Taking the (Big) Plunge

Well, we did it.

The Lovely Mrs. G. and I jumped into the fire – both feet first – and bought a house in a small Omaha ‘burb last night.

It’s a nice little cottage – comfy, cozy, petite.
Not.

Our new home is a behemoth -- it's over 3,200 square feet. It’s got four bedrooms, four bathrooms, with a finished basement, a huge kitchen, and a beautiful fenced back yard. This bad boy is what some would refer to as “big-ass”.

We love it.

Even though it’s just the two of us, we’ve always wanted to own a Big Fancy House. There's more than enough room to spread our wings, and I have an entire basement to fill up with all of my Disney crap. We’ve got extra bedrooms for our in-town guests, a two car garage (no more scraping ice on cold winter mornings - JOY!), and a really cool back deck, perfect for summer BBQs. (Bring your own meat and booze. I can’t afford to treat any longer – I have 360 house payments to make.)

We’ll move into our castle-sized house (turrets and a moat not included – yet!) in mid-December, after signing our name about 1,900 times and promising to pay the mortgage on time each month until 2037. (I’ll be 72 years old – God, that sounds like a long time.)

So while we’re anxious to make the move, there’s also a whole lot of stuff to arrange between now and then. But with a little luck and a lot of hard work we’ll be semi-settled before the holidays. And who knows – we may even be able to pick up a Christmas tree in time for Santa to drop down our brand-new chimney.

Until then, we’ll get all of our moving ducks lined up and be ready to go on closing day. Then the real fun begins – seeing if I can get lost in my own giant home. Maybe I’ll leave a trail of breadcrumbs – just in case.

There's No Place Like...Home?

My new employer, in all of their outstanding benevolence, gave us both Thursday and Friday off last week, so I was able to drive 100 miles north and…Go Home!

I can’t tell you how nice it was to sleep in my own bed again, after living in my Value Place “box” for the last two weeks. Even if it was for just four nights, to be back in my familiar surroundings did me a world of good. Plus, I could swing my arms without hitting all four walls.

Of course, I’m now back in my “box” again, biding my time until we can buy a new house here in Omaha. But that time is coming up sooner than imagined – we sold our house yesterday.

Yes, the Gressels will soon be ex-Sioux Cityans. Our house was on the market for exactly one month, which really isn’t bad. We were first made an offer Saturday morning – an offer that stunk on ice, to be honest – but our agent worked her magic and called a couple of other people she knew may be interested. Next thing we knew, we had multiple offers. So by the end of the day Saturday the original crap offer had miraculously turned into a pretty decent offer. (That’s what a little bit of competition will do for you. Let’s hear it for capitalism!)

So yesterday AM The Lovely Mrs. G. and I accepted the offer. We had to throw in the washer and dryer to seal the deal, which is okay. Oh, and we also agreed to be out by…December 17.

Three weeks.

That time frame sounds a little crunched, I know. But it could be worse - they originally wanted to close on December 10. Well, there was NO WAY we could be out by then, so we negotiated another week out of the deal.

The biggest hitch is that we still have nowhere to go. I spoke to my Omaha Realtor yesterday, and we’re going to put in an offer for a new place this afternoon, but as of right now Casa De Gressel is sold, and we really don’t know where we’ll be living three weeks from now.

I guess we can always squeeze into my Value Place box. We’ll just have to see if they’ll let Mrs. G. and the two cats move in. If not, we’ll find something else temporarily until we can have a house to call our own. (Casa De Gressel, Part Dos.)

So it’ll be a hectic couple of weeks around here – Mrs. G. will pack and deal with the Sioux City end while I’ll work on finding us a home in Omaha.

It’s probably a good thing we haven’t put up a Christmas tree yet, isn’t it?

Houses, Houses, Everywhere

“My horse for a castle”.

Isn’t that how the saying goes? No? Well, close enough.

The Lovely Mrs. G. and I spent all day Saturday looking for a new home here in Omaha. Our house in Sioux City hasn’t sold yet, but we’re trying to be optimistic and think like “home buyers” instead of “home buyers who need to dump their place first.”

We were pretty specific in what we were looking for in a house, and we’ve got a good Realtor helping us out, so at 11:00 yesterday we showed up at the real estate office, where our agent handed us a list of 20 houses to see.

20 houses? In one afternoon? Are you kidding?

Okay, it’s partially my fault. I e-mailed her a list of places we’d like to see, and she arranged for us to see them. ALL.

In the end we made it to about 10 or so – a couple of them we eliminated as we went, and a couple of them we crossed off at the advise of our agent. (It’s nice to have the advice of someone who lives here and knows what is a “good” neighborhood or not.) It was fun, but by the end the houses were starting to blend together – now, which one had the walk-in closets and which one had the finished basement?

Still, the process has been pretty fun. (Much more fun than the first time we did this, 9 years ago.) And we’ve learned a lot of things while touring people’s homes:

1) A lot of people out there have bars in their houses. Of the 10 houses we went into, I’d say that at least 6 of them – maybe as high as 8 – had a bar in the basement. Do people really drink that much? They must. Mrs. G. and I rarely drink, so I don’t know what I’d do with a house that has its own bar in it. (One bar even had a beer tap built in.) Maybe I’d convert it to a soda fountain – maybe I’d rip the sucker out and use the space for something else. But I’m certainly not about to invite Norm and Cliff over for a cold one every evening…

2) If you’re going to sell your house, and you know people are coming over to see it, maybe you ought to tidy up the place a little bit. One place had really filthy nasty bathrooms. (They even grossed me out, the guy who tends to ignore such things until Mrs. G. blows a fuse and makes him clean up his mess.) Another place had a bed with a wad of clothes hidden under the blankets – it looked like a body. There was another place where you walked through the door and sniff, sniff – they’ve got DOGS! Two words: Fe-Breeze. So maybe it wouldn’t kill you to kill you to pick up a dust rag and scrub brush if you want to make a good first impression, no?

3) You may have loved that wallpaper, and you may have spent several weekends picking out the right pattern and hanging it, but be warned – Mrs. G. and I will be ripping that crap off the walls at first opportunity. So don’t feel bad.

But like I said, it’s been a (mostly) good experience. And yes – we’ve found a house that we like a lot. It’s got everything we’re looking for, and then some. It’s also got a pretty high asking price, so we’ll have to see what we can do about that. But if it’s “the” house that’ll make our dreams come true for the next 20-25 years, then it’s worth it.

Now we only need our place in Sewer City to sell, and then we’re on our way. For now, we’ll keep our house clean and pretty, and wait for the right buyer to come in and fall in love with it, like we did in 1999.

And if that doesn’t work, then maybe I’ll have to add a bar to the basement.

Life on the Flip Side

Oh, what a week it's been.

Here I am, in beautiful (not quite downtown) Omaha, Nebraksa. Okay, technically I'm in La Vista, Nebraska, an Omaha suburb, but who cares? I'm 100 miles south of Sioux City, baby!

I'm currently enjoying the hospitality of the Value Place Hotel in La Vista - a long-term hotel/apartment for us poor suckers who find ourselves working far from home. It's a small (very small) hotel room with a (small) kitchenette, a (small) bed, and a (small) TV/table. That's about it. It's not that thrilling, but it works for now. I've got a fridge and a microwave, I've got my TiVo hooked up to their cable, and I've got Internet access. What more do you need? It's clean, it's quiet, and it's good enough for now.

But the niceest part is that it's about 5 blocks from work.
Ah, work.

Can I tell you how nice it is to go to a job where there's absolutely no stress of impending layoffs? A place where everyone actually....gasp!...smiles! A place where your manager says odd things like "thank you" and "you're doing a great job!"

It's all new to me, as you can tell.

I'm really enjoying the new gig. The company is really good, and everyone I've met there has been very nice. Unlike my last joint, they've got free coffee, tea, and hot chocolate. Their pop machine is only 50 cents for a 20 ounce bottle. Every Friday they provide free bagels, donuts, and fruit in the morning, and free cookies in the afternoon. They're having a real, honest-to-goodness Christmas party - with an OPEN BAR!!

These may seem like little things to you, but to me - a guy who used to work in the Poverty House where they even took away the coffee machines in a "budget savings measure" - it's like taking a starving man and dropping him off at the Sizzler with a freebie coupon.

So I'm getting lots of respect, and lots of kindness. But the nicest part of the job is the opportunity. This job is in the world of financial transactions, so it's all new to me, but it's growing so fast that the world of possibility is wide open for me. I'll get in here and learn everything that I can, then roll with it. If I prove myself (which I have no doubt that I will), then the world will be mine to rule.

So let this be a lesson to you kids - sometimes you have to jump off the bridge that you know and take a chance. Sometimes you'll find yourself landing on the deck of a luxury yacht.

Yep, life is good. Now if I could just blink my eyes, Jeannie style, and make this hotel room a little larger...

Coda

Now it’s time to say goodbye
To this here crappy job.
T – O – M
(Mmmm, mmmm – I’ve got a sweet new gig waiting for me!)
M – Y – G
(Gee, don’t you wish you could quit, too?)
R – E – S – S – E – L...

(With apologies to Jimmy Dodd and Roy Williams.)

So this is it.

It’s my last morning with my employer. In a couple of hours we’ll all go to lunch, then I’ll hand my manager my badge and head off into the sunset. Th-th-that’s all, folks.

My desk is completely packed, except for my headphones. I brought a big box of Kiss My Ass Donuts this morning. My bookmarks are deleted, my temporary Internet files cleared, and my logins are ready to delete.

There’s not much left to do. Or say.

I did go to my exit interview yesterday – short, sweet, and to the point. They asked me why I was leaving, and I was honest, but not brutally honest. They asked me if I’d recommend to my friends that they come work here – I told them “probably not”. (I wanted to say “Hell to the No!”, but I was being civil, remember?)

Then they asked me if one day in the future I’d consider coming back here to work. This one really stumped me. In many ways it’s a moot point, since I’m moving 100 miles away. But hypothetically, I don’t know if I would come back here, even if I was living nearby. I mean, they’ve been good to me in many ways, but they’ve been rotten to me in many more.

I’ll leave with 9 years of memories – most good, some bad. There’s all of my adventures with my former manager Skippy Whitebread, my missing the H.R. tap on the shoulder 11 times, the smell of brownies wafting through the air from the nearby Nabisco bakery, my getting the rock star parking post all last winter, all of my battles with the beyond-senior citizen “security” guards, the horrible-yet-intriguing slop served up in the Argentina café, and all of those bizarre training sessions where we had to figure out what “shape” we are. (I’m a squiggle, by the way.)

But it’s also been a lot of fun at times. I won 3 essay contests while sitting at my desk, and I was twice chosen to represent The Mouse as a trivia contestant in between tasks here. I’ve been fortunate enough to work the last 9 years with a pair of headphones on, so there’s always been music in my life. And thanks to the power of the Internet, I’ve been able to babble non-stop to all of you, courtesy of this blog. So it all hasn’t been crap – sometimes the sun does come out.

For the past two years I’ve been planning my escape – daydreaming of the day when I could leave all of this behind and move on to something bigger and better. For a long time my dream was focused on moving to Florida, but being close to Little Baby Emmy is more important than palm trees and swimming pools right now. Besides, the new gig is SUPER, has a world of opportunities, and made me an offer that I really couldn’t refuse.

And it won't look ANYTHING like this.

So starting Monday AM I’ll be part of a new team with a new company. I’ve read (and signed) their thick stack of confidentiality, non-disclosure, and privacy agreements, so the odds of my being able to post blogs during the work day from here on out are just about nil. So I guess I’ll have to save my snarkiness for after work and post from home.

And before long Mrs. G. and I will have a new house to go with our new job, and then the real fun of relocating will begin. Packing, unpacking, changing addresses, trying to figure out the new channel arrangements on the digital cable... Oh, the trials we face.

Still, I think in the end it’ll all be worth it. Mrs. G. and I are pretty happy whenever and wherever we’re together, and just like the Jeffersons, we’re movin’ on up. Us, our two cats, and an amazing collection of stuff we’ve somehow amassed over the last 8 years in our house.

So that’s it. It’s time to sign off from this trek, and get ready to start an all new adventure on Monday morning.

Thanks for sticking with me and listening to all of my griping about this place, and we’ll see you on the other side of the fence on Monday.

Happy trails!

-- Thomas J. Gressel

Saints Alive!

I don’t consider myself to be a very superstitious guy. I don’t dread the number 13, I rarely avoid stepping on sidewalk cracks (sorry, Mom), and I don’t carry a four leaf clover or lucky rabbit’s foot with me, although I always do declare that I’m wearing my “lucky shirt” when entering the casino. As The Lovely Mrs. G. can attest, that stunt almost never pays off.

But sometimes in life you need a little luck in any form you can get it. Which leads me to our newest talisman for good fortune.

You see, our house is on the market, and Mrs. G. and I are both pretty anxious to sell the puppy. It’s nice and clean and ready to go – we just need to find the right buyer to come along and fall in love with the place, just like we did 8 and a half years ago.

Although it’s only been up for sale for two weeks now, we’d really like to get it sold ASAFP. So that’s why we’re turning to the mystical powers of none other than Saint Joseph.

Yes, THAT Saint Joseph, aka Jesus Christ’s Earthly Dad. The carpenter saint. He’s the guy who’s going to sell our house for us. Neat, no? Spiritual help without paying a commission.

Now, I should admit that in addition to not being superstitious, I’m also not Catholic. I’ve never asked a patron saint of anything for assistance before. In fact, I probably couldn’t name any other saints, besides maybe Saint Louis (The patron saint of Cardinals, Rams, and Budweiser.) But if working a little Joseph mojo sells our house, then I’m willing to try it. (Plus, it’s not as messy as voodoo.)

Here’s what you’re supposed to do: Go out and buy a statue of St. Joseph, and then bury him in your yard, with his little plastic head pointing away from your house. This will supposedly bring you good luck and a house buyer in no time.

The nice people at Snopes have the full scoop on Joey’s magical powers – check it out here, since they wrote it so much more eloquently than I could have: http://www.snopes.com/luck/stjoseph.asp

Anyway, once your house sells, you’re supposed to dig up Dusty Joe and put him in a place of honor in your new home, as a way of saying thanks for his help while in the soil. Hey, if Joseph does the trick, he’ll win a coveted spot in my trophy case, right next to my trivia metals and my Sleeping Beauty castle statue.

So Mrs. G. and I have obtained from a friend an official St. Joseph Real Estate kit, containing a statue, a prayer card, and instructions on how to properly bury Joe in the yard for maximum results. Tonight we’ll go out in the backyard and do the deed, and then sit back and see what happens. Hopefully we won’t be struck by lightning for blasphemy in the meantime.

We’re having another open house this weekend, and if Saint Joe does the trick, then who knows what type of good luck charm I’ll need to find next. I’ve already got a black cat – will that work?

I’ll probably also take St. Joe with me the next time I go to buy a Powerball ticket, since I’m not sure who the patron saint of lotteries is. Hey, if he can work once...

Parting is Such Sweet Sorrow

Well, this is it. Almost.

Today will more than likely be my last full day with my employer. Tomorrow we’ll all go to lunch (even the bitter and angry co-workers can’t turn down a free meal), then I’ll quietly ride off into the sunset. Happy trails to me!

But before I go, I do have one last appointment: a meeting with my friendly neighborhood HR rep for an exit interview.

Surprisingly enough, I’ve never worked anywhere before where I’ve had to give an exit interview. Usually I’m either laid off or I just march out the door, middle finger in the air. So this will be a first.

I know one of the first questions that will come up will be “So why are you leaving?” And oh – I have a response ready. I’ve got 5 really good legitimate answers to that question, buddy.

But instead of going in and sounding like some disgruntled idiot with a chip on his shoulder, I’ve decided I’m going to play it cool and keep my mouth (mostly) shut. No sense in burning bridges if I don’t have to, right?

True, this place has been rotten to us over the years. No pay raises, no proper titles, constant layoffs, cheap-o benefits, you name it. I certainly wouldn’t recommend to any of my friends that they apply here, unless they’ve done something to really piss me off, and I’m looking for some passive-aggressive vengeance.

But in a lot of ways this place has been good to me, too. When I started 9 years ago I had very little writing experience, and they gave me the training, the tools, and the ability to take my career a long ways. Although I’ve been stalled for the last 6 years or so, I did move up quickly in the organization in the beginning, and they let me take the ball and run with it, showing them (and myself) what I was truly capable of. So I’m thankful for that.

Plus, they did pay for a large chunk of my college education, through their tuition reimbursement program. I can say with all honesty that there’d be no way I was moving on to a bigger (and much better) position with the new joint without that college degree.

So I won’t be a total grouchy old bastard at the end. They really don’t deserve it, entirely. Instead I’ll be polite, smile a lot, and thank them for the opportunity.

In the end I’ll be happy knowing that I was able to make this change on my own terms, and not after a layoff. I’m one of the few people in the last few years to be able to walk out on their own accord, a fact that I am really proud of. And maybe some day they’ll get their act together, make a profit, and take good care of those poor souls left behind.

I’m not holding my breath for that, mind you, but anything is possible.

In the meantime, I’m done packing my stuff and just biding my time. Then the REAL fun starts.

Mmmm...Donuts.

I just finished packing a box of junk from my desk. Hee hee.

Three days to go, and bam – I’m outta here. But before I go I promised I’d explain the importance of bringing donuts on your last day.

Now, some would say that donuts are the ultimate workplace celebration tool. They’re cheap, they’re portable, they’re popular, and they pack enough sugar and fat to get just about anyone through the morning.

Ah, but donuts can also be a sign. Here’s how:

1) Buy a dozen of your favorites – glazed, maple bars, you name it.
2) Get a small tube of white icing.
3) In your very best penmanship, carefully write “Kiss My Ass” in icing on each of those deep-fried beauties.

Why, what better way to tell your boss what you think of him than with Conversation Heart Donuts? With any luck, the fact that there are free pastries available will make up for the fact that you just insulted him to his face.

The Lovely Mrs. G. and I always make it a point to take a box of KMA donuts to work on our last days of our jobs. Oh, sure – it may not REALLY say KMA in icing, but in our minds? It’s etched into those fritters in powdered sugar goodness. You may not be able to see it, but we all know it’s there.

So this Friday AM after I leave the gym I’ll run by the local donut emporium and pick up a dozen of their freshest crullers for my co-workers. I’ll be the best parting present I can leave them (along with the huge stack of documentation I’ve been writing for the past week, that is).

Whether they’ll say KMA on them for real or not is yet to be seen. I guess it all depends on how the next two days go.

Maybe they’ll imaginarily say “Thanks for everything and best wishes to each and every one of you in the future.”

Nah. That’s too long; I’d risk a cramp. Let’s stick with the acronym. And a large bag of sprinkles.

Changes...They Are A-Comin'...

Today is my final Monday ever with my current employer. Ever. Har, har that feels SO GOOD to say. By this time next Monday I’ll be working for the New Joint in Omaha, smiling all the way.

It’s been an interesting couple of weeks, though. I was a nice enough guy to give my current gig 3 weeks notice instead of the traditional 2 weeks, since I was taking most of that first week off for our Mystery Trip to South Padre Island, and we’ve been chin-deep in a nasty project for a month that isn’t getting any closer to done.

Plus, this cheap-o place isn’t going to replace me, so my little team will have to absorb everything I do, as well as working on their own piles of crap. And since I’m consistently the top producer in this group, it won’t be that easy.

So I figured that the least I could do was throw in an extra five days to see if it would help them out a little.

Well, you know what they say about no good deed going unpunished...

How's it been? Let’s put it this way: According to the Kübler-Ross model (and what I learned from “All That Jazz”), they say there are 5 stages of death:

* Denial
* Anger
* Bargaining
* Depression
* Acceptance

Well, the people I work with haven’t moved past the Anger phase yet.

All week long last week it was one snide comment after another about my leaving. Most were along the lines of “Geez, Tom – thanks a lot for abandoning us.” or "What do you care, quitter?" My manager even threw in comments like “...but I guess you won’t be here for that, will you?” when referring to assignments. Even my old manager Skippy Whitebread and I got into it last Friday

I know what’s up, and yeah – I do empathize with them. They’re mad because they’re going to have to cover my work without a replacement, they’re mad because I won’t be here to get them through Q4, and I really suspect that they’re mad that I’m leaving and they‘re not. The increasingly uncalled for rude comments I heard from this group all week long last week told me this. Jealousy is an ugly thing, my friends.

I suspect it’ll only get worse as this week goes on. But oh, well – nothing I can do about that. You see, I’m deep into my own 5 stages:

* I quit – here’s my notice
* Hooray!
* Wrapping up projects
* Packing my stuff
* Screw you & Goodbye

I won’t walk out of here with my middle finger in the air, as tempting as it may sound. Nope, these people have been my co-works and my friends for 9 years. I know that they’re just having a hard time adjusting to the idea that ol’ Tommy won’t be here any longer. But it’s really sad and disheartening to see their fangs come out here at the end.

Maybe they’ll mellow out and reach the Acceptance stage before Friday. (There certainly won’t be any Bargaining stage – there is nothing they can possibly offer me to bribe me into staying. Nope - not for all the tea in China, Japan, and other assorted Asian nations.)

I know -- I’ll bring them some donuts on Friday AM. I’ll explain the significance of the donuts tomorrow...

A Bottle of Red, A Bottle of White...

In yesterday's post I mentioned the guy who won the company's Halloween costume contest dressed like a picnic table. Thanks to some realy nice soul out there, here's the living(?) proof:

From looking at this photo, I'm not sure why they said it was a "picnic table" - it looks more like a Scene From An Italian Restaurant to me. (Just ask Eddie and Brenda!) Still, it *is* a creative way to go. Although having Lady and the Tramp sitting on your shoulders pushing meatballs around would be kind of difficult...



So there you go. Now you can tell your friends that you've seen absolutely everything.