Someone

I met someone very nice recently :) I was looking for Customer Service Team Leaders, I found a CV and invited the guy for an interview. There was obviously good chemistry during our conversation, and the fact that it was Friday evening helped a lot, because I was quite unfocused and we were quite casual. Since then, I basically did everything I could to show that I am approachable... and finally, he asked me out for a coffee. We had our third date yesterday (from 4 pm to midnight) and it was great.  He is smart, charismatic and has a very good sense of humour. And he seems to like me, too. So, it's promising :)

The past month

I could start each post of mine with „I'm back”. (I am sorry; I am a sloppy blogger...) Well, I am actually back now because I've been travelling a lot lately.

First, I spent Easter in Italy with a friend and his girlfriend who moved to the Lago Maggiore from Amsterdam. It was the second time I visited them this year as I also spent a week there in March, helping Marcel with his studies. It was surprisingly refreshing to do something else than what I usually do and make my brain cells work on different problems. And, besides the studying, we were of course enjoying some good Italian wine and food. They were great partners in drinking and a very nice company to spend time with in general. Ah, I'm in love with Italian food...

Then, next weekend was the selection weekend for the 2012-2014 UWC scholarships for the Hungarian applicants. As always, the last round consisted of 16 nominees and as always, it took place in Csillebérc. The weekend is always very taxing because you have to pay attention to the candidates all the time, from morning until the evening, literally, and then we also try to have some fun Saturday night ourselves, which makes getting up the next day quite difficult. At least, this year I filled up on energy drinks for the two days, and buying those two cans early Saturday morning (I left my apartment at 7) was the best decision I could take. The decision making was as smooth as it could be and even though I was very disappointed that my personal favorite did not get a scholarship, I was fairly satisfied with the outcome. Szekér more or less shared my feelings and he said that if we were making a list of 'who should some very good thing happen to', then this guy would also lead his list, but unfortunately, we were making another list... Anyway, it was a good weekend, it was nice to see everyone again. Naturally, I was as exhausted as I could be, it was the second weekend in a row of not having any rest.

Then, next weekend we went to Cracow with a group of friends to visit Justy, who was originally part of our team but moved back to Poland. As expected, Yoel was late in the morning, Miki was hungover, so we had a slow start to our 7-hour trip by car. Ádám was driving and we made a couple of short stops. In the first two hours, I was laughing so much that my stomach started to hurt... Then, having 4 guys in the car, I listened to many stories about picking up girls, even some stories involving hookers, and even though we didn't drink at all, we must have looked like a bunch of drunkards from the outside. Anyway, eventually we arrived to Justy's place and then we looked like a bunch of campers in Justy's small apartment with all our sleeping bags and stuff on the floor. We spent the 1,5 days we had in Cracow talking, catching up, drinking, eating, exploring the city, drinking more... We ended up in a gay party as our last stop during our last night, where Justy, Miki, Yoel and I were shaking it for 1,5 hours on the dancefloor, while poor Ádám and Gergő were sitting on a couch – I think doing nothing. The trip back was less lively, but it was a nice weekend in general :)

Then, this weekend (which was a long weekend due to a national holiday) I went to the Bakony (the hilly area above the Balaton) with a large group of co-years from my high-school and spent 3 days in a holiday house doing the normal routine: catching up, drinking, eating and exloring the surroundings. One of the highlights of the weekend was that 2 guys were coming straight from a Pick Up Artist workshop and we had hours of fun teasing them and laughing at the study materials that they were given, especially a book containing sample SMSs that you can use to pick up girls. My favorite one went something like this: „After our honeymoon, I will bury you in the ground only halfway so that I can have seconds later”. WTF??? Anyway, we went to an adventure park the second day, where we spent at least 2 hours on a path where we had to climb ropes hung across trees and even though we were secured all the time, I have to admit that I was very scared of the height at times. We spent another couple of hours doing other fun stuff and we finished off the day with some home made paprikás krumpli and some wine. The last day, we stopped at the Velencei Lake and hang out at the beach but I wasn't brave enough to go into the water. Well, hardly anyone was.

So, these were the weekends. Other then this, there is only friends and work in my life. I start at 8 and finish around 7 way too often. A Jamie Cullum song says „don't make me live for my Friday nights”, but slowly and surely I am getting there: it is the thought of the weekend that makes me survive the whole week. I used to love working for RA, but in the past months, a lot of things changed and the atmosphere is becoming worse and worse. The economic situation does not help either but it's not only that; it is the internal pressure that is mounting to an unbearable degree. Although it is not stated openly, „megszoksz vagy megszöksz” seems to be the policy, a new direction is taken by the management and that is not going to change, and many people have had enough of all the KPIs that we have to deliver. One morning, I actually said out loud in front of my whole team, including my TL (replying to a statement made by a teammate) that „if I wanted to work in a Shared Service Center, I would have applied to a SSC”... So, things are far from perfect.

I'm back!

I'm back!

A very inspiring person once said that if there is an elephant in the room, you better introduce it to your audience. So there we go: Jani and I broke up.

At a certain point, it was impossible to continue. I was losing my hair at a worrying speed, my ekczema covered half my calf, I had insomnia (I am actually the best sleeper I've ever heard of) and I was so anxious most of the time I felt that I could start crying at any moment. So, three weeks before Christmas, I decided to end it and it took me one week to carry it out, so I moved out two weeks before Christmas. I guess this was to be expected. I don't think I need to say anything about how difficult it was.

It's already been more than 3 months since I moved out and it's been getting better. I've been busy with my work, getting involved in some new projects, also starting to do sales besides recruitment. I also got two new clients, which means I have 4 major clients as Account Manager, which is quite a bit. I work a lot. No reason to go home at 6, after all, no one is expecting me at home. I'm often in the office until 8, except when I agree with friends to meet up for a drink or two. Or more. Irma expressed a concern about the fact that I often drink myself into a mid-comatose state, but I would describe that as part of the recovery process.

I've made a nice group of friends who are related to The Client: Yoel and Gergő are still working there in the HR department, Justy has given her notice, Miki started working for another client (funnily, he became my contact person there) and Ádám is a Consultant at one of our biggest competitors. It's a very cool group of people and it's a shame that we're gonna lose Justy as she's going home to Poland. Anyway, we already have our trip to Crakow arranged to visit her in April! I also started to go to gatherings (or rather house parties) organized by my former co-years from high school. That's also a nice bunch of people who like to eat and drink as much as I do. I also have trips planned to Italy, Germany, Poland and the Netherlands.

I think I'm on the right track.