What does it mean to you?

Every year since I was a kid, I have given up something for Lent. From condiments to soft drinks (which I do not consume now) from wine to kissing. Each year I gain a new sense of fulfillment from it and appreciate life that much more. It begins on Ash Wendnesday (feb 17) and is 40 days, not including sundays, to celebrate the resurrection, therefore many people “cheat” and indulge on what they have given up, but not I. So this year is a special year. And for anyone who knows me even the slightest bit will know that this will be the hardest undertaking yet. I am giving up milk. I love milk more than any other person I know. I had milk for dinner every single night growing up and that has not changed. After working out or being hungover most prefer water. Not I, I only want milk. I have milk every night before going to bed, I have milk when I wake up. On average I drink a gallon a week. Don’t let me fool you, I have tried soy and almond milk but I prefer those with cereal instead and buy them solely for cereal. I like milk, its real good. Conventionally, Lent is described as a time where Jesus spent avoiding temptations from Satan. I use this “holiday” to better myself, personally. Every time I crave milk (which will be often) I will instead think about doing something nice for someone, or reminding myself what a great life I have, or becoming stronger willed. In the end, you come out a better person every year. I would like to challenge everyone to give up something with me, it really is a gratifying feeling in the end. Feel free to post what you’re giving up this year- Happy Lenting!

SHOUT OUTS

Mi casa de playa for keeping me so cozy this weekend whilst there was a monsoon outside!

My job for teaching me patience, otherwise I think I would have had a conniption fit for having 2 car wrecks in one month.

Gasparilla for giving me such and exciting weekend to look forward to!

Yes Corporate America, I’m talking to YOU!

After nearly 5 months in this industry, excuse me, slavestry (as I have renamed it)– It still baffles me how poorly vendors are treated when we are essentially free labor. This past week I had one of those moments where my mind was separated and I was watching Jilly-vision. I looked at all the vendors at 7am hard at work, Frito Lay packing potato chips, Pepsi stacking stacking pepsi boxes, Shenck lifting miller light cases even the the poor Pepperidge Farm guy wheeling around his bread cart. I know this is their chosen career path, but it can’t help but make me sad  to know that they just become immune to the everyday bs of being a “vendor”

Early this morning I get a phone call from an account (one of my smallest, yet most demanding accounts) telling me I needed to get there stat to put up all of my displays (that I had just spent 4 hours on friday taking down so that they could wax the floors) I told them Monday was not the best day because it is my ordering day and I have to reach all of my accounts and make orders. In one ear and out the other. All they responded was they did not care and I better be there I didn’t have a choice. Awesome. Guess that would be my last stop of the day. I finally arrive and the manager has the audacity to say “wow you’re just now getting here, good luck, you’re going to be here until midnight, you better get it all done” how kind that man.

FREEZE this is one of those moments in my job where I just want to throw my hands up, lay on the floor and pretend I’m a little girl again playing Barbies with my little sister.

Nights like that are pretty much miserable but my best friend, Bo said it best, “You’re going to look back one day and laugh. I promise. You’re on the road to success, just gotta stick with it” I love you BK and everyone else who inspires me to keep on trucking.

Being a good person pays off, I am a firm believer in karma. Let me tell you about the sweet receiver at one of my accounts, her name is Blanca and she is 52 years old, she is adorable but a very hard worker. Last week she confronted me and told me she was sorry the manager was so mean to us but that she refused to be rude. I asked her what she meant and she explained that he told her “not to speak to vendors, do not say thank you, and she didn’t have to show them any respect, they are only there to work” sounds like a pretty happy-go-lucky guy huh? Right….

Hard work ethic, a quality possessed by few but one that I admire undoubtedly. Cliche as it is, hard work pays off. As well does being a good person.

Below is a picture of me in the back room of one of my accounts on a freeeezing morning in Florida. I like to meet my drivers when they arrive at my accounts to help them and to make sure there are no problems!

This post may have been a bit of a Debbie Downer but it is an issue I want everyone to be aware of. So next time you pick up that little debbie snack, just know that some hard-working vendor probably stocked it that morning. 🙂

BIG SHOUT OUTS TO:

My vendors across the board for helping me put up with shenannigans each morning.

St. George Island for being my happy place since the beginning of Jilly time and getting to visit there this weekend with my awesome friends and family

“The Bachelor” for thoroughly entertaining me in revealing how psycho girls really are. P.S who was Valishia, I had never seen her?? WEIRDDDD

Time for a change

December was a crazy month in the world of wine. I felt like I lived in my accounts and only went home to sleep for a couple of hours.. After going through December and all the crapola that came with it…stress….no sleep…poor diet…no exercise…hitting impossible numbers…getting yelled at by EVERYONE…not being able to do anything right…160 case wine orders… and soooo much more, I began to wonder if I had even made the right career choice. But countless people have told me over and over that if I can make it through the holidays, then the rest of the year will be a piece of cake, and you know what, I actually believe them this time. I increased my revenue from last year, I hit all my numbers and then some and had some really successful tastings- overall good feedback, it feels good to know that all my hard work paid off. Things are looking up!!

My marathon is sunday, I couldn’t have picked a worse time to do it but I can honestly say there is nothing else I would rather be doing.. I just want to get out there and run my little heart out. I want to inspire people. It amazes me how many people’s jaws drop when I tell them I am doing a marathon, they act like I just told them I was flying to the moon. I believe anyone can do it- its mostly mental if you ask me- you just have to get your head straight!!

SOoOoOooOO… I saw Avatar in IMAX this week with a couple of friends… I can honestly say it was the weirdest/most interesting movie I have ever seen. I liked it, I did, but I couldn’t help but laugh at some parts, it was partially a comedy to me! But great effects, that place was beautiful.

Well folks, it is a new year and I am ready for great things in my future. Check you pimps later.

SHOUTOUTS

DISNEY – For letting me run around your park for 26.2 miles

MY NEWTON RUNNING SHOES – For giving my flat feet a chance to run as fast as the other kids!

GEICO – For making an appointment to repair my car so quickly after being sideswiped last night… booo!!!!!!

Pet Peeves

It bothers me when you’re texting someone and they say “Alright well I’ll talk to you later have a good day” like you’re on the phone with them… that’s the whole point of a text msg.. you can start and stop and your leisure..

I want to love you, PYT

It has always perturbed me the amount of time and stress people put into worrying about dating and the opposite sex (or the same sex, if you prefer). I believe society puts too much pressure on finding a mate at an early age and therefore people go searching for someone just so they won’t be alone. I am still very young, 22, but I have learned that you must love yourself before you can even begin to think about giving your love to another person.

Being in a male-dominated industry, wine sales for those of you who aren’t up to date, getting hit on is a daily occurrence. Now, I want to make something clear, I am not saying this to toot my own horn, I am saying it very matter-of-fact this is what happens day to day attractive or not. Random customers approach me and say the most ludicrous things, “you’re too pretty to be working at wal-mart sweetie” or “hey cute thing are you old enough to be puttin’ up that wine?” In one ear and out the other, thank you retard America. Being that I am in my accounts 5-6 days a week I have gotten to know many of the managers pretty well. They never hesitate to ask, “You’re so pretty why don’t you have a boyfriend?” I mean really? What do you want me to say, “Because I have a third nipple, because I am secretly mental, or could it be that my laugh is too loud” ??? A personal favorite is when people say, “You’re going to make someone really happy one day.” What does that even mean…thats such a bs thing to say, really? how kind.. I mean come on people, what is wrong with being 22 and single these days. In fact, relationships are overrated and I believe too many people are in them for the wrong reasons. Please do not confuse my beliefs with pessimism, because that is not the case at all. I do believe in love and awesome relationships, just all in good time. I will tell you, if the person you are with, or are hoping to be with, is not bending over backwards to make you happy, then they aren’t the one for you. When you’re in love you will want to do anything for that other person.

One thing I have learned in my tenure in the dating world is not to jump the gun. It is easy to fall for someone so quickly and be in lustville for the first couple of months, but it will only make things harder if it doesn’t work out. I know it is easy to say all of this but easy to forget when that special person comes around.

I guess my main point that I am trying to get across is that it is okay to be single, in fact, its healthy. You can’t “fix” or “change” people so just be yourself always and things will fall into place. At the moment my radar is off, its all just Jilly time right now, and that makes me happy.

Work hard, play hard, BUT work ≠ play

SHOUT OUTS

My dog Max who is my one true love in GA that I miss very much

Love of my life

My awesome, beautiful, sweet lil sister Ali for flying to Orlando to cart me and my 5 cases of wine home for Christmas

All of my awesome customers– Keep buying that wine and bubbly!

26.2

The number of miles I will be running around Disney World on January 10, 2o1o. Yes, I think I chose to train for a marathon at the worst  possible time. Everyone in this industry talks about OND (oct, nov, dec) as such a busy time that you may as well check out from the rest of the world bc all you will be doing is working. Well they pretty much hit the nail on the head. There isn’t time for much else, but I am just having to find time to run in between throwing cases. You see, sometimes I become illusive and confuse working with “working out.” After a long, hard day at work I rationalize in my head that, “since I’m tired, and my body aches, then I got a good work out in” Ummm.. no. Not correct- Jilly bean get your butt in the gym bc the ambulance has to come and pick you up before you even approach epcot.

When I mention to people that I am doing a marathon the immediate response is “why???” Well ladies and gentlemen, this summer my world was abruptly turned upside down when my boyfriend broke up with me out of the blue. Typical sob story, I was torn apart and very hard on myself. In order to get out of this hole, I created a list of things I wanted to accomplish within the year, and a marathon was on that list. I mean how cool is it to say I will have run 26.2 miles, something that less than 1% of the population has done!! There are more things on my “list” but we will get to those at a later date and time.

Before, I mentioned that this may have been the worst time to train for a marathon, but in some lights I see it as the best time. One of my biggest struggles with running is boredom.. well… right now I have a million and 1 things going through my head 99.9% work related, and therefore I am able to run and clear my thoughts at the same time while preparing myself for the next day. In order to run this race to the best of my advantage, I need to get right mentally and physically. As of now, I am at a good place in my life- so let’s keep it up JP!

Part of the excitement of this race is knowing that my awesome sister Callie will be doing it with me. Together, that girl and I can do anything! She has always been an inspiration in my life, she is the one who got me to sign up for my first triathlon! But…. that doesn’t mean I am going to let her beat me! Here I come sista!

Peace, love and marathon- Jilly

SHOUT OUTS

My awesome family – who I will miss very much on Thanksgiving. I am thinking about each of you!

My Newton running shoes- which were made especially for my pronated feet- what what!

My awesome manager Mark- who has taught me everything I know about the wine business and always has a way of making the long, hard days seem like a good time.

I’m ready to talk

Now that I have prefaced you with the story of how I got this so-called dream job, I want to explain what I actually do on a day-to-day basis. I tell everyone, and I will tell you, there is not a single thing you could have told me to prepare me for all that this job expects. The wine sales job I had envisioned before moving to Orlando included me going into fine wine shops and specialty stores trying to convince them to buy my specific wine. Boy did I have that all wrong.

I have 3 large Wal-Marts, 2 Winn Dixie’s, 3 Publixes, a Dollar General and numerous gas stations. A typical day, let me rephrase that, there is no typical day in the wine business, each day is filled with more obstacles than the next and *fun* little surprises along the way. Now, before I get too far into this, it may seem as if I am complaining, unhappy and maybe even ungrateful for my job. But that is not the case my friends. I have learned more about the real world in the past 2 and a half months than I thought was possible, I went from not knowing a thing about the wine business and how it works to feeling like an expert. This job is simultaneously humbling and rewarding. But let’s get on with the good stuff first before I start talking about how great my job is.

I typically wake up around 6am and refresh my pocket advantage aka handheld or SFA (looks much like a late 2000 cell phone and its purpose serves for me to make my orders on, check my route list, view order histories…etc.. its my life). I drink a full cup of coffee and eat breakfast on the way to my first account, wally world. Typically, I wear pressed dressed pants with a short-sleeved collared shirts in an array of colors, with the except of NAVY BLUE. Why you ask? Let me tell you. Hypothetically speaking, if I had a dollar for the number of times a lost soul has approached me and asked me where something is in Wal-Mart, I would have quit this job many moons ago and moved to the Caribbean to become a bum. Despite the fact that I no longer wear navy blue, the questioning continues. And just by the by, it only happens in wal-marts, not any other accounts, bewildering I might add.

Alright, continuing onward, there are 3 types of days in my company: Ordering days, Pack-out days (wine to shelves) and servicing days. In my opinion, ordering days are the most difficult bc I have to hit all my accounts and have all my orders input into my pocket advantage by 5pm. Initially you make think this seems like a breeze, going into each account, typing in an order and PEACE OUT HOLMES!! Nope, unfortunately not the case. Hunting down a manager is like a search for the Holy Grail, and then once you find them, getting just 2 seconds of their time to present your AWESOME, INCREDIBLE, CAN’T GO HOME WITHOUT IT deal… is another challenge. Why should they buy MY wine, there are 4 other vendors in the account, many who have been in these accounts for over 5 years and are probably my parents age. Intimidating? I think not. Just that much greater of a victory when I dominate them.

Now lets move along to pack-out days. Some accounts may have 60 case pack-outs which can take me hours to do, loading each case on a cart, wheeling it out to the floor and then placing each bottle of the shelve. Or there are days when I sold in a 120 case display, which is money money money in my pocket, but then I have to build it. My most prideful display thus far is my colorful barefoot in the month of October. I sold the most Barefoot wine out of everyone in my company for the month. PROUD DAY, yes I’ll shout it out loud.

JiLLy’s DisplaY FoLks!

Drink that Barefoot peeps! My favorite varietal is the pinot noir, their newest flavor! Try it today (this is a limited time offer and only includes one bottle per customer SYKE, buy it in bulk!) This display took me about 3 hours to build and digging through it to refill it takes another chunk of my time each week.

Alright, so now to service day. On service days I there are no orders going out, or coming in. Easy? Not so fast eager beavers, there is always backstock (my inventory of wine not on the floor consisting from 1 case to one palette of wine depending on the account size) to be worked. I know I am throwing a plethora of vocab at you at you in a single post, but try to bare with me.

Okay, so this doesn’t seem all that bad or stressful you say, ha, ok now I am going to list, in no particular order, all the things that can go wrong at an account. ALL of which have happened to me once or twice… ok, maybe even multiple times.

1. ORDER REFUSED- the dreaded refusal. I often do not sleep at night in fear of refusals, this is when all of the wine that you ordered is put on a truck and attempted to deliver to an account and the receiver refuses it for a number of reasons, I’ll name a few common ones: One manager wanted it, the other didnt-The manager whom you sold it to was off and didn’t relay it to his counter part-There was a certain product on the order that they didn’t particularly want, for whatever reason-Too much backstock-The account thought they were getting rid of wine (yes this really happened)- Bitter receivers who want me to fail at life (TRUE STORY, but he actually got in trouble)- If it is inventory or audit day (oops?)-Or they might think you just ordered too much. The list is on-going, but Ill end it right there.

2. Displays being taken by another wine vendor. You come into an account, smile on your face bouncing along, and then WHACK, there is a spread of oakleaf (not my brand) invading the floral section that was Kendall Jackson (my brand also) yesterday. Better scurry to find out how this happened before boss man sees it…

3. A buyer telling you your brand sucks and doesn’t sell. Thank you nice person, how thoughtful, but guess what?? My brands do sell, just maybe not at your ghetto store- BOO YA!

4. Another wine vendor stealing your “facing” i.e. take your wine off the shelf, hide it somewhere in the store and bring in their new product. That’s a fun one.

5. You walk into an account and a manager is mad at you/doesn’t like you for no apparent reason. I understand in the real world there are always going to be people whom you do not get along with. But I believe you should give everyone a chance, even greedy wine vendors who want to stock up your store 🙂

The list continues but I think I have covered my bases for now. Okay….. so I say all that to say this… I am frequently asked, “Had you of known this is what the job would be like, would you have taken it?” And I always respond, even when I do not 100% believe it, “Yes, I would take it a hundred times over and over.” And I say that because at the end of the day when I have made a big sale, or built and awesome display to email out to the biggest of the bosses, I feel accomplished and rewarded. This is the most humbling experience I have ever gone through and do not regret a day of it (even though some of you might beg to differ!) I am happy and cannot wait to see what this journey has in store for me.

That’s enough wine talk for now—

PEACE, LOVE, and WINE!!!!

Daily Shout Outs

My parents – for being so supportive in so many different ways with this move to a new place and my new career.

Barefoot Wine – For selling so well in my accounts and making me NUMERO UNO

My iPhone – Whom I have a legit relationship with. The amount of emails, calls and even texts I deal with on a daily basis from accounts and bosses would be entirely impossible to deal with if it werent my do-it-all phone.

Hello world!

Ever since childhood I have had this yearning to get out into the world and do something different than what was expected of me. I have always been independent and eager to learn. After college I was adamant about finding an awesome job in a new city where I knew not a soul. Well my friends, this is how I landed in the sunny city of Orlando. As you all know, this economy has hit everyone in the worst way possible. I applied to around 100 jobs in big cities around the US, countless interviews (phone and in person) and few follow-ups… “We’ve gone a different direction…” became a phrase my friends and I often joked about. 5 months after my first interview and much discouragement later, I received a call from Gallo saying a position opened in Orlando and I had two weeks to be there! My dream had come true, I got the job… my dream job… in a brand new city… a brand new start… Hello World, hello Orlando, here I am.