(no subject)
Had an interesting experience at work today. I didn't really think about how seamlessly it all fit together until I heard Tim relating it to his girlfriend over the phone. Anyhow, I stopped by a friend that lives by work's house today to pick up a power supply to try to diagnose this problem I'm having with Mom & Dad's surprise computer, then I went straight to work. It was a bit earlier than usual, but I wanted to get it done and out of the way so I could designate the afternoon to getting the computer into working order. At work I learned that Shell's big huge thou-shalt-pass-or-else inspection of work is tomorrow. Err...today now, I guess. So I stocked the coolers and did a bunch of garbage collection for Ross, then I went out and changed the holders for the Shell credit card advertising signs to white (they used to be gray), in accordance to Shell's new color-changed look. *sigh* Poor Ross...he has to pay to change the color of absolutely every little detail of his store just because Shell decided to change their logo. Not even their logo, just the background color of their logo. Anyhow, I changed those and gave the pumps a gleaming clean. Discovered much later that I'd used the wrong stuff on the stainless steel sides; they look horrible and streaked...nothing to be done about it now, though. I hope we don't get docked for it.
Clocked out for lunch. Knowing Ross had lots to do, I asked if there was anything else. He said he'd have me hose down the outside of the building after lunch. So I clocked back in later and did that. By then night shift (Tim and Rachel) was on and Ross was gone. I happened to notice Glen, the cook, crying, and Rachel consoling her, so I offered her hugs and Jari love and it made her smile. But she was in a hurry to get out of there so she could deal with whatever had come up, so I let her (and Rachel) know I was there ifn's they ever needed me, and finished cleaning the building.
By then the 4 o'clock rush had passed, so Tim had me restock the cooler again. I did a very careful and detailed job, and even put all the Budweiser back in its designated spot (I hope he gets the hint this time and stops spilling his stuff over into everyone else's designates space....he already takes up one third the cooler, and about 5/6ths of the alcohol section. But every time he comes, his space keeps gaining a foot or two. Anyhow, that done, I clocked out and started up The Beast. While waiting for it to warm up, I went back in and talked to Rachel and Tim some more. I kind of lost track of time, but when Rachel grabbed her keys and walked out of the door for no apparent reason, I recalled myself and ran my bag of broken-down cardboard boxes out to the garbage can. I saw Rachel (who happened ot be parked next to me) talking to someone (I presumed her boyfriend) on my way out to the dumpster, but didn't think anything of it. Instead of getting in my car and going home after dumping the cardboard, I went back inside to talk to Tim. I didnt' think anything of it, but now I see how illogical it was. Anyhow, we talked briefly, then Rachel came back in, very obviously in tears and very obviously trying for some semblance of normalcy. She went over and grabbed the nearest phone, called her mother, I tagged along and hugged her, etc. while she made her call, which was to her mother saying she was going home. So I helped her clock out (a fireable offense; she said she knew it) and let Tim know I'd be back after I took her home (her boyfriend broke up with her and took the car) to finish off the shift. So I took her home (close by), and she called me an angel. I was really honored...it made me feel funny inside, like...honored and amazed all at once. And some other things, too. I think maybe if I was more prone to such things, it would have made me cry. In a good way, I mean.
The rest of the night went pretty boring; cleaned and double-cleaned everything, went over and over things to make sure everything was perfect, got scoped out by a pair of guys that I'm pretty certain were taking pictures of our security cameras. Judging by where all the camera-man (it was a cellphone, but I know what someone trying to covertly take pictures looks like (having done it 10 gazillion times and all), and that's what it looked like he was doing with this cellphone, so I assume it was a camera-phone) went, they missed at least one. Ah well; they'll be real disappointed if they try to rob us...we have maybe $100-$200 max available money at any given time. The rest is in the time locked safe. And even that's empty right now.
So when the night was finally over, we went through her till and found $650, which made Tim suspicious and just confused me because the till won't let you have more than $200 in it. But we found where she'd made a mistake (hit the 00 button too many times...happens all the time; this time she didn't catch it and it resulted in the till thinking that it had -$10,000 in it all night (for all that these tills can manage 8 gas pumps simultaneously and compute precise sales demographics and serve you breakfast in bed (and prolly do a thousand other things I don't even wanna think about), they're pretty stupid sometimes)). So, yeah, that was my night. Ross had to fire her (company policy and this was all ready her last-chance night), but now there's an opening in full time. And I was just going to ask him for more hours, too. I would have asked today, but I also asked him for this weekend off today, and figured that "Ross, I need to put in more hours! Oh, by the way, can I have this weekend off?" just kinda accomplished nothing except killing my credibility.
Oh, and we had a fun experience in the bathroom. Tim did his special super-bleach deep-clean in the bathroom. Someone at lunch had already sprinkled in a liberal amount of a different cleaner. One that produced something nasty (nerve gas, maybe?) when mixed with bleach. The water diluted it a little, but Tim was staggering all over the place after trying to get the stuff off the floors or down the drain for just a minute or two. So I took a deep breath and finished the cleaning off, grateful for my time working with toxic plastics and rubbers to help me. :-3
*yawn* It's 2am. I'm off to bed. I put in 9:48 tonight. New record! Whoo hoo!
Clocked out for lunch. Knowing Ross had lots to do, I asked if there was anything else. He said he'd have me hose down the outside of the building after lunch. So I clocked back in later and did that. By then night shift (Tim and Rachel) was on and Ross was gone. I happened to notice Glen, the cook, crying, and Rachel consoling her, so I offered her hugs and Jari love and it made her smile. But she was in a hurry to get out of there so she could deal with whatever had come up, so I let her (and Rachel) know I was there ifn's they ever needed me, and finished cleaning the building.
By then the 4 o'clock rush had passed, so Tim had me restock the cooler again. I did a very careful and detailed job, and even put all the Budweiser back in its designated spot (I hope he gets the hint this time and stops spilling his stuff over into everyone else's designates space....he already takes up one third the cooler, and about 5/6ths of the alcohol section. But every time he comes, his space keeps gaining a foot or two. Anyhow, that done, I clocked out and started up The Beast. While waiting for it to warm up, I went back in and talked to Rachel and Tim some more. I kind of lost track of time, but when Rachel grabbed her keys and walked out of the door for no apparent reason, I recalled myself and ran my bag of broken-down cardboard boxes out to the garbage can. I saw Rachel (who happened ot be parked next to me) talking to someone (I presumed her boyfriend) on my way out to the dumpster, but didn't think anything of it. Instead of getting in my car and going home after dumping the cardboard, I went back inside to talk to Tim. I didnt' think anything of it, but now I see how illogical it was. Anyhow, we talked briefly, then Rachel came back in, very obviously in tears and very obviously trying for some semblance of normalcy. She went over and grabbed the nearest phone, called her mother, I tagged along and hugged her, etc. while she made her call, which was to her mother saying she was going home. So I helped her clock out (a fireable offense; she said she knew it) and let Tim know I'd be back after I took her home (her boyfriend broke up with her and took the car) to finish off the shift. So I took her home (close by), and she called me an angel. I was really honored...it made me feel funny inside, like...honored and amazed all at once. And some other things, too. I think maybe if I was more prone to such things, it would have made me cry. In a good way, I mean.
The rest of the night went pretty boring; cleaned and double-cleaned everything, went over and over things to make sure everything was perfect, got scoped out by a pair of guys that I'm pretty certain were taking pictures of our security cameras. Judging by where all the camera-man (it was a cellphone, but I know what someone trying to covertly take pictures looks like (having done it 10 gazillion times and all), and that's what it looked like he was doing with this cellphone, so I assume it was a camera-phone) went, they missed at least one. Ah well; they'll be real disappointed if they try to rob us...we have maybe $100-$200 max available money at any given time. The rest is in the time locked safe. And even that's empty right now.
So when the night was finally over, we went through her till and found $650, which made Tim suspicious and just confused me because the till won't let you have more than $200 in it. But we found where she'd made a mistake (hit the 00 button too many times...happens all the time; this time she didn't catch it and it resulted in the till thinking that it had -$10,000 in it all night (for all that these tills can manage 8 gas pumps simultaneously and compute precise sales demographics and serve you breakfast in bed (and prolly do a thousand other things I don't even wanna think about), they're pretty stupid sometimes)). So, yeah, that was my night. Ross had to fire her (company policy and this was all ready her last-chance night), but now there's an opening in full time. And I was just going to ask him for more hours, too. I would have asked today, but I also asked him for this weekend off today, and figured that "Ross, I need to put in more hours! Oh, by the way, can I have this weekend off?" just kinda accomplished nothing except killing my credibility.
Oh, and we had a fun experience in the bathroom. Tim did his special super-bleach deep-clean in the bathroom. Someone at lunch had already sprinkled in a liberal amount of a different cleaner. One that produced something nasty (nerve gas, maybe?) when mixed with bleach. The water diluted it a little, but Tim was staggering all over the place after trying to get the stuff off the floors or down the drain for just a minute or two. So I took a deep breath and finished the cleaning off, grateful for my time working with toxic plastics and rubbers to help me. :-3
*yawn* It's 2am. I'm off to bed. I put in 9:48 tonight. New record! Whoo hoo!