Friday Nights

What a ride these past two weeks have been! The travel, the work, the hours, the new experiences and most of all the realization that no matter what my friends and family will still be there to chit-chat with no matter what time of the day or night it is. Last week Stephen, my trainer, and I were in the southern part of Texas. We spent the weekend in the Galveston area where I saw the Bay for the first time....really impressive. While in Galveston I hooked up with Rachel for a great evening of laughter, a glass of wine, a couple of beers, an art showing and some great seafood. It was a fantastic time with a funny and witty friend. That Sunday was spent recovering from the horrific cold I caught from Stephen earlier that week and after I took an afternoon nap while Stephen watched the football game in his room we took off for Beaumont. Now I don't know if any of you have ever been there but as B. said "there's nothing there." Truer words have never been spoken. My cold finally broke enough on Tuesday so I could finally smell the interesting scent of the oil refineries---Uggg, I simply cannot imagine willing living in such an area. We worked on Monday at a M6---long, long day and then on Tuesday began the interesting process of training on Franchise properties. The fantastic thing about Franchise properties is that they are a cinch to do! So we were able to cut out a little early on Tuesday, finish up the reporting and just in general relax and call it an early work day....that is if 12 hours can be counted an early work day. Wednesday we only had 1 Franchise location to Audit. After an eventful trip to the location via Louisiana (not my fault although I was navigating) we arrived in Port Arthur and finished up the Franchise in short order. That afternoon we played hooky and went to the Fort Travis Seawall Beach which is actually an old military fort. It was wonderful to walk to the edge and look into the Gulf, and then to look at the remaining Fort structures that were used not only in the late 1800's but also modified and utilized during WWI and WWII. All in all a fantastic mid-afternoon break in the middle of the week.
Thursday was a stresser, it was my first solo audit without Stephen anywhere around (he audited a Franchise then came back to the Hotel for the rest of the afternoon). Needless to say it was a learning experience. There are some people that I have a wonderful time with but know-it-all, self-centered, ostentatious jerks, who think they are god's gift to all women are not a category that I typically get along with. Apart from his ***ing about how long the process was taking he essentially tried to hit on me during the audit....GRRRRRR. I was in a foul mood by the time we were done, which did take an extraordinarily long time because he was not doing his daily managerial job of controling the financial risks at his property. So after he essentially gripped me out over and over again, of which I am not allowed to confront anyone in any way shape or form during the audit, I then had the additional happy occassion of listening to Stephen chew me out concerning my first "bad" client survey. It wouldn't have been such an issue except for the fact that what was said was filled with partial truths that made me sound like the wicked witch of the west. This is what happens when a manager doesn't do their job and we go in bust them on it and them they get all crabby about the fact they got caught so they go to the most petty gripes about the auditor in an effort to turn some of the corp. attention away from themselves. I hope he feels terrible for the things he said!
So Thursday sucked but today, Friday simply was fantastic. The audit was great, I finished by 4:30, and then came back to the Hotel to work on the data entry and the Executive Opinion Summary for the Executive IC Committee. So now I'm taking a break and catching everyone up on my life. How fun! :)
Tomorrow I have to do a Studio 6 Audit during the day but I hope to be done no later than 7pm and Rachel is possibly coming up and we are either going to go out or stay in, watch chick flicks, drink appletini's and just have some fun. So that's the news that is news and I hope that ya'll have a great weekend and enjoy this great Texas weather. (you should have heard the THICK accents in Beaumount, I couldn't help but laugh uncontrollably when I heard it from the guys next door to my room, the waiter and waitress at J. Carinos and the hotel managers). Made me wonder what they thought of my not so northern "Northern" accent.