Halloween is my favorite holiday of the year. I really haven’t gotten into it much this year, I have been so busy with work, and opening the restaurant. That actually went pretty smoothly. I ended up getting out of there at 10pm last night, and turned around and went back at 6am this morning. I have managed to get out of there long enough for the kids to go trick-or-treating tonight, although I may end up sleeping on the couch. With the kids and my wife all having mostly gotten over the creeping crud, I figured that I had dodged that particular bullet, but such is not to be the case. The last couple of days I have felt a bit under the weather, but I chalked that up to the hours I’ve been working. That is probably part of it, but now I am hacking up my lungs, and have never ending snot running from my nose, and to top it off, I have a fever of 100. At least I only have one more day to go before I get two off. As long as I can make it through tomorrow without passing out I will be OK. The only problem that I can foresee is that I am short a cook tomorrow night, so I may end up working third shift.
October 2006
Opening Day
I don’t know what time I will get home tonight, so this may be my only post for today. We are going to officially open for business at 2pm, but we will actually start serving at 10am or so. All of the city muckety-mucks have been invited to eat for free, along with the fire department, police department, and everyone where I bank. Limited menu of course. A few of us are going in at 7am to get the last bit of prep done that I couldn’t do Saturday. Some of that stuff just doesn’t sit well for two days.
I get to drop Ruth off at daycare as well. That will be kind of cool. Her school is about 150-200 yards from my new store, so I will start dropping her off every day, which should save my wife a bit of time in the morning.
Light posting
I told myself last week I would make sure to post at least once every day. I guess I lied (only missed it by about four hours though). I ended up working until about 10pm last night. I spent most of the evening fixing little nit-picky things that are just the kinds of things that senior vice presidents notice when they are in. I’m not particularly interested in kissing their asses, but good visits are also short which is always nice.
I have to go up about 10 and let the window washer in, but other than that we are ready to go.
Although I missed posting yesterday, I will try not to be remiss later today, since some of my help is lacking brains and the rest have no sense, I feel that I am going to be spending a LOT of time at work the next two weeks.
Daylight
It’s funny. I don’t really appreciate the daytime until I have been stuck inside from dark to dark for awhile. Not that it’s going to get any easier for me for awhile. I do get to see the outside occasionally, while driving from one store to the other, but that is about it.
I think that I am going to have the new manager do the drawer change in my old store for the next couple of nights though, so that I can spend some time at home before the store opens. My boss is off today and tomorrow thank god, so even though I will be running the district, I won’t have to deal with that. The last couple of weeks as I have spent more time in the new store, she has been pretty pissy about it. I know she understands what I have to do, I think she is just pissed off that she is losing me and getting a new manager in return. That will give her two brand new managers out of three, which is pretty difficult, and we are getting ready to go into the holiday season.
One thing I thought was pretty fucking hilarious that Dax will understand, maybe some others will, has to do with my P&L. We have certain target overalls that we have to hit each operating period They consist of food cost, operating (asswipe and stuff), payroll, and management payroll. Due to various reasons including my extremely high sales (low targets) and the number of people I had to have because I had more seats, I NEVER hit my overall target in my old store. Not in the 42 operating periods that I was there. The closest I ever came was being out about .3 which is somewhere around $150. The new Guy that has been there decided that HE could “hit” so has been working all kinds of doubles, sending people home early, working 3rd shifts and basically doing the shit that I absolutely avoid like the plague, because I hate doubles. We got our P&Ls in yesterday, and he was out .5
Damn, he was pissed. I had been trying to tell him for weeks that he needed to concentrate on getting the hell out of there, and beefing up his staff. The more sales he does there, the more money he will make in other bonuses. You make your money in that store from sheer sales volume, not from great profits. He acted like I don’t know what the fuck I am talking about. I think he gets the point now, or at least I hope he does. I work a lot of hours when necessary, but working 80 hours a week just to cut payroll is suicide in the long run because it runs off your people, and then you are left burnt out.
Almost there
I have spent most of the last two days in the new store getting it ready. The health inspector came today, that was pretty much a non-event. I won’t get a real score for five or six weeks and then they will come in and do a real inspection.
I spent most of the day today setting up and breaking in new equipment and then spent the evening with my boss going over schedules. I only have about 25 holes in the schedule, so it could be worse. We have pretty much hit critical mass and if I don’t open now, I will start losing more people than I can hire because they have to work somewhere and can’t sit with their thumbs up their asses waiting on me.
I will spend most of tomorrow and tomorrow night doing training classes and making sure everyone knows the things I am anal about, then Saturday I will spend the day prepping some of the stuff that will hold for a few days.
We open on Monday afternoon, I guess I will feed the people that work for the city from 10-2 and then open the doors to the public at 2pm.
Of course I am still running my other store until Saturday night, so that has been a big pain in the ass to keep going. I’ve only been there for five or six weeks, don’t want to be there, and pretty much don’t give a fuck if it burns down right about now.
Myspace
Earlier I was searching myspace for “Georgia Bloggers”. Pretty fucking useless search there. That’s how I came across the aforementioned site.
Professional Bloggers?
I guess that today is Judgmental Wednesday or “Asshole Hump Day” although that might carry other connotations. 🙂 I am just being very judgmental today. I am pissed off about work today so it is carrying over into everything else.
I have a MySpace account. I very rarely update it, but I set it up because my 17 year old has one and I wanted to be able to visit it, and also for a couple of old friends to find me if they so need to.
I will not link to the profile, not feeling like that much of an asshole, but I came across one today and she called herself “Blogger Extraordinaire” and listed Professional Blogger in her profile. I decided to visit her site.
I have to say, I definitely consider myself an amateur. I’ve blogged for about three years or so and kept a frequently updated website, almost a blog, for six or seven years before that. Prior to that I ran my mouth on pre-www days electronic BBSes. Michelle Malkin and Instapundit, to name two, are professional bloggers. Definitely not me.
Neither is this chick. Her myspace layout is not the most irritating, but it is pretty fucking close. I decided to pay a visit to her “professional” web site. It’s at blogspot, which was first clue that she’s not a pro. The ultra ugly background on the page as well as the fact that it would not display properly in IE were a couple more. Then there is the fact that she has posted four times since August 12th. Of course, being an amateur, I can post drivel after drivel all day long. I guess the quality of her posts makes up for doing one every ten days. Not.
Maybe I just have my Andy Rooney shirt on today or something, but just because you spend 18 hours a day sitting your fat ass in front of the computer, that DOES NOT MAKE YOU A PROFESSIONAL BLOGGER.
Youtube Culturally Significant?
I was checking out comments on a video over at youtube and one dude (I am assuming) called it “Culturally Significant” and declared that this is the “Youtube Decade”. Fucking moron. I attempted to say as much, but I kept getting this page about verifying my email address, even AFTER I verified it. Fuck them, it gives me something to blog about anyway. The advent of the World Wide Web was culturally significant. The creation of Arpanet, then the Internet is significant. The invention of the light bulb, the TV, and the PC were all significant. A web site that allows people to share videos? I think not.
I think that youtube plays a very small but important part in the current incarnation of the World Wide Web, but that is it. It just shows how the Internet is evolving to become a part of our daily lives. Youtube, MySpace, easier and faster shopping, wikipedia, and shitloads of blogs. I can access them from my PC, my TV, my iPaq, even my damn cell phone if I want to. Some of the content, such as youtube, is important to a few people, and help advance the technology that is driving the net, but overall it is just a bunch of dumb fucks looking for something to do rather than watch TV (yes, I am one of those dumb fuckers) or read the newspaper.
Cheerleaders Gone Wild!
When I saw the link over at youtube I just HAD to click it. Yeah, I don’t watch America’s Funniest Home Videos, but if it happens to be on I am one of those who laughs their ass off at other peoples misfortunes.
Halloween or Hallelujah!!
There is a sign in front of a local church that I pass several times daily:
Halloween or Hallelujah!
Heaven or Hell!!
I just want my fucking candy bars. Keep the rest.