Know the great feeling when you find a $20 bill in your pocket? I had that experience yesterday.

I had to take this job because I'm broker than broke. My mortgage and property taxes and homeowners insurance are due on the 15th of November. I have about $100 in the bank. I've been juggling different utility bills monthly as I scraped money together from medical studies or various other methods.

I found out that my new company pays the last day of the month. And we wouldn't be set up in payroll until November 30. Translation: no moolah until then. Realizing I'm screwed. If my property taxes are late, they hit you with a 25% penalty.

So I call my former 401k company (aka Fidelity). I have a variety of different accounts with them b/c of the different companies I've worked for. (I worked with AT&T and then AT&T Wireless split off, so I had a sep 401k then...) I spoke to someone to see if there was anything left in the accounts that I could withdraw w/o tax penalties since it was for medical reasons. (Doesn't hurt to ask, right?)

He did some checking around.

He said, why aren't you withdrawing money from your brokerage account instead?

I said "Brokerage account?"
I never opened a brokerage account. The only stock I've dealt with (other than the AT&T Wireless stock I purchased and lost my shirt and bra on) was related to my 401k. Never brokerage.

Anyway, he tells me that I have a brokerage account. And there's a nice chunk of change in it. More than enough to cover my mortgage for a few months, pay my property taxes, my homeowners insurance and pay my bills in full. (I've been juggling them - you know - skipping a month for one to pay the other...)

There might even be a wee bit left over for me to buy a pair of boots for myself. I haven't bought any clothes or shoes for myself in over 2 years. And since I've lost weight, there's not a lot that fits me. (So why boots?) Well, my black knee-high boots are the stretchy type and they are too stretched out - they sag almost down to my ankles. I'd rather wait until I'm down one more size before buying more clothes.

Training has been monotonous at best. We're supposed to be learning about the different courses that we offer - from a sales person's perspective. We don't need to learn the technical stuff (yet). Just overviews and knowing what sort of applications and who would typically be the users. But nooooo. He's going over stuff that has me completely clueless. Translation: I'm going to have to spend part of my weekend in the office researching them from the actual product websites to try to make sense of it. And the 'database' with previous clients, previous prospects and those that had inquired via the web - you can't tell the difference in there. I sent out a mass email to approx 1500 contacts in my territory, introducing myself and sharing some info about new versions coming out. Over 750 were bounced back for bad addresses. Now I have to print all those out and go back into the database, delete those addresses and try to find some new contact information. Fun fun. Part of me is just wanting to get the hell out of training and make some calls, but I don't have an effing clue about the products. I can only bullshit so much. I'm a great salesperson BUT I have to have confidence in my products. Esp when I'm talking to techies. (sigh)

And my new desk seems lonely - I have some pictures of friends and a plant (would like to get a 2nd one). The president and vp of the company both have large aquariums in their offices. So I figure a Beta would be a nice addition to my desk. Petco is running a sale. I can get a Beta and a bowl with food for $5. Although I'd like to get two fish and name them Oz and Gracie - after my favorite sea otters at the zoo. Can't get two Betas. Maybe I'll check out other fish...

Turns out I an 58 mins short of hitting 300 hours of service at the fish tank. So I'm going in on Sunday for two hours. I'm going to go in early before the place opens so that I can take some pictures - the water is clearer in the morning before all the fish food and poop. I'd like to use the pics for Xmas cards.

Had dinner last night with a friend in town. Was night to catch up with him. He said he's happy to see me 'in work mode'. (He's a VIP person at ADP and will try to hook me up with his local contacts as well as at Cox and Porsche)

My therapist called me yesterday to check on how work is going. She's really concerned that I'm going to overdue it and crash and get depressed again. I haven't told my manager yet that I'm going to need to leave early on Tuesdays for counseling. Figured I'd tell him that it's a "Major Crime Victims Support Group". What's he going to say about that? LOL  He's said he's not a time-watcher as long as we get our work done. I already proactively sent him a list of my weekly goals. Some things he had mentioned as expectations as a team - my expectations were more than double his. (Like instead of just working the chaos of the database, focusing on larger companies that I have previous experience with - you know, the 'big boys')

It's 'jeans' day at work. I don't have any jeans. (Well, that fit.) The boss keeps telling me that dress is 'business casual' every day. I'm not really a business casual kind of girl. It's nice to get gussied up. And I've actually been having remotely good hair days to boot.

I haven't been to the gym in weeks. It's quite a hike from the new job. I think I'm going to do a 2 week membership at the gym around the corner from work just to see how I do with activity on top of working. Sitting around in a chair all day drives me bonkers. Plus it's too darn quiet in there. I need to get a decent small radio/cd player so I can have some noise. No one's cubicle is next to mine, so there shouldn't be any bleeding over noise.

PS the boss mentioned the holiday party. Ugh. Have I mentioned how much I hate doing company social events???? I like to keep my professional life IN the office and my social life private.

Have a great weekend folks.