Today is set to be a bit of a long one - I’m in the city cos today is the day when we have some big Blackberry Bold launch events. We’ve got an internal one for staff this arvo at 3pm, and then a little break before the customer event at 6pm. So I’ll be home by about 9:30 or 10 if I’m lucky :)

Just finished getting hammered by a customer who’d been told all sorts of lovely price stories by a Telstra dealer -crazy price things that we can’t do. And now I’m in our weekly training session for the account executives - someone else is running it this week and I’m just enjoying sitting up the back doing some iPhone blogging.

And then it’s off to the city for our quarterly awards afternoon. Wondering if I’ll get an award this arvo…

Looking forward to just relaxing tonight with Debbie… Cos me thinks it will be a busy weekend as well!

It was a painful wait today… but eventually, at about 4pm this arvo, the courier arrived with our brand new toys. I had seen the Bold before at a couple of different events, but to finally have my own is very exciting. And better still, to finally have it before a lot of other people was awesome. (We usually get pretty badly left behind as far as devices go - even though we’re supposed to be specialists in the area.) And like I said last week, to even have it before many other people in the world is incredible for Telstra.

Telstra's Blackberry Bold

First impressions are that it is just so light for what it is. And the screen resolution is amazing as well. They have updated the software that Blackberry runs on in a pretty massive way, so while it looks and acts similarly to previous models, there’s just so many new features that are more than skin deep.

I will be keen to set it up as a tethered modem and see how it performs - it’s a 3.6Mbps HSDPA device, so I’m expecting it to hopefully cruise along at about 1.5 - 2Mbps.

My device has just finished synchronising to the server, so I now have all my emails and everything set up the way I want it - right down to the little things, like that the profile is still on vibrate, which is exactly how I had my old BB set up before I took my sim card out about 2 hours ago. See, it’s those little things that make the whole Blackberry platform cool.

The fun begins tomorrow as I venture out to deliver a couple of devices to some “special” customers. Hoping that isn’t too much of a painful process and won’t destroy my whole day.

So, in my eyes, I’ve now achieved mobile perfection: an Apple iPhone 3G for my personal, and a Blackberry Bold 9000 for my work phone. Love it.

But more importantly, my mobile specialist colleagues and I are getting one, which we were all very excited about. And then today, my boss told me that she got word that we may have them as early as the end of the week. That would make me amongst the first people in the world outside RIM (the makers of Blackberry) to have one… how exciting!

So I did the bolt from the city after our team meeting and came out to Parra. Once I got into some solid work and got through some stuff, I started to feel like things were much more under control. Thankfully.

Mr Tax Man visited my bank account the other day and deposited a nice healthy sum of money for me. And thanks to him, I have managed to get rid of an annoying credit card debt, and also pay off my bass guitar that I bought on one of those interest free things at the end of last year! Thanks to the government for helping me go a long way to being debt free before I get married … and then enter into a massive 30 year debt :D

Spending lots of time in the city at the moment. It seems like every different management area within Telstra, and every manufacturer wants to have a start of fin year meeting/presentation, and they’re all held in the city. Yesterday was some follow-up training for a course we did about a month ago, and then today was a launch of the Blackberry Bold [I didn't win one of the giveaway devices, how sad], and also a Telstra Business kick-off event [although I'm pretty sure we've had about 3 of these kick-off events already...]

Looking forward to tomorrow night though… hang out time at the House of Bach with pizza, and then board games a-plenty. Fun times :D

The internet is so slow at work today.

The arvo then consisted of some serious planning for Friday. We have finally received an engagement document that we need to present to our team of account executives about our new job direction and stuff for this fin year. And because these guys are all pretty new, I have started to work on a schedule of wireless data training that I’d like to roll out over the next few weeks. It will be a whole new thing for me I think… but I am looking forward to it all.

I’m round at Debbie’s tonight… had some very nice beef with hokkien noodles for dinner, and now Debbie is having lots of fun playing games on my iPhone. I’m looking forward to having a go at jailbreaking my iPhone when I get home actually. There’s already some apps out there that assist the phone in becoming a tethered modem - quite cool.

Yesterday was quite an interesting day. There wasn’t too many emails to get through, but there was a lot to get my head around. Last week, it seems there was quite a bit of talk about sales targets for 08/09, our sales commission incentive plan, and just general job role talk for this fin year. So it was a bit overwhelming at times.

Suffice to say, my job role for this year is almost that job I’ve always wanted - just focused on mobile and wireless data, and moving away from call rates and handsets and basic stuff like that. Unfortuantely, the job I’ve always wanted involved me being a support for things like that, and not having a sales focus. But alas, I will have targets and will need to sell :) Still, it’s pretty tops.

I was all excited about getting home last night and cooking an awesome pasta bake. I felt like pasta bake on Sunday, and Debbie suggested I cook it on Monday night for dinner. So off I went to Woolies to fill my basket with all sorts of things that would make my pasta bake awesome: chicken, prawns, broccolini, mushrooms. And I put it all in a baking dish and into the oven in went. Unfortunately, cos I had so much stuff in it, there wasn’t quite enough liquid to make sure that everything was covered - so some of the pasta was exposed. So consequently, 20 mins into the cooking, the top layer of pasta was badly burnt and I had to throw it out. But once I removed all that, it worked better, and it still turned out pretty nicely. But lesson learnt - when making a pasta bake, make sure the sauce/water covers the stuff completely.

Wednesday and Thursday were some all-day training things. Found it hard to keep from being tired just sitting and listening. But it was good stuff. And then today has been pretty relaxed too - I packed up my desk here in the city this morning before heading out to Parra to get it all set up so that it’s all ready for Monday morning. We were supposed to have a meeting this arvo about 08/09 sales targets, and so I trotted back into the city… but in the end, it was postponed. That was a bit frustrating, but not so bad. I had some chinese food for lunch, and then just went through some work emails briefly. What’s really strange (for me anyway) is that I haven’t had my work computer on and been logged in since Monday afternoon. It’s quite strange and unusal for me.

Now I’m just sitting here killing time waiting for my boss’s new computer to finish building and get it set up for her. Yes, I’m a mobile sales specialist. :)

One week til Kedron begins. Crazy. There’s still a bit to do… but not much I don’t think. I’m feeling quite anxious… but that’s normal for me. I’m pretty certain everything is done… I just want to get there and get into it.

I’m gonna head home soon and start working on the final hour-by-hour timetable that I like to have. And that is good to have. Then it will be dinner at parentals’ time with Debbie and my sister and Ryan too.

I don’t have a parking spot just yet, but when I get it, it will be right under the building! But until then, the public parking I’ll use is only just across the road. No more 10 minute walk each way!

Peak hour looks like it’ll be a breeze. I just left the office this arvo at 4:45 and it took me 2 minutes and two sets of lights before I was well on my way to James Ruse Dr to head over here to Debbie’s place. So very quick.

Importantly, the two newly formed account management teams that I’ll be working with each day seem tops. Good bunch of people who know their stuff. Definitely going to mean some good sales and at the moment, I can’t see any hassles.

The office is pretty sweet. Reasonably recently rennovated, and absolutely massive desks. After a brief argument with Shay, my device specialist sidekick, I scored the window view desk :) and there is plenty of room around our desk - just need to convince the boss that having a couch there is going to mean increased sales. Hmm, that might take a bit of work.

I’m looking at moving my stuff out there on Monday I think.

I went on a little hunt this arvo for some coffee. I found Hudsons coffee. Very funky looking shop, but in the end I reckon it could just be like just a mini Starbucks - too much money in looking good. The coffee was incredibly hot and nothing to get excited about. The search shall continue on Monday.

But three cheers for 40 minute return trip each day… as opposed to the current average 2.25 hour return! Love it.