The meeting sucked. It was horrible. I will go into it in more detail tomorrow, but I just got home and am pretty beat. I knew I would be. I have been up since about 4:30 this morning, have been hung on all three shifts, and sat through that fucking meeting for four hours, then went back to work. Not a particularly fun night. I guess we all have our days.
February 2007
Already Tired…
…and I haven’t even gotten to the meeting yet. I forgot to take my vitamins this morning, but there is no time like the present. At least they will be feeding me tonight. I feel so unprepared. Possibly because I AM unprepared. It’s about time to shower and get changed into the shirt and tie.
Oh well, it will only last a couple of hours, then I have to show back up at work at 9 PM for shift change. I have a couple of waitresses to scream at tonight. They decided to have a mustard and ketchup fight last night, which we spent most of the day cleaning. They managed to get the obvious stuff cleaned up before I got there, so in my foggy head first thing in the morning, I didn’t notice for an hour or two. They are not going to be having fun tonight. I have a huge cleaning list waiting for them.
I Hate it When it Sticks to the Side
Why is it when someone comes in and takes a dump; leaves the thick viscous nasties that stick to the side and don’t go down with one flush, they don’t give a courtesy second flush to get rid of the rest. You might as well just shit on my floor, I don’t want to go in and see your poop at all. Nothing an extra flush can’t fix. It’s not just guys either. I check the restrooms several times during the day and it’s a common occurrence to walk in and see fresh tar laid down the side of my toilet.
If you come in and eat and I see you go in and realize in time that you have left me a gift to clean up, I will make sure NOT to wash my hands before I prepare your wonderful hot breakfast.
Check These Bad Boys Out
It’s a pretty crappy picture, but as I mentioned last night when I posted those pics of the girls working on my hair, my batteries crapped out in my camera and I haven’t had the chance to replace them yet. Cell phone pics.
Nothing like a pair of shiny new shoes. Just ask Eric. Now I may not be a flaming metrosexual, but I can recognize the value of a nice pair of shoes. Normally I will wait to buy new work shoes until the current pair have all but fallen apart. When I can feel the ground with the bottom of my feet, it’s time for new ones. The pair I have now are probably good for a month or two, but they look like hell. Waffle batter, plenty of water, grease, and plenty of other unmentionables have touched those shoes, and there’s only so much spit shining that you can do to fix them up. I decided Sunday that I needed to go ahead and get a new pair, so I got on shoesforcrews.com and ordered me up a pair. As Dax will tell you, these are the best damn shoes you can get working in the restaurant industry.
The thing is, I only wear Wingtips. I don’t like Oxfords, and I hate any type of slip ons ad sneakers. Sneakers look like shit when you are trying to look professional. Wal-Mart quit carrying Wingtips. Sears, K-Mart, and all of the shoe stores in my area quit selling them. I guess they are going out of style or something. God forbid something a man wears going out of style. We wear the same clothes for fifty years and they are always in style. Apparently not anymore. Anyhow, Shoes For Crews is the only place I have been able to find them, plus they are non slip, water resistant, and are pretty comfortable.
For something that I just felt like posting, they should be paying my butt for this one.
I ended up running to Villa Rica tonight. Apparently the LDS meeting is professional (suit) dress only. No uniforms. Most of my nice clothes are no longer nice or the must have shrunk. Can’t get them on anymore. I know I haven’t gotten any bigger. You believe me dontcha? Anyway, I picked up a pair of slacks, a shirt and tie. I will forgo the suit jacket. Not happening. Send my ass home if you need to.
That’s about it I think. It’s almost 11 PM and I have to get up at 4:30 as usual.
Stuff I need to remember about MT
I am attempting to help someone out, but if I don’t put this stuff someplace permanent, I won’t remember what I did. It has to do with setting up archives and sidebars in movabletype. I am using 3.3?? so your results may differ (as may some of the screenshots). Click on the extended entry if you are actually interested in reading any of this, or if you are just plain bored.
Racking My Brain
What a major PITA. For the LDS Seminar tomorrow I have to bring several things. Two of them are my 30 day goals for people, profits, and sales and a copy of my 30 day personal and professional calender. Those two are easy. I keep that stuff in Outlook, as well as my daytimers, so it’s a matter of adding a couple of minor items and printing. I also have to do a write-up covering the four key areas of recruiting on how I will recruit a quality management candidate during the next quarter. This one is a bit more difficult as my views on this differ than company policy over the last few years.
We have had our major focus on recruiting outside of the company. In particular we look for people with at least four year degrees or a good bit of experience in the business world. It doesn’t necessarily have to be in the restaurant industry, just some sort of experience. It is a very difficult job, occasionally with long hours, ALL holidays, most weekends, and occasionally strange hours. Just because the shift ends at a certain time, as manager I still don’t get to leave. In general I average 50 hours a week. A short day is eight or ten hours. The longest day I have ever had with them lasted about 36 hours. That was about 18 years ago, so it is not something that happens all the time, but it does happen. My former trainee that worked a triple Sunday is proof of that. It is a job of preparation, and constantly putting out fires.
In the 20 years that I have been there, I believe that the best qualified people for my job are the hourly associates that work for me. Currently they only allow 20% of the stores to be hourly to management types, and we need to increase that number. That’s why I’m just a manager though, and not CEO I suppose.
This One's Almost as Good
Taken at Trader Vics in the Plaza in November of 1984.
Finished with the Categories…
…finally. I have managed to get it down to 15 categories with two sub-categories. I still have to go through a lot of the early junk and put things where they belong. This seems kind of anal. I’ve made a big old mess over the last couple of years and now I am trying to get it cleaned up.
I think I am pretty much done for the day. I still have not even cracked open the Word documents that our recruiter emailed me about the seminar I have to attend Wednesday evening. Last time they had barbecue, wonder what dinner will be this time. Right now that is more important than what I have to do for the presentation.
I suppose I will print everything out tomorrow evening and take a look. Less time to get nervous about doing presentations that way 🙂
Devil Knots
There are some things that you always remember about your kids, no matter how much time goes by. When the boy was small, we had these little blue airplane looking things that we put over his shoelaces in order to keep them tied. Eventually they went the way of all things that belong to little kids, they disappeared. We started tyeing his shoes in double knots, but somehow HE heard “devil knots”. Devil knots they have been, through all three kids.
With Pete, it was the red man. On her walker there was a bar that we could put on (I think it was on her walker) and it had three little guys on it that would spin. She would invariably go after Red Man every time.
I actually feel pretty good today. The wife bought me some vitamins yesterday. I have taken them for two days now and I am not quite as exhausted as I have felt for the last couple of weeks. It’s a nice feeling to be at work and actually accomplish something besides wanting to rush out the door the entire day. Of course I could still find better things to be doing, but at least I was able to get some stuff done.
The boy has apparently hurt his wrist, the dumbass. Not for hurting himself, but for the fact that he did it at least a couple of weeks ago. He hasn’t been working out, but didn’t bother to say anything to us. The wife made him an appointment for Friday since I am off. They may need to X-Ray his wrist. Hopefully all will be well.
One of my old manager trainees called me this morning at work asking if I could send her a cook. As I generally cook by myself I don’t have any extras to send, but when I asked her why she told me that she had worked a triple shift and was working on her fourth and just needed some help. Shit. That’s not the way we do things, so I asked her what her boss had said or done last night when she called him with her staffing. She said, “well, he didn’t answer the phone. At that point I would have started working my way up the chain of command until I found some help, but she is new. That is exactly what I did. I called her bosses boss, and when he didn’t answer the damn phone, I called the Area Vice President. She had some help shortly after that and was told to take the day off. Sucks to be her, but she should have picked up the phone yesterday, rather than waiting until 7:15 this morning after she had been there for 25 hours.
Another Waylaid Plan
I had initially planned on getting up and going in to work a bit early to get some stuff done, but just didn’t want to. I suppose I will get there at the regular time today. I should be able to squeeze everything in that I want to get finished today. I am cooking but generally I can get everything done as long as I don’t fool around.
I do have to sit down and go over my presentation for Wednesday’s meeting at some point this evening though. That is one thing I am NOT looking forward to this week. My division manager says I did very well at the last one though. As long as I can keep from bopping my head around while I talk, it will be OK. I never realized it until I started video taping stuff that I do that. It looks really stupid.