Getting Things Done in New Orleans

In addition to sucking up to rich people who may hire me to write for them, I also scrounge around on craigslist for writing jobs. I would like to share with you what today’s search brought in.

First, guns.com needs a blogger. Requirements (not making this up – just copied and pasted from the posting):

You should have a proven track record that you live and breathe guns.

Pass.

Next up, Strip Club Weekly needs a new writer! Who is Strip Club Weekly, you ask? Only a “quality national Web Site about strippers, strip clubs and strip club culture!”

Probably pass.

Speaking of strippers, I just got back from an oil and gas conference. The strippers came into play when one of the oil companies sponsored an ice cream social and hired scantily clad young blondes wearing pink hard hats to pass out the cones to the engineers. Classy.

You may be wondering why I was attending an oil and gas conference since I’m not an engineer, nor am I a scantily clad blonde.  My husband is though, an engineer I mean, and his boss invites me to go along on these things because I understand and have the ability to demonstrate basic concepts of communication and banter, unlike 95% of his employees. Thus, I spent a lovely three days in New Orleans this week, lounging by the hotel pool and watching steam boats pass by on the Mississippi,

strolling through town (okay I admit I just went to Anthropologie New Orleans),

coughing out the copious amounts of marijuana smoke I walked through on the street, bypassing men with their pants down on street corners (okay, just one man, but still), and chatting it up with all the engineers at the nightly dinners.

If any of you were reading here last year (bless your heart) you may remember that I went on this same trip in 2011 and successfully passed out ONE business card. Not being one to over-exert  myself, I managed to pass out exactly one card this year as well. There were over 600 people at the conference, and I passed out one card, to the exact same man that I gave my card to last year.

2011:

2012:

I’ve never claimed to be the savviest business woman on the planet.

While I’ve been gone, James has been on a ferocious campaign to force the whole office into taking a “Getting Things Done” webinar. See, Getting Things Done is James’ favorite book. It’s some dumb how-to about organization that he thinks I’ve read too (he bought me a copy before he hired me and I told him it was great so I could get the job). I think he even reads it to his kids. He’s been sending reminder e-mails all week. I’ve ignored each one and am looking forward to finding out how many folks he suckered into attending. And might I note that in the past two hours that the webinar has been going on I have written an entire blog post, played three rounds of Draw Something, and eaten half a bag of pita chips and a banana? How’s that for getting things done?

If you would like to get your own things done and buy a home or refinance the one you have, e-mail James JBeaver@EnvoyMortgage.com or Chad CHelmcamp@EnvoyMortgage.com. Their webinar just ended, and you can catch them before James forces everyone to write thank-you letters to the author.