In which you might have to look something up. It's good for you.
Dear colleague,
Your voice is the Urosalpinx cinerea to my oyster of a brain. I KNOW you can modulate it. Heaven knows when you’re on the phone with your kid arranging ride schedules, you can totally go low, and I’m grateful for that. But seriously, try to tap that voice a little more often. Because that loud rasping voice of yours is boring holes, my friend.
Dear various stores with “pick up in store” options,
Seriously, this is the fourth time I’ve placed an order like this and the third time the order has been cancelled because whatever it is that I’m buying, that thing/those things that your system confirmed were in-stock, apparently are not. Or, more likely, being a jaundiced ex-retail store manager, are totally in stock, but no one can find them. I mean, at least this last one, you offered me free shipping to make up for now having to place the order for shipping. Would be more exciting if I didn’t already have a coupon/membership that guarantees me free shipping. So, now, do I invest another ten minutes placing the order on the phone to get my free shipping for your screw up…place the order online to be shipped and use my coupon to get free shipping? Hard call, since I EXCEL at picking the thing that will unexpectedly take the longest. Or, learning a lesson from the last time I placed a “pick up in store” order, where they said I couldn’t pick it up because it wasn’t actually in stock but then I showed up anyway and oh-hey there it was on the shelf. That would undoubtedly be the fastest route to happiness/goal…but I suppose I stand to be pissed off either way - because it really isn’t in stock and now I’ve wasted a trip…or it’s right there on the freaking shelf, right THERE. So many options and all of them promising a throbbing temple.
I met with a supplier that has chafing fuel in gel form, in a big ol’ squeeze bottle so you can refill the cans once you run them down. My rep is like “hey, isn’t this a great idea?” And I’m thinking NO. A thousand times NO. Dude, have you ever BEEN back of the house in a restaurant? Have you met us? We have to put signs up in the restaurant kitchen that say “please stop making penises out of the leftover rice, right now, or I will kill you”. This is the kind of environment you want to put a squeeze bottle of flammable gel into?
I’m a pretty responsible person. Born with a safety patrol vest on. The only rule I don’t obey is the whole speed limit thing. Everything else, I’m all kinds of safe and do the right thing-y.
But oh. If I still worked in a kitchen, there would so be a flaming message on the prep table tomorrow, oh, yes, there would be!
Hey, Self! Remember last October when we swore we’d spend the summer working on tombstones for Halloween…and we purposely left a bunch of the blanks and ones that needed touch up out in the hallway from the living room to the basement, so we wouldn’t forget and they’d be handy? And we spent all summer tripping over them and making the damaged ones worse?
For the record: Yeah, blew it.
Your voice is the Urosalpinx cinerea to my oyster of a brain. I KNOW you can modulate it. Heaven knows when you’re on the phone with your kid arranging ride schedules, you can totally go low, and I’m grateful for that. But seriously, try to tap that voice a little more often. Because that loud rasping voice of yours is boring holes, my friend.
Dear various stores with “pick up in store” options,
Seriously, this is the fourth time I’ve placed an order like this and the third time the order has been cancelled because whatever it is that I’m buying, that thing/those things that your system confirmed were in-stock, apparently are not. Or, more likely, being a jaundiced ex-retail store manager, are totally in stock, but no one can find them. I mean, at least this last one, you offered me free shipping to make up for now having to place the order for shipping. Would be more exciting if I didn’t already have a coupon/membership that guarantees me free shipping. So, now, do I invest another ten minutes placing the order on the phone to get my free shipping for your screw up…place the order online to be shipped and use my coupon to get free shipping? Hard call, since I EXCEL at picking the thing that will unexpectedly take the longest. Or, learning a lesson from the last time I placed a “pick up in store” order, where they said I couldn’t pick it up because it wasn’t actually in stock but then I showed up anyway and oh-hey there it was on the shelf. That would undoubtedly be the fastest route to happiness/goal…but I suppose I stand to be pissed off either way - because it really isn’t in stock and now I’ve wasted a trip…or it’s right there on the freaking shelf, right THERE. So many options and all of them promising a throbbing temple.
I met with a supplier that has chafing fuel in gel form, in a big ol’ squeeze bottle so you can refill the cans once you run them down. My rep is like “hey, isn’t this a great idea?” And I’m thinking NO. A thousand times NO. Dude, have you ever BEEN back of the house in a restaurant? Have you met us? We have to put signs up in the restaurant kitchen that say “please stop making penises out of the leftover rice, right now, or I will kill you”. This is the kind of environment you want to put a squeeze bottle of flammable gel into?
I’m a pretty responsible person. Born with a safety patrol vest on. The only rule I don’t obey is the whole speed limit thing. Everything else, I’m all kinds of safe and do the right thing-y.
But oh. If I still worked in a kitchen, there would so be a flaming message on the prep table tomorrow, oh, yes, there would be!
Hey, Self! Remember last October when we swore we’d spend the summer working on tombstones for Halloween…and we purposely left a bunch of the blanks and ones that needed touch up out in the hallway from the living room to the basement, so we wouldn’t forget and they’d be handy? And we spent all summer tripping over them and making the damaged ones worse?
For the record: Yeah, blew it.