News Flash!

Because I spent my time last night researching data encryption for work, I didn't have time to write a post. And since I've spent the last few weeks making excuses as to why I can't write posts, I'm feeling kind of guilty. I like to keep things moving around here.

So, I'm going to cheat a little bit by repurposing some other recent writing of mine.

Every Friday, my office puts out a "News Flash" email that has all the weeks' happenings in it--new hires, promotions, birthday, computer tips from our IT department, etc. And one section is called "Who's Who" and it features one person in the office per week. Last week it was my turn.

Below are my responses:

·         What practice are you in and what accounts do you work on?

I’m in the consumer and tech practices. My clients are Stop & Shop and Nestle Waters (mainly Perrier) on the consumer side, and Veracode and PTC on the tech side.

·         What was your most embarrassing work moment?  

Luckily, my embarrassing work moments are minimal for now. Sometimes I give myself stress headaches from reading and re-reading emails before I send them to make sure I haven’t said anything dumb.

However, that doesn’t stop me from just actually being dumb. So, just recently, I had completely forgotten about an internal Veracode meeting and arrived about 10 minutes late. Typically, we call our London counterparts for this meeting. So I snuck into the room quietly, waving my hands and making sad facial gestures to express to Ellen and Caroline that I was sorry I was late. Ellen told me it was ok and then began talking to who I presumed to be the London office. In the 20-30 seconds she was speaking, I admittedly was paying no attention because I was still flustered about being late (I really really hate being late for anything, even internal meetings). All the sudden, the room goes quiet. I look up, and Ellen is staring at me. Turns out she had been talking to me the whole time, and I hadn’t heard a single word.  She and Caroline thought I was nuts. But that’s probably nothing new.

·         What’s your favorite 2 p.m. pick-me-up?

I like to switch it up, but a grande iced non-fat vanilla latte from Starbucks never disappoints.

·            If you could share some work-related advice with your peers, what would that be? (ex.   What do you do to prepare for a pitch? How do you keep track of billable hours? etc…

Never underestimate the power or skill of being in the right place at the right time with the right information. Even if you have no prior relationship with a reporter—that won’t matter if you give them the information they want before or as they realize they need it. Vice versa, the reporter could be your BFF but if you don’t have what they want when they want it, even they can’t help you.

·         What was the last book you read?

The Perks of Being a Wallflower. It’s weird and quirky enough so you feel like it’s speaking directly to you, but what makes it so great is that everyone who reads it feels that way too.

·            What’s the best song on your ipod/mp3 player right now?

I’m obsessed with “Springsteen” by Eric Church. I took a trip to Seville and Paris with a friend of mine last spring and that song was her alarm for the entire trip, so now whenever I hear it I think of all the fun and crazy times we had there. As Church says in the song, “Funny how a melody sounds like a memory, like a soundtrack to a true-life Saturday night.” So true!

·         If you could go anywhere in the world on your next vacation, where would it be and why?

I would go to Austria because I have an embarrassing affinity for The Sound of Music and want to see all of the places it was filmed. I’ll be damned if I don’t march around that giant fountain singing Do Re Mi at least once before I die. In that same trip I would also go to Germany because I feel as if telling people that I drank a lot of beer in Munich would somehow even out the fact that I flew to Austria because of The Sound of Music.

·         If you had a million dollars how would you spend it?

Re-filming The Sound of Music with myself cast as Maria.

No, I’m kidding.

I think I would have to buy a house. I spend a lot of time worrying that I’m going to live my whole life never owning anything more valuable than an Ikea wardrobe, so buying a house would make me feel better, I think. (House owners are shaking their heads right now thinking, “no, no it will not make you feel better.”)

Oh, and was I supposed to say charity too? …I’d give some to charity.

·         Tell us something that your colleagues would be surprised to learn about you.

I know all the lyrics to a very large amount of rap songs—from Jay-Z to Nelly to Eminem to Drake, and so on. I understand it’s an embarrassing talent because I have no actual rhythm and a terrible voice, but if you ignore that, I’m pretty good. I rapped Busta Rhymes’s verse in “Look at Me Now” for the PTC (internal) team one day. They can attest to my skill in being able to say a lot of words really fast, as well as my lack of rhythm and actual rap talent.

·            What is your favorite cell phone/ tablet app?

Anything that can tell me the news. I scan CNN.com and Boston.com probably 50 times a day. I have FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out).

Sometimes, when I walk outside and the streets are really deserted I get paranoid that something really huge is happening and everyone is inside watching it on TV. That’s when it helps to have the news on your phone, and a good Twitter feed. 

·            What is your favorite blog/blogger?

I’m a big fan of Jarrett Bellini’s blog on CNN (shocking) called “Apparently This Matters.”

http://www.jarrettbellini.com/p/writing.html

·            What is your motto/what words do you live by?

“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a difficult battle.”

Even though this post technically would have ended with a quote ^ see above, I've already used that one here before. So I'm offering up another.

"At 56 percent, German companies appear to have the highest rate of sensitive or confidential data transferred to the cloud."

-"Encryption in the Cloud," Ponemon Institute

Oh woops, sorry. I mean...

"I can't seem to stop singing wherever I am. And what's worse, I can't seem to stop saying things - anything and everything I think and feel."

-Maria (Julie Andrews), The Sound of Music