March 2006

Back when I opened our store in the big city of Tallapoosa GA in ’98, I hired this old hippy chick. She is probably only a few years older than me, but like all of Jerry’s kids (Garcia, that is), she looks a lot older than she actually is. She did ok for a while, then started coming to work either stoned or drunk. Which it was didn’t really matter to me, so I shit-canned her hippy ass.

So who do I see working in my current shop when I leave the office and decide to go back into management? Same damn lady. I gave her the benefit of the doubt, and let her continue working. She is one of those extremely dependable people. She always shows up for work when she is supposed to, generally on time or a couple of minutes later. I consider on time to mean that you show up for your shift at least 10-15 minutes before it starts. I start worrying after that, and start calling in replacements. She tells me that she has gotten clean as well. She is, if you consider massive amounts of pain killers, and anti-depressants being clean.

There is always some kind of drama going on in her life. This is the same lady that I think I posted about awhile back, that called in because her dog died. I guess she got the message, because she showed up for work today. She told me, and anyone else that would listen, all about having to bury her dog yesterday. I guess I am just getting cranky in my old age, or her shit is just wearing thin, because all I could think was “damn, why don’t you shut the fuck up, I DON’T GIVE A FUCK”.

It’s not that I don’t have empathy for her. Hell, I cry at sappy cartoons. It doesn’t take much for me. If I run over something that happens along onto my road at the same time, I am truly sorry. Sometimes the same old shit just gets old.

Currently (besides one of her dogs dying) she is trying to get the ACLU to sue the county where she lives in Alabama. It actually sounds like she might have a valid complaint, but that’s not important in the hippy scheme of things. I guess her county has a contract with a garbage service. You are required by law to use them. They don’t pick up very regularly, lots of garbage just sitting at the street. She finally decided that she was not going to pay her bill anymore, that she would just bring her trash to work and dump it there. Do they stop her irregular trash service? Nope. They arrested her ass. Hahaha. She knew it was coming, has been talking about it for months. I guess she just decided that it was going to be her form of protest. The only sticking point here is that her trash service is under an assumed name. That is because she registered her car under an assumed name. Why? Always something.

Once summer hits she always goes down to part time so that she can live down on the river with the rainbow people, not bath, and generally smell like that nasty patchouli shit. Maybe she can hang out with Dax’s employee out in the fucking woods.

Why spend so much time dwelling upon some hippy? I don’t have a clue. Guess I just needed to find something to write and venting makes me feel so much better. If I can’t take this garbage out on you guys, who can I take it out on. They arrest you for beating your children.

Part of my job is dealing with a big old bunch of diverse people and making them all get along, so I guess it is better for me to complain about them here. A bunch of people that were all like me would suck anyway.

Thanks to the infinite wisdom of higher ups who are afraid to do a bit of work, my manager trainee was pulled from my store to help another new manager that is having problems in her store, and instead of getting in 38 productive hours over the weekend, we managed to get in 14, because I had to work 1st shift and run my store. About $250 in wasted payroll. Just don’t complain to me about the high payroll this week buddy.

For some stupid reason I have scheduled myself to cook 3rd shift Friday and Saturday night. I am already regretting it, but the break will be kind of nice. It will give one of my trainees an opportunity to run the store while I snooze anyway. Save a good chunk of payroll as well. Unfortunately one of my day cooks is now in the damn pokey, so my staffing this weekend is going to be kind of iffy. I’ve already re-scheduled myself to work 7pm to 7am Friday and Saturday. Get to hang out with all the drunk college chicks anyway. Until they puke. Then it’s time to throw their fucking asses out (after they clean up the mess).

Wow, it’s been almost two weeks since I last posted. I’ve had a lot of stuff going on both at work and at home (not to mention that my PC was still offline for awhile. Anna is playing softball this season, so we have been pretty busy four nights a week. She is having a good time with it, which is the important thing. I have been putting 90% of my energy into work, and work-related issues. Had to get up at 4am today to finish a report that I should have done several days ago.

As much as I have said that I want to stay in a single unit until I retire, over the last few months my thinking has changed on that and I am trying to get promoted. I will be 55 or so when my youngest finally finishes High School, and I don’t particularly want to wait until then to start saving for retirement. Not to mention the fact that I would like to be able to do things, like going to Disney last fall, without it breaking the fucking bank. In short, I need the money. I am currently on the promoteable list, but I am basically going to have to wait until one of the three district managers in my immediate area either get fired, or promoted. Either is entirely possible, but it could be 6 days, or six months. Since I am not willing to move at the current time, that kind of limits my options. Once Chris graduates in May ’07, that may change. I asked Stephanie for a list of places she does not want to live, and I will turn in another application for promotion (whether I am in a store or district) at that time, and let them know where I am willing to go.

I haven’t even taken the time to read anyone else’s blog the last couple of weeks, and since I only have a few minutes left this morning, I may ready one, or two. Perhaps tonight I will have time. I have to finish working on someone’s laptop that I should have finished last night though. I may take it to work and see if I can get it done there today if it is slow.

Hair cuts

Originally uploaded by rmiles.

One of the things that I hate is having to pay for a hair cut. About a year ago I spent 25 bucks on a set of clippers. I am actually getting pretty good at it. I didn’t butcher it quite as badly this time.