10 years ago, I was living and working in London, trying to pursue my dream of working in marketing for a record label. I sat at home at my flat in Tottenham, desperately ringing Independiente Records (who had just launched) every day looking for a job but failed, and somehow ended up on the trading floor of Abbey National bank. It was a good summer, though. I went to my first V Festival and saw Gene, Ash and The Divine Comedy, among others. I went to see A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Open Air Theatre in Regent's Park. Red Bull was introduced. Sarah and I went to Jersey, Isle of, and got to ride around in a Rolls Royce.
One of the memories, though, that will stay with me forever is being here in England for the general election that year. Labour overturned 18 years of Conservative rule. Gone were the Maggie Thatcher years...welcome Tony Blair. He was young, liberal and overwhelmingly popular. He hung out with the guys from Oasis and appeared to be way more 'with-it' than his predecessor John Major.
So much has happened since then. I've worked for Enron, gone back to school at UCLA, finally found my way into entertainment marketing. And just to show life always goes full circle, I am back in London. Tony Blair has done a lot for the country - one only has to look at how strong the £ is to see that. Unfortunately, he got tangled a bit too much with Dubya and suffered quite a bit for it.
This afternoon, as I am typing this, Gordon Brown will be 'invited' by the Queen to form a new government and will become the next Prime Minister, and a new legacy will begin. So long, Tony. Its been a fun few years...
Today my boss told me I was pale and suggested I needed a day off and a massage. Probably not a good sign. But then again, maybe she'll fork out for the spa day?
Friends, the next time you open up your work email account and hit 'compose message', let me caution you to think again. For I, while Googling (as one does on a quiet Thursday evening), came across a very interesting (and disturbing) website. As many of you know, I spent 3 of my formative career years working for a company we'll call the 'Big E'. It is no surprise to anyone the spectacular implosion this company went through...but did you know that a good portion of our emails are up on the internet for all of the public to see??? Thankfully, it is only a mere 200,000 of what must be millions and millions of correspondence from a short period of time. I was too small a peon when I was there to have written anything important, but there are a few up there between me and one of my friends, who happened to become quite a high level exec there. Here is an excerpt from the homepage of this site:
In October 2003 the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission placed 200,000 of Company E's internal emails from 1999-2002 into the public domain as part of its ongoing investigations. The archive offers an extraordinary window into the lives and preoccupations of E's top executives during a turbulent period....Engineers used this data as testbed during development of the company's SONAR technology. The result was so fascinating we decided to open it up and allow anyone to dig in. The Company E Explorer lets you investigate the actions and reactions of E's senior management team as the noose began to tighten.
Thankfully I left the Big E midway through 2000 to go to graduate school, but reading through this website is like turning the clock back...big time. I found emails between one of my friends and his mother...another one mentioning another friend being terminated and re-hired...one inviting me to a happy hour for margaritas...and another one from the infamous CEO from Thanksgiving 2001...just as the walls started to crumble: "F*ck you, you piece of sh*t. I can't wait to see you go down with the ship like all the other vermin. Smug, paranoid, unhappy mother f*cker. Eat sh*t."
What have I learned from this (what I thought was an) innocent Google search? Never put in your corporate email something you wouldn't later mind being in the public domain, literally for the entire world to see, spelling mistakes, warts and all. And 2, never, ever trust the CEO with the toothy grin who promises the world. He very well may be stealing your pension.
They say British weather is cyclical. One winter is mild, the next frigid. Last year was a hot, dry, drought-filled summer...and while this year April was nice, it has been nothing but cloudy, rainy and pretty mucky ever since. It hasn't been too nice lately, which probably doesn't help my mood, given I am 99.9% certain I have developed the SAD disease--I seem to only be happy when it is sunny. The good (but weird) part of living here at this time of year is that the sun comes up (like proper 'up') by 4:30am or so, and doesn't set until nearly 10 at night. It has been cloudy and rainy now for weeks, with a few breaks of blue here and there, but it turns out I am not the only one bored by this monotony (oh how I dream of SoCal where the 'monotony' of the weather was 75 and not a cloud in the sky!). The weatherman on the BBC the other day, when going over the forecast for the next week, said instead "Next week, the forecast is Similar To This Week" - that was it...no visuals with little clouds and little sunshines peeking out from behind. Just some text on the screen and a bored-looking face. It seems I am not the only one to have SAD. Hilarious.
Last week was a tough one, but pretty productive. We started meeting with our key customers to present our 4th Quarter lineup. This consisted of being in a dark room for 8 hours per day (2x 4 hour sessions) for 4 days in a row (watching the same sizzle reels and listening to the same jokes over and over...and over), then going back upstairs to do a couple of hours of work. A few of us (Steffan, Mark and Michael) were so beat we had to go out to celebrate with some Irish cider called Bulmers (refreshingly served over ice--yum!). A few pictures from my camera phone below (ooh look I am trying to be 'arty'). I was so exhausted at the end of the week that I failed to make any plans for the weekend. My social life this weekend consisted of three trips to the gym, a bike ride around Chelsea and Kensington (in the 2-hour window it wasn't raining...result!), 7 episodes of the West Wing on DVD, 3 episodes of This Life, becoming obsessed with Facebook and catching up on sleep and a few emails. Until I left for work this morning, I hadn't realized that the only face-to-face interaction I'd had all weekend was with the sales clerk at Boots, trying to swing some of the hotly sought after Protect & Perfect 'miracle' serum that seems next to impossible to find. Not really sure I should admit that...
The good news is that I went a bit nuts and bought tickets to 3 upcoming gigs: Bright Eyes, The Hours and Brett Anderson. Debating over: Jarvis Cocker and The Jesus and Mary Chain. I'm not sure my credit card could handle 5 bookings in 1 week! Many many things to look forward to, including seeing a couple of my old Enron pals later this week and (hopefully) a BBQ this weekend (pending the inevitable rain, of course). There's also a cool-sounding punk exhibit on at the Barbican which I am hoping to check out...that is if I ever get off my 'arse'...
In case any of you music nuts get a chance, you must tune in to X-posure on XFm (you can listen online) - the show is simply fantastic. It's on now and every single song is fab.
I'll admit I have been more than a little stressed out lately. Well, since the new year when I got saddled with a second job really. Short bursts of stress I can handle. Increasing pressure that goes on for months on end is a little tougher. Especially when you're under-appreciated and over-worked.
I can't remember the last time I took a lunch break or had a moment to check my 'elf' email at work. Some of my dearest friends signed on to this neat site called Twitter to chat during the day - basically just little snippets of what they're doing or thinking about at any point in the day - its just a nice way of keeping in touch. I haven't logged in for over a week.
So I apologize...I haven't managed to update my blog and talk about all of the cool things I have managed to do, like seeing my friends Holly and Hoa who visited London from LA recently, hanging out with Johnny and Liz in the Harber mansion, going to the ballet for the very first time (Swan Lake by the Royal Ballet at the Royal Opera House--highly recommend!!), going to my friend Amy's birthday party in Clapham and dancing til 5am, flying to CS for the bank holiday weekend to see my dad and cuddle Piccadilly, joining John and Sony Ericsson in a box for the last Arsenal match of the season (right down from Dennis Bergkamp's box!!!), being reunited with Matt, one of my old friends from Enron who lives in London now, setting up a BBQ in my back garden, and joining a new gym down the road. It is my fault, I don't handle stress well.
Instead of being grumpy about all of the extra work/stress, I seem to just be in denial that it has been happening. I think that is probably because there is no end in sight. The maternity leave that was supposed to come to an end next month (oh how I was looking forward to that...) has now been extended to October. Greeaaaaat. Well, whatever, deny deny deny. I am fine...really.
On Wednesday I was hurrying into work for the first of our 2-week long Q4 presentations to our retail customers. Thankfully they scheduled our biggest customer (HMV) on the first day. No pressure there. As I was walking down into the tube station onto the crowded platform at Fulham Broadway, I started coughing--thinking a piece of dust had flown in or something--but I just kept coughing and I couldn't stop. I kept trying to catch my breath but I couldn't. I moved off the edge of the platform (so I wouldn't accidentally fall onto to the tracks!) and just kept trying to breathe. Tears were streaming out of my eyes (because of the coughing--not because I was sad) and my face must have been bright red. It must have taken me a good 20-seconds to realize 'Shit, I'm having an asthma attack,' - duh! - and I reached into my bag for my inhaler. Phew. Yes, I am FINE. Thankfully it happens so rarely I barely knew what it was. The last time it happened was right about 5 years ago, during the quarter at Anderson where I had both Cockrum and Field Study.
But probably the best part of all was while all of this was going on (a problem that was quite visually apparent), on a crowded platform of nearly 200 people, not one person stopped to see if I was ok, or ask if I needed any help. Gotta love the big city...
Samantha: I'm always surprised when anyone leaves New York. I mean, where do they go? Miranda: The real world? Samantha: A homeless man showed me his dick on the way here. It doesn't get any realer than that.
