Recently, a magazine at my company folded. We had an internal meeting at which we were given the news, told that a majority of the staff would soon be informed that they were losing thier jobs and told that a press release would go out that afternoon. To most of us, that meant not to say anything to anyone yet.

Moments after the meeting my coworker, Promo Girl, went on her computer and, out of boredom, checked Facebook. First thing on her Facebook news feed:

Business Boy can’t believe that Magazine folded…thoughts and prayers are with those who lost their jobs. 2 minutes ago.

Seriously?! I should mention that Business Boy is Facebook friends with a overwhelming number of people throughout the company. People who had not yet heard the news, people who were possibly losing their jobs. Promo Girl called him immediately and told him to take it down. He protested for a moment before taking down the status.

Business Boy is very protected of his Facebook. After the crazy after-party during our business trip, Business Boy posted inappropriate photos of Michael Scott and the rest of us drinking and looking wasteface. Some were just flat out unflattering photos of yours truly and others, as one of my coworkers put it “the kind of pictures that could get someone fired.”

Any rational employee would not have posted photos like this of their boss and coworkers. A rational employee would not have put the magazine’s name in each photo caption and photo album title.

I told Business Boy that they was a lot of discussion going on about the album and that maybe he should edit them down. I didn’t want to tell him what to do with his photos on his Facebook profile but someone had to tell him. He replied by telling me that, yes, they were his photos and htat he didn’t tag anyone so it didn’t matter.

Didn’t matter? This is the internet we’re talking about. It took several more conversations from several more coworkers to convince Business Boy that they pictures were not ok to post on the internet.

Two other coworkers changed their Facebook status to a comment about the folding Magazine. With social networking sites, like Facebook and Twitter, personal information the line between personal life and work life are thing. Work is a huge part of our lives. I spend more time at work than I do at home and more time with my coworkers than with my family or friends. But there is a line that just shouldn’t be crossed when it comes to business information entering your personal life.

I have a confession to make. I have been withholding information you guys. Before you start coming at me with pitchforks, let me explain. After I didn’t get the last job (or should I say jobs) that I interviewed for back in September, I was convinced I had jinxed myself. So any other leads or opportunities that have fallen in my path I have tried to be vague about. I didn’t want to jinx myself again. 

Well, it seems the curse has lifted my friends because for the last two weeks I have felt like I’m in a cheesy rom com where everything seems to fall into place and the main character now has to make a really difficult decision between two really great opportunities. Apparently, I’m playing the lead character. 

Right after I got that sketchy e-mail from my last interview telling me that they were going to keep interviewing for the position, I received an e-mail from a company in Chicago asking if I was still interested in a Project Coordinator position they had open. The HR rep had thought that since I was from New York that I must have applied the wrong position on their website. I immediately called back and explained my situation. From there, I had four phone interviews each with a different person in the company. 

After the fourth call, they offered to fly me out to Chicago for an in-person interview. I couldn’t believe my ears. None of the other interviews that I had gone to had offered to pay for my flight and I was convinced that this was the real deal. They seemed really interested in me! 

So I told The Boss that I was taking a personal day to go home to see my dad and on Halloween, I woke up at 3:30 a.m. to catch a 6 a.m. flight out of Newark to Chicago. Bleary eyed and with major butterflies in my stomach, I boarded the plane and walked to my seat. When I got to 29F, it seemed that someone else was in my spot, so I sleepily sputtered, “Excuse me, are you 29F because I think you’re in my seat?”

The seat stealer had a hat on, so I didn’t realize until he looked up at me that the guy I spent obsessing over for hours and hours on end as a thirteen (and even at sixteen) year old tween was on my plane. I had just told Taylor Hanson that he was in my seat. And asleep behind him was Isaac Hanson (oh how I pined over him). 

“Oh, no, I’m 30F. I think that is your seat,” Taylor Hanson said and pointed at the seat in front of him. So with no grace whatsoever, I flung myself into my seat and texted my sister (who is also a true Hanson fan), WG1, and our Fabulous Project Manager that Hanson was on my plane.

I have spotted celebrities before. In fact, my sister would say that I attract them. But I live in New York so while you may be surprised to see Keanu Reeves sitting behind you at a movie theater in Union Square, it’s not exactly impossible. I’ve also recently spotted Penn Badgley on the street and ran into Starr Jones at Victoria’s Secret. 

But Hanson on my plane sent me into a tizzy (just an fyi, Zac was no where to be found). I told WG1 on the phone later that I could have died happy and I wasn’t lying. Those boys were my childhood in a nutshell. My obsession was ridiculous. I only ate red candy for a while because Taylor Hanson’s favorite color was red. Wow, big confession there. 

I took this plane ride as a sign. Chicago was where I was meant to be and this interview was going to go flawlessly. 

The interview did go well. I spent two hours chatting with the Director of Sales, the current Project Coordinator, and then got a tour of the company’s two floors. Since it was Halloween everyone was dressed in costume (my favorite was a full-on cracked out Amy Winehouse) and they had had a pumpkin carving contest the day before so all the pumpkins were on display in the front hall. My favorite was the pumpkin carved like a hamburger complete with real lettuce, tomatoes and mustard. 

All of the employees went out of their way to be nice to me and I had a great time. Not to mention the job description (event planning! travel!) didn’t sound too shabby. I left the interview feeling confident but cautious because we all know my history with the jinx curse. My dad and I met up for lunch at Blackie’s where I ate a scrumptious burger and fries. 

Meeting Notes is a weekly feature. Here we will dish on tidbits, news, and important things we think you Working Girls should know. So scroll down to hear what we think you should glean from this work week.

Apparently, us kids born between the years 1980 and 2001 have just been given a new nickname and it is the Millennials. 

My father (who is really into me making this job my future career – yay for working from home!), sent me an article in the mail the other day from the Wall Street Journal. The article was really an adaptation from Ron Alsop’s new book “The Trophy Kids Grow Up: How the Millennial Generation is Shaking Up the Workplace”. 

And let me tell you. This “shaking” they speak of does not include moving of one’s hips to music – unfortunately this shaking is used in a more negative connotation. 

In his book, Alsop speaks of a generation that have crazy expectations of how they see themselves at a company as well as in their positions. As the article says, “Employers realize the millennials are their future work force, but they are concerned about this generation’s desire to shape their jobs to fit their lives rather than adapt their lives to the workplace.” 

We millennials grew up in a different era than our grandparents and our parents. We were told we could do anything, achieve anything, be anything we wanted to be. We got trophies just for showing up to practice. Even if we got C’s and D’s on our report cards, we got praise. And now that we’re all grown up and entering the work force, we expect nothing but the best. We expect higher pay, flexible work schedules, and longer vacations. Why not? We can have anything we want and be anything we want to be. And if our employers don’t like it? So what! We’ll get it somewhere else. 

The article really intrigued me mainly because as I was reading it I kept nodding and thinking, ‘I totally deserve a pay raise’ and ‘I have so many talents they could never fire me’. Growing up with a sense of entitlement ingrained in my brain apparently can have some negative effects.

The article also addressed how managers have to adapt to a millennial’s mindset in order to make their inexperienced  and high-maintenance employee a more respective and effective employee. His tips to winning us over? Make sure that the job responsibilities that we explained in terms of how they will pay off for us in the end, explain the meaningfulness behind a subject, and place us in an environment where we feel like our views matter. 

Alsop also says that if we are not given enough positive reviews mixed in with our criticism, that you may as well kiss us goodbye. Because millennials are not good with negative. We like the positive and a lot of it. Sure, we can take a negative hit, but follow that up with something positive. Alsop says if we hear too much ‘no’ and ‘not that way’ that we will up and quit because “millinnials break down in tears after a negative performance and even quit their jobs”. 

Have you been nodding this entire time too? Because I have. 

I am so a Millennial. And some of the scenarios that the article talked about (like a guy who had gone through 3 jobs in one year and saw nothing wrong with it) don’t sound like they came out of left field. And the part about needing positive reinforcement. That fits me to a tee. 

I think what I really garnered from this article was the importance of asking for what you want and thinking you can be anything…but within reason. It’s perfectly reasonable to want vacation time or more sick days, but taking advantage is bad employee etiquette. Respecting your employer is of the utmost importance, and thinking that you could potentially go from assistant to CEO in a year is utterly impossible. 

While this article does speak a lot about entitlement, I don’t think it meant to discourage. In fact, I really think it aids the employer. It tells them how to deal with us – delicately. 

And while yes, I completely agree that I saw myself in the description of Alsop’s “Millennial”, I also think that over the course of the year and half that I have been in my first job I have grown up. I still think of myself as deserving, but I also know that to truly deserve anything I have to prove myself. And proving yourself takes a while, but once earned can take you quite far in your career. 

When I told you about my drunken escapades out west, I forgot to mention one thing. 

Can the colors that appeal to you the most tell you what you should do with your life?

Maybe my recent pre quarter-life crisis (aka liking events and realizing maybe journalism/magazines aren’t the only thing I like in this life) has made me eager for someone, anyone to tell me that I was destined for marketing or event planning. Or that I was a great creative mind in a past life. 

Enter CareerPath.com. The other day I was browsing around some of my fave blogs and I happened upon CareerPath’s “Color Career Counselor”. The point of the test is for the test taker to keep picking the colors that most appeal to them and eventually this will tell you what profession you are most suited for. 

The results were creepily accurate. 

Apparently I’m a “Creator” – non-conforming, expressive, sensitive and emotional.  A person who needs creative workspaces and a job as an English teacher or author (aka my childhood dreams). I think I could get used to the title “Creator”. Think I could put that on my business cards? 

So unfortunately this doesn’t exactly involve event planning and marketing. But my runner-up personality did include the businesswoman in me. It seem my love of teals and magentas means I’m an overemotional hard ass. 

What do your color preferences say your true profession should be?