(no subject)
It's so funny hearing everyone talk about how bored they are over summer. Personally, I haven't been bored in the least. On the contrary, I've been busy as hell.
At work, they've started a new company-wide initiative called the Spring Clean. The plan is to have all Kmart stores across the country go through a deep-cleaning process. Everything to painting walls to removing old tape and cleaning dirty light fixtures to replacing and throwing out rusted and bent shelves.
Somehow, I got suckered into working on this team.
I didn't really want to do it, per-say, but it's hard to say no when the store manager introduces you to the guy running the program as, "Hey Bob, this is Jarrod! This is the guy I was telling you about!" When the store manager himself personally recommends you, it's kinda hard to turn down the offer.
And so, now I'm stuck having to get up every morning, Monday through Friday, at 5:00 a.m. for the next month to come in and do, above all things, cleaning, a job that by its very nature is an annoying pain in the ass.
The team is composed of 6 of us, 4 of whom are newly-hired (for some, Monday was their first day). Only another guy, Josh, and I are the only ones who actually have experience working in the store, and I have about twice the time as Josh (I've been there for nearly 6 months; Josh, only about 3).
What sorts of fun things have we found ourselves doing? Well, three of us spent three whole days, Monday through Wednesday, cleaning up the fixture stock room (this is the room where we keep all our shelves, hooks, racks and other display fitures). Now just think about that - it took three people three whole days, 7 hours a day, to clean up and organize just one room. The store opened in 1995, and I have doubts the room has ever been organized or cleaned up since then. Hooks and racks just layed strewn out across the aisles and shelves with no sense of organization. It wasn't even as if the hooks were thrown into buckets or containers - they just layed across the floor and shelves, as if after using them, people had just lazily thrown them on the floor. The shelves at least weren't as bad as they used to be; before a guy named Kevin stacked them up about a month ago, the huge, metal, beige shelves that we put merchandise on were literally just sitting in a huge pile that ran the length of the back wall. They were, in the very least, stacked up somewhat neatly, not that it really mattered - we had to go through each and every shelf and throw out the ones that were rusted, bent, or just in such bad condition that it would be a waste of time and money to try and restore them. In the end, we threw out nearly half of the shelves that originally occupied the room.
After three days, though, it looks like a completely new stock room. Now, hooks are organized neatly into totes by size and type. Shelves - the better half that remain - are stacked neatly against the wall, organized by size with little hand-made signs above them telling anyone searching for a 16-inch shelf which pile it's in. Sign holders are neatly organized on one rack, plexiglass on another.I wish I'd thought to have taken before and after pictures with my phone on the state of the room, as it's hard to convey in words just how radically different it is. And you know, I have to say that I'm a bit proud of our work. I don't generally find myself proud of the work I do at Kmart, so it's a nice, new feeling for me, being able to look back after such a momumental task and see such a huge difference.
Still, I wish I didn't have to wake up at 5 in the morning to get it done.
Perhaps the bright points, if there are any, are that A.) I'm guranteed at least 35 hours a week (although then again, I was pulling about that many hours anyways before I even joined the team), and B.) of the 6 weeks this program is supposed to go on for, last week is already done with (and I was even only there for three days of it) and next week I'm off in Washington, meaning that in reality, I've only got four weeks of this. I suppose I can survive four weeks, right?
...Right?
Speaking of only being there for three days, this shortened work week is due to my going to WVU for orientation. My parents and I made the three-hour drive down Thursday afternoon; even though the actual orientation was Friday, I had elected to take my math placement test the night before instead of early the morning of so as to ensure the best score possible (I figured I would do better taking it at 7:30 the night before than 7:30 the morning of).
The test ended up being harder than I expected. There were actually two parts to the test, a 30-minute algebra part and then a 30-minute calculus part. The algebra part I did well on, except that I only got up to question 21. This kind of pissed me off a little bit, since I ended up scoring a 19 out of 25 on it. So when you take into account the fact that the last 4 I never even got a chance to try, I really only missed 2 of the questions that I attempted. I can only imagine how better my score would've been had I been able to actually finish the damn test. The calculus part, though, was just down-right hard. Much of it was stuff I actually just learned this past year, except I couldn't remember how to do it. And the last 6-8 questions were the types of things I'd never even seen before period.
The next day began the actual orientation. It was surprisingly more boring than I expected it to be. It was mostly just a bunch of meetings where we got a crash course in West Virginia University, how it works, and its various (and numberous) features. There was alot being thrown at us (that is, the entire 300-something group of students and parents who attended) and it was kind of overwhelming, so instead of trying to remember every little detail, I just kind of went along with it all. We were given crash courses in the student organizations, the meal plans, how to use our student ID cards (which I got photographed for at the beginning of the day and picked up at the end), financial aid, academic life, and the details of our dorm.
The highlight came, though, from getting to make our schedules in the afternoon. Well, "make" might be a bit of an overstatement - "learn" our schedules might be a better description, since you don't really get alot of say. They hand you a pre-made schedule and you get the option to (attempted to) make any changes you wish.
I'm feeling very mixed about my schedule. On one hand, I get some really cool classes, like Psych 101, Religion 102, English 154 (African-American Literature), and Math 154 (Into to Calculus, a class that actually leave me a little nervous and which I may end up moving down from once school starts; still, I decided to keep it since, again, I can always drop down later if need be). On the other hand, I have Geology 101, a class which I really don't want to take since I've always believed that geology is one of the most boring subjects ever created. With my weakness in science, though, I think it's best that I take as easy a class as possible, even if it means it being a little less interesting than a harder class like, say, biology or physics.
I did end up having to drop one class, though. I was originally scheduled to take, along with Geology 101, Geology 102, which is the 1-hour laboratory equivalent (I'm required to take two lab sciences, one of which must include it's corresponding lab class). I dropped 102, though, since not only do I not have any interest in taking a geology lab, it would've meant that Mondays, I was in class straight from 10:30 until about 3:30 in the afternoon, with Wednesday not being much better. So, in the interest of my own sanity, I dropped Geol 102; I figure I'll worry about the science-lab combo at a later date.
Good news: I only have to take two math classes, this math class and Stats 211, and I'm done with math forever. Similar situation with science classes. With any luck, by next spring, I can be done with science and math classes forever.
Bad news: I have to take two years of foreign language classes. Now, I know most of you all take, and love, foreign langauge classes. Personally, I've always hated them. It's not that I hate the concept of foreign languages - on the contrary, I think being able to speak a foreign language is an unbelieveably important skill to have. I just, for whatever reason, have never been good at learning another language; I barely managed to scrape by with B's in Spanish in school. I just really have no interest in taking foreign language classes and would rather spend the time taking classes I want and feel like I actually need.
Still, the alternative is taking 24 hours of science classes. So... yeah. I'll pass on that, thanks.
If this whole trip has done anything, it's gotten me excited as hell for college. It's hard to believe that I've still got two months left until college! Those're going to be two very long months indeed.
I'm now off to Washington for my USIP conference. Should be quite fun, I suspect. And busy. I'll give more details when I get back. Cheers!
At work, they've started a new company-wide initiative called the Spring Clean. The plan is to have all Kmart stores across the country go through a deep-cleaning process. Everything to painting walls to removing old tape and cleaning dirty light fixtures to replacing and throwing out rusted and bent shelves.
Somehow, I got suckered into working on this team.
I didn't really want to do it, per-say, but it's hard to say no when the store manager introduces you to the guy running the program as, "Hey Bob, this is Jarrod! This is the guy I was telling you about!" When the store manager himself personally recommends you, it's kinda hard to turn down the offer.
And so, now I'm stuck having to get up every morning, Monday through Friday, at 5:00 a.m. for the next month to come in and do, above all things, cleaning, a job that by its very nature is an annoying pain in the ass.
The team is composed of 6 of us, 4 of whom are newly-hired (for some, Monday was their first day). Only another guy, Josh, and I are the only ones who actually have experience working in the store, and I have about twice the time as Josh (I've been there for nearly 6 months; Josh, only about 3).
What sorts of fun things have we found ourselves doing? Well, three of us spent three whole days, Monday through Wednesday, cleaning up the fixture stock room (this is the room where we keep all our shelves, hooks, racks and other display fitures). Now just think about that - it took three people three whole days, 7 hours a day, to clean up and organize just one room. The store opened in 1995, and I have doubts the room has ever been organized or cleaned up since then. Hooks and racks just layed strewn out across the aisles and shelves with no sense of organization. It wasn't even as if the hooks were thrown into buckets or containers - they just layed across the floor and shelves, as if after using them, people had just lazily thrown them on the floor. The shelves at least weren't as bad as they used to be; before a guy named Kevin stacked them up about a month ago, the huge, metal, beige shelves that we put merchandise on were literally just sitting in a huge pile that ran the length of the back wall. They were, in the very least, stacked up somewhat neatly, not that it really mattered - we had to go through each and every shelf and throw out the ones that were rusted, bent, or just in such bad condition that it would be a waste of time and money to try and restore them. In the end, we threw out nearly half of the shelves that originally occupied the room.
After three days, though, it looks like a completely new stock room. Now, hooks are organized neatly into totes by size and type. Shelves - the better half that remain - are stacked neatly against the wall, organized by size with little hand-made signs above them telling anyone searching for a 16-inch shelf which pile it's in. Sign holders are neatly organized on one rack, plexiglass on another.I wish I'd thought to have taken before and after pictures with my phone on the state of the room, as it's hard to convey in words just how radically different it is. And you know, I have to say that I'm a bit proud of our work. I don't generally find myself proud of the work I do at Kmart, so it's a nice, new feeling for me, being able to look back after such a momumental task and see such a huge difference.
Still, I wish I didn't have to wake up at 5 in the morning to get it done.
Perhaps the bright points, if there are any, are that A.) I'm guranteed at least 35 hours a week (although then again, I was pulling about that many hours anyways before I even joined the team), and B.) of the 6 weeks this program is supposed to go on for, last week is already done with (and I was even only there for three days of it) and next week I'm off in Washington, meaning that in reality, I've only got four weeks of this. I suppose I can survive four weeks, right?
...Right?
Speaking of only being there for three days, this shortened work week is due to my going to WVU for orientation. My parents and I made the three-hour drive down Thursday afternoon; even though the actual orientation was Friday, I had elected to take my math placement test the night before instead of early the morning of so as to ensure the best score possible (I figured I would do better taking it at 7:30 the night before than 7:30 the morning of).
The test ended up being harder than I expected. There were actually two parts to the test, a 30-minute algebra part and then a 30-minute calculus part. The algebra part I did well on, except that I only got up to question 21. This kind of pissed me off a little bit, since I ended up scoring a 19 out of 25 on it. So when you take into account the fact that the last 4 I never even got a chance to try, I really only missed 2 of the questions that I attempted. I can only imagine how better my score would've been had I been able to actually finish the damn test. The calculus part, though, was just down-right hard. Much of it was stuff I actually just learned this past year, except I couldn't remember how to do it. And the last 6-8 questions were the types of things I'd never even seen before period.
The next day began the actual orientation. It was surprisingly more boring than I expected it to be. It was mostly just a bunch of meetings where we got a crash course in West Virginia University, how it works, and its various (and numberous) features. There was alot being thrown at us (that is, the entire 300-something group of students and parents who attended) and it was kind of overwhelming, so instead of trying to remember every little detail, I just kind of went along with it all. We were given crash courses in the student organizations, the meal plans, how to use our student ID cards (which I got photographed for at the beginning of the day and picked up at the end), financial aid, academic life, and the details of our dorm.
The highlight came, though, from getting to make our schedules in the afternoon. Well, "make" might be a bit of an overstatement - "learn" our schedules might be a better description, since you don't really get alot of say. They hand you a pre-made schedule and you get the option to (attempted to) make any changes you wish.
I'm feeling very mixed about my schedule. On one hand, I get some really cool classes, like Psych 101, Religion 102, English 154 (African-American Literature), and Math 154 (Into to Calculus, a class that actually leave me a little nervous and which I may end up moving down from once school starts; still, I decided to keep it since, again, I can always drop down later if need be). On the other hand, I have Geology 101, a class which I really don't want to take since I've always believed that geology is one of the most boring subjects ever created. With my weakness in science, though, I think it's best that I take as easy a class as possible, even if it means it being a little less interesting than a harder class like, say, biology or physics.
I did end up having to drop one class, though. I was originally scheduled to take, along with Geology 101, Geology 102, which is the 1-hour laboratory equivalent (I'm required to take two lab sciences, one of which must include it's corresponding lab class). I dropped 102, though, since not only do I not have any interest in taking a geology lab, it would've meant that Mondays, I was in class straight from 10:30 until about 3:30 in the afternoon, with Wednesday not being much better. So, in the interest of my own sanity, I dropped Geol 102; I figure I'll worry about the science-lab combo at a later date.
Good news: I only have to take two math classes, this math class and Stats 211, and I'm done with math forever. Similar situation with science classes. With any luck, by next spring, I can be done with science and math classes forever.
Bad news: I have to take two years of foreign language classes. Now, I know most of you all take, and love, foreign langauge classes. Personally, I've always hated them. It's not that I hate the concept of foreign languages - on the contrary, I think being able to speak a foreign language is an unbelieveably important skill to have. I just, for whatever reason, have never been good at learning another language; I barely managed to scrape by with B's in Spanish in school. I just really have no interest in taking foreign language classes and would rather spend the time taking classes I want and feel like I actually need.
Still, the alternative is taking 24 hours of science classes. So... yeah. I'll pass on that, thanks.
If this whole trip has done anything, it's gotten me excited as hell for college. It's hard to believe that I've still got two months left until college! Those're going to be two very long months indeed.
I'm now off to Washington for my USIP conference. Should be quite fun, I suspect. And busy. I'll give more details when I get back. Cheers!