Getting down to the fun side of business

I'm sure over the course of the first few days here, I'll have time to go back and cover the history prior to my hire date, but for now (in day three), I'm going to focus on my first few days with Mountain Alarm and www.SafeLifeAlarm.com.

Day 1- Mike Bailey, CFO, took me around to do introductions with everyone. Dianne handed me three boxes of tea scones to hand out (strawberry was popular)--which was nice because it meant that my co-workers were actually excited to meet me (or at least pull a tea scone out of the box). I was a bit self-conscious about the tea scones because, let's be honest, they are something to be eaten at a tea party--and the sales and tech teams downstairs aren't the types to attend a tea party. If I had to compartmentalize them, I'd say the folks downstairs are more the "bear claw" crowd and the folks up here are tea scones or bagels. I digress... I'm still not clear about who falls where, but by the end of introductions, I had a better understanding of the company structure and a newfound appreciation for name tags (which we do not wear here). I'm sure I will continue with the casual, "Hey.....'you'......how are you today?" because I fail to remember my co-workers names for at least a month. I attended a staff meeting with Mike in the afternoon and was absolutely beat by the end of the day--setting up a new office is not easy work! I must say I was impressed that my name was on the office window when I arrived and Randy, our IT guru, killed every issue as it came up (like a well trained 'Duck Hunt' player. Debbie was kind enough to spend time with me walking through what has been done with Facebook, Google adwords, Twitter, et al. She single-handedly manages www.safelifealarm.com--which is the very cool DIY home security website that was launched earlier this year (late summer?). My goal is to swamp the site with orders and have her manage a multitude of minions that do her bidding.

Day 2- While continuing to call everyone "you", I managed to set up the rest of my office. I'm the marketing guy, so it has to look good. Of course, Mike said it was obvious I'm an 'I' personality, but I can appreciate that. I waded through the computer setup--tried to install xobni (my favorite Outlook plugin) and screwed up my whole Outlook/Groupwise setup. Randy used his voodoo magic to get it running again. I was also able to convince the powers that be (aka those who hold all of the money) that I needed something larger than a 15 inch monitor and 1GB of RAM (if anyone knows of an art program out there that runs on a gig of ram, please let me know because I swore on my life that there wasn't). I spent several hours of Aaron's time (he's our genius programmer here) picking his brain about past marketing campaigns, websites, the databases, etc and he was generous enough to let all of his email and phone calls pile up while I sat there in his office. I've heard rumors about Aaron--like he's the 'real Napster'. At this point, I don't doubt any of it.

Day 3- Finally...access to blogger.com came. Of course, I just put in the request this morning and Randy turned it around like greased lightning. Now if I could just get my iTunes to work, I'd be a happy camper. Looking at the new painting on my wall of a little town in Tuscany, I am reminded why I'm here--to blow the socks off of the sales department and (short-term goal) feel like I've earned my trip back to Italy and Switzerland next year. By the way--'Mountain Man' may not be the best portrayal of who I am or what I do, but 'Mountain Alarm Man' sounded too "superhero" to me. At this point in time, I could also call myself "Mr. SafeLifeAlarm", but Mountain Man sounded more like I deserve to sit down and eat a bear claw with the guys downstairs.