Working at The Barbarian Group is awesome….you should totally do it!

I am a little late to the game here, but I forced myself to watch “The Amazing Race” last night in an effort to hog the remote and prevent my eyeballs from having to view yet ANOTHER football game. So, from what I can gather, this show is basically just awkward couplings (rebel son and straight-laced dad, beauty pageant wife and adventurer husband, etc..nothing like a well-oiled stereotype to get the networks drooling) racing around the world. Last night, they were in Dubai. At the beginning of the show, the teams had to pick up a locked briefcase, get to a marina, paddle out to meet a Sheik on a boat who gave them a Rolex watch, paddle back to the marina, and open the briefcase for their next clue. The trick? The watch was stuck at 8:35, and the briefcase code was 8, 3, 5. EVERY SINGLE TEAM I SAW GOT THIS ON THE FIRST TRY. Um, are you kidding me? If this was me, I would STILL be at the marina, trying my birthday digits for the thousandth time. Six months later, they’d be shooting the reunion special at some lot in LA and they’d have to set up special equipment to beam me (and the briefcase, of course) up from the marina in Dubai. So, I am on the couch, totally flummoxed by all this, when the genius boyfriend cleared it all up for me in one word “Editing”. Wow. I never thought of that. Editing. It’s so simple! I console myself by remembering that, though great editors taketh away, greedy TV networks giveth back in the form of “behind the scenes” specials and Directors’ Cut DVDs. Which means, ultimately, I will be able to see each and every one of those teams stuck at the marina for perhaps hours on end trying to figure out how to open up the damn briefcases.

So, this morning I was helping a friend with some research and I typed “High Profile NYC Businesswomen” into Google. Arguably, not the greatest of all searches ever, but well, that’s what I put in. And what did good old Google come back with? “Did you mean ‘High Profile NYC Businessmen’”. Um, no, Google, I did not. Who knew a search engine could be so darned sexist??

So, this is probably not the most appropriate post for an HR Director, but well, have you met me? I still find unique ways to toss in a “that’s what she said” into conversation (including a few interviews), so appropriateness was checked at the door a bit ago. Anyway, I just got back from Utah with my mother and aunt for a girl’s weekend (yes, folks, this is the face of only children everywhere). I leave Utah with this thought: What the hell? I just want a drink!!! It is estimated that nearly 60% of the state’s population are Mormon. I am down with that…I watch Big Love and that very special Oprah interview. I am super liberal and believe that all religions and factions and whatever else should coexist peacefully. Until you start messing with my wine consumption. I’m no alcoholic, but I will say that at the end of a long day of insurance company fights and city noise, nothing quite beats a glass of Sancerre. And when you are on vacation? Make that 2 or 3…okay, 4. So, imagine my surprise when I got wind of some of the very archaic laws that Utah has going on. For example, you cannot have a greater than one ounce poor in your drink. If you would like more than an ounce, you need to order them individually as “side cars” and yes, you pay for that privilege. You also can’t have more than one drink in front of you at a time. So, let’s say you are enjoying said glass of Sancerre and your table decides to order a bottle of wine with dinner. You better down that first glass fast or else your waiter will not be pouring you from the bottle. You also have to join to frequent a bar: $4 for a 3 week “membership” lets you go to a bar. The list of rules go on and on, and it got me thinking….how is this still legal? What other state is there where religious thoughts and beliefs so deeply engrained in the laws? And yet, with all of these fuzzy lines and rules, there does exist one man in Utah where drinking is easy as pie. His name is Brett Clifford, and he is the state’s official wine taster. He is even on the government’s payroll! His job is to taste every wine, every vintage sold in Utah with the task of bringing the best wines to Utah. So, he’ll taste them all, and for the rest of the Utah citizens, well, good luck!

So, I was never a Girl Scout. I had a pretty brief and failed attempt as an Indian Princess, which was like the budget and, looking back on it, pretty offensive organization that was set up as a pre-Brownie program. The Brownies, for those not in the know, was the gateway program to being an actual Girl Scout. It apparently takes years of training to become a Girl Scout…start preparing when the baby is born. But, back to Indian Princesses. It was essentially a group of 10-15 7 year olds getting together at someone’s house each week to do an activity (building a popsicle stick teepee, creating feather headdresses) while our parents waited in the kitchen or living room listening to the Rolling Stones while drinking beer. Welcome to the suburbs. In any event, the one thing I missed out on most while being an Indian Princess was not being able to sell cookies. I longed to get the big box of Tagalongs and Thin Mints and Samoas so I knock on every door in the neighborhood, and ultimately, begging my mom to buy 15 boxes for me so I could win a trip to Space Camp. I DID eventually make it to Space Camp (Kennedy Space Center Grad, summer of 1990…wooohoo) but I never made it to the big leagues of Girl Scouts and cookie selling. That sad fact makes me all the more ticked off that big ol’ Capital C Corporation Wall Mart is attempting to bump little Girl Scouts out of the cookie selling biz all to make some more money. Sad, sad day indeed. http://adage.com/article?article_id=138272

So, last week, Benjamin introduced Keith and I to an iphone app called “Firemint”. It’s a flight control game where you try to land as many planes as possible. Keith and Ben were playing, and me, trying to act the part of the not-very-interested girl. But, the truth is, I downloaded the game that night and have been playing ever since. Ben and Noah have been at this awhile, and while I don’t know Keith’s stats, I do know that those two have landed over 100 planes each. I am at 43. 43!!! What the hell? And it’s not for lack of trying. I really have been trying…a bit harder than I will ever EVER admit to. So, a word to the wise if you are planning on playing this game: concentration is key. I have attempted to land many a plane while watching crappy reality television(of which I will also not admit to doing, but in truth, what the heck is up with those kids on NYC Prep??) only to be met with my helicopter and speedy pink plane crashing into each other, falling short yet again of breaking my record.

So, I am off to bribe some 9 year old who is far more adept at video games than I am to teach me the secret to landing 100 planes. Sad day indeed.

Not to sound all Seinfeld, but what is the DEAL with password reminder questions? Dealing with a lot of travel nowadays, I find myself having to sign up for a ton of things in order to confirm reservations. I understand, in this day and age of being able to access formerly personal information such as mother’s maiden name, that the obvious questions might not work anymore. Some of these, though, are crazy. They fall into two categories for me: 1) My brain has no capacity for remembering that ever (see questions such as “Who was your third grade English teacher?” and “What time were you born?” 2) I can’t commit to the answers to these questions (see “Who is your favorite actor/actress?” and “What is your ‘Desert Island’ album”). Can’t these sites just let us create and answer our own questions??

Have you ever been the last person to hop on a conference call?