Christien Louviere

I‘ve been up here for a week and it’s been literally nonstop until about two hours ago when I settled into this Starbucks in Sugarloaf (Gwinnett County).  The Sunday before my first day, I drove to work to see if I knew my way there.  On the way back, a an older black man named Richard pulled up next to me and asked if I was from New Orleans.  I said yes and he said he’d been here for 9 years from New Orleans.  "You’ll love it here!  It’s so progressive.  I work at _____.  When you get settled, come see me," he said genuinely.  Things have been going relatively smooth like that since I interviewed in December.

Everyone one at work as been welcoming.  I feel as though I’ve come into a situation with great opportunity.  Most of my time thus far has been spent riding our inventory in Gwinnett County.  I just chose it randomly because it seemed manageable.  It’s a neat place.  It seems relatively affluent. Based on a few places I’ve seen thus far,  I wouldn’t mind living there one day when I’m ready to get outside the city.  I can’t wait to get a car with GPS.  The 285 and east/west connector have found me lost a few times, but I’m getting it.  I have 85 down.   I’m now catching myself trying to see the county tags on every license plate and conjuring up mental maps in my head to see if I know my way around.

I feel as though I have a decent handle on the inventory so I might start cold calling on Monday.  I need to get rolling with the sales.  My sales manager handed me my budget with eagerness on Wednesday.  It far surpasses anything I would have done in my first three years in New Orleans, but I can do it.  I’m going to get knocked in the mouth a few times doing it, but it will get done.  The GM and SMs seem to be very much in my corner and my out of the box way of handling sales.  At our first sales meeting on Tuesday, they asked me to get up and speak about the company’s progression since the hurricane in New Orleans.  Thereafter, they asked me to speak about it from a personal perspective outside the business world.  I did.  The reactions were mostly of disbelief.  The GM told me privately the next morning that she liked the confidence I displayed speaking in front of everyone off the cuff.

I’m learning that some of the top people in our company saw something in me and want to see what I can do.  They will be watching me like a hawk though; not because they don’t believe in me but because they have their words on the line like I am with my career.  Someone told me that they would make it impossible for me not to take the position.  I took that information with a grain of salt.  If you knew who my company was, you’d understand.  Actually, it’s not the company.  It’s the parent corporation.  To this point, the prediction has held true. 

"I feel like I’m leaving college early to go pro," is what I told my dad sometime before I left.

Last night, I asked one of my new found friends if they wanted to go get some takeout Mexican and margaritas.  She looked at me like I was nuts because you can’t take alcohol off the premises.  The first absence of New Orleans culture that slapped me in the face.  I miss that.

It’s odd, but I’ve been so busy.  I have no family here and few friends, which is the exact opposite of my situation in New Orleans.  The lack of those two things, for now, is good because I have much to get done in a short amount of time.  There are no outside distractions yet with this clean slate.  I’m sure as I get settled and get a consistent client base, I will begin to miss those two things much more.

On a more personal note, I tried several times to write about the 48-hour period that I spent telling my family and friends good bye.  This proved to be quite difficult emotionally.   I was able to do it once in my personal journal.  I sat down last weekend to put excerpts on here from it, but I just couldn’t.  Hopefully, one day soon I can muster up the emotional fortitude to put those thoughts down on paper.  It was a rough 2 days.

Anyway, I’ve started putting some new roots down in Atlanta and I’m anxious to see what happens next.  Like my mom said the teary-eyed Wednesday morning before I pulled out of the drive, "You being there is a culmination of everything you’ve been working for; and you should look at your time there as a brand new adventure."