In With the New – My (Our) New Job (Part 1)

So if you read my previous post, Out with the Old – My Job, you know why I am moving on to bigger and better things. In some respects, I have already planted the seed for the next big chapter in my life. Some people know, some people don’t and there’s still one VERY exciting thing that will be happening in February that I can’t talk about right now – but I will as soon as I get the glowing green light.

Enter  Chatterbox Communications.  (the people who know me *real* time just broke into one big collective giggle, so let’s just get this over with ….perfect name for my company, right?  You can thank Allan Fee for that one – he’s the brains behind that name. Unfortunately for him, he has listened to my chatter A LOT over the last few years.). 

Anyway, a few years ago, I had an idea to put my love for writing to work. Some people know that I wrote for a left-wing website during the Presidential campaign – my first paid writing gig.  It was temporary since campaigns don’t last forever and I was back to this unpaid blog. I know, you’d think I get paid for all this creativity that I spew here but, alas….no….y’all get my opinions for free!

In the meantime, one of my really good friends started talking to me about how his company could never seem to get their E-Newsletter out on time and that someone would do well to write, publish and manage E-Newlsetters for companies that wanted them but didn’t have the time to make them work. So I figured out how to get it done and two years ago started Chatterbox – a side gig meant to keep my hands in writing. I never meant it as a means to support myself.  Anyone else see a pattern here?  So I told a few people, got a few accounts and off I went.

Enter my love of social media. The one thing that I do know is how to make social media work to my advantage.  I am just going to say that while some think that my social media addiction is crazy, it has opened a lot of doors for me that I would not have had otherwise.  Some fun things, like being named of Cleveland’s Most Interesting Tweeps, but some that have paid off as far as freelance writing gigs here and there.  So if I could do that for myself, I sure could do it for organizations as well.   As I started adding accounts, I soon realized that I may be a decent writer but I am no graphic designer.

Enter Tammy Schick. As it happens, I went to high school with Tammy and she is one of the most talented graphic designers that I have ever met.  If you’re interested in her work, you can find it here – Graphic Design Strategists. (Tammy doesn’t know it yet but she’s also buying me drinks the next time we are out for that compliment).

So while Chatterbox has been perking along for the last two years, we decided on one long phone call to turn this baby into a full service marketing company. You know, one that has the headache of employees and schedules and deadlines and, well, incorporation?  That’s the one.

By combining her expertise with mine (design and content writing), we have developed a one stop shop for marketing solutions (website design, social media, digital media, mobile marketing and traditional print media). 

I have started a company before not knowing where it is going to take me and I am smart enough to know that no matter what my intention for Chatterbox, I have to be open to new ideas and be ready to change a moment’s notice – which I think we just did.  I am very excited about the next chapter with Chatterbox – nervous because I am now relying on it as my only income – but excited nonetheless.

So now that you know, have you friended us on Facebook? Or Twitter?  You should, you know…..(see?  always working the social…)

Out With the Old – My Job

This post is bittersweet.  I have a lot of things going on at once – some that I can talk about and some that I cannot but it all amounts to a lot of change in my life.

Eight years ago, I started Corporate Connections after having been employed for the last 20 years by just about every type of Workers Comp or Occupational Health related services available – you name it and I have probably done it.  When I started Corporate Connections, it was meant so that I could be in charge of my own schedule and be available to my kids.  I never meant for it to become a *real* company with *real* employees but it did within about 15 months after the launch.  I started that company with $1600 in my pocket, the promise of 2 contracts and a lot of people in the workers comp industry that said I wouldn’t make it a year.  Eight years later, my company has worked with well over 300 companies in 15 states to help reduce the cost of workers comp injuries to employers. We have had another 200 that we have provided training to for a grand total of about 500 companies over all.  We have worked in 15 states and even provided services to a company with a plant in Puerto Rico.  I’ve worked with manufacturing companies, distribution centers, steel mills and even one of the largest concert promoters in the country on some pretty cool programs. (at least, I think they are cool). We have provided services to employers with 5 employees and others with well over 10,000 employees in multiple states, as well as some of the largest workers comp insurance companies and managed care organizations in the country.

So much for those people who said we wouldn’t make it.

I could probably still manage to chug along in this business, if I chose to do so. It was never my intent to get into workers comp as a career but I am not sure that anyone ever sits in college at the age of 18 or 19 and thinks that workers comp makes a great career choice. Most people who I know (and I know a lot of people) that are in the field, fell into it – myself included. Don’t worry, I am not going to hit you with the gory details of my career path – some of it is long, boring and ugly but, for the most part, it has served me well over the years. But I am more than ready to move on to a career that I love and that I intended in the first place. (more on that tomorrow).

The one thing about workers comp is that, after doing as much as I have, there’s just nothing *new* left and I am bored. If I have to be honest with myself, I have been bored with it for a long time but it is great money so I never messed with it – until now.  In the last year and a half, there have been a lot of changes in the system – most of which have come because of the well documented problems from the former Governor Taft administration and not because we have a Democrat as a President as some people like to claim. With the change in the Governor back to a Republican and knowing that he has some *plans* of his own for the workers comp system (plans, which I think will ultimately be worse for Ohio employers), I have decided that this is a good time for my exit. As of Saturday, I am no longer a workers comp consultant and my company will be closing. 

God, that was hard to type.  It’s just like sending my kids off to college – or marriage.  While I am very excited by the rest of my story, it is so hard to know that the last 8 years of my life is coming to a close. I could not have reached the level of success with my company without a lot of great people who believed in what I was doing surrounding me. Thank you all for that. It has been a great ride.

Turn the page.

Bra Sizes and Batting Averages

There’s 2 words I never thought I’d write in one sentence. Sounds like the start of a bad joke, right?  Or worse yet, a conversation that the lipstick fans would have. Alas, it was just a Twitter conversation gone bad:  Somehow this afternoon, I ended up in an argument conversation over whether Kelly Ripa’s bra size was 30A, as she stated on the show, or 32AA as stated by one of her stalkers fans on Twitter.  So that I could get out of the back and forth discussion that this chick was having with me, I just posed a general question on Twitter “So who wants to guess at Louis Valbuena’s batting average this season?”. I am posting the guesses here so that we can revisit them after the season and see who is the closest.  I think one thing we can all agree on is that he will be closer to the Mendoza line than any of us would like.  I can’t believe he’s still on the team. But I couldn’t believe that we kept Andy Marte for five long years either. Just another thing that Shapiro didn’t ask my opinion on….

(if you have a guess on Valbuena’s BA, stick it in the comments and I’ll add it to the blog too)

RyanInCle :  @LovinTheTribe I’ll put Valbuena in at a cool .236

AmyHarber: @LovinTheTribe I’m going to go with .198 198 was a house i lived in & I can still say I’ve had blood alcohol levels higher than his BA

LargeBill68: @LovinTheTribe As an optimist I’ll guess .243 unless traded/released. If he ends up playing for different team .287 just to irritate us.

BrownstownBrian:  @LovinTheTribe @RyanInCLE I say .222

KardiacKidBrett:   @LovinTheTribe 100 $ its below .150

TBassett1972:  @LovinTheTribe I say Valbuena bats .215 if he’s lucky!

CTrabs74:  @LovinTheTribe: .273

My guess is .210.

And for the record, Kelly Ripa’s official bra size according to her (ahem) stalker fan is 32AA. (sorry guys!)

Goodbye Rapid Robert

Yesterday, the baseball world lost a legend like no other and he was one of Cleveland’s own.  I am not even going to try to do the history of Bob Feller’s career as a Cleveland Indian and life over all except to say that it will be a very long time before baseball or history sees another like him.  Bob Feller was a true ambassador for the City of Cleveland and a baseball legend for those of us that are baseball addicts.  He had an untouchable fastball, racked up some killer stats and did some amazing things when he played the game. He was a war hero that took a break from the game he loved to face danger for those he didn’t know and returned to baseball when his tour was over. When it was time for him to stop playing, he continued to love the game, the fans and this city like no other.

I had only one encounter with Bob Feller and it was quite by accident about five or six years ago.  I was at my usual standing place on the Homerun porch when I turned around to find him standing behind me. He was standing alone and taking in the game while fans walked by, oblivious to his presence.  A few minutes had gone by, when one little boy, about 5 years old, walked over with a ball and asked him to sign. I’m quite certain that the boy was way too young to understand the word *legend* let alone that he was in the presence of one but somebody had sent him, anyway. As I stood and watched, Bob Feller took a lot of time with that little boy and pointed out things in the field for him to watch.  I’m sure that the parents of that child were near but I never noticed anything but his kindness to a boy that, I hope, will someday understand the man that patiently pointed to the pitcher’s mound that day was a man bigger than life. It was on that day that I realized that Bob Feller was every bit the man that I had heard rumored – one that loved the game, the City of Cleveland and one which took his job as an ambassador of the team and it’s city very seriously – even for the kids. I hate to admit that I was intimidated enough that I did not approach him – and I could kick myself now for that – but it was my own little suck in the breath baseball moment that I will forever remember.

And today, I know that Bob Feller has made his way to the baseball mound in the sky with one thing on his mind :  Getting a World Series Title for the team that he loved and for the City in which he made his home. An ambassador to the end, we can all rest assurred that he is on our side wherever he may be.

BRING IT, CLEVELAND!

“I will loudly and obnoxiously root for my team EVERY week. Even when they frustrate me beyond belief, I go back every week and believe things will change. It’s an emotionally abusive way to live but fuck it – I’m still proud to be a Cleveand fan”. 

       *Stolen without permission (because I can’t remember who wrote it) off of one of my friend’s Facebook statuses  many months ago.

It’s finally here. The day that LeBron comes back to Cleveland.  I don’t know what to expect tonight but I do know that most of the country thinks Cleveland is a bunch of whining babies about this, anyway.  Regardless, I honesty don’t know why any city outside of Cleveland thinks that they would react differently if this happened to them.   New York fans boo their own team and spit on opposing players’ wives just on a normal day. Why do they think that they’d sit politely by while a guy like LeBron bitch slaps them on national television?  Please.

I stopped trying to reason with people from other cities about why Cleveland fans have reacted as they have. I am very aware that had Prince James written a nice letter like Z when he left, Cleveland fans would have still been angry and Prince James would have faced the same harassment which Jim Thome endures everytime he plays at the Jake.  Prince James is no Zydrunas Ilgauskas, for sure. But to have him announce it on national television just threw gasoline on an already raging inferno. It was wrong.  We’ve had other athletes leave before – some that we have liked (Kenny Lofton) and some that we haven’t (Derek Anderson- which great news conference, dude! ) and we always feel betrayed.  We are used to it.   Maybe, it would have helped if we had won a championship somewhere along the way. I don’t know. One thing is for sure – if you’re not a Cleveland fan, you just don’t get it and, quite frankly, you never will.  We love our sports teams – and we love to hate our sports teams. We can talk badly about them. You can’t. We love our city. We can talk badly about ourselves.  You can’t. 

You don’t get it. You never will.

There are passionate fans.  And then there are Cleveland fans. We live and die our sports teams. We are loyal and passionate to our own detrement. We believe our team will win the World Series even knowing that every player we have on the team just came out of our Triple A farm club.  We fill our football stadium every Sunday and bark our approval over a rookie quarterback that wasn’t supposed to take a snap this year. We form lines to drink the beer called “Quitness” and don five layers of clothes to attend opening day of baseball season in a blizzard – three days in a row.  We love a guy named Booby and join a group called Grady’s Ladies.

We are a city of unemployed workers who offered to pay the fine of our owner that wrote a letter one fateful night in July and don’t care that, to him, that fine was pocket change.  Dan Gilbert gets us – and we love that about him, even when outsiders did not.  

Even when our teams disappoint us, we stay faithful and continue to believe. Tonight, we will fill that Q with die hard Cleveland fans, 20,562 strong. You may think that we are terrible fans and should sit down and behave ourselves.  But I ask you:

What would you do?  (smirk)  BRING IT, CLEVELAND!