Meeting with CEO and Founder of Comapny

I met with the CEO and founder of our company Cyrus Massoumi (http://www.zocdoc.com/ourteam) about an idea i had for one of the features I set up for allll my doctors, which is Google Places. 

Google Places is something we set up for each doctor to list them on Google Maps for patients searching in their area to help find a Doctor and have them be listed first (or at the top). 

Here is an example for this doctor's google places lsiting, I listed her website with a book online button I added to her website, https://plus.google.com/110374017837841914970/about?gl=us&hl=en

So patients can click the website and the 'book online button in red to make an appointment right away. Its how we find the offices even MORE new patients.

So the problem was, the listings we set up KEPT getting suspended. Every time we made it, Google would reject it. So i had an idea (a good one I thought) so I told my boss and I was walked over by him to the CEO's office to sign up for office hours (all our CEO's have office hours) to see if he would approve it. I can't tell you how nervous I was to just walk over and speak to him (to introduce myself and tell him i'm signing up) with my boss watching me interact with the CEO. The only time left was on a Friday night the following week.

All my fellow employs had left for the day and gave me a 'sucks for you' smile (of COURSE that would be the Friday we got out early), I nervously sat at my desk pretending to work. At 7pm I walked over to his office with sweaty palms and waited for him to get out of his last meeting. 

When i walked in, I tried to control my wavering voice and steadied it and told him my idea. He talked so quickly and the meeting ended so soon, I left feeling defeated. Really I felt like he wasn't listening.  Little did i know how smart he is ( I mean, I know he is smart but really really smart), he took care of it right away the next day by assigning the problem to two different groups to take over. He then took my idea and used it with one of his contact's at Google.  

I forgot about it until I got this email from my boss today (he also sent it to all upper management) :

Hi Team,

Great news!The black hole of what to do when our Google Places email accounts become suspended has been resolved!!BIG thanks to Avalon Sawer who took it upon herself to take action and quit being frustrated with her GP account suspensions which hurt those practices she is trying to properly setup. She OWNED IT by setting up office hours with Cyrus (staying late on a Friday), gathered evidence of our GP account suspensions, explained the importance of us finding a way to resolve this, which ultimately lead to an executive order for this to be fixed!


I think this is a great example of how sometimes, you can think you were defeated and your ideas aren't great, but really, you have no idea what you can do/change by speaking up. 

The Metropolitan Museum, 'Punk Chaos to Couture" and CBGB's Bathroom

After being sick all week, Cory took me to The Metropolitan Museum to cheer me up. As he put it, 'looking at pretty things cheers you up'. He knows me so well.

Also, I told him we were going because the Met Gala had just happened and I knew there was a punk exhibit and SJP killed it with her head piece .... but still . I do love pretty things.

Now, not everyone knows this (much like the young, Asian girl in front of us I schooled) but the Met, like the Natural History Museum , does not charge 25 dollars a ticket. It's a 'suggested price."  Last time we came in March we had tickets from Cory's mom as a gift, this time, to cheer myself up, I told Cory I'd put two quarters down as my 'counter offer' after they tell me that will be 50 dollars for two tickets.  Unfortunately for me, we got a nice, old dude taking tickets and he didn't argue my ticket price AT ALL or the Asian girl in front of us after I told her it was suggest price (she was going to leave the line because it was the cash only line and she only had 5 dollars). The Met does not even pay rent and they are IN central park. We could have paid 0 dollars but Cory said no, we have to pay something, so we did.

Impressionism, Fashion, and Modernity

I do like a good Beheading 

The Met Gala had a 'Punk Theme'  this year which crossed over to a costume exhibit as well . They had Alexander McQueen, Vivienne Westwood, Chanel, Versace etc. There were NO PHOTOS allowed, I was yelled at constantly (Cory was not pleased he heard "NO PHOTOS MISS, MISS IN BLACK,  STOP TAKING PHOTOS" every 2 minutes until he took his phone back) 

 I still took photos, not enough, but still. PUNK ROCK LIVES. 

CBGB's Bathroom

So the original bar was torn down to make something stupid like a bank but my parents went here when they lived? visited?  New York City and saw the Ramones play by accident as my mom likes to tell me, SHe IS VeRY COOL OKAY.  (The Sex Pistols, Ramones, The Clash, Blondie,  would often play unannounced at the club all the time in the 70's ). So they tore down the club but the Met saved the (direst part) bathroom. 

These photos are for you MOM

'Punk Clothes' by Versace 

Original shirts from London by Vivian Westwood 

The Museum also had a GREAT exhibit of Civil War photography.   I can not even begin to say how speechless Cory and I were walking through this. We had NO IDEA it was there until I spoke to a security guard and he told us about it. The photos of slaves, the soldiers, President Lincoln (many unseen by the public), Photography was only 20 years old at the time, ONLY 20 YEARS OLD.   The photos were heartbreaking and beautiful at the same time. It's so easy to forget about this time period, unless watching Gone with the Wind which i do more then I should, (one summer, as my brother told Cory, I watched it once every few days).  People my age, or the 'assholes generation' as I like to call it, take photos of the most meaningless stuff. Like their food before they eat it or their trendy organic, gluten free, free range beer. It's good to remember a time when photos meant something, to document a time in history that might have been whitewashed over.  For example:To see the young men lying dead on a battlefield that would have been a life forgotten to history.  To look at a photograph of small children that a soldier clutched in his death (blood on the edges).This solider's story, that had no identification but a photo he took out of his pocket to look at as he was dyeing, is amazing. In the information paragraphs by the bloodied photo of young children, it was stated a newspaper did a search, nation wide, until the dead soldier's family were found. So much money was raised in the search for this dyeing man who clutched a photo of his children, it established a fund and housing institute for singled mothers and wives during the civil war. 

It's amazing how lucky i am to see these things living in this city.

My Love For Hilary and New Disney Princesses

I've always liked Hillary Clinton, every since I was in middle school and started paying attention to things other then Caprisun and ponies. She has taken some very heavy hits in the public sphere, more then anyone deserves and I do think at one time, she and her husband loved each other. Now... who knows and really who cares. The women is smart, well spoken and really doesn't give a crap if people think she's ugly or pretty.

•            “You may not agree with a woman, but to criticize her appearance — as opposed to her ideas or actions — isn’t doing anyone any favors, least of all you. Insulting a woman’s looks when they have nothing to do with the issue at hand implies a lack of comprehension on your part, an inability to engage in high-level thinking. You may think she’s ugly, but everyone else thinks you’re an idiot.”

I remember when her husband was indited, how well she handled it. I was still young but i remember looking at her and thinking, 'wow.'   How many jokes were directed at her, how i remember men blamed her, her husband cheated on her because she wasn't pretty enough, she was too cold.  Then she stepped away from his shadow and made a name for herself.


I am a socialist (one day Canada I will be living in you...one day), I know she gets flack for being one but that's such a small percentage of what she does. Americans are so short cited when someone mentions the word 'socialist.'  In college I had a professor who worked for the United Nations as a Representative for the US and he said something that I'm sure I'm misquoting a little. One of the leaders of China, I think it was Mao Zedong (when Nixon visited China)  He said,  "the United States is such a young country and you are so afraid of economic change, all you know is capitalism and it will fail." 

Anywho. I love these pictures below. 

Also, Huffington Post, which is great at reporting news that happened 4 days ago, had an artist featured that made real princess role models. I must admit, I am SUPER guilty of this with Felicity, I buy her more 'my little pony' crap then anyone else. It's a good reminder of what girls should admire but don't.   

Out Sick

I have been sick since Saturday but I've only been can't-get-out-of-bed-im-going-to-die-sick since Monday. I went to my Asian primary care doctor in Chinatown (he's awesome) and he gave me a Z Pack which hasn't done much. My sore throat feels like jagged glass, fever, bad hacking mucus filled cough,runny nose and what I like to call 'bubble stomach' which means exactly what you think it means. Oh and i have my period. So i feel super duper awesome.

I have to go back to work tomorrow or I'll be too far behind. Oh how I miss the jobs where work can be left at work and no working from home. Those days are no more.

 I tried working from home Monday but the offices couldn't understand me. Even Cory can't understand me, I have no voice. I sound like a drag queen that smoked two packs a day and drank whiskey every morning.  

Today i was restless, so we walked to the financial district, which might have been too ambitious considering how i felt when i got home but was still nice. Cory and I love the financial district because its old new york. The blocks are small like they were hundreds of years ago and everything is protected for historical purposes so everything is mostly as it was.

 The photos below aren't really of the financial district but more of the buildings Cory felt like taking photos of.  I was sweating like a bastard and wasn't doing anything but coughing and hacking up loogies. 

Before Doctors Visit

Stock Exchange 

The Fall

So walking to work allows me to have all sorts of interesting things I would miss crammed into a subway or taxi (who am I kidding I can’t afford that daily) but yes, it’s great (until the dead of summer). Winter I don’t mind because snow is so new to me. Everyone else hates it so I have to pretend to hate it too. “oh yeah this weather blows, who wants to see beautiful snow everywhere? I don’t.”

   Anyways.

As I walked out my front door on Mott Street heading to Mulberry, I see no more than 4 steps out my door, an old Asian lady eating corn on the cob and walking nonchalantly.  Its 8:15 mind you, in the morning. Beside the oddity of the time, she was holding it so far inside her mouth I had thought it might have been a Popsicle. She then finished it and threw it at my feet. Definitely corn on the cob.

I honestly thought that would be the weirdest interaction I had this morning. Nope. As I walked along Mulberry, about to cross onto Prince Street, a girl passes by me.  There is nothing particular striking about her, she is like any other girl in Soho, well dressed and pretty.  We obviously don’t acknowledge each other. We are all in our own bubbles.

As she walks across me to go left and I go straight, I see her feet fly out from under her. Her left arm flairs up by my left arm and I reach out and hook my arm with hers.  She didn't even turn to face me but clutches me and regains her balance. She then whips around, wide eyed and scared. Her eyes are very blue and very wide as she says “thank you so much” and I nod, break eye contact and keep walking. Not because I don’t want to say something but it happened so quickly and I acted on instinct, it barely stopped by stride. Her face stayed with me all day, I wasn't sure why.  Maybe because I don't normally grab at strangers  or they don't sincerely thank me often from saving them from a hard fall? 

I came to the conclusion it's because the bubble can be broken. No one ever suspects it to break and when it does, human interaction that is often so impersonal here, is shocking. People walk around with headphones on, cell phones pressed to their ear, just ignoring each other. When people look at one another, really look, its always surprising. Most people look right past one another.

Trapeze Class !!!!!!!

(just skip ahead and see all the photos first)
At Zocdoc we always do team events, today we did Trapeze Class at Chelsea Pier. A terrifying, wonderfully scary trapeze class.

I've never been a fan of jumping into a small open net. Especially after climbing a skinny 4 story tall ladder, to jump off a two foot wide plywood board with ropes tied around me by two hippies telling me to 'feel the moment.'

Luckily the Sun was setting (we were there from 6pm until 8pm) and we all took photos of one another waiting for our turn. Sean, our boss, also spent 90 bucks for us to each get our own photos taken by the PROFESSIONAL photographer that was there. Those are the best photos! The photographer put all of our photos on a flash drive, so we all took turns saving them (if we took our laptops with us) to our computer at Houston Hall during dinner. 

The views are amazing from up there, very distracting from what you are about to do with your body. I was terribly scared to put my feet on the edge of the board while someone held my safety belt back until they said 'GO!'  but you look up and see the city and i help my breath and jumped. There is always a trainer at the bottom telling you what to do, to go, pull your feet over for a flip, let go (the hardest part).  You're in such a panic you cant hear the trainer (I couldn't) because your body is tensing up for your death so you swing your legs around to try and bring them up over the bar without falling to your death. It was fun........? The more we did it the better we all got. Also the bigger the callouses on our hands got. Everyone on my team has soft, white hands or we did before tonight.  My back is sore and my arms only 3 hours later. 

Photo Below, bye bye bar, hello net

                               

At Houston Hall with beers to celebrate survival, I'm hiding in the back whimpering, icing my elbow with my beer. 

The Weeks End

It's finally spring time in New York City!!

Cory and I ran 8.2 miles Friday and Sunday night, we like to run around the water and then nearly passed out. 

On Saturday night we went to a bar called Marshall Stacks (like the music amp) that played great alternative music and beer. 

Mason Jar restaurant

What Cory calls me when I sleep until 11 a.m. (maybe later) on the weekends (Tea is from this morning with Cory).