Day 1 of Training

As the Memphians like to say...Hey Ya'll! I hope things are well in sunny CA. It's still as hot as ever here. The humidity astounds me! It's amazing how people live in this weather and are able to cope on a day to day basis. I think I'm truly spoiled rotten in CA and how great we have it. I love bragging about CA to everyone in my training class.

We've got people everywhere here! But I do have to say, CA is very well represented here. I believe there are two people from NorCal and about 6-7 people from Southern CA, in a class of about 35. It's very rare for that to happen, but the funny thing is, that us Californians haven't really banded together to form this crazy CA connection. I've been having a blast meeting people from Atlanta, Houston, Dallas, Virginia, Arkansas, Boston -the list just goes on and on. Surreal is the only word that really comes to my mind when I sit back and think that we're all here because of one single company. And as they say here, people really do bleed purple. I think the statistic here is that 4/7 people who live in Memphis work for the company. Just think about that...4/7! That's over half of the Memphis population. Astounding isn't it??

So I got up around 6AM CST (that's oh....4AM our time) to get ready. But the greatest part of my morning came when I spilt the coffee all over the hotel floor. That ate up about 10 minutes of my time just trying to clean all of it up. Needless to say, I thought my day was off to a terrific start. The hotel here provided a decent continental breakfast where I was very good and ate just a yogurt and grapefruit (I describe my great habits to build up the story of debauchery later on). After breakfast was out of the way, a company bus came to pick us up and so begins our first day of training. We pull up to this multi acreage facility with gates and security. There are 8 buildings on this "campus" with a 9th one on the way. The campus is AMAZING. It's absolutely breathtaking because it sits on this golf course and the architecture is beautiful. It is a modern yet classic building with glass from bottom to top. It's size is massive and when we get there everyone is in awe.

Our training is typical. Nothing really spectacular. I didn't learn anything new today that I haven't already been told by the people on my team or my district manager, so I wasn't blown away. Expense reports, compensation, industry trends, etc. I know -exciting right? But it was great getting to know people. The facilitators do a good job in keeping us awake and engaged throughout the class.

Lunch was pretty cool. It reminded me a little bit of an upper crust college dining hall. There was a salad bar- but the vegetables actually looked fresh and not wilted. There were four different eating options -Home cooking (I here they'll have fried catfish, bbq, etc. on certain days. Today was fried chicken and I strayed away knowing there will be artery clogging meat eating greatness in the evening), pizza bar, grill (hamburgers, chicken burgers, veggie burgers, any kind of burgers you can think of!), and a sandwhich deli (any kind you want, on any bread, panninis were very popular today). I grabbed a grilled chicken sandwhich with a small salad and couldn't complain. If our company impressed me, I wondered what it would be like to work for GOOGLE during lunch!! Now that must be mind blowing!!

After lunch, we ended up with more class but luckily we got to leave a bit early, but only to the dismay of doing "homework" when we got back to the hotel. We gathered our brains together and completed our assignments in about 30 minutes. From there, us crazy people went to work out!! The hotel and the 24 Hr. Fitness (ERIK!) work in conjunction and we get to work out free when we stay here!! We walked the quarter mile to the gym and I actually did a 30 min run!! I was so tired afterward...heck, I'm STILL tired!

After our crazy workout we were starving! Where should we have lunch after a great run/workout??? Ruth's Chris of course! All on the company means we're all in! After some wine, cocktails, appetizers, and a petite filet mignon we all called it a night! So much for my great workout huh??

I'm thoroughly pooped right now and have a big day tomorrow. We're meeting our boss's boss's boss's boss tomorrow (the Vice President of Sales, he's 2 removed from the founder/chairman of the board). We've got to look sharp (his direct quote "make sure your leather's match" -meaning your belt better match your shoes!!) so off I go for my beauty sleep!! I wasn't able to take many pictures (I don't think they allow it at headquarters, and I forgot during dinner), but I'll leave you one with a look of what our training materials look like!


Good night to everyone!! Miss you all! Oh, and mark your calendars -exactly 2 more weeks until my quarter century lifetime celebration! :)