What Is It With Sneakers?

The re-release of the Air Jordan sneakers and the chaos across the country last week on people stampeding to buy them is baffling to me. Of course spending $180 on a pair of sneakers is equally baffling to me as well. Sorry, I just don't get it.

But these incidents of fighting, stabbings, gunfire, and arrests over a pair of shoes did remind me of something I've always wondered about. Working in a mall setting can be interesting at times, especially a mall with a lot of shoe stores. The store I work in is sandwiched between two shoe stores and a shoe store across from us so I see a lot of shoe shoppers.

The one thing that baffles me is young African-American males and their shoe fetish, so to speak. They buy a lot of sneakers. It's not uncommon to see them leaving a store with several pairs of sneakers at a time. Many of them will sit on a bench in front of our store after purchasing new sneakers, remove what appears to be new sneakers from their feet, then proceed to debate which pair of new shoes they just purchased are worthy of wearing out of the mall. It's equally baffling and comical to me to watch this process. They seem to take this process very seriously though.

I assume sneakers are some type of status symbol. One I don't understand, especially since the shoes they came into the mall wearing look fine to me and not in need of replacement.

I dunno.

Maybe young white guys have a fetish of some sort I just haven't noticed. It doesn't appear to be sneakers though. Perhaps it's video games?

Or....

Maybe I'm just getting old and it's just something I'm not ever going to understand. Just seems like such a waste of money to me.

Well, She's Back: Part Four

Hopefully we'll get this last bit of insanity with the Worthless Co-Worker wrapped up today.

(Why yes, I can hear the chants of about time quite clearly.)

We last left off with this piece of drama where the Worthless Co-Worker threw the boss under the bus. She and the district manager went on a 2 1/2 hour journey through the mall where the Worthless Co-Worker aired every grievance imaginable she had in her little demented mind.

They came back into the store where she was all teary-eyed and he was visibly upset. He left saying very little and she was uncharacteristically close mouthed. (Something she never is so I figured she really went to town on her complaints.)

I didn't really need her to say what she complained about though as she had been spouting off for two months about real, and not so real problems in the store.

Initially the district manager bought into everything she complained about. The boss was in hot water. Apparently he had created a hostile work environment in the Worthless Co-Worker's opinion. She complained he, and I for that matter, had been harassing her.

This actually stemmed from her religious beliefs. (Now I'm all for people believing whatever it is when it comes to religion, but in her case she's a loony tune and phony when it comes to being a Christian.) She spouts off all the time about the bible and her beliefs. She's a homophobic bitch as well. As a parent of a gay daughter I quite frankly get tired of hearing how my daughter and all gay people are hell bound. She always starts this nonsense when a gay couple, or I should say, a suspected gay couple in her mind, comes into the store and she doesn't want to work with them. I usually keep my mouth shut because she isn't worth arguing with, but I'd finally had enough of her crap so we pulled a joke on her. While she deserved it, in hindsight the boss got a little too carried away with it.

After one of her diatribes about gay people I told her that we had an upcoming off site sales event in January. An off site event she had to work. I told her we were part of a Rainbow sales show event. This sent her over the edge naturally. The boss picked up on this and went out of his way to talk about this fabricated event every day to her telling her she had no choice in working the event.

This is the main thing the boss was in trouble for, along with her many other complaints. The next week was crazy. Not so much for me as I was mostly a bystander, but for the boss and the Worthless Co-Worker. Conference calls and visits occurred and no one was talking to me about what was going on. Slowly but surely though things were coming out about her litany of complaints though.

I was told by the boss that the district manager was going to talk to me about what was going on, as well as the personnel department, but no one actually did for over a week. I suspect the biggest reason for this was the fact that the district manager dislikes my boss and wants to get rid of him. He bought into everything the Worthless Co-Worker told him. My boss in now on the thinnest of thin ice with the company now. He's basically on a last chance written warning of sorts. Somewhat deservedly so, but not for her litany of fabricated complaints.

Last week the district manager shows up and we're all working. He has a cryptic meeting about following company policies and no grey areas and that this issue is now closed and no more discussion is to take place about it. I was fine with that truth be told because I was tired of the drama. He leaves, the boss leaves a few hours later and it's just me and the Worthless Co-Worker left in the store.

What does she do? She gloats and states how she has the ear of the district manager and how she has control of whether the boss gets to keep his job or not. I told her several times to shut up, but someone like her can't seem to keep her mouth shut. Her aim, by fair means or fowl is to get the boss fired. When I told her people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones she was bewildered. She had never heard that phrase before I guess. When I explained to her that someone who really isn't doing their job complaining about someone else not doing their job is very ironic she went over the edge and spent the next ten minutes screaming at me. I spent the majority of that ten minutes laughing at her.

She threatened to call the district manager and tell him how I was now harassing her which I replied was just fine. She waited until the next day, when I was off, to do so. This was a mistake on her part because now the district manager was forced to actually speak with me about the situation.

I came to work the following day and the boss told me I was supposed to call the district manager. It ended up being quite a heated phone call, mostly on my part. I finally got to hear more specific details about the situation and all I'll say is the Worthless Co-Worker needs to be institutionalized. Her sense of reality is skewed and off the charts. When the conversation ended I believe he was starting to realize just how mentally unstable she is. I think one thing that convinced him of this was the fact I wasn't defending the boss necessarily. Quite frankly he hasn't been doing his job, but he had been making improvements. I stated whether these improvements were enough or not was up to him to decide upon, not I or a mentally unstable Worthless Co-Worker to decide. Especially since the Worthless Co-Worker has a hidden agenda.

I also let him know that by buying into everything the Worthless Co-Worker had told him he had actually hamstrung the boss on doing a part of his job. That being making sure the Worthless Co-Worker did her job. Ever since this charade started she was just getting worse and the boss was treating her with kid gloves because he was scared of losing his job. Something had to give.

The Worthless Co-Worker was off that day and the next day. When she came in she received a call from the district manager. She trotted off to the store room for privacy and was gone for about thirty minutes and when she returned to the sales floor she was once again teary-eyed and upset. She kept her mouth shut for the rest of the day.

The next day however was different. It probably killed her to wait a day to whine. When I got off the phone with the district manager I wasn't positive how much of what I said was believed. That came out on this day though. Apparently he spent the thirty minutes yelling at her and the more she tried defending her demented views and fantasies the angrier he became with her. I was left with the impression now the district manager knows how crazy she is, as well as how lazy my boss is.

Honestly, what I see happening is two people losing their jobs before long. She's bat shit crazy and will self destruct eventually and I'm not sure my boss is going to get his act together enough to maintain his job either. I'm sure it's going to be an interesting ride for awhile though and I'm just going to stay on the sidelines and avoid as much of the bloodshed as possible.

Well, She's Back: Part Three

In the previous two posts we've established that the Worthless Co-Worker has been rehired and is as loony tune as ever. Actually I believe she's even more mentally unstable now than when she worked here the first time.

I think everyone knows someone who is mentally unstable, or bat shit crazy if you will. There are some people who actually get more unstable as they age. It's almost like Alzheimer's where a person starts out getting a little forgetful and progressively gets worse. That's the best way to describe her in my mind. The first time she worked here she was a little bit unstable, and now is even more unstable. I just see it getting worse as she gets older.

We also established that my boss is in hot water with his new boss in the last post as well. To some extent this is warranted because he's been allowed to coast and under perform in the past.

The Worthless Co-Worker went through the 30 day probation period on her best behavior. There weren't any signs of the shit storm of a tsunami approaching once she got past this 30 day probationary period. Oh yes, there were signs of loony tune there, but it all related to her personal life, which the boss and I really didn't care about. As a matter of fact we expected that to be the case because that's just her.

In hindsight two and two should have been put together. If she couldn't get along with anyone, and I mean anyone in her family, why was she getting along with us so smoothly during her first 30 days here? This applied to any friends she had. Well, friend any way, I only know of one person who tolerated her who could be classified as a friend to her, and that friendship ended in this time frame as well.

No, we were simply amused by her tales of woe when it came to her family and friend(s). The thinking was "Yup, she's still crazy, but no trouble here, so whatever." It was entertaining in a train wreck, non-lethal way to us.

Once the probationary period ended it all changed. The boss was her main target. She knew his boss disliked him and in her demented mind she thought if he was fired she was the logical choice to replace him. She knew I had no interest, and never have, in being the manager of the store.

All of a sudden when I was working with her, her litany of complaints about the boss grew. As they grew they took on a life of their own, becoming far worse to her than the reality of the situation. While some of her complaints had validity, most were overblown and way out of proportion. When she wasn't receiving a sympathetic ear from me all of a sudden I was a problem to her as well.

When she made a mistake it was always my fault. Most of her assertions were so outlandish I spent most of my time simply alternating between being amused and irritated with her.

She'd ring up a sale using a wrong finance option and it was my fault because I told her it was okay. Never mind I was off the day it occurred, it was still my fault.

She'd screw up inventory when product shipments were received and it was my fault because I told her not to worry about updating the system. (Um, yeah, not so much. The company takes inventory control anally serious.)

She left a product bin outside the gate on the mall floor one night when closing and apparently I once again was at fault because I told her it was okay to do something like that. Never mind that what was actually said by me to her the next day was that this had happened in the past by a previous employee and we were lucky to have nothing stolen overnight. (And seriously, how does one close and lock a gate, kneeling down right next to this product bin by the way, and not realize that maybe you should pull it back into the store prior to locking the gate?)

Naturally she uses these excuses when confronted by the boss and he sees through her absurdity. She then goes off the deep end and declares she doesn't appreciate being called a liar. My response to her is to simply quit lying then and take responsibility for her own actions. As you might have guessed this doesn't go over well either.

One of her biggest complaints about the boss is that he never cleans. True enough. Sadly she thinks she's the only one who does any cleaning though. The truth of the matter is all she does is talk about cleaning and by simply talking about cleaning it suddenly transforms into actual cleaning on her part. I've never seen her do any cleaning, ever. When I pointed out to her that talking about cleaning and actual cleaning are two different things she goes berserk. Bat shit crazy berserk.

If she's not selling well it is the fault of the boss because naturally, in her mind, if he's not doing his job, she can't sell anything. Now I'm willing to concede the boss is lazy, although he's improving because.. well... he has to due to his new boss and his demands. I also know that neither his laziness nor her craziness for that matter, have never inhibited my sales.

There have been many instances of property destruction since she's returned as well. A towel rack in our bathroom has mysteriously been pulled off the wall. One of our phones has had its phone cord damaged and the phone rendered unusable. While it can't be proven she's responsible for the damage, both items, in her mind, didn't work properly and she has wanted them replaced. Since there was nothing wrong with either item they weren't replaced, until damaged of course.

Any way....

Her complaints and whining were falling on deaf ears here. This enraged her, more so than a normal person could ever imagine. The week of Black Friday rolls around and in the retail world this is a huge event. Our district manager decided to show up on Monday of that week when it was just myself and the Worthless Co-Worker working to cover plans and strategy for the week. The day was going well and the Worthless Co-Worker was behaving and acting reasonably sane for a change. Right when the district manager announced he was satisfied with what we were doing and he was leaving she speaks up.

She informs him she needs to speak with him privately and off they go out into the mall and they're gone for over 2 1/2 hours.

And once again, as this post is long enough as it is, the next post will continue this seemingly never ending drama. As you may have guessed she threw the boss, and myself to some extent, under the bus. She came back into the store all teary-eyed...... to be continued.

Well, She's Back: Part Two

Note: Reading the previous post prior to reading this one is recommended.

As mentioned in the previous post my boss has a new boss as of last July. There were many reasons for this change which I'll attempt to layout as follows:

1) We're a profitable store but not growing as fast as the average company store has the past year or two.

2) The previous district manager was too hands off and too far away from us to hold my boss accountable for store operations. He's close to retirement and is just basically on cruise control.

3) (This probably should have been #1) My boss, who is a nice guy, is probably the laziest person I've ever worked for.

4) The fact that we were short handed for the better part of 10 months does fall directly on my bosses shoulders. The lazy factor played a significant role in this.

5) His last hire, before bringing the Worthless Co-Worker back on board, was his brother-in-law who possibly was the nicest guy on the planet. He was probably the dumbest guy on the planet as well and couldn't give product away, much less sell anything. Hiring family is a violation of company policy as well.

6) My boss loves his laptop and always has his head buried in it watching sports on weekends and his head buried in facebook and yahoo games during the week. Naturally this is against company policy.

7) My boss is also a social butterfly who wanders the mall yapping at people in other stores and just generally goofing off rather than doing his job.

I think you guys get the picture by now.

So.... the new district manager:

1) Gung-ho.

2) Asshole, which honestly doesn't bother me much, and is definitely needed at this point.

3) Pretty smart guy, and pegged my boss from the get-go as a slacker.

4) Has zero tolerance for bullshit. (A trait I'm very fond of actually.)

5) Has a strong dislike of my boss.

Unlike our previous district manager who we saw for one day every quarter this guy shows up quite frequently. And usually unannounced, something the previous district manager never did. There's no doubt in my mind he's trying to catch my boss not following policies, and he has caught him at a few things, but nothing that would call for terminating him.

This district manager pretty much knows what is going on and is looking to catch my boss not doing his job. He's talked to people who have worked with my boss in our district in the past and has a pretty clear picture of what is going on.

Back in August this district manager called me 3 times in one week trying to wheedle information out of me about my boss and didn't like my response(s) to his calls. I neither confirmed, nor denied anything he'd heard or thought. I don't like to lie, but also didn't want to throw my boss under the bus. On the 3rd call I blew up at the district manager and told him to get off his ass and get down here and find out for himself what he was asking of me.

Basically my boss has been in hot water since this guy took over. But I can also say he's finally waking up and getting his act together. He's got a ways to go though and I'm not sure he's going to keep his job. It's a shame in one way because he's very capable of running the store if he'd just get off his ass and do it.

Adding insult to injury, so to speak, he hires back the Worthless Co-Worker. Her only redeeming quality is that she sells fairly well. She's also mentally unstable. I chose to describe her as mentally unstable rather than bat shit crazy because a lot of people will say someone is crazy. While I possess no degree in psychology I'm positive she's unstable.

So now the table is set and with the next post I will layout specifics on her actions and antics that is probably going to get my boss, and herself, fired before this circus act is over.

Stay tuned.... and stuff. 

Well, She's Back

As many some a few of you may remember we lost the Worthless Co-Worker in November of last year to true love..... or so she thought any way.

She ran off to Israel with this guy she met on the internet to get married in some type of old fashioned Jewish wedding. (Never mind that neither of them were Jewish.)  They met in person for the first time at Thanksgiving last year and a week later flew off for this wedding extravaganza in Israel.

Apparently they ran out of money and somehow decided that maybe a wedding was a bad idea as well. So back home they came and she moved to New Mexico to live with him. That lasted about three weeks and he threw her out declaring "she was the devil." She then moved in with a friend she met down there, which apparently didn't go so well either.

The only things she owned at the time were her clothes and an old car as she sold all of her worldly goods to run off to Israel to get married. So here she was broke, jobless, and not really too welcome in New Mexico last winter and spring.

In the mean time, we were short handed at work, for a comically long period of time. From November of last year until August of this year as a matter of fact. Oh we were able to get a few people hired but they never lasted more than a few weeks. (One of them lasted a total of 3 days.)

Last May the Worthless Co-Worker had finally managed to save enough money to get back to Wisconsin for one of her sister's wedding, still planning on returning to New Mexico afterwards for some reason. Again, she ran out of money while back here so she had just a suitcase of clothes with her. The bulk of her clothes and car were back in New Mexico.

She moved into another sister's place and took on some type of door-to-door job. (Selling cable/internet packages I believe on a bike for transportation.)

As an aside, this post is taking a long time to type. I think eating chili for breakfast is having something to do with that. At least it's what I'm going to blame it on. I'd like to also tell you that the chili was mighty tasty and a two bowl event. (Yeah, you might not want to hang out with me later today as it works it way through my system, just saying.)

Any way....

In August she finally had enough money to fly to New Mexico to get her car and clothes. She was gone for about a week to do this and lost her door-to-door job. She failed to mention that she was taking this trip to her employer and they terminated her. She thought this was very unfair of them, naturally.

So here it was August, her unemployed, us short handed. A very bad combination. She convinced the boss, and his new boss, how much she had grown up and she was going to be the consumate team player if she were rehired. Both of them bought into this fantasy.

(You know, now that I've had time to think about it, I've been very unfair in blaming the chili for the length of time this post is taking me to type. I think it may be the fact that I've got to go outside of the building to smoke. I'm pretty sure that's the hindering factor here.)

Where was I any way?

Oh.....

So she was hired. She's been nothing but trouble once the 30 day probation period ended in September. We'll definitely get into more details but more groundwork needs layed. Remember, I mentioned the boss has a new boss himself a few paragraphs ago. That plays a factor in all this as well and since this post is long enough as it is (and you have to recall I like cliffhangers as well) the next post will delve into that.

What? Like that's a surprise? Pfft....

This Place Is A Mess

Well.......

There's a lot of dust in here and I think I hear crickets chirping.

I dunno, maybe I left the door open or one of you did because this place is a mess.

But I'm back, somewhat.

(Yeah, that "somewhat" even makes me nervous.)

But I am back, just not sure of the frequency of posting as of yet.

I wish I could regale you with tales of the rock star life style I've been living the last couple of months but alas, I have no style, nor rock in my life. (Unless you count a rocking chair.)

No, nothing earth shattering happening here. Just lots of work, which of course can provide some blog fodder. I do have one story about an incident which happened last month where I thought I was in trouble but apparently I can't even manage to get myself in trouble properly at work any more. I'll share that soon.

As some of you know we lost the "Worthless Co-Worker at the end of October, of last year. We're still short handed. It's been a comedy of errors trying to get someone hired. We had a guy hired and he lasted 3 1/2 weeks of February. His girlfriend decided to dump him, so he decided he needed new scenery. As in moving to the other side of the state scenery.

We then hired a guy at the end of March, who lasted all of three days.

The boss and his wife had a baby in early April and he took two weeks of family leave which left me as the only person working for that period of time. He's also planning on taking a week of later this month because they have a timeshare deal which expires this year, so if it isn't used they lose out on some money, or something like that. I think the boss has tried to explain it in more detail but I haven't been too receptive in all honesty. I've just been kind of "meh" in regard to it.

I was actually off today. What did I do? I slept in, until just after 10:00 am. I then debated between  going hungry or grocery shopping. Grocery shopping won out. I then debated between running around naked at work tomorrow or doing a mountain of laundry. Laundry won out, as no one, including me, wants to see me sans clothes. I then took a two hour nap, and now I'm blogging. Just call me Mr. Excitement, huh?

Anyway.....

I'm back and I've got to get around to seeing what you guys/gals have been up to. I've missed you. Hopefully you all had a good Easter and here's wishing all you Mom's a great Mother's Day!

You Can't Keep Stupid At Home

Yesterday was a terrible day weather wise. We alternated between snow, sleet, freezing drizzle, sleet, (which felt like hail beating the hell out of you), back to snow. All of the precipitation that fell upon us hit you from the side as the wind was quite brisk. (Think Forrest Gump as he explained how the rain fell in Vietnam in one scene.)

Naturally it was a work day for me. The mall I work at rarely shuts down for winter weather. Last December when we got nailed with a blizzard that dropped 19 inches of snow on us we had to actually take it upon ourselves to walk out and shut down our store. The mall management refused to shut down until most of the stores closed on their own and walked out, with the threat of being fined by the mall for shutting down without the mall's express permission.

It was laughable when they finally declared that the mall was closing then. The mall was already effectively closed as only five or six stores were actually open when mall management declared the mall was going to close.

While we didn't receive anywhere near the amount of snow yesterday as we did in the December storm, the roads were treacherous. Freezing rain, drizzle, and sleet are more hazardous than snow, as most people know. I also knew there wasn't a chance that the mall would close, or refuse to open for that matter. I wasn't scheduled to be at work until 11:30 am. The storm hit here at about 8:00 am. Knowing the mall wouldn't be closed I grabbed a quick shower and headed out to work. I figured I might as well get to work safely as I knew getting home from work was going to involve much suckage. (And it did.)

I did eat breakfast at the local buffet as it's only a couple of blocks from the mall. I still arrived at work 90 minutes before the mall opened. In the space of 2 hours we had 5 inches of snow on the ground, then the freezing rain, sleet, drizzle hit. It was just plain miserable.

I called the boss and told him to stay home as I was already there. Both he and his wife had to work yesterday and I knew they would have to drag their toddler out to daycare if they both went to work. I figured there was no sense in dragging a little kid out in this weather. Apparently there aren't too many people who think like this though.

We stayed open, naturally. We also did absolutely no business yesterday. Zip and Nada were the words yesterday. Intelligent people stayed off the roads yesterday. Who didn't stay off the roads were teenagers and a few young couples with small children and babies. As I stood at the front of the store I had to step away and back into the store whenever I saw a young couple with a baby stroller walking by. I was incensed at their stupidity for dragging out little babies and toddlers in this weather.

The one time I didn't step away this young couple with a baby in a stroller paused and struck up a conversation with me, as follows:

Young wife: Where is everyone? The mall is really dead today.
Me: Most intelligent people stay home in bad weather.
Young husband: What did you say?
Me: Most intelligent people stay home in this weather.
Young husband: Are you calling us stupid?
Me: Not yet.
Young wife: It's not that bad out, now it's only freezing rain.
Me: The jury's not out any more on your intelligence I see.
Young husband: What does that mean?
Me: What that means is that I just called you stupid.
Young wife: We're adults and can decide for ourselves when to stay home.
Me: You sure can.
Young husband: It's really none of your business and we don't need your opinion.
Me: You two stopped here and asked where is everybody. I told you why the mall is dead today. If you didn't want my opinion you shouldn't have asked for it in the first place. Personally I couldn't care less about you and your wife driving in any type of weather. Your little baby on the other hand has no choice. You're risking the safety of your baby driving in this weather.
Young husband: You're an asshole.
Me: Possibly, but I'm not stupid. Now move along.
Young husband: Fuck you!!
Me: Brilliant comeback, now move along and get to that more important shopping than the safety of your child activity.
Young husband: Asshole.
Me: We've already established that. Bye.

And off they went, in a tiff I might add. And how bad were the roads yesterday? My normal 15 to 20 minute trip home took 47 minutes. (Why yes, I did time it.) The snow plows had down an awesome job in removing the snow so the roads could ice up when the freezing rain, drizzle, sleet hit. Nerve racking drive as any type of braking caused you to slide all over.

Sadly, it's not over with yet as freezing drizzle/rain is still currently falling. The trip to work later this morning isn't going to be any fun either apparently.

I Want A "Do-Over" This Week

Car Problems? Check.

Computer problems? Check.

Work Problems? Check.

Monday started off as any other Monday for me. Wake up, eat some breakfast, shower, and head to work. The only problem is that my car apparently wanted the day off. Trudged back inside, called son the mechanic to make arrangements for car problem, then called taxi to ferry my ass to work that day. Relatively cheap repair as the shop where my son works gives healthy discounts to family members. Car tow, new starter, and new oil pan gasket replaced for less than $260.00. (Apparently small oil leak from oil pan shorted out starter.)

My daughter's car also felt it was time to rebel against her as well. She fried her clutch on Monday for the second time in the last year. This wasn't a complete surprise, but not one I saw coming quite this soon as we'd replaced her clutch last summer. The kid likes driving a stick, but driving a stick isn't her forte. Mom and Dad raided their respective "piggy banks" and shelled out about $4000.00 for a different car, with an automatic transmission to keep the kid mobile.

My computer has been dying a slow death. Not a huge surprise since it's over six-years-old and gets a lot of use. Talked to the "Geek Squad" at Best Buy and they summed up the problem in a few words. After doing some remedial math on repair costs versus a new computer cost a new desk top computer was purchased last night. Nothing fancy but another $525.00 down the drain. (Well not exactly $525.00 but who counts pennies?)

I worked the last couple of days with the new kid we recently hired. I've been pretty impressed with him honestly. He's pretty sharp and nothing like the "Worthless Co-Worker" he replaced. He informed me yesterday that his girlfriend dumped him the day before Valentine's day. I momentarily felt bad about this until he told me the reason for the dump. Apparently she doesn't want to move to the other side of the state with him for a new job he accepted. His last day is an undetermined day next week. The boss, who has been off the last two days, has yet to be informed. That will happen today I guess. I don't see him staying beyond this weekend because the new place that hired him wants him "immediately" and he's raring to go. Since I'm off today and tomorrow I'm guessing Saturday will actually be his last day.

So the hiring process commences again. Hopefully it won't take 3 months to get him replaced as it did with the "Worthless Co-Worker." I'm not holding my breath though as it always takes an ungodly amount of time to get people hired here. The one thing I do know is that the boss will be thrust into panic mode about this. March isn't a good month to be short handed for us as we do a couple of off-site sales events in addition to having a store to staff. Compounding this is his wife is pregnant and due in late March as well. He had planned to take one week of vacation when the baby arrived which probably isn't feasible now.

That's been my week so far, how's your week going?

Just Random Ridiculous Crap

1) The lure of plastic, as in a credit card, seems to know no bounds to some people. First Premier Bank offers a credit card to people with less than stellar credit. It's a credit card with a typical credit limit set at $300.00 and an interest rate of 79.9%. There's also fees of $135.00 per year to own the card as well. The fees include $45.00 to open the account, an annual fee of $30.00 the first year, and a monthly fee of $6.25 for the pleasure of having this card. (The annual fee goes up the second year.)

Oddly enough (to me at least) this card has proven very popular to people. The CEO of First Premier Bank said while the card was popular the majority of people who had one ran it up to the credit limit, then defaulted on it. (Big surprise there, huh?)  A person can have several opinions or thoughts about this I guess. Two come to mind here. One being, how desperate do you have to be to want a credit card with an interest rate of 79.9%? The other thought is that a large default rate isn't surprising to me. I would think most people who would accept a card with this interest rate and fees probably have little to no intention of paying their bill. I can't feel sorry for the bank though. I'm sure the minority who do actually pay on time still allow this bank to swing a profit.

2) In regard to my last post -- the silly little mall marketing girl was terminated. (Almost forgot about that.)

3)  The last few days of work have been strange. I've had random high school and college aged girls who work in the mall randomly greet me when they see me at work. Some of the girls I know, some I don't. The weird part of the greeting is the word "Dad" they've thrown into their "hi's" and "hello's." All I get is a big smile and no explanation from them when I ask them why the "Dad" is thrown in there.

I ate lunch with Jackie today and when I told her about this she about died with laughter, then refused to tell me what the hell was going on until we were about done eating. A few years ago the girls who worked in the mall decided to take a poll about who was the creepiest guy who worked in the mall. Over the years this poll has taken on quite a new life and now they vote using several categories describing guys in the mall. Some flattering, some not so much as far as the categories goes.

I won the home away from home "Dad" award for some reason. My boss won the "Flirt" award. The "Creep" award was won by the guy who I've always referred to as "ex-convict" who works for the Gold Buyer's kiosk. He's a combination thug, wannabe gang banger I've marveled at keeping his job. Some of the other categories were "Old Pervert", "Hot Guy", "Geek", etc....

When I asked Jackie how she voted she said she didn't get to vote. Apparently this is confined to the younger generation. She just happened to have a couple of college girls working for her this year in her store and knew about the results because of this. She did say had she been able to vote the proper category for me was not listed that she'd use. Apparently "Pain In The Ass" wasn't a category. Given our history, I can't argue with that one I guess.

Silly girls anyway..... and there better not be any child support involved in this or I'm going to ask for a recount or new election. Of course with my luck, if I were to complain I'd probably get recast as the "Old Pervert." Maybe I'll just grin and bear it for now.

Some People Can't Just Leave Things Well Enough Alone

It's no secret that the mall marketing bitch person and I don't get along very well at all. I know I posted about a run-in she and I had previously. Perplexing to me is that post is nowhere to be found now to reference to. I don't know if I somehow deleted it or if Blogger somehow ate it.

As a recap she decided that in addition to her marketing duties for the mall she's also in charge of individual store operations as well. As we were shorthanded throughout the Christmas shopping season there were several 12-14 hour work days worked alone in our store. She decided breaks weren't allowed and much to her dismay I didn't bow down to her self delusional authority in this area. She pushed the issue and ended up getting in some hot water when she ran to the mall manager to complain about me. (She forgot there were witnesses to our encounter in December and her version of the confrontation didn't mesh well with mine, nor with the people who witnessed it.)

This thing just hasn't died out yet. In an effort to save face she has told anyone who actually listens to her, her version of the encounter and how she "put me in my place." Now for the most part the people she's told this story to is the maintenance and janitorial staff and other store staff at the opposite end of the mall from our store location. (Her version wouldn't fly at our end of the mall, too many witnesses saw the encounter.)

The mall is an interesting place to work and crap like this just keeps getting recycled. Every few days since we had this run-in someone stops into the store to let me know how her version of the story is evolving. The latest version is that she holds my job in her hands and I'm at her mercy to keep my job. She may rival the ex-Worthless Co-Worker in the stupidity department. I'll say it's been an amusing side show over the last couple of months.

No one actually believes her version of the story as most of the people she talks to know me as well, if not better, than they know her. Contrary to how I may appear in here at times with work issues I'm well liked and even tempered for the most part. I just simply don't tolerate bullshit.

Very few people like this girl in the mall. She's always on some weird power trip and used to getting her way. In reality she's at best inadequate at her job. She gets away with that for one reason only. She's 25-years-old and "hot." Every guy that works in the mall wants to see her. She reduces most of them into drooling babbling idiots. While most of them acknowledge she's a snobby bitch, her looks trump this to many of them. They just simply want to ogle when she walks by.

I'm a few years beyond the drooling and babbling stage when it comes to a pretty face. She's just simply an insecure, self entitled bitch who relies on her looks to get her by in life. Sadly, in many cases this works.

This amusing sideshow moved center stage yesterday. The mall manager stopped into our store to talk about "a problem" that needs resolved. Apparently this girl really holds a grudge. She informed the mall manager that I somehow interfere with her doing her job and that I intimidate and harass her whenever she comes to our end of the mall.

Oddly enough I've only seen this girl one time since we had our little run-in last December. That one time was at least a month ago when I decided to punish myself and go to the other end of the mall to the food court to eat lunch one day. She was heading in my direction and when she saw me approaching her she abruptly turned around and scurried back to her office to avoid me. I haven't seen her at our end of the mall in two months.

I informed the mall manager of this and told him maybe he should check with the other stores at our end of the mall if he wanted to verify this. I told him she's been sorely missed, by a lot of the guys who work at this end of the mall, because they miss seeing "eye candy." Her absence at this end of the mall hasn't gone unnoticed to say the least. Since he's been out of the loop I also informed him of her stories she's told about this incident that occurred in December and that the real reason she hasn't ventured to our end of the mall is that she knows most people are on to her bullshit and she's embarrassed to be seen down here.

He went off to canvas the other stores to verify her absence, then stopped back into the store to inform me he no longer had a problem with me. He had another problem to deal with now as apparently no one recalls seeing her in quite some time at this end of the mall. He also talked to a couple of janitors who told him about her bragging about trying to get me fired as well.

We talked for a few more minutes and the gist of the conversation was that I'll probably not be seeing her again in the mall, at least as someone who's employed by the mall. I was decent enough to tell him that firing her wasn't absolutely necessary if he could just simply tell her to keep her trap shut, do her job, and that I couldn't care less if she comes to this end of the mall because she means nothing to me and has no affect on me. I don't interact with people who I dislike unless they choose to speak to me first. Intimidating or harassing petulant little girls isn't my style.

I don't believe he thinks she's worth the trouble to keep employed though. We'll see what happens.

Bow-legged Shuffle And A Missed Ride

Kids of every generation wear clothes that befuddle us old folks. Weirdly dyed hair, piercing of body parts not meant to be pierced occur, tattoos that are a bit much, and other oddities. For the most part I just shake my head in amusement quite frankly.

(Although apparently I'm not always amused. I remember my son coming home one night about 8 years ago when he was nineteen with blue hair. I do recall not saying anything though. As he walked into the living room and glanced over at me I apparently didn't hide my dismay very well. He also misinterpreted my look of dismay as one of anger because his first words were, "Dad, don't worry, it washes right out and I'm going to wash it out right now." I never uttered a word in response. I can say I think back on that night with amusement now though.)

There is one fad, or style, if you will, that seems to defy running its course though. (The use of the term style is used loosely here. The term running plays a role here though.) That's the wearing of pants hanging down somewhere between the bottom half of one's ass and one's knees. 

It seems like the first time I saw young guys running around with their pants hanging off their asses was about 10 years ago. I remember thinking how ridiculous this latest "fad" or "style" was and that it couldn't last long. Apparently it has endured though because young guys still run around wanting to show us their boxers, or lack thereof of undergarments.

Watching them try to walk a straight line amuses me. They all invariably have to wear a belt cinched tightly to keep the pants somewhat held above their knees and can't actually walk placing their feet directly in front of them. Their feet have to shuffle forward, placed about a foot to the outside of their shoulders, to keep their pants from falling down around their ankles. Trying to run had to be hilarious, but until Sunday I hadn't seen that feat attempted.

I was standing outside Sunday at work taking a smoke break. The mall exit I do this by also serves as the bus stop exit. As I was standing out there the city bus was there and it was the last bus of the day coming/leaving the mall. As the bus started to pull away a young guy burst out of the mall and started running after the bus. At first I thought there was something wrong with the kid and he had some kind of disability by the way he was running. His legs were splayed way out to the right and left of him as he "shuffled" after the bus. His pants were losing altitude as the bus faded from my view, as well as his view. He finally gave up the chase, with his pants now located below his knees. 

I wasn't laughing just yet though. Plenty of other people were though. He then started to shuffle back to the mall trying to pull his pants back up. This effort caused me to laugh. He kept yanking at them and they wouldn't come up over his knee area. Apparently the belt was cinched so tight he had to stop and release the belt buckle, then the pants nose dived around his ankles, with him then holding the belt in his hand as it slipped out of the belt loops in his pants completely. I had tears running down my face as he stood there with his pants down around his ankles and a belt dangling in one hand.

As he commenced his walk of shame shuffle back to the mall entrance I noticed he was a tad upset. Missing the last bus I surmised could do that I thought. Compounding that with the fact that I was still laughing encouraged him to threaten me with an "ass kicking" as well as he shuffled up to the mall entrance. Stupid kid. All this did was to get me laughing much harder at him. When I informed him threats from a kid who couldn't keep his pants up weren't to be taken seriously he muttered a few curse words at me and went back into the mall.

Gee, I sure hope he found a ride home.

So I Dated Loni Anderson

I got a little more exposure to the new guy we hired last Monday yesterday. The first couple of weeks of a new hire's life is one I'm not exposed to much quite frankly. For one, the newbie works exclusively with the boss for training purposes. Two, the boss doesn't want the newbie to pick up my bad habits, at least immediately.

He seems like a likable kid, and has a girlfriend who works in the mall as well. Yesterday was a slow day in the mall. Freezing rain kept most sane people off the road and at home. The boss, newbie hire, and I were just shooting the breeze when the newbie's girlfriend comes into the store on her break.

Gullibility ensued.

She walks up to me and introduces herself as Loni, states how much she's heard about me, and how pleased she is to meet me. Nice girl, but very gullible, along with newbie hire being gullible as well. The conversation is as follows:

Newbie Girlfriend: (walking up to me) Hi! I'm Loni, (newbie hire's girlfriend)
Me: Hi back. Weird, you're only the second person named Loni I've met in my life.
Newbie Girlfriend: Really?
Me: Yup.
Boss: Hey JPT, why don't you tell (Newbie Hire and Loni) about the first Loni you met.
Me: I don't think they'd be interested quite frankly.
Boss: C'mon, sure they would.
Newbie Girlfriend: Sure we would! I can't believe I'm the only second Loni you've ever met.
Newbie Hire: You might as well tell her about the first Loni, she 's just going to wonder how it's possible you've only met one before her.
Me: Huh.
Boss: Go ahead JPT. They'll be amazed by this one.

(Now the boss is just goading me on and wants a joke to be played here. I'm more than willing to play along at this point.)

Me: Well, the first Loni I ever met was Loni Anderson.
Newbie Girfriend: Are you kidding me?
Newbie Hire: Seriously?
Me: Wow, I'm impressed you know who that is. I figured you two were too young to know who that is.
Boss: Tell them the whole story.
Newbie Hire: Whole story?
Boss: He didn't just meet her. He knows her very well.
Newbie Girlfriend: You actually know her?
Me: Yup.
Newbie Girlfriend: Oh my gawd! You actually know a celebrity?
Boss: He sure does.
Newbie Girlfriend: That is awesome! How'd you ever meet her?
Me: Well, she's from Iowa (not really) and I lived there for several years (really) and we met at the state fair back in 1981.
Newbie Hire: Loni Anderson and you met at a fair?
Boss: They did, he's got pictures to prove it.
Newbie Hire: Seriously?
Me: Yup. She was doing some TV promo and I ended up getting a picture taken with her while she was there.
Newbie girlfriend: So you ended up being friends with her because of a picture?
Boss: Just tell them the whole story. You guys will be amazed.
Newbie girlfriend: There's more?
Me: I guess there's a little more.
Newbie Hire: Like what?
Boss: He dated Loni Anderson for almost a month.
Newbie Girlfriend: You've got to be kidding!
Me: It was only for about three weeks.
Newbie Hire: You dated Loni Anderson? How did a picture turn into a date?
Me: It wasn't just a picture. She's a huge fan of ferris wheel rides. I ran the ferris wheel that year at the fair.
Newbie Hire: You worked at the fair?
Me: That's just one of the jobs I've held. I gotta tell you, carnies get a bad rap.
Newbie Girlfriend: You were a carny?
Me: Not a full fledged one, but I operated the ferris wheel that year and Loni Anderson and I talked for a bit while she was waiting in line for a ferris wheel ride.
Newbie Girlfriend: That is so bizarre!
Me: It is, now that I think about it.
Newbie Hire: So how did this all turn into you dating her.
Me: When she got off the ferris wheel she asked me when I got off work. Jokingly, I told her any time she wanted me to. She then asked me if I'd like to go to dinner with her that evening and I said yes. That's basically how it started.
Newbie Hire: I'm not sure I believe this.
Me: Whatever.
Boss: I can tell you it's true. He has several pictures of them together doing a lot of things and in a lot of different places.
Newbie Girlfriend: So what happened?
Me: Well she was between a marriage and before hooking up with Burt Reynolds, who's an asshole by the way. I was simply a fling for her. A boy toy if you will. You have to remember I was only 21 and she was about 14 years older than me.
Newbie Hire: So, did you and her....?
Me: C'mon now. That's not the kind of thing I'd talk about.
Boss: They sure did!!
Me: Thanks boss.
Newbie Girlfriend: Wow, just wow! That had to be an exciting time in your life I'll bet.
Me: Some would say intoxicating.
Newbie Girlfriend: So what happened to end this?
Me: Burt Reynolds.
Newbie Girlfriend: No wonder you think he's an asshole!
Me: No wonder indeed.

That pretty much ended the conversation. Newbie hire and his girlfriend decided to go eat lunch. The boss and I chuckled quite a bit while Newbie hire was gone. I'm sure one of these days I'll have to explain to these gullible people that while it's true I've only met one other Loni in my life, it was my ex-sister-in-law, who was not Loni Anderson by any means. We'll see how long we can string them along though before that happens.

Because You Never Know What Offends

Sports fans can be a nutty bunch. Not all of them, nor even a majority of them, but enough to cause logical people to pause and wonder what is wrong with people.

A Chicago area car salesman was fired for wearing a Green Bay Packers tie yesterday to work. From everything I've read and seen that is the only reason given for being fired. The owner of this car dealership said he feared backlash from customers and the Bears organization due to past promotions involving the Bears.

Sadly there's about as much validity, as there is lameness, involved with this decision. Should the guy have been fired? Probably not. Was he asked first to remove the tie, and refused? That I don't know. From a personal standpoint if I had been the guy's boss, or the owner of said car dealership, he probably wouldn't  have been fired.

From a business standpoint the salesman himself is wrong as well. He shouldn't be, but he is. (That makes sense, huh?) From a business standpoint the tie had to go though.

I've been in sales for a number of years. One of the first things I was taught was that you never know what can offend someone, so you don't wear any apparel sporting any type of logo, or verbiage, that can scuttle a potential sale. Seems silly, but sadly it's true. (Wearing logo from the company you actually work for is allowed naturally.) I've witnessed salespeople thrown out of nutty sports fans homes because they were wearing a shirt sporting the name of the team the home owner despises. Nutty sports fans buy things. Businesses do want their money.

My boss got a taste of this yesterday as well. In the four years I've known him he's been a huge Pittsburgh Steelers fan. Every winter he's worn a heavy winter coat sporting that team logo. We live in Wisconsin and now that the Packers and Steelers are going to the Super Bowl all the nutty Packer fans are out in force. He ran our store's bank deposit over to the bank and received a ration of crap and name calling over the coat. Some good natured comments, but some down right nasty and threatening.

He went to leave work yesterday and we were standing at the front of the store shooting the breeze when a middle-aged couple walked past us. They stopped and asked him if he thought it was wise to wear that coat. They also assumed he wasn't from here. Once they heard he lived here and managed this store their comment was that they'd never shop at our store while he was employed here. That's how nutty some people are, and sadly businesses can't afford to alienate them. Or won't.

Now if I were the boss, would I leave this coat at home and wear another coat? No. If he had worn a tie, or shirt with a team logo, that would be different though. We actually have a company dress code which covers this, so it's not an issue. It's understood upfront, as silly as it may seem to be. And, from a business standpoint it makes sense sadly. But it's still a shame that people act this way over something as inconsequential as this.

Getting back to the car salesman in the Chicago area. He was offered, and accepted, another job at a different dealership today. He probably shouldn't have been fired in the first place. But while another place of business did hire him, I'm willing to bet they have a dress code in place which prohibits the tie from being worn, because they may despise this type of nutty behavior by sports fans, they still want their business.

Crap like this personally drives me insane, but I've accepted it as a part of doing business. My livelihood is based on making sales. It's simply safer and wiser to dress accordingly. Why invite more nuttiness in the sales process than necessary? We already have enough fruit loops enter the store as it is to deal with who act like idiots. I already deal with enough of them without adding nutty spots fans into the equation. My tolerance gets tested enough as it is, because I don't tolerate idiots very well.

We're Fully Staffed

Today, if he shows, we're finally fully staffed at work. I'm assuming the new guy will show since he called me yesterday, while I was at work, to confirm what time he should show up today. He was actually hired a few weeks ago but couldn't start until today. He wanted to give his old employer a two weeks notice then wanted a week to move here.

The hiring process where I work is oddly complex and amusing to me. Amusing to me due to how my boss approaches it anyway. He strives to keep new people away from me as long as possible. The new guy will go through a two week training process and I'll have little to no contact with him. It's kind of weird and makes sense at the same time.

He's a young guy, fresh out of college. Apparently he's good looking based on the opinions of all the girls who work in the mall and saw him when he was in for his interview. I know a number of them have bugged the hell out me over the last couple of weeks for information about him. They were less than pleased to find out that the only things I know about him is his first name and that he already has a girlfriend here who he is/has moved in with. I'm pretty sure a couple of them are scheming to break him up and try to devour him themselves.

We had a decent conversation and my hopes for another "Worthless Co-Worker" aren't looking too good for the blog, based on our conversation. Here's a snippet of our conversation:

New Guy: Is (store manager) in?
Me: Nope. He's gone for the day.
New Guy: I was wondering what time I should come in tomorrow.
Me: He didn't tell you?
New Guy: He said to call in today and he'd let me know.
Me: Oh. Well you'll be working his schedule for the first two weeks. Come in at 9:30 tomorrow morning.
New Guy: Do you think I should call him at home to confirm this?
Me: You can if you want.
New Guy: I thought he was going to be at work all day today.

Me: He was but the Steelers are playing, so he left early because he's a big fan of them.

New Guy: He's a Steeler fan? In Wisconsin?

Me: Yeah, there's no accounting for taste.

New Guy: I'm looking forward to meeting you. I've heard a lot about you.

Me: I'm sure you have.

New Guy: You know I've stopped in the store a couple of times wanting to meet you the last few weeks but you were never there.

Me: We'll meet tomorrow.

New Guy: (Store manager) says you're a good guy and that we'll gt along well.

Me: I'm sure we will.

New Guy: Will you be training me at all? (Store manager) says you're one of the top sales people in the company.

Me: Nope.
New Guy: No?

Me: (Store manager) does all the training. You'll be fine, he does a good job with the training.

New Guy: I was hoping I'd learn from the best.

Me: I'm not the best.

New Guy: Well, he says you are.

Me: He's a nice guy, and he's also a good friend. He'll train you well and you won't pick up on my bad habits.

New Guy: Your bad habits?

Me: Yes.

New Guy: He never mentioned anything about your bad habits.

Me: He will.

New Guy: That's weird.

Me: I used to think so too.

New Guy: But not any more?

Me: Nope. I do have bad habits.

New Guy: So he's okay with your bad habits?

Me: Yes.

New Guy: So he puts up with your bad habits?

Me: Yes. Let me explain a bit here. He wants you to learn the sales process by the book. It's a good process and everything you learn, and the order of the sales process, is important. I kind of do my own thing and it's effective. About the only thing the boss would want you to pay attention to, that I do, would be closing a sale. 

New Guy: So you don't follow the sales process?

Me: Yes and no.

New Guy: You're not a lot of help.

Me: That's why I'm not training you. You'll be just fine.

New Guy: So (store manager) doesn't get upset with how you do things?

Me: Rarely. For everything he'd get irritated with, I do many more things he's happy with.

New Guy: Well, okay. I won't tell him we had this talk.

Me: Feel free to share it with him.

New Guy: Seriously?

Me: Yup. (Store manager) and I have a good working relationship and we're pretty open here. He's going to tell you the same thing over the next two weeks anyway.

New Guy: You know I worked in sales before. It's kind of dog eat dog.

Me: That won't work here. 

New Guy: (Store manager) said the same thing. I'm hoping that's true.

Me: Here's the one thing I'll tell you that the boss will agree with. If you put the store sales goal ahead of your own personal sales goal you'll be just fine. What I've learned is that if the store is doing well, generally everyone is doing well. If you only concentrate on your own personal goal with no regard to the other people you work with, over the long run you'll end up with less sales, and less income. We work with each other and help each other out. We don't begrudge anyone else doing well. It's a team effort.

New Guy: Boy I hope that's true.

Me: It is true. You're the only one who can screw that up because the boss and I are on the same page with this concept.

New Guy: So no backstabbing, no stealing sales, sales leads, none of that stuff?

Me: None.

New Guy: Man , that's great!

Me: It is. Anything else you need to know?

New Guy: I don't think so.

Me: Okay then, I'll see you tomorrow afternoon.

I'm thinking he's going to work out just fine. He was articulate and friendly on the phone. I'm also sure he's going to have a few bad habits of his own. He just doesn't need to pick up any from me.

A Twitter Trend Is Probably To Blame

Why I decided to wake up at 4:12 am is a mystery. What force of nature would cruelly interrupt a blissful slumber like that? Unfortunately once awakened, after getting more than 4 hours of sleep, I learned long ago not to fight it and to simply get up. I'm not going to fall back to sleep.

But there had to be a reason for this awakening.

Was it the euphoria of the Packer victory last night?

Nah. While the Packers are one of my favorite teams I'm not obsessed with sports.

Was it the fact that there are a few dishes sitting in the sink in need of washing?

Again, nah, that isn't anything extraordinary here. I think one bowl, a dinner plate, and two spoons in need of washing can't possibly be responsible. I just can't drum up any guilt for unwashed dishes.

Was it the fact that I may have consumed one too many diet Coke's prior to going to bed last night?

This may be closer to the truth, but again, not exactly something new. But definitely something to consider. But it just didn't feel right.

I fired up the computer and perused through the sports section. Nothing overly exciting happening there. I read a few financial pages, hoping boring crap like that would tire me out. Total failure for that thought process.

I glanced at Twitter and finally hit upon the reason for being awakened. One of the "Top Trends" listed was "RIP JUSTIN BIEBER."

I have to tell you euphoria set in.

Not that I wished the kid dead by any means. I knew it was a hoax without investigating it. But there was a great amount of amusement on my part to see little teeny bopper girls, who should be asleep themselves, all wrapped up in the trend.

But I looked at this as a win/win situation for me today.

One win would be if the kid was actually dead the mall would be empty of air-headed annoying teeny bopper girls today when I go to work. They'd all be sitting at home in their bedrooms staring blankly at their Justin Bieber posters crying their little eyes out.

The other win, which I'm sure Bieber would be more on board with, is that this hoax of a trend would still keep these little piss ant air-headed girls out of the mall as well today. I'm positive they'll stay on the computer venting their wrath about the cruelty of this hoax all day long.

Either way, it's a win for me. So Justin, dead or alive, have a restful and peaceful day. I'm hoping the same for myself.

I Can't Decide If People Piss Me Off Or Sadden Me

People bother me lately. I'm totally confused with the stupidity, rudeness, and self entitlement exhibited by people I've run into the last week or so.

Example One:

The entrance to the mall where I work has three receptacles for cigarette butts. Three receptacles which see very little use. One on each side of the doors entering the mall and one located next to a bench people use while waiting for the city bus to come. They're not hidden and they're strategically placed for ease of use.

When I'm outside I'll see people walking up to enter the mall glance around looking for a place to put out their cigarettes and despite the fact that there are three receptacles in sight they still throw them down at their feet as they enter the mall. I've even pointed them out as I see people looking for a place to put out their butts and they still throw them down on the ground. They can't seem to be bothered with veering to their left, or right, a couple of steps to properly dispose them. 'Effin pigs.

Example Two:

Handicapped parking has become a joke. We have ample handicapped parking and quite frankly most of the people using it have no business using it. They deny the spaces for people who genuinely need it. Mall walkers are the biggest abusers of these parking spaces. Many of them make 5 "laps" around the mall which encompasses walking approximately 3 miles and they have to park in a handicapped space? Sorry, in my opinion if you can walk 3 miles daily you don't need to park in a handicapped spot.

I've seen people park in these spots and get out of their cars and literally run into the mall as well. I told one person a few days ago that I wished I was as handicapped as she was. She could outrun me. This went totally over her head. My guess is she was simply driving someone else's car with the handicapped plates and took advantage of the parking space, thus denying the space to someone who truly needs it.

I know there are people who are truly disabled and need these parking spaces. My guess is that 50% of people who have a handicapped plate/sticker don't deserve it. It's too easy to go to a doctor and whine about a "disability" and get approved for a handicap plate/sticker. We've become a nation of wimps, self entitled wimps at that.

Example Three:

We had an idiot customer enter the store on Wednesday. (C'mon people, you had to know an idiot customer was going to appear here, right?)

While I say idiot customer he didn't buy anything in our store. He had to stop in and complain about our company because he bought one of our products at another store approximately 75 miles from us. In his opinion we are a shifty and deceptive retail store and have ripped him off.

His complaint?

We have a referral program that if you buy our product and recommend our product to someone else, and they buy as well, (and keep product), you earn gift certificates. There's no limit to the program. We've had numerous people use this program and I've had people come in the store with $200 worth of gift certificates to use for referring people to our products. Quite frankly it's a nice program.

This mental giant of course didn't think so. He told me he had personally sent a dozen people into our store in the last month alone and had never gotten credit for a gift certificate. When I asked him for names he provided me with 4 names. At this point I was taking him relatively seriously, so I looked up the four names in our system and they weren't there.

I then asked him what they bought here. His reply, "Nothing."

Well, Mr. Rocket Scientist Customer, they have to buy something. This was explained to him and he went off the deep end. It was an incredible moment of stupidity on display. I asked him if he really believed that just by sending someone into the store that he was going to get something, for nothing? Apparently so. When I asked him if he read the terms of the policy he said yes, and that he fully understood them, and we were out to "screw" him over. I couldn't even get mad at this guy. I just simply told him to leave, and maybe reread the policy, that he actually signed as a part of his receipt.

So he leaves the store and sits on a bench in front of our store and every 1 or 2 minutes starts shouting to people walking by not to enter our store because we're evil, the devil, shysters, etc.... We were honestly amused by this as were most people walking by it appeared. Mall security finally walked by and asked the guy to leave the mall.

The only thing I can come up with is that Darwin's Theory has in itself become obsolete. Modern science/medicine has kept dumb people alive much longer than they should have survived with the stupidity they possess.

Things At Work Are Looking Up

After yesterday's post this update will seem anti-climatic, at least in my opinion.

The payroll situation was actually resolved before I went to work. The boss once again surprised me and impressed me. After he got off the phone with me he called his boss about the situation, who then called his boss in the corporate office to get to the bottom of the 10 day old missing paycheck.

This regional vice-president then investigated, in stealth mode apparently. She checked the outgoing mail from the payroll department for the day and lo and behold there was a paycheck located in the stack with my home address in it. (The very same paycheck that the payroll clerk told me and my boss was mailed December 23rd.)

She then pulled the payroll check from the stack, took it to her assistant with orders to have it sent overnight by UPS to our store location to ensure that I'd have my now 11 day old paycheck in hand later today.

She then proceeded to confront the payroll clerk about the situation and the payroll clerk lied to her as well stating that the paycheck had been mailed December 23rd. Apparently this didn't go over well and the payroll clerk is in hot water now. (I'm assuming she may have been fired, but as the boss and I are low on the totem pole we were just simply told the problem has been fixed.)

I received a call from the regional vice-president yesterday afternoon at work and she apologized to me for the oversight and ensured me that this wouldn't happen again. She was very nice, and seemed genuinely distraught about this situation.

When I got off the phone with her, and the boss and I were talking, his boss called and talked to me. I like this guy and I've known him for about 5 years longer than my boss has. We've always gotten along well. He let me in a something I wasn't even aware of, nor something I'd never even thought about.

In the approximately nine years I've worked for the company I've never missed a yearly sales goal. This I knew naturally. I've missed an occasional monthly sales goal though over the years. What I didn't know was that in 2009, the worst year in retail in recent history, I was in the top 15 in sales company wide. Out of approximately 3500 salespeople nationwide there were less than 40 salespeople who exceeded their yearly sales goal. I pretty much thought 2009 sucked myself and I barely made goal that year coming in at 107% to goal. (I had to look that up after the call.) Apparently they want to keep me around for awhile, which is nice, because I really do like my job.

So this problem is resolved, unless I don't receive the check today.

The other reason things are looking up at work is that we've finally hired someone contingent on them passing a background check, which should happen. He'll be starting on January 24th so I'm thinking by early February he'll be fully trained and work hours will get back to normal.

So overall, not a bad day after all.

Feeling Poorly

I get paid every two weeks.

Scratch that.

I'm supposed to get paid every two weeks.

A few months ago my paycheck was delayed, along with the (ex)Worthless Co-Workers. At that time this was a minor annoyance to me and a life shattering event to the (ex)Worthless Co-Worker. The payroll department blamed it on the postal service, which may have been the reason for all I know. That incident caused the (ex)Worthless Co-Worker to lose her mind. (What little she possessed anyway.) She thoroughly pissed off everyone in the payroll department with wild accusations of why she didn't receive her paycheck. Sadly comical.

I can't honestly totally buy into blaming the postal service though myself. The (ex)Worthless Co-Worker and I lived in different towns so that would mean two different postal offices would have been involved in this dastardly conspiracy. We did both receive our checks though about 2 days later after informing payroll about the lack of funds. My guess is they simply forgot to mail them and when notified about it someone noticed them sitting somewhere in the payroll department, then threw them in the mail.

Neither she nor I had made use of direct payroll deposit, so our checks were mailed to us. Hers was mailed because her credit was so bad that no bank would let her have a checking account. I simply like paper paychecks and waiting an additional day or two is no big deal to me.

I may have to rethink that now.

My last payday was Friday. Meaning Friday, of the Christmas Eve variety. Like ten days ago. Since they mail payroll checks on Thursday nights I wasn't too concerned with the lack of a paycheck for a few days, holidays and all. I figured I'd have to wait until last Tuesday at the latest for a check to arrive.

Tuesday arrived, right on schedule, but no check.

Wednesday arrived, as it always does after a Tuesday, but no check.

Slight concern crowded my mind, but I remembered from the last incident that in the payroll policy it states somewhere to allow a week for a check to arrive before whining to payroll about a lack of a paycheck. No problem.

Thursday arrived. A day off for me. (Gotta love days off.)

And as you've probably already guessed, no paycheck. Moderate concern now. Hey, I'm not a rich guy by any means and I'd just spent a truckload of money on Christmas. I was feeling a bit of a cash crunch. Still not quite an earth shattering event though. Since I was off and knew no one in corporate would be working on Friday I called the boss and asked him to call corporate to inform them that I hadn't been paid yet, and to look around and see if maybe they had forgotten to mail it. Since last payday was Christmas Eve I figured things were probably hectic for that department and getting them into the mail just may have been overlooked. I fully realize mistakes can be made and shit happens.

He dutifully calls and no one is there. They left at noon to start the New Year's weekend early apparently.

Friday arrived and yet again, no paycheck.

So Monday (today) rolls around and I get a phone call from the payroll department based off the message the boss left for them last Thursday. The lady was a total bitch. Apparently she had me confused with the (ex)Worthless Co-Worker, or the boss left a nasty message last week. In her opinion it's my fault for not receiving my check because I don't do direct deposit. (Just when I was thinking about going that route her attitude about it probably  has me not electing to go that way now.) She informed me how hard it is to mail a paycheck. When I asked how much harder it could be than sending a copy of the paycheck to everyone, regardless if they have direct deposit it or not, she totally flipped out. They mail a pay stub to everyone. I also pointed out that my boss had received, in the mail, his pay stub, and he does direct deposit.

After her tirade about me not joining the 21st century and doing direct deposit she asked me what I wanted her to do.

Well, 'effin duh, pay me, perhaps?

I remained civil, surprisingly so. My boss is a little nervous though. He knows how I normally react to bitches/assholes.

I informed the bitch that I would check my mail tonight when I get home from work and if it wasn't there I'd call her tomorrow and they'd have to resend it, then I hung up without waiting for a reply from her. Naturally I'm the bad guy here because within 10 minutes of me hanging up the boss calls me and asked why I hung up on this bitch. She apparently lit into him and told him a bunch of bs about our phone call. Seething, I told him exactly went on with this crazy bitch.

I almost hope there's no paycheck in my mailbox when I get home tonight now. Since she feels I was the asshole in our conversation today she's going to get her wish tomorrow if there's no check.

Since I'm down to $17.00 dollars in my wallet and the need of gas and cigarettes are on the horizon I'll have to stop at my bank on the way to work to pull some money out of savings. I absolutely hate pulling money out of savings. I like money to stay there once I put it there. But I'm doing it, and I'm not going the direct deposit route now. If it's truly harder to process my paycheck for her I have no intention of making this bitches job any easier.

As I'm sitting here, getting more and more pissed, I know exactly what I'm going to do, even as much as it hurts to pull money out of savings I'm going to pull out $200.00 in cash. (I'm a big fan of cash availability.) I'm also going to transfer $2000.00 from savings to checking so that I can ride out any more crap like this in the future. (Should it occur again.)

And tomorrow, if there's no check, I'll be calling payroll with the boss present, with her and I on speaker phone, so he can hear this silly bitch rant and rave.

The saddest part of all this is I don't care if they screwed up and simply forgot to mail the damn check. I just want it mailed. Mistakes happen. Should this be the case and she simply forgot to mail it, she'll never admit to it though. She's not the type of person who admits to making a mistake in my opinion.

Maybe Being Shorthanded At Work Isn't So Bad

We've been without the (ex)Worthless Co-Worker for a little over two months now. The first month wasn't so hard to deal with, but the month of December sucked. Now that the Christmas shopping season is over this shorthanded gig is much more tolerable. While we still work two 12 hour days per week we at least get two days off per week. I think I only had two days off total in December.

The boss actually interviewed two people last week and seemed impressed with one of them. The first guy didn't stand a chance though and he was the only one I actually saw. Two things seemed to sink his chances. One being his age, he is older than the boss, which for some reason bothers the boss. The other is that the boss feels he'd be too much like me. I actually found that amusing. Apparently I'm not very "bossable" and the boss needs someone he can boss around.

The 2nd guy he liked. A young guy fresh out of college who is apparently very "bossable." I believe this guy will go through a phone interview with the district manager tomorrow and if he impresses him he'll get a job offer. It sounds like he can start mid January, so hopefully when February rolls around he'll be fully trained and we'll be back to a normal work schedule.

But as far as January goes, being shorthanded isn't necessarily a bad thing.

For you see January is a cold month.

My son and I like to fish. Actually I like to fish, my son is a fishing fanatic. A few years ago he embraced ice fishing, me, not so much. I resisted any and all attempts he made into talking me into ice fishing until last January. I only gave in then because the prior Christmas his gifts to me were all ice fishing equipment and his persistence had to be rewarded.

Now the kid had everything you could possibly need for ice fishing. A two-man shanty, a heater, more than enough fishing equipment, etc. My thought, at the time, was a heated shanty would probably be tolerable so we went fishing on a Saturday last January that I had off of work. Our work schedules don't mesh well for things like this. He has weekends off all the time, I usually have one weekend off a month.

But he was excited. He finally had talked the "old man" into ice fishing.

So the day we went ice fishing was cold. Cold as in 22 'effin degrees below zero. Needless to say dressing warmly was in order. And dressed warmly I was. We hauled all this crap out to this great fishing spot he had found.

Have I mentioned it was cold out?

I was freezing by the time we got to this hot fishing spot. I was still on board though and pretending to be a good trooper. I just knew once we got the shanty set up and the heater working I'd be warming up in no time at all. Yeah, not so much. That heater might have raised the temperature inside the shanty to 5 degrees below zero. I was miserable. That heater was basically useless.

By the time I got home I couldn't feel my toes, nor my hands. I literally cried with pain as I ran my hands under warm water to get what I suspect were frozen blood vessels flowing again.

The next day I went out and bought another heater for the kid for his igloo on sled rails. I did go one other time with him in February last year as well. The only difference was the temperature outside was almost 30 degrees above zero and we now had two heaters for the ice shanty. Much better experience, but ice fishing still isn't something I'm crazy about.

So now we're into January again, as in the coldest month of the year. And as you've probably guessed the kid wants to drag my ass out ice fishing again. He has compelling arguments, at least in his own mind. A new ice fishing shanty and a new heater which he guarantees will drive us out into the cold to cool off it works so well.

My reply to him was "It's a shame we're still shorthanded at work son. I don't foresee a weekend off until mid February." As I uttered those words I tried my best to look extremely sad. I'm not sure he bought into my act though. But I know I'm going to stay warm this January.

Life Has Become Like A Never Ending Shampoo

Yes, life is just a daily lather and rinse job, then repeat. I'm feeling a little less than human, and more mundane machine like. I almost miss the ex-Worthless Co-Worker. (Key word being almost.) There is some news about her though, albeit mostly rumors and odd facts. We'll get to that in a bit.

The last week has been mostly irritant free when it comes to dealing with customers. I guess all the assholes got their shopping done earlier this month. Now that I've typed that I'm sure that'll change with the few shopping days left before Christmas.

I did have a confrontation with the mall marketing manager the week before last. She's a piece of work. She seems to think she can tell stores how to operate on a daily basis. When I pointed out that she's just simply a marketing manager and has no say in how we operate she went off the deep end, which resulted in me going off on a much deeper end on her ass. To make a long story short she was trying to impress two friends she had in the mall one day and crossed my path in her efforts to impress them.

Then she made the mistake of going to the mall manager and telling her tale of woe about me. (She really doesn't like me much apparently.) Stupid woman. She forgot that there were several witnesses to our encounter as it happened in front of our store and her story didn't match up with mine, nor the witnesses. So she ended up getting her ass chewed and told to simply do her own job, and quit interfering with store operations.

We haven't seen her since, which is upsetting to the witnesses to our encounter as they're the guys in the Verizon Wireless kiosk in front of our store. They're young guys and like ogling her as she struts up and down the mall, as long as that's all she does and doesn't stop and talk to them. I guess I've reached an age where a good looking, but snobby control type bitch isn't worth ogling over. I hope she never comes to our end of the mall ever again myself.

There's that I guess. Now we can cover the exploits of the ex-Worthless Co-Worker.

1) From a mall janitor -- He stated that he knew the ex-Worthless Co-Worker didn't go to Israel and get married and that she moved into her mother's home about 40 miles away. This didn't turn out to be true though.

Because.....

2) Two days later a sister of the ex-Worthless Co-Worker stopped in and said that she did indeed go to Israel with the "spiritual husband" to get married last week. This ended up being partially true.

Because....

3) A few days later another sister of hers stopped in and told us that they did go to Israel but the ex-Worthless Co-Worker refused to get married while there. Apparently there's trouble in paradise. (Big surprise there, huh?) So they're back in the states and she's going to move to New Mexico and live with the guy, but they're just going to be friends. I think this move has occurred already. I'm not quite sure though as this information was gleaned from the boss as I wasn't there when this sister popped into the store.

4) Last night a couple popped into the store and asked me if I missed her. I told them no, then asked how they knew her. They owned the apartment building and rented to her. They were very happy to see she's gone. She was perpetually late with rent and apparently a pig as well. They stated it took them 3 days to clean her apartment once she was out. That part surprised me a bit because the ex-Worthless Co-Worker was always talking about how often she cleaned. Far from a clean freak in their words.

I can't believe it's been a week since my last post here. I'll be glad when the Christmas is over with from a work standpoint. Hopefully I can get back to regular posting. I kind of miss this blogging stuff. I'm hoping I'll have time to put together another post before Christmas, if not, I'd like to wish you all a Merry Christmas and thank you for coming here and reading my drivel. I hope Santa fills your stockings with things you like, and stuff.