phairoh unleashed

I’m in Chicago now, trying to find an apartment. Today, my sister and I went to a service named Apartment People, an absolutely ridiculous place that I have to go back to tomorrow. One goes to Apartment People and speaks with an agent, if you can call them that. You then get driven around to look at apartments that match your specifications. Sounds great, doesn’t it? Sounds like the most perfect service ever, right? Far from it.

First, your agent is dumb. My agent was looking at the screen containing the system that she uses every day, and would simply not see apartments that would work. The only reason that I ended up having a chance to see anything was my sister looking at the screen from across the desk and at a strange angle, pointing out all the good apartments, places I would have no idea were good simply because I don’t know the areas. By the way, the term good is used here only to describe an apartment as being in a decent location, as that is all we really know at that point.

Second, your agent doesn’t do anything. I’m going back tomorrow to meet with my agent again, the only reason being that she wrote down a number of apartments that I couldn’t see today since it’s Sunday. But I promise you, she will not have done anything by the time I go in tomorrow. In fact, she will have to look up every single one of the apartments all over again, and then call up all of the people so that I can actually go see the places. This process will take at least 30 extra minutes of my time up.

Of course, all of this is done for a purpose. It one of many sales tactics that are used every day. They use up as much time as possible so that by the end of my time with them, I feel like I have put in so much time already that I must make a decision on an apartment, even if it’s not something I want.

Oh, yeah. Third, my agent lies. Well, I don’t know for a fact if she lied, but she said specifically that apartments that fit my specifications do not exist in X area, but then I found a bunch while searching online. She may simply not have known about these places. But even then, she could have at least said “sorry, but my database doesn’t have any listings there,” not “those don’t exist.”

I am hopeful for tomorrow, not so much because I’m going to meet with my agent again, but because of the apartments that Leah and I found on the internet.  My goal is to find an amazing place by Wednesday.  I still think that I can do it.

No.

I am going to do it.

All times in Eastern Standard Time, except where noted otherwise.

4:30AM: Wake up alarm. Quick breakfast of breakfast bar and vitamins. Hot shower but no shave due to late shave the day before. Dress and pack bag.

5:15AM: Leave house. Remove battery charger from car and close hood. Get in and drive my car for the first time in over 6 weeks (which felt so good). Head to airport.

5:30AM: Vicarious comes on the radio. Put in 10,000 Days CD and turn volume up. Sing and dance my way to the airport.

6:00AM: Arrive at airport. Find parking; shuttle to terminal; receive round-trip tickets from United Airlines at ticket counter. Hobble through security and head to gate. Get breakfast sandwich from Quiznos.

7:53AM: Plane leaves gate, headed for Chicago. Doze most of the way.

8:10AM CST: Arrive at gate at Chicago O’Hare. Go into men’s room to change into suit. Make my way to the Blue Line train, quite a long walk for someone just off crutches.

8:30AM CST: Board train. Ride all the way to the Clark/Lake station in the Loop.

9:20AM CST: Arrive at Clark/Lake station. Wander around on streets a moment to get bearings. Figure out direction I am supposed to be heading and go to 161 North Clark Street.

9:35AM CST: Arrive at Avanade on 37th floor of Chicago Title Tower. Meet Leah Goodwin and speak with her a bit while filling out paperwork. Continue to fill out paperwork as she leaves to get my interview started.

9:50AM CST: Meet Andy Marselos, Principal Solution Developer. Head back to his office to begin first part of interview. He asks many technical questions as well as a few behavioral questions that I am able to answer very well. I can talk to him easily and he and I have great conversations.

10:30AM CST: Meet with Tom Duex, Practice Director. He asks many behavioral questions which I answer candidly. Again, conversation is very easy and just feels normal, not like an interview at all. More like a discussion with a friend.

11:15AM CST: Tom gives me a brief tour of the office, which has great views of the city everywhere.

11:20AM CST: Meet back up with Leah Goodwin who tells me to expect a response by Monday. Sit down to finish up last of paperwork. Leave building and head back to train.

11:37AM CST: Miss call from Leah Goodwin, who leaves a message. No service underground so have to wait until train comes above ground to get voice mail.

11:55AM CST: Listen to voice mail. Leah Goodwin says she has positive feedback from both Andy and Tom and she is going to get back to me by Monday with a definite offer.

11:56AM CST: Call everyone I can think of to tell them the news.

2:00PM CST: Take off from O’Hare back to Detroit. Completely exhausted from the day, but lady next to me wont shut up. Ignore her, for the most part.

4:00PM EST: Arrive in Detroit. Get my things together and turn on phone.

4:09PM: Receive call from Leah Goodwin with actual offer. Accept it on the spot.

4:10PM: I AM EMPLOYED!!!!!!!

4:11PM: Call everyone all over again.

4:12PM: Call everyone again and again.

The rest of the day consisted of being extremely happy and eating Chinese food for dinner.

Yay Avanade! Yay Chicago! Yay being employed! I am so excited!

For as long as I can remember, I have been deathly afraid of bees. I have no idea why. The only time I had ever been stung was one time when I was something like 2 years old, and the only reason I even remember that is because my parents told me about it many years later. Perhaps that one instance that early on in my life left an imprint on me somehow and as such I ended up with an unexplainable hatred towards bees. Regardless, I hate bees, and yesterday I found out why.

We went out to breakfast at this awesome place nearby that has the most ridiculous southern style breakfasts. Afterwards, we head back to the car. I asked Jeff to pull out so I could get in, since I have to open the door all the way to get my stupid foot in (which, with any luck, will be all fixed on Thursday! YAY!) and as I hobble into the car and sit back I feel what I think is a nail poking right into my back. This nail prick, which occurs so suddenly and painfully, begins to burn, and even though I hadn’t been stung in over 20 years I knew exactly what it was.

I jumped up very quickly in my seat, all the way so that I was almost climbing into the front seat. I screamed something like “shit, I just got stung!” though really I have no idea what exactly I said. I remember looking behind me and seeing the bee fly around as though nothing had happened. She was certainly in no hurry to get out from where I wanted to sit. I just stayed standing there, rubbing my back, my adrenaline pumping causing my hands and arms to shake uncontrollably. Doug, my savior, jumped out from his seat next to me, ran around to my side of the car and promptly killed the demonic beast by squishing her against the side window. Leighan was kind enough to check to see if the stinger was stuck in my back (she is a nurse, afterall) which we decided it was not, so likely it was not a bee at all but a yellow jacket or some other evil creature.

So, there was me facing my fear… sort of. I wonder how I will act now when I next see a bee close up. Will I still be frightened? I mean, yes, it hurt, but it certainly wasn’t unmaginable pain the way I had always envisioned it being. And yet, nothing has really changed. I’m sure if I hear the buzzing I’ll still flinch. I’m sure that if I see a large flying bug I’ll still take a few steps back (read: run screaming with arms flailing). I can only hope things will change, but they rarely do on their own unless I make it happen.

Doug and I tried to go out sarging tonight… wow, what a failure.

It’s unbelievable how difficult it is for me to talk to strangers. All I wanted to do all night was go in to a 2-set or a 3-set or more and just try and be myself and engage them in a meaningless conversation. My intentions were completely honorable, yet for some reason I could not bring myself to talk to anyone.

What is wrong with me? What is wrong with my brain? I know what words I want to use. I see the people I want to use them on. I tell myself “go, go, go!”, yet all I do is sit there, wondering what might have been.

Perhaps I do have to go through the full 31 steps. Maybe that’s the only way I’ll ever get to the point where I’m comfortable with it. Maybe I need someone yelling in my ear the way I kept on trying to yell at Doug, though he still kept the course as the pussy. Maybe if someone was yelling in my ear the way I was to Doug, I would have been the first one to make a move… It’s just so aggravating.

I really want to change my life. I want to make myself… no… FORCE myself to become more social and to have more random social interactions with people. If those people should happen to be of the same or opposite sex is of no consequence to me. I just want to have a much higher confidence in myself to accomplish the goals I have set for myself.

The one good conversation I had with a stranger all night was with a strange black man (who I must assume was high as a kite) about myself hurting my foot in a bear attack… HE ACTUALLY BELIEVED ME! That just goes to show how high he must have been!

Argh… I will get this! I will figure this out! I will improve my life in all aspects! This is my goal, and I will stick to it!