Slow Burn

(Click title for an appropriately loud and angry bit of music!)

So my good mood from my trip to BotCon lasted about a week. Then the bullshit started. Only this time....

I'm not allowed on self-checks. I have no idea as to why, but our stupid ass ZM (I'll call her Bitchimus Maximus) has said this and her retarded-assed words are apparently fucking law. (I have an idea as to why and it's a BS reason and it deals with the dipshit store credit cards we're supposed to pimp, but I digress....)

So yeah, the self-checks will be left in the hands of cashiers who don't give a fucking shit and I'll be forced to watch them fall the fuck apart. The self-checks are one of the few things in that goddamn building that I actually give a damn about.

....pissed don't even start to cover this horseshit.

But this will bite the dumb little bitch squarely on her ass. I know for a damned fact that I will be stuck on a register next to the self-checks and when some customer needs help and asks me, I'll tell them no. If Bitchimus Maximus wants me to help anyone on the damned self-checks, she can stop playing dumbass head games, act like a respectable human being for once in her pathetic life and lift the restriction. Until then, it's not my goddamn problem. Fuck her and the ass she rode in on, as far as I'm concerned. I'm. DONE.

I've told Prime he's going to start editing my magnum opus in August. Doesn't matter whether or not I'm ready, I'm done screwing the hell around. I want out and I want it now. Everyone says I should be happy to have a job, but I sure as hell am not happy dealing with the fucking abuse that management is so happy to heap upon us. We're expendable and they know it. The abuse ain't worth the paycheck.

Primus give me strength for I truly need it.

Everything you say to me
(Takes me one step closer to the edge)
(And I'm about to break)
I need a little room to breathe
(Cause I'm one step closer to the edge)
(I'm about to break)

Sick of It All

I'm... tired. Tired of the bullshit, the backstabbing and all the crap that comes with my damn job. I'll fill you in later. Right now, I'm too fucking pissed.

...SLAG!...

Guess what I picked up on the plane? Give up? A SLAGGIN' HEAD COLD!

:slams head into a wall: Ah well. At least I got it after the 'Con and not during.

--Weasel, "Lucky me. But I still can't breathe..."

(Insert Scream Here)

(Current earworm: Iridescent by Linkin Park. Love this song; it is going to be in Dark of the Moon, after all.)

The last few days have not been good, to say the very least.

Thursday, I came down with what I suspect was food poisoning: I was fine until I ate lunch but an hour or so later I began to feel like hammered slag.

Didn't work on Friday and it wasn't by choice. I had to call in. There was no way I could sit upright for more than a few seconds, so you could forget about me standing. It was a good thing I did. I spent most of the day sleeping and ridding my body of whatever toxin had invaded. It was painful as hell and I hope I never have to deal with that sort of bullshit ever again.

The only thing I could keep down was Jell-O (which I can't friggin' stand) and Poweraide. Solid food? The very thought of the stuff made me want to gag.

I am just now feeling really normal. For the last few days I've still felt a bit off, dealing with cramps and feeling like someone slammed me straight in the gut with Mjöllnir. Yeah, not pleasant don't even begin to cover this. I haven't even been doing my usual Golett rescues on GTS. Didn't EV train at all, either. I just felt too bad to even mess around with my DS.

But wait! It gets better!

Yesterday, I was doing a bit of editing, listen to some music, and perusing the web as always when Alexa-1, my darling laptop started to behave strangely. Everything seemed fine, then at around 4:50, she powered herself down. I thought at first I had inadvertently yanked a cord or something, but everything was still connected.

I shook my head, hit the power button and Alexa seemed to power up, then she shut down again. Now I was getting worried. So I tried switching her on again. She made it to the "Start Windows" screen and shut down again.

Now, I was completely panicked. Something was wrong and I had no clue as to what. I did the one thing I always do when shit happens and I'm clueless as to what may have occurred.

I called Prime.

I was all but screaming in hysteria when I told him what had happened, that something was wrong with Lexi and I couldn't get her to power back up. He told me he would be home soon and he'd take a look at her.

He fixed her. Seems she got a bit overheated, so she shut herself down. She's fine now, or else you wouldn't be reading this.

Yeah, it's been an interesting few days. I could use a few that are nothing like this, I tell you. If I go through this sort of crap again, I may end up bald before BotCon.

--Weasel, "And I thought my damn job was the biggest source of stupid on the planet. Silly me."

You're Supposed to be DONE!

Isn't it supposed to be spring? Yes? Okay then--WHY THE HELL IS THERE SIX INCHES OF SNOW IN MY DAMN YARD?! It's supposed to be over--finished!

I guess the hell not. Fucking winter.


Pic from here.

Free Snow

Anybody want any? We've got a slag-ton. Help yourself.

--Weasel, glad she's not in Chicago.

Coping

The first full week back to work is a killer. I have no real desire to be there and the memories of the recent convention just makes it harder for me to adjust. But once I'm through that first week of drudgery, I'm all right. Well, as all right as one can expect. But there have been changes, not all of them good.

The biggest? One of our good head cashiers has stepped down, thanks to management. They tried like hell to get him fired and he got sick of it, so he's stepped down and now he's at service desk.

I could cry. Seriously. He was the only head who was friendly and reasonable. Now management has pissed him off and we've fucking lost him. We're stuck with a bunch of fucking dumbasses who don't know what the flying fuck they're doing and who act rudely towards us simply because they can.

What a helluva way to start work after having the time of my life.

--Weasel, wishing it were June and she was in Cali...

Are You Shitting Me?!

I did not just read this: Obama plan expands offshore oil drilling.

Awesome. Just fucking awesome. I've been down this road before--twenty years ago when I was living in NC. I fought like hell to make sure this bullshit wouldn't happen. We were able to dodge the bullet for a while but not anymore, it would seem.

They'll be drilling in Virginia. How long will it be before the Outer Banks are ruined? What are the chances Wrightsville Beach will end up spoiled? We all know spills have a tendency to spread out; like it or not this will affect NC. To hell with Michael Bay, this rapes my childhoods. I could absolutely cry.

Stop the world, I wanna get the fuck off. NOW.

Primus, am I ever glad I voted third party.


EDIT @ 1:08PM: CNN just showed us a nice big fat map of areas approved for offshore drilling. Guess who's on there? If you said the coast of North Carolina, you'd be right. (I just screamed at the television in abject rage when I saw that.) Godmotherfuckingdammit. Now I am going to go cry.

GAH!

That's pretty much what I said about twenty minutes ago. Only it was louder and a lot angrier.

As you may or may not know, I've been on the world's biggest writing tear as of late. I'm doing my damnedest to write what looks to be a novel (which is why I've been slacking in the blog department... gotta work on that...) and it's been coming along pretty decently. So twenty minutes ago I opened up my file on Alexa, preparing for another fruitful day of writing.

That's when I noticed that the word count was off by nearly 2,500 words. Oh and seven pages had simply vanished.

What. The. FUCK?!

Where the hell did my work go?! Sure, it doesn't seem like a whole helluva lot, but it's a shit-ton of blood, sweat and tears for me. And here it had simply disappeared into the freaking ether or something. About a third of a chapter was gone, along with a bunch of edits I had made to some of my previous stuff. It wasn't there. It was as if I had closed the file without saving any changes at all. And yes, that is completely impossible because I hit CTRL+S about three times before I closed the file late yesterday. I always make sure I save my stuff. Always.

Yeah, I kinda wanted to cry at that point. And trudge back upstairs to get my notebook so I could re-transcribe everything I had written yesterday. Not an awesome prospect, I tell ya.

That's when I remembered that I had always backed up my file on a 40 gig drive that Prime had purchased from a coworker a couple of months ago. Earlier this month, I told him I didn't exactly want just one lone copy of what I was working on; bad things could happen and if the file was accidentally deleted, I'd be in a shitload of trouble. So he suggested I save a back up on the 40 gig. It sounded like a good idea, so I did. So I opened up the external drive and prayed that the same thing hadn't happened to my secondary file.

The back up was fine. Everything was there. So that external hard drive just paid for itself by saving my sorry ass. (Thank you, Prime. I seriously owe you for this!)

So what did we learn, class? "Always back your shit up!" Very good! Trust me, it's a lesson I ain't gonna forget.

--Weasel, "Now if my damned heart rate would come the hell down and my hands would quit shaking, I'd be fine...!"

The Bullshit Report

I've been meaning to make a post about this, but I haven't had the time or energy until today.

My current locale is becoming exactly like the old hellhole. Even down to the backstabbing and lying.

We've had at least four people fired in the last couple of weeks. One was the lone overnight cashier who was supposed to be terminated at the beginning of her shift, but management waited until she was nearly done for the night to finally walk her out the store. (The truly idiotic thing? They waited for her to say something they didn't like so they could let her go for that. I just love working around spies and backstabbers, don't you?) One of the cashiers who works around the same hours I do has a second job. He's told people he has a second job. Three days ago he was marched into the office by management and chewed out for "trying to recruit people to his new job". No, that wasn't the case but management doesn't give a flying fuck. As for myself, I've somehow injured my left foot so walking is complete torture for me. I don't know exactly what I've done, but the area near my heel is swollen. I've been using a myriad of different muscle rubs and pain relievers to help take the edge off but to no avail. There have been days that I've left the building about to cry, the pain is so bad.

There's really nothing I can do about it. I have to hope to Primus it heals on its own.

I'm just a cog in the machine, easy to replace.

Like I said, my job is little more than a time waster. I want to write. I don't want to stand behind a goddamn cash register and stare at the unwashed masses all day. Every second I'm at that hellhole is one less second I can write. And it frustrates me to no end.

The one thing that keeps me from losing my mind? The fact that I can come home to Prime and hop on Alexa for even a few moments. When my fingers touch the keyboard, I become so relaxed and...dare I say it? I'm happy. Listening to some really good music helps, too.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have some more writing to do. I have to make the best of my days off, you know.

It's Getting Interesting

It seems we have yet another shakeup coming; Sammy's taking over part of softlines, so one of the other head cashiers will be a 'super' head so to speak. The head in question is going to be Missa. I... really don't know what to say about that choice other than it seems like a much better pick than the rumored first one, John. No offense, but the guy barely knew his ass from a hole in the ground. I mean, he can be a decent guy but he's completely clueless.

Even worse? We're losing two heads, so three are being trained to fill in the empty spots. But the choices in this case aren't the world's greatest. One of them, Ivy has already let this go to her head. Another one, Marvin just isn't very sure of himself. The third, whose name escapes me at the moment, seems competent enough, but we're not going to know until the "trial by fire". So it'll be... pretty interesting at work in a few weeks.

I just don't know how this is going to affect the front end. The 'Fast-er, Friendli-er' crap has been anything but, so many of the other cashiers are pretty stressed out and I'm at my wit's end. Even worse, Cathy is pulling the usual BS which is driving everyone mad. Case in point, she did it again this past Monday--she ordered me to take people from lanes 1 and 4 because "the lines were long". I had four full self-checks, one of which had an alcohol purchase, and two others had mildly incompetent customers, so I was running around all four like an idiot. There was no way I could help anyone except my own customers. I nearly blew a gasket because of her idiocy.

I can't deal with anymore of this crap. I need another BotCon. Like now. Unfortunately, because I now know when the 2010 JoeCon will be, I believe that I also have a fair idea of when BotCon 2010 will be, and... (/cries)

--Weasel, slowly losing what's left of her mind...

As the Toilet Clogs

Guess who signed with the Minnesota Vikings?

Yep, you guessed it.
I can't believe that people actually thought Brett would stay retired.

To the Vikings fans, you have my sympathies. The guy's almost 40 and had surgery. And he's a diva to boot. (A former coworker at Target will vouch for that last one.) But I can barely wait to get back to work on Thursday, for there will be much wailing and gnashing of teeth.

And I will love every moment of it. Others will not (and do not), but man oh man...

I had to hear all the "Ted Thompson is evil" bullshit all last season. This is like a gift from the baby Primus. I am going to milk this for all it is worth.

--Weasel, "I'm evil like that."

I can't even think up a decent title, I'm so addled right now. It has not been a good day.

I was stuck on the GM side for most of the day. I also happened to be one of the only open non-self check-out register on that side. Needless to say, I was insanely busy. And it got worse during the last two hours of my shift.

Here's where I can't help but get pissed: every fricking time I'm on GM self-checks and there's two normal registers open, I'm being hounded to take customers on the self-checks. I'm supposed to help "keep the lines down". But when I'm the only damned register open on the GM side, I'm expected to fend for my damned self. No one goes heading over to self-checks, letting the attending cashier that they have to help keep my line managable.

Even worse? I had to pick up the slack for self-checks--the cashier was too busy socializing to notice the flashing red lights.

Pissed doesn't even begin to cover how I feel. And it ain't over yet. (Don't want to say what's going on, but I'll simply say that I'm so stressed right now that I could scream.)

What a wonderful week this is going to be.

--Weasel, "That light at the end of the tunnel? It's the headlamp from an on-coming train."

Pardon Me While I Bitch a Little...

I'm not feeling the greatest at the moment; been a little sick for the past few days. It's getting better, but the whole 'coming-and-going' thing is irritating as hell.

I'm really sick of work. The amount of BS I've been putting up with seems to have increased exponentially. And I don't know how much more I can take.

For the past few days, I've been stuck on normal registers. Everyone knows how much I love being away from my self-checks (I don't...and a lot of other cashiers simply don't know how to run them...or don't care). If I haven't been doing that, then I've been stuck people greeting. Not something I enjoy, though I'm actually decent at it. (Hell, I actually know how to use the damned Telxon and printer. Most everyone else doesn't or won't.)

Customers are stupid, management doesn't know what the hell is going on and I'm feeling burnt out. AGAIN.

I miss BotCon already, and who knows when it'll be next year.

And I get it, I hate my job, why don't I find another one, yadda yadda. If it were really that simple...

13

I really ought to be doing laundry, but I simply cannot work up the energy to do it right now. So I'll blog instead.

With only 13 days left for BotCon you would think I'd be in a pretty decent mood. I wish I could say that I was. Work has been driving me insane. Again.

Sammy, our front-end manager, is on the warpath. She's been tearing into people left and right, ususally over something that's really, really minor-- like being four minutes late from lunch. I'm not kidding. She's been going nuts on quite a few cashiers and worse, pissing off even more. Vi, who works the GM self-checks when I'm not there, has wanted to get a few more hours; nothing much, just maybe an extra half an hour each shift, since she's been stuck working five and a half hours almost every single day. When she asked Sammy what could be done for this, she was told to either change her availability (not happening, since she has to act as a shuttle service for her family) or sign up to fill a full shift.

The problem? She can't work a full 9 hour shift because she has to get her kids to and from school and work. Sammy knows this but she doesn't give a damn.

The kicker? Sammy's from my old hell-hole store. And she's acting like it. (Yes, that is one of the major reasons that I left that store. You would not believe the amount of backstabbing and bullshit that I had to put up with on a daily basis. It was insane.)

Less than two weeks. That's what I'm telling myself. If I can make it until then, it'll all be worth it.

--Weasel, "I wasn't kidding when I said I was earning this trip."

21

I promised a longer post, so here we go.

* As of right now, I have a song stuck in my head. Now if I could find the soundtrack or movie on DVD, I wouldn't have this problem.

* I am utterly exhausted thanks to work. The whole "Work 8 days, get two days off whenever" completely drains me.

* If I'm dead within a week, you'll know why: one of the cartpushers thought that he had H1N1 (swine flu) this past Saturday. Seems his girlfriend had visited Mexico and was dreadfully sick, so he thought he had been exposed. Too bad management didn't see it that way. So if I'm too ill to enjoy BotCon, that's why. (I'm still going, of course.)

* I'm actually on a bit of a downer lately; I'm thinking that the letdown from Dairycon has gotten to me. If this is the case, I'm going to be insufferable when BotCon's over.

* From the "Customers Are Stupid Assholes" file: Three days ago there was a crying toddler hiding behind a display in one of our main aisles. Every employee who saw the kid did as they were trained; they stopped and looked for Mommy. Mommy (who was about six feet away and hiding behind a different display) got pissed off because everyone was showing some actual concern for her kid. Hey, moron? Would you be saying that bullshit if your kid had gotten molested/kidnapped/murdered? Don't think do. How about next time we call the state and let them take your kid. Have fun tangling with that, idiot.

* I am getting sick of the stupid. The more I see, the more it pisses me off. It's getting so bad that I'm afraid I'm either going to snap at a customer or a member of management.

* Prime said something about the upcoming BotCon that I kind of have to agree with: this is a convention we've been to before. The only new guest we know of is Weird Al. Everyone else has been a guest previously. Man, I really wish Mark Ryan would come. (I'm still going, though.)

And that about does it. Tune in next time to watch me lose what little sanity I have left. (I must be nutbars to post what I'm going to post on the eighth.) Until then, this has been
--Weasel, "Signing off."

23

It hasn't been the best week for me: I've just come off an eight day stretch, the stupid at work is driving me nuts and I have a blog post (click the badge above for the what-n-why of it) due in three days. (I'll be working on it tonight. I seem to work better at night. Don't ask.)

I am tired. Very tired. Mostly of people and their stupidity. And trust me, there's been plenty.

I really hope I can make it to the end of the month with my sanity intact. Right now, it's looking a bit doubtful.

--Weasel, "I'll post more later. I'm just too exhausted right now."

30

I am on day number two of an eight day stretch. I don't know how long I'll be able to hold onto my sanity. So much stupid, so many cranky-ass little old ladies, so much bullshit. I really don't know if I can hold on until my next day off, let alone BotCon. Add on this little bit of news and you could say that yeah, I'm about ready to scream.

To paraphrase Ultra Magnus: I can't deal with this now.

--Weasel "Yeah, life sucks. What else is new?"

"What Do You Want Me To Do About It?"

Since dinner is cooking, I decided to steal a few moments and make a quick post. I just had to.

Today, cashier Jenni told me about a little incident that happened last night. It seems a customer found a virtual shitload of stuff left behind in a cart. Everything was paid for; according to Jenni it was all in bags. So the customer told an associate from lawn and garden about it. Rather than taking the bags up to customer service, the associate simply said, "Just take it. You can have it." Jenni thought that maybe she should let a head or a member of management know about this, since the customer who originally forgot the items might come back for them. I told her that it was probably a very good idea.

About ten minutes later, Jenni told me that she let a head know about it. The head in question was Mary. Mary's reply to Jenni's story was simple: "What do you want me to do about it?"

Uh, how about your damn job? You know, like letting management know about this so they can talk to the moron in L&G so it won't happen again? You know, actually doing some fucking work for once in your pathetic life? But that would require you to actually get up off your lazy ass and do something, now wouldn't it?

I swear to Primus, I work with idiots. And they get fucking stupider each and every damn day.

--Weasel, "I'm so earning that vacation, really, I am...."

(Insert Scream Here)

Honestly, I can only take so much stupid in just one week....

A few days ago I was on the GM self-checks: It was towards the end of my shift, so I was expecting my replacement to show up at any time. Or so I thought.

It took 10 minutes for him to finally show up. Seven of those minutes were spent looking for a damned head cashier. When I finally clocked out for the night, I was a grand total of 13 minutes over. It's not a helluva lot, but it's just enough overtime to get my ass in trouble.

And now we come to tonight. I was on the grocery self-checks tonight and yet again, it was only a few minutes towards the end of my shift. And yet again I was awaiting my replacement. And yet again, my replacement didn't come. Only this time, I actually asked a head if someone was going to come and take my place. According to Mary, someone was on the way and would be there soon.

"Soon" apparently meant ten minutes later. Again, I clocked out late.

This is bullshit. Serious bullshit. My job is at fucking risk every time the damn heads pull this idiocy. The one who loses in this equation is me, not them. I'm thinking that the next time this happens and I'm on self-check, I should just shut the fuckers down and walk the fuck away. I refuse to get fired because of someone else's incompetence.

As I've said many times before, I'm really earning this trip to BotCon.

--Weasel, "Is it May yet?"