the week from hell! I need a vacation more than Mom and Dad do!
I had a long post all prepared about it earlier when I was test-driving Mom's laptop, but I did something that deleted all of that and I don't know how I did it. (Which is another reason why I'm not too thrilled with laptops...)
Not a fun week at work. I didn't get in trouble or anything, but...I'm just wondering if whoever does lane assignments hates me or something because I keep getting put on U-scan! I bitched about this in my previous post about why I hate being on U-scan, so I'll spare you all of that. But here's something that I'll bring up at the next cashier meeting: doing markdowns at u-scan, if there is some way around this, if there's anyway we can do this as a PK override so we don't get in trouble and called into Milijana's office about it later on. Because I don't know any other way about handling marked-down merchandise at U-scan than to ring it under an open department key, and I don't think any of the other cashiers who work U-scan know, either. And whether they want us to take care of marked-down merchandise at U-scan in the first place. Lucy says we're not supposed to. Eleanor says that there was a lengthy customer complaint on display in the breakroom about being turned away at U-scan because she had marked-down stuff. (Where this is in the breakroom, I have no clue. But I can believe a customer complained about something as petty as this.)
The point is, if you have marked-down stuff from the clearance carts to be rang up, just go to a regular register. It's more of a hassle on us to enter it in, whether on the regular monitor computer or on the palm pilot. And if we're too busy entering this stuff in, that means we can't pay attention to the other customers potentially ripping stuff off with our backs turned.
I'm pretty sure I said something in my last post about how Tom Bailey complained that every time he comes up to the front end, he sees us cashiers doing more bagging than the actual baggers do because they're always chit-chatting instead of actual bagging. The point he was trying to make was that we cashiers are cashiers first, we shouldn't have to worry about bagging the order, we need to pay attention to the transaction. Which I totally agree with. I believe a lot of us cashiers wouldn't have the till problems we have (overage, shortages, coupon accuracy, etc.) if it weren't for us having to pick up the slack with the bagging. All of the CSMs have been on us working the front end (especially the baggers) to knock it off with excessive talking while working. Yes, it's very elementary-school-ish, but if there have been customer complaints about it, I understand why they're enforcing it.
Because of this, I'm pretty sure I pissed Andy off yesterday. And you know what? I don't care! Andy is a regular ol' chatterbox. I don't know if it really interferes with his duties as a bagger, but yesterday he was chatting with the new bagger that he was training about music or wrestling or how much the White Sox rule/the Cubs suck or something. I kind of got a hair up my butt before I got to work that I would be DAMNED if I would be doing any sort of bagging because of excessive talking. (Because frankly, I'm tired of it. I'm not a bagger, I don't get paid any extra to bag, let them take care of it. I only bag when I need to.) So I did what we've been told to do if the baggers start getting too chit-chatty: let them know. You either tell them to please be quiet or to shush them. I shushed Andy. He shushed me right back! Which shocked me because he's not normally like that. But he does this all the time to Katie F. (another bagger), gets in her face when she gets too talkative and shushes her, and he always kind of obnoxious about it, so I didn't feel too bad about shushing him. I saw Katie F. over to the side, trying really hard to suppress a laugh because he does this all the time to her, and he didn't like it when someone else did it to him.
But then I thought twice about it, because Andy is a special needs worker, and if it was really the right thing to do to shush him. He talks and talks all the time while he works and never gets yelled at the way other baggers do. Is it really okay for a special needs worker to be able to talk and talk and not be warned about it when all of the other workers who don't have special needs are warned and talked to about it often? Should Andy be the exception to the rule because he's "special"? Let's take Doug, for example. I know he has cerebal palsy, and I try really hard to be patient with him. But he has a tendency to be really chit-chatty as well with the customer and--like Andy--is more interested in talking to the customer instead of doing his job. Then I end up bagging the majority of his order in the end.
This whole week has been rather shitty at home as well. I'm still finding myself waking up in the middle of the night, around 2 or 3 in the morning because Dad's up and messing around in the kitchen and doing dishes and brewing a pot of coffee and has the radio on because he's getting ready to go sit in the woods in the early morning hours to stalk some deer and shoot them. (Like we need any more freaking deer meat.) Then I emerge to use the bathroom. I come out to find said full pot of brewed coffee, sink of dirty cold dishwater just sitting there--NOT DRAINED (this gets on Mom's and my nerves so much, you have no idea; it ruins the sink), shit all over the counter and dinner table not put away, and Dad is back to sleeping on the couch. How long he's been on the couch while the coffee's been brewing and the kitchen lights have been on--I have no idea. I go in the bathroom to do my thing--newspaper strewn all over the floor, more of his shit all cluttered around the sink, water not wiped up around the sink, and the cherry on top of it all was the floating turd in the toilet. Stay klassy, Dad.
I. WAS. PISSED. I bitched about it the next morning to Mom when I saw the dirty dishwater in the sink still not drained, and Dad promptly drained it. His excuse to the floating turd? "I was going to flush it when I was done showering." BULLSHIT, he was just being lazy. which is the declared time where Holly has to be woken up to prevent her from getting any more rest,
Last night, Bo jumped into bed with me. (He's been doing this a lot lately.) Around the magical time of 3 AM, I heard him lightly whining and groaning in his sleep. He was having a doggy dream. Then I felt his legs moving like he was trying to run in his sleep. Bo kicked me in the butt in the process. I couldn't go back to sleep. Thanks, Bo! Even the dog doesn't want me to get any sleep!
Earlier this week, around 1 AM, Dad and Hunter were still up screwing around with mousetraps (because we've been having mouse problems, according to Hunter). The light's on in the hallway. I'm getting up, trying to close my bedroom door. Bo keeps nudging his way in my room because he wants to sleep with his sissy (me). Then I try to close it, then Bo wants back out. He did this at least four times within ten minutes. Finally I shooed him out and just closed the door shut. He whined. I was all, "Tough shit, dog. I need sleep."
Yesterday was just a shitty day. I got into an argument with Mom, Dad and Hunter about when I should request off for vacation time to visit them down in Alabama (whenever the hell they're going to go). I'm trying to figure something out with Hunter because the semester ends kind of late for him this year. He's all, "Whatever, I don't care," totally not cooperating. Mom and Dad are getting irritated that I'm even making a big deal about it, "because it's just Christmas." EXACTLY. IT'S CHRISTMAS! I want to spend time with my family and loved ones on Christmas! Dad gave me shit about wanting to spend time with Kevin on Christmas and was all, "Come on, it's not like he's putting a ring on your finger anytime soon." THAT pissed me off. So what if we're taking our time and not rushing to get married? Mom's just bitching for the sake of bitching. They're pissed that I'm making a big deal about it. I just went off on them, told them if I don't use my vacation time before the end of the year, I lose it. Then I told them, "HAVEN'T YOU NOTICED HOW MUCH BITCHING I'VE BEEN DOING ABOUT WORK FOR THE LAST THREE WEEKS?! I NEED A FUCKING BREAK FROM THAT PLACE!!! I NEED A VACATION MORE THAN YOU DO!!" Dad yelled at me that "IF YOU HATE THE FUCKING JOB SO MUCH, GET A NEW ONE!" I was all, "This coming from the guy who's been laid off and hasn't done jack shit to get a new job."
He shut up after that.
Then he tried convincing me I just need to write a book about my shit-tastic work experiences. Screw him. He's NEVER been supportive of my aspirations in writing or acting or music or anything like that before. Don't bring it up now as a fucking get-rich-quick scheme.
I then went to work in a foul mood. The first thing I got at work was my request-off form for vacation time for next year, and I just lost it. I was so pissed off after the fight with them about wanting time off for Christmas and away from work and wanting to spend the holidays with my family, then I get this form that made it seem like I've already missed out on my vacation opportunity for this year, and I just broke down and fucking CRIED before I even got to my register. Went to the breakroom to try to calm down. Just sucked it up for the rest of the day; the CSMs knew I wasnt in a good mood. They knew I was pissed because of the vacation deal, they knew I was pissed because I had to work the second part of my shift at U-scan, and then the shit with Andy. No one was in a good mood at all yesterday. I was late for both of my breaks; a whole half-hour late for my second one. Then I didn't even get to clock out at the end of my shift until ten minutes later because my relief had a big order that the customer had problems with at the end and needed a lot of shit voided off. Called Kevin up after work, vented to him on the phone about it, apologized profusely because I was pretty much yelling over the phone because I was SO MAD. He was all right about it and just let me rant.
Hunter's birthday was Monday, which makes him twenty now. My little brother is twenty years old. NOW I feel old. As of today, there are 23 days till my 29th birthday. I think this is the age where I just don't care about my birthday anymore and don't want to make a big deal about it.
I know I mentioned it earlier, but Hunter got in a car accident three days ago. He was at a four-way stop behind someone waiting for them with plenty of space between them, and he got rear-ended so hard his car was slammed into the car he was behind. (He said he wasn't so much rear-ended as he was PLOWED INTO.) And from the sound of it, the girl who hit Hunter's car was ON HER FUCKING CELLPHONE WHILE DRIVING.
So his car is pretty much totaled because of this. No one was really hurt, but Hunter went to the doctor to get his lower back and right knee looked at anyway, because guess what? We're contacting lawyers about this. The girl who hit him is underinsured, State Farm doesn't want to cover all of Hunter's expenses on his car or pay off the rest of his loan for a new car (especially when he wasn't even the one at fault), there's some shit about "gap insurance," but mainly Mom and Dad (and me too, as well) are pissed because we have full coverage on all of our cars. You would think because we have full coverage that it would take care of everything in instances like this. Hunter is currently without a car. He has no way to work, and no way to classes. If he can't work, he can't afford to pay off anything. If he doesn't go to classes, he'll risk his GPA slipping and failing in his courses. So I say, if we can't do milk this through insurance to get what Hunter has coming to him, then we're going to go the medical route, which is why we're contacting a lawyer. ESPECIALLY SINCE SHE WAS ON HER CELLPHONE WHEN SHE HIT HIM.
And as a fun follow-up to all of this, I just got my period. Too much information, you say? It was running late and stressing me out even more, so screw you!
As a final note, here's a cute puppy:
It's not Bo, but he's cute.
The only thing that's keeping me sane right now is that ferocious "Bad Romance" video.
Not a fun week at work. I didn't get in trouble or anything, but...I'm just wondering if whoever does lane assignments hates me or something because I keep getting put on U-scan! I bitched about this in my previous post about why I hate being on U-scan, so I'll spare you all of that. But here's something that I'll bring up at the next cashier meeting: doing markdowns at u-scan, if there is some way around this, if there's anyway we can do this as a PK override so we don't get in trouble and called into Milijana's office about it later on. Because I don't know any other way about handling marked-down merchandise at U-scan than to ring it under an open department key, and I don't think any of the other cashiers who work U-scan know, either. And whether they want us to take care of marked-down merchandise at U-scan in the first place. Lucy says we're not supposed to. Eleanor says that there was a lengthy customer complaint on display in the breakroom about being turned away at U-scan because she had marked-down stuff. (Where this is in the breakroom, I have no clue. But I can believe a customer complained about something as petty as this.)
The point is, if you have marked-down stuff from the clearance carts to be rang up, just go to a regular register. It's more of a hassle on us to enter it in, whether on the regular monitor computer or on the palm pilot. And if we're too busy entering this stuff in, that means we can't pay attention to the other customers potentially ripping stuff off with our backs turned.
I'm pretty sure I said something in my last post about how Tom Bailey complained that every time he comes up to the front end, he sees us cashiers doing more bagging than the actual baggers do because they're always chit-chatting instead of actual bagging. The point he was trying to make was that we cashiers are cashiers first, we shouldn't have to worry about bagging the order, we need to pay attention to the transaction. Which I totally agree with. I believe a lot of us cashiers wouldn't have the till problems we have (overage, shortages, coupon accuracy, etc.) if it weren't for us having to pick up the slack with the bagging. All of the CSMs have been on us working the front end (especially the baggers) to knock it off with excessive talking while working. Yes, it's very elementary-school-ish, but if there have been customer complaints about it, I understand why they're enforcing it.
Because of this, I'm pretty sure I pissed Andy off yesterday. And you know what? I don't care! Andy is a regular ol' chatterbox. I don't know if it really interferes with his duties as a bagger, but yesterday he was chatting with the new bagger that he was training about music or wrestling or how much the White Sox rule/the Cubs suck or something. I kind of got a hair up my butt before I got to work that I would be DAMNED if I would be doing any sort of bagging because of excessive talking. (Because frankly, I'm tired of it. I'm not a bagger, I don't get paid any extra to bag, let them take care of it. I only bag when I need to.) So I did what we've been told to do if the baggers start getting too chit-chatty: let them know. You either tell them to please be quiet or to shush them. I shushed Andy. He shushed me right back! Which shocked me because he's not normally like that. But he does this all the time to Katie F. (another bagger), gets in her face when she gets too talkative and shushes her, and he always kind of obnoxious about it, so I didn't feel too bad about shushing him. I saw Katie F. over to the side, trying really hard to suppress a laugh because he does this all the time to her, and he didn't like it when someone else did it to him.
But then I thought twice about it, because Andy is a special needs worker, and if it was really the right thing to do to shush him. He talks and talks all the time while he works and never gets yelled at the way other baggers do. Is it really okay for a special needs worker to be able to talk and talk and not be warned about it when all of the other workers who don't have special needs are warned and talked to about it often? Should Andy be the exception to the rule because he's "special"? Let's take Doug, for example. I know he has cerebal palsy, and I try really hard to be patient with him. But he has a tendency to be really chit-chatty as well with the customer and--like Andy--is more interested in talking to the customer instead of doing his job. Then I end up bagging the majority of his order in the end.
This whole week has been rather shitty at home as well. I'm still finding myself waking up in the middle of the night, around 2 or 3 in the morning because Dad's up and messing around in the kitchen and doing dishes and brewing a pot of coffee and has the radio on because he's getting ready to go sit in the woods in the early morning hours to stalk some deer and shoot them. (Like we need any more freaking deer meat.) Then I emerge to use the bathroom. I come out to find said full pot of brewed coffee, sink of dirty cold dishwater just sitting there--NOT DRAINED (this gets on Mom's and my nerves so much, you have no idea; it ruins the sink), shit all over the counter and dinner table not put away, and Dad is back to sleeping on the couch. How long he's been on the couch while the coffee's been brewing and the kitchen lights have been on--I have no idea. I go in the bathroom to do my thing--newspaper strewn all over the floor, more of his shit all cluttered around the sink, water not wiped up around the sink, and the cherry on top of it all was the floating turd in the toilet. Stay klassy, Dad.
I. WAS. PISSED. I bitched about it the next morning to Mom when I saw the dirty dishwater in the sink still not drained, and Dad promptly drained it. His excuse to the floating turd? "I was going to flush it when I was done showering." BULLSHIT, he was just being lazy. which is the declared time where Holly has to be woken up to prevent her from getting any more rest,
Last night, Bo jumped into bed with me. (He's been doing this a lot lately.) Around the magical time of 3 AM, I heard him lightly whining and groaning in his sleep. He was having a doggy dream. Then I felt his legs moving like he was trying to run in his sleep. Bo kicked me in the butt in the process. I couldn't go back to sleep. Thanks, Bo! Even the dog doesn't want me to get any sleep!
Earlier this week, around 1 AM, Dad and Hunter were still up screwing around with mousetraps (because we've been having mouse problems, according to Hunter). The light's on in the hallway. I'm getting up, trying to close my bedroom door. Bo keeps nudging his way in my room because he wants to sleep with his sissy (me). Then I try to close it, then Bo wants back out. He did this at least four times within ten minutes. Finally I shooed him out and just closed the door shut. He whined. I was all, "Tough shit, dog. I need sleep."
Yesterday was just a shitty day. I got into an argument with Mom, Dad and Hunter about when I should request off for vacation time to visit them down in Alabama (whenever the hell they're going to go). I'm trying to figure something out with Hunter because the semester ends kind of late for him this year. He's all, "Whatever, I don't care," totally not cooperating. Mom and Dad are getting irritated that I'm even making a big deal about it, "because it's just Christmas." EXACTLY. IT'S CHRISTMAS! I want to spend time with my family and loved ones on Christmas! Dad gave me shit about wanting to spend time with Kevin on Christmas and was all, "Come on, it's not like he's putting a ring on your finger anytime soon." THAT pissed me off. So what if we're taking our time and not rushing to get married? Mom's just bitching for the sake of bitching. They're pissed that I'm making a big deal about it. I just went off on them, told them if I don't use my vacation time before the end of the year, I lose it. Then I told them, "HAVEN'T YOU NOTICED HOW MUCH BITCHING I'VE BEEN DOING ABOUT WORK FOR THE LAST THREE WEEKS?! I NEED A FUCKING BREAK FROM THAT PLACE!!! I NEED A VACATION MORE THAN YOU DO!!" Dad yelled at me that "IF YOU HATE THE FUCKING JOB SO MUCH, GET A NEW ONE!" I was all, "This coming from the guy who's been laid off and hasn't done jack shit to get a new job."
He shut up after that.
Then he tried convincing me I just need to write a book about my shit-tastic work experiences. Screw him. He's NEVER been supportive of my aspirations in writing or acting or music or anything like that before. Don't bring it up now as a fucking get-rich-quick scheme.
I then went to work in a foul mood. The first thing I got at work was my request-off form for vacation time for next year, and I just lost it. I was so pissed off after the fight with them about wanting time off for Christmas and away from work and wanting to spend the holidays with my family, then I get this form that made it seem like I've already missed out on my vacation opportunity for this year, and I just broke down and fucking CRIED before I even got to my register. Went to the breakroom to try to calm down. Just sucked it up for the rest of the day; the CSMs knew I wasnt in a good mood. They knew I was pissed because of the vacation deal, they knew I was pissed because I had to work the second part of my shift at U-scan, and then the shit with Andy. No one was in a good mood at all yesterday. I was late for both of my breaks; a whole half-hour late for my second one. Then I didn't even get to clock out at the end of my shift until ten minutes later because my relief had a big order that the customer had problems with at the end and needed a lot of shit voided off. Called Kevin up after work, vented to him on the phone about it, apologized profusely because I was pretty much yelling over the phone because I was SO MAD. He was all right about it and just let me rant.
Hunter's birthday was Monday, which makes him twenty now. My little brother is twenty years old. NOW I feel old. As of today, there are 23 days till my 29th birthday. I think this is the age where I just don't care about my birthday anymore and don't want to make a big deal about it.
I know I mentioned it earlier, but Hunter got in a car accident three days ago. He was at a four-way stop behind someone waiting for them with plenty of space between them, and he got rear-ended so hard his car was slammed into the car he was behind. (He said he wasn't so much rear-ended as he was PLOWED INTO.) And from the sound of it, the girl who hit Hunter's car was ON HER FUCKING CELLPHONE WHILE DRIVING.
So his car is pretty much totaled because of this. No one was really hurt, but Hunter went to the doctor to get his lower back and right knee looked at anyway, because guess what? We're contacting lawyers about this. The girl who hit him is underinsured, State Farm doesn't want to cover all of Hunter's expenses on his car or pay off the rest of his loan for a new car (especially when he wasn't even the one at fault), there's some shit about "gap insurance," but mainly Mom and Dad (and me too, as well) are pissed because we have full coverage on all of our cars. You would think because we have full coverage that it would take care of everything in instances like this. Hunter is currently without a car. He has no way to work, and no way to classes. If he can't work, he can't afford to pay off anything. If he doesn't go to classes, he'll risk his GPA slipping and failing in his courses. So I say, if we can't do milk this through insurance to get what Hunter has coming to him, then we're going to go the medical route, which is why we're contacting a lawyer. ESPECIALLY SINCE SHE WAS ON HER CELLPHONE WHEN SHE HIT HIM.
And as a fun follow-up to all of this, I just got my period. Too much information, you say? It was running late and stressing me out even more, so screw you!
As a final note, here's a cute puppy:
It's not Bo, but he's cute.
The only thing that's keeping me sane right now is that ferocious "Bad Romance" video.