Power Outage - Hectic Work Day
It was a fun day at work today. And by fun, I mean that ironic kind of fun that really means not fun at all. Okay, maybe it was a little bit of fun in retrospect, but still mostly not fun.
Anyhoo, it was just another typical day at work with me being left in charge of the morning shift to give my buddy the manager the day off. Managing the store for one day isn't a difficult proposition usually. It's the continual day to day stuff that I dread, but one day is no problem, and waking up about two hours before dawn is typically the most difficult ordeal that I have to overcome.
But when the power goes out, shit gets real.
When the lights go out halfway into the shift, we look around waiting to see if they come back on. As it has been demonstrated in the past, there is an auxiliary generator nearby that usually kicks on in such situations and restores us back to operating status with barely a hiccup. Our store is located near the fire department and next to the Emergency Services, so I presume that's the reason for the generator to be where it is and why we're conveniently hooked up into it as well.
Of course, because you have read this far, it is obvious that this wasn't the case this time. I'm not certain, but there was a vote recently at the town hall to discontinue the EMS squad, which is an organization run by volunteers, in favor of some other professional EMS company, and I think the vote went against the local EMS volunteer squad. I didn't manage to make it to the Town Hall for the meeting on this subject, so I'm not currently up on the details of how it went. This tangent is only important because I think the shutting down of the squad is the reason why the back up generator didn't kick on. Either something really got screwed up in the grid, or they turned it off because there was no need for it without the Emergency Services running.
Sitting there in the unlit store, I direct my co-workers to start the daily cleaning chores. About the only thing that we can do without power. Without juice flowing through the building, the registers don't work, the ovens turn off, the brewers stop brewing, and the coffee pots grow cold. Even my sugar dispenser gives up the ghost.
Yet, because I still had some hot coffee left and Jersey people don't care if your lights are on or not, they were still coming in the doors and I still had to make their orders and take their money by hand. Challenging. When the coffee had finally run low, I declared enough was enough, drew up a 'Closed' sign and locked the doors. I decided to just get all the daily cleaning and stocking out of the way while we waited for power to return. I went out and bought a couple flashlights down the street at a 7/11 who were likewise out of power, but happy enough to take my cash. On my short trip, I saw that the power outage was fairly extensive and that something was going on down the street. Flashing Police lights and patrolmen directing traffic were what gave it away. (I notice the little details.)
I'll probably find out what went down over there tomorrow afternoon, but I had no time for it today and headed back to work. The sweeping got done while I was gone and that was good, and with a flashlight in hand we would manage to get some dishes washed and put away, too. As misfortune was wont to strike me that day, however, my boss whom I mistakenly kept apprised of the situation called me back and told me to send my subordinates home. I wanted to keep them a little longer, because, hey, I like not having to do work myself if I can get my co-workers to help me out. You gotta do what the bossman says however, and home they went. He did have a point. You really do only need one person there to look after the store when there's no power.
It woudn't have been all bad, if it had gone on like that. Store would have gotten cleaned, stocked, and taken cared of and I would actually have considered myself lucky. Predictable in it's inevitably was the return to power some fifteen to twenty minutes later.
Now alone and stranded, I faced down the first costumer that was already tapping at the door, wondering why it was locked and brazenly ignoring the closed sign. I didn't even have fresh coffee brewed yet. Like some kind of masochistic dunce, I opened the door anyway, taking orders as best I could as I turned all the machines back on and made fresh coffee.
I wish I could say it got better, but it really didn't. I had to count down the drawers inbetween customers and that's not fun, but at least most of them were understanding about it.
In the end, by the grace of god, I convinced the girl from the next shift to come in an hour early with a monetary bribe just so I could finish the cash report and leave the store to drop the money off at the bank. I apologized about the extenuating circumstance and the substandard state of the store I was leaving them with. (Substandard by my standards. About par for the course for how I usually receive it in the afternoons.)
To cap off the day, I get home and just begin to unwind by sitting at the computer only to find out that it's not turning on. Maybe the power supply was failing and chipset was getting flaky all by itself, but I don't like coincidences. I'm able to finish up typing up this post because my computer genius of a brother was able to fix it with a paperclip. (Don't ask me how. It was some sort of MacGyver Voodoo Engineering.)
Hopeing your day was better than mine,
Shush
Anyhoo, it was just another typical day at work with me being left in charge of the morning shift to give my buddy the manager the day off. Managing the store for one day isn't a difficult proposition usually. It's the continual day to day stuff that I dread, but one day is no problem, and waking up about two hours before dawn is typically the most difficult ordeal that I have to overcome.
But when the power goes out, shit gets real.
When the lights go out halfway into the shift, we look around waiting to see if they come back on. As it has been demonstrated in the past, there is an auxiliary generator nearby that usually kicks on in such situations and restores us back to operating status with barely a hiccup. Our store is located near the fire department and next to the Emergency Services, so I presume that's the reason for the generator to be where it is and why we're conveniently hooked up into it as well.
Of course, because you have read this far, it is obvious that this wasn't the case this time. I'm not certain, but there was a vote recently at the town hall to discontinue the EMS squad, which is an organization run by volunteers, in favor of some other professional EMS company, and I think the vote went against the local EMS volunteer squad. I didn't manage to make it to the Town Hall for the meeting on this subject, so I'm not currently up on the details of how it went. This tangent is only important because I think the shutting down of the squad is the reason why the back up generator didn't kick on. Either something really got screwed up in the grid, or they turned it off because there was no need for it without the Emergency Services running.
Sitting there in the unlit store, I direct my co-workers to start the daily cleaning chores. About the only thing that we can do without power. Without juice flowing through the building, the registers don't work, the ovens turn off, the brewers stop brewing, and the coffee pots grow cold. Even my sugar dispenser gives up the ghost.
Yet, because I still had some hot coffee left and Jersey people don't care if your lights are on or not, they were still coming in the doors and I still had to make their orders and take their money by hand. Challenging. When the coffee had finally run low, I declared enough was enough, drew up a 'Closed' sign and locked the doors. I decided to just get all the daily cleaning and stocking out of the way while we waited for power to return. I went out and bought a couple flashlights down the street at a 7/11 who were likewise out of power, but happy enough to take my cash. On my short trip, I saw that the power outage was fairly extensive and that something was going on down the street. Flashing Police lights and patrolmen directing traffic were what gave it away. (I notice the little details.)
I'll probably find out what went down over there tomorrow afternoon, but I had no time for it today and headed back to work. The sweeping got done while I was gone and that was good, and with a flashlight in hand we would manage to get some dishes washed and put away, too. As misfortune was wont to strike me that day, however, my boss whom I mistakenly kept apprised of the situation called me back and told me to send my subordinates home. I wanted to keep them a little longer, because, hey, I like not having to do work myself if I can get my co-workers to help me out. You gotta do what the bossman says however, and home they went. He did have a point. You really do only need one person there to look after the store when there's no power.
It woudn't have been all bad, if it had gone on like that. Store would have gotten cleaned, stocked, and taken cared of and I would actually have considered myself lucky. Predictable in it's inevitably was the return to power some fifteen to twenty minutes later.
Now alone and stranded, I faced down the first costumer that was already tapping at the door, wondering why it was locked and brazenly ignoring the closed sign. I didn't even have fresh coffee brewed yet. Like some kind of masochistic dunce, I opened the door anyway, taking orders as best I could as I turned all the machines back on and made fresh coffee.
I wish I could say it got better, but it really didn't. I had to count down the drawers inbetween customers and that's not fun, but at least most of them were understanding about it.
In the end, by the grace of god, I convinced the girl from the next shift to come in an hour early with a monetary bribe just so I could finish the cash report and leave the store to drop the money off at the bank. I apologized about the extenuating circumstance and the substandard state of the store I was leaving them with. (Substandard by my standards. About par for the course for how I usually receive it in the afternoons.)
To cap off the day, I get home and just begin to unwind by sitting at the computer only to find out that it's not turning on. Maybe the power supply was failing and chipset was getting flaky all by itself, but I don't like coincidences. I'm able to finish up typing up this post because my computer genius of a brother was able to fix it with a paperclip. (Don't ask me how. It was some sort of MacGyver Voodoo Engineering.)
Hopeing your day was better than mine,
Shush