My Birthday, Bill O'Reilly and Carrots

September 16th, 2007. Today is my 37th Birthday and exciting things are happening in my life. First off, I will begin working tomorrow at my dream job at OC Tanner. My official title is Carrots Culture Group Sales and Account Manager. The last two months have been interesting, to say the least. Without going into too much detail, the company I worked for, Experience Residential, couldn't stay out in front on the subprime lending crisis and decided to shut its doors. While it was a surprise for me, I quickly gathered my wits about me and fired off an email to Adrian Gostick at the Carrots Culture Group at OC Tanner.

I first met Adrian over four years ago while still working for the Deseret Morning News in Salt Lake City. At the time I was finishing up my Master's Degree at Utah State University in Human Resource Management. I was also doing an internship for the Des News by writing Human Resources related stories for the Business Section. One of the stories I chose to write was about Integrity in the workplace because at the time there was a crazy number of business that were collapsing because of unethical moves by those in positions of power in the companies they worked for (Enron, MCI, and a few others I can't remember right now).

Adrian had just finished collaborating on a book called The Integrity Advantage with Dana Telford. I interviewed him for my story, wrote the story up and then did what any good near-graduate would do.... I asked him for a job. Adrian got me in the running for the Marketing Communications Manager position, but in the end, they extended the job to someone in house. At that time, Adrian said it might be in my best interest to gain some good management experience, so I did.

For four years I kept in contact with him and was well positioned to throw my hat in the ring for the job that came open and which I ultimately got hired to do. And that's the story.

I'm currently sitting in the Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport, waiting for my plane to whisk me away to Salt Lake City to start my job.

And Bill O'Reilly is sitting seven chairs away from me. Yeah. That Bill O'Reilly. He seems like a normal dude. Talking to his buddy, wearing a ball cap. Getting ready to head to Utah.

Anyway, I'll see if I can keep this blog up and running. My intended audience is anyone who wants to hear from me and keep up with my journey with my new job, and the things I pick up and learn along the way. Should be fun for the 5 people who might actually care.