Thursday, March 18, 2010

Thursday 3's

Thursday 3's is not my original idea. A friend of mine and David's from Notre Dame does this on Facebook. Well, he used to do it more regularly before he and his wife welcomed a beautiful baby girl last month. I always looked forward to Thursday's so I could see what the topic was. So I thought I'd bring that "tradition" over here to my blog!

The weather here was beautiful today. After my last appointment of the day my car said the ambient temperature was 73 degrees! I know it didn't get out of the 60's today and my car was warm from sitting in the sun, but the warmer weather inspired me to go through the drive-thru at Wendy's to get an original Frosty. I ordered a small, which is only $0.99 and 320 calories, then came home and played with Riggins in the backyard while I ate the Frosty (with a spoon, of course).

So, today's Thursday 3's is: What three things do you most enjoy getting through a drive-thru window?

My answers:
1) Starbucks - most recently I'm addicted to Dark Cherry Mocha's.
2) Apparently Frosty's on a nice, warm day
3) Burger King Double Cheeseburger, no mustard, onion rings, and a diet Coke. Yes that's from many years ago, but I still dream about it.

What about you?

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Earning My Pay

Work is killing me right now.

About 6 weeks ago I was told I would take over Project Jewel (all of our projects have code names so the competition won't know what we're doing - very sneaky - so I won't say here what it is either) once a coworker of mine took a new job on the Target team in Minneapolis. As of March 1 I took 100% commercial leadership of this project. So that means I lead all the commercial functions (market research, assistant brand managers on other brands, finance, sales) and there is one guy in charge of all the technical functions (products research, product supply, etc.). And it's a biggie. Jewel is the biggest project Fabric Care has seen in two years, and it's the biggest one planned through 2016. During my second week I put together a presentation for our new General Manager. For perspective, she's my boss's boss's boss's boss. And reports to the President of Global Fabric Care. Initially the presentation meeting would include the General Manager, my director and one other assistant brand manager. It turned out to be the "hottest ticket in town" because of the importance of the project. We ended up having 20-25 people in the room to watch the "show". The presentation went very well and was a great way for me to learn the commercial aspect of the project very quickly.

Anyway, I had a meeting with my boss yesterday and I was telling him what I want to focus on with Project Jewel; basically sharing with him where I want to make a big impact. I didn't make a presentation or prepare a formal talk sheet. I just spoke with him. And his response was great! He was like "that's it Merritt! I knew you could envision and I've loved seeing you so action oriented over the last two weeks." For those of you who remember, my boss had given me the feedback that I needed to work on my "envisioning" skill. Well, looks like I'm well on my way of putting a check in the envisioning column! All the late nights and weekend work is paying off.

Must. Go. To. Bed. I've got another 8am meeting tomorrow!