone, my wounds are closed and the scars are minor - almost unnoticeable! Although Kaiser gave me a hard time I'm glad Dr. Baik and Dr. Kangavari rescued me.
• 1 Week after my First Day at Macy's: I like it! Everyone is so helpful and nice, I already feel a bond with most of the GSMs and MTMs in my store and with Christina the ASM. I have yet to meet the SM Marc Allen, but I meet him tomorrow morning. I'm alittle worried because I feel like my first week went by so fast and I haven't had enough time to cover everything in the binder under the first week!!!! YIKES
• Wardrobe: I need more work clothes!!! Not joking. I went shopping last Friday to try and find clothes and I bought 2 dressed and a shirt, but that's not enough I need more clothes!
• MONEY: I can't wait to get paid - I am super excited to start planning my multiple saving endevours for a condo! yay! C'mmon moneyyyyyy. Just want to share Jonathan's favorite financial blogs that I'm beginning to read: Dual Income, No Kids , Budgets are Sexy, and Personal Finance Advice. I'll eventually start following stock, meanwhile I'll stick to budgets and advice.
  

Executive Development Program Trainee

Work is crazy, fast paced, and filled with so many smiling people, I really like it! First day I was really excited to see Anthony and Eric and hear Drew on the conference call because I didn't feel alone. I realized I am training in the Macy's where the district offices are located, which is perfect! I can get more face time and hopefully more opportunities will open up. First day was mostly meeting people and filling out paperwork. Second day was more exciting. I was able to see the fast paced aspect of the job, I got to sit in meetings, observe my GSM coach, participate in a retention meeting, observe Del Amo's POD meetings, and so much more I can't name everything. Today I have a late shift and tomorrow I'm off, this is probably the only strange part about my job (to me) that I'm going to have to get used to.

These 10 weeks are very planned and seem like they will go by really fast. I've been really nervous these past couple of days because I feel like there is so much I need to learn and do and I don't have enough time to do it all.

After a week and a half I was feeling more comfortable in Concord, I hope this takes less. So far the people I've interacted with, except one, have all been really nice and helpful.