Open Trackback Linkfest

This is my weekend open track-back post for May 5th and 6th. Nothing spectacular. If you are interested in sharing your work and participating in the open linkfest, head on over to http://www.linkfests.us/ and see how its done.

Submit your best work, your lousy work, whatever. Just share the linkage and your stories and give other blogs the opportunity to let your readers check them out as well.

Trackposted to Outside the Beltway, Blog @ MoreWhat.com, The Virtuous Republic, A Blog For All, 123beta, Adam’s Blog, The Pet Haven Blog, The Bullwinkle Blog, Cao’s Blog, Phastidio.net, The Amboy Times, , Pursuing Holiness, Rightlinx, The Magical Rose Garden, third world county, Woman Honor Thyself, The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns, stikNstein… has no mercy, Pirate’s Cove, The Pink Flamingo, The Right Perspective, Dumb Ox Daily News, Right Voices, The Yankee Sailor, and Gone Hollywood, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

Linkfest Haven, the Blogger's Oasis

I Have Some Real Winners…

…working for me.

Yesterday was not quite as long as Thursday, but just as hard. I started out at my store that has no manager, got the paperwork done, had to cover a couple of waitresses, and got my food pull and banking done at which time I went down to the store that does have a manager. He was off Thursday and Friday, so I was running that one as well. The guy that they have had working as relief manager ended up calling a cook in and sat on his ass all day. The stores are still pretty nasty but I may be making a bit of headway there.

2PM and back to the 1st store. Got them going and got a bit of cleaning finished and headed back down to the 2nd store so that I could give them a bit of direction.

I managed to come home and nap for a couple of hours and headed back out around eight or eight thirty to do shift change. I spent an hour or so at the top of the hill (the store without a manager) and then went to the bottom and took care of getting them staffed and set up with a fresh drawer. I managed to get home last night about 10:45 and got to sleep about 11:30.

1AM and my phone rings. It’s the retards working the graveyard shift at the top of the hill and they have done something to the register and it won’t do anything. We cover the emergency releases on the cash registers so that they can’t get in it except to make transactions, which means that after about 25 minutes of trying to walk them through getting it to work, I head back in to work.

One of them had left their ink pen in the drawer and the little thumb clicker thing on the end had become jammed so that the drawer wouldn’t open. If the drawer is jammed it won’t let you ring anything else up. Luckily the last thing I had grabbed before leaving the house was a big flathead screwdriver. No reason, I just thought I might need it to pop the plate off of the release cover. I was able to use it to get the drawer un-jammed. I went ahead and did a mid-shift drawer change just to make sure none of them were padding the drawer, and left. I managed to get home and back to sleep about 3 AM and got back up at 6.

Once I got the two stores staffed that had three people call in this morning I came back home. I’ll sleep a couple more hours and head BACK in to work about noon or one. Since I will be getting a new manager for the top of the hill, there is a pretty big checklist that I have to have done before Tuesday. Cleaning, supplies, etc. All of these stores are shitholes. Possibly the nastiest fucking places I have worked at in twenty years. I have to have one of them clean by Tuesday. Needless to say I am pretty much fucked for the rest of the weekend but at least I will get a manager out of the deal. She checks into the store on Tuesday, then has Wednesday, Thursday and Friday off. That is bullshit. One of my other managers is off Monday and Tuesday and the other is off Friday and Saturday so I have to get them covered as well. I am going to try and take next Sunday and Monday off if my boss will let me.

Enough bitching I am going back to bed.

Exhausted

I had every intention of coming home today and posting something long and witty but I am going to take a nap instead. Running two stores without managers is a pain in the ass.

Doctors with Laptops

Not like Lawyers and Money.

I had to visit the doctor on Wednesday. Over the last twelve months or so I have started to notice some changes at my doctor’s offices. They are no longer carrying around the bulky charts and file folders anymore. Now everyone is carrying laptops connected wirelessly. Nurses, doctors, heck probably even the janitor. You can tell it’s a new system because usually it takes them longer to get information entered or find the patient than it did using paper, but that is just something they will get used to with repetition.

It’s not infallible though, or at least it could be better integrated, as I posted in that last entry. My lymph nodes are swollen and I have a sore throat so my doctor wanted to prescribe an antibiotic to clear it up. At first she was going to prescribe a Z-Pack. That’s that five day pack of kick ass antibiotics that kills anything. Problem is that you can’t take it while taking Vytorin, my cholesterol medicine. I found that out the hard way last year. When I said something about it you could tell she was getting all flustered because the computer didn’t tell her that. She found the information, but all it says is that you can’t take them together but gives no side-effects. I told her about those. It was like doing a bunch of cheap speed. I felt like I was having a heart attack, got weak and fuzzy headed. A six hour head rush. It was not good, particularly since I was at work the first day.

Any way, I suppose it depends on what software you are using in your EMR (Electronic Medical Records) system but something designed to make it easier ought to make it easier for them and spit out information like that. They have my meds in the system, but not the dosages (I switched doctors a couple of months ago). I have to take that information to them on the next visit. It’s about time for my bi-yearly blood work anyway so I will take that information in when I go for my return visit.

Being a technogeek I like the idea behind using EMRs but the implementation seems to be difficult for some of the guys to get used to particularly in a paper environment. We have the same issue moving to a paperless environment with my company. The COO has a laptop that he has never used. His secretary prints his emails out for him daily so he can take them with him when he goes out in the restaurants. Pretty funny actually.

* Cross Posted at www.theapp.net

I only thought I was tired…

…this morning when I left for work around six AM. I just now walked back in the house. I guess the sixteen hour work days are for, at least for a short while. I spent most of the morning at one of my stores. I couldn’t even count the cash and inventory until I had put an entire weeks worth or paperwork together.

It only took me about 30 minutes at the next one, he had everything ready for me, thank god.

The best part of the day came at my 3rd store where I charmed the manager with my wit and humor and he quit. Damn, that sucks. I will be running that store in addition to my district for about ten days before I get another manager in there. He was actually on his last week of a two week notice anyway, and I think he was planning on leaving today. There was no surprise or anything in it, except on my part. SURPRISE BUDDY!!

I only had two people call in today, plus two more I had already covered shifts because they hung the manager yesterday, and ALL of my night shift people showed up, so I consider than a win.

Once I had the banking and food pull finished for both stores I had to drive to Oxford Alabama and sit in a management meeting where I tried my darnedest not to fall asleep and drool all over the place. That’s why I just got here. I don’t have a heck of a lot more to post about tonight. I started about five different posts this morning but nothing more than a sentence or two, maybe I will make a collage and post them in the morning.

Stumbling Around…

I am particularly groggy this morning. Enough to where I have to use spellcheck. I didn’t sleep worth a crap. The four year old crawled into bed at some point and it’s all elbows and assholes everywhere. I may have gotten three hours of sleep all together and I can feel it this morning. Maybe I will feel better after I’ve sucked down some coffee.

My doctor’s visit didn’t go too bad yesterday. My blood pressure, which has been high for some reason on my last two visits was back down to 127/80 which is right around what it normally is. I was happy to hear that. I think it was high on my last visit just because my back was hurting.

She couldn’t find much explanation for why I broke out and just gave me some cleaning pads, like Stridex. She said it could have been something as simple as something getting onto my razor blade or face and bacteria getting on my skin. Nasty.

My lymph nodes are slightly swollen as well which I knew. The swelling has actually gone down quite a bit. She did give me an antibiotic to help finish the job though. At first she tried to give me the Z-pack but that is the one that I had such a serious reaction to last year so I told her that, at which point she looked it up. It doesn’t go very well with the cholesterol medicine that I am taking. No shit. I thought I was having a heart attack when I took it last year.

1st Day on the New Job…

…is tomorrow. I have to go through all three stores doing audits and inventories, as well as pick up all of the weekly paperwork to turn in at my meeting tomorrow. I am crossing my fingers and hoping that everyone shows up. The manager of what is probably going to be my biggest problem store is off for the next two days. I gave him a short list of things he had to do before he started his days off basically as a test to see if he would do as I asked. It is also the slowest store, so he has had plenty of time since I asked him for the stuff last weekend to get it done.

I have meetings all evening in Alabama and probably won’t get home until pretty late tomorrow evening but will try and get a couple of posts up in the morning, if I am not too brain dead.

It’s Been A While…

…since I have been over to CouponChief, but I always find something cool when I am there. This post IS sponsored by CouponChief.com

The reason I like going over there is that whenever I am shopping for something on the Internet, I want to find the best deal that I can. CouponChief always has great coupons and coupon codes for me to use. For instance with Mother’s Day coming up I know that I need to get my something. I don’t know what yet but they have some pretty good deals for ProFlowers at the site like a free vase and six free roses with the purchase of a dozen Mother’s Day Roses.

One place that I like to look for stuff is at Overstock. We found a 19″ flat screen for my son about three years ago for less than $400. At the time that was great. With coupons from CouponChief you can get free shipping on orders over $50, up to 75% off on watches, and great deals on jewelry. The wife doesn’t wear a lot of jewelry, so that option is out but if it weren’t that’s where I would go.

Granny Panties

When I went to Wal-Mart the first time this morning to drop of my prescriptions, I was in line behind this older lady. Now of course I enjoy looking at the ladies, but this one was a bit older than I was or at least she looked to be about 50 or so. At one point she bent slightly over to show me this view of her granny panties sticking out with the signature of sluttiness tattooed above her backside. I thought my fricking eyes were going to burn out in horror. Damn.

I have nothing against tattoos, I even have a couple of nicely placed ones myself. I can see where having that tattoo right above the ass could be considered attractive on a fine young thing, but even fine young things have to grow up eventually and then it becomes stupid looking.

I had this girls working for me when I ran the store in Carrollton, she was pretty young and extremely naive. She wanted to get HER NAME tattooed above her backside. I asked her if that was so guys would know her name when they looked down. She didn’t get it. Last I heard she was pregnant too.

Maybe I am just getting old and jaded but I don’t think so.

Medieval Times

Speaking of the dinner shows that I want to go to eventually, there is another that looks even better than the pirates one. Medieval Times Dinner Show is in Kissimmee, Florida and it looks to be every bit as spectacular as the other one. MapleLeafTickets has discount tickets to this show as well and since tax is included in the advance ticket purchases it’s a darn good deal.

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* photo courtesy of medievaltimes.com

You get to feast in a castle while Knights on horseback joust to the death. I love the Renaissance festival when it comes to Georgia, and this is a permanent place that you can get to year round and visit. Very nice. The victorious knight becomes the King’s champion gets to select his Queen of Love and Beauty from among the castle’s fair maidens.

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* Photo courtesy of medievaltimes.com

Medieval Times has several locations around the country so be sure that you know when you are buying discount tickets from MapleLeafTickets.com that you are getting tickets for the Kissimmee Medieval Times dinner show.

All of the pageantry that you would expect from a show of this caliber is there. Beautiful dresses on supple maidens, proud knights, and strong horses all combine to entertain you to the most. As I pointed out earlier, the knights start out jousting on horseback which eventually evolves into close combat on the ground with authentic period weaponry.