9/7

As I posted last week the chatty woman on the afternoon shift was fired. Bad for her but good for me. It looks like starting Friday I would be working the 2 to 10 shift. I just don't want anyone claiming I got her fired, but I don't really care.

I promised my mother I would drive her to Sam's Club so I only slept for a couple of hours in the morning and then stayed up all day. That way I could sleep at night and be ready to go on Thursday. When I stopped by the station to pick up my check they warned me Ray was looking for someone to cover his shift, ironic since he was just complaining he didn't have enough money. Since I had made plans and he didn't give me a courtesy 24 hour notice I wasn't going to do it. So when the phone rang at 8 pm, and it was Ray I told him flat out no. He said he was trying to move and all I could think was that he had two full days off and could have moved several times over by then so it wasn't my problem. Poor Ray is going to have to learn a lot of harsh lessons, but considering his track record he isn't much of a student.

By 9:00 I was falling asleep. I managed to stay awake to see about half of The Daily Show but when they got to the guest I went to bed. Within a few minutes I was sound asleep. Whatever was going on at the station, I couldn't care less.

Since I didn't really go anywhere I didn't find any money.

9/8

Around three in the morning I woke up, and was wide awake. I knew it was no use so I got up. I decided that I would go out for another early morning walk so I grabbed my camera and tripod and headed out.

It was really quiet on the streets so I got lots of great photos. At one point a local police officer came by to ask me what I was doing. We chatted a while about my brothers and how grown up my nephew has gotten. I'm sure he thought I was being a bit of a kook but he didn't care if I was taking photos.

When I got to the top of the south hill the sun was starting to come up. I set up my tripod and waited to take some predawn photos. As the sun came up I kept clicking off shots, I probably took 50. After the light shifted I realized it was pretty cold, when I went by a digital sign it said 48 f so I figured it was time to head home. I was surprised to find it was already 6:30.

Sunrise.

On the way home I stopped at the gas station to see what was going on. The chatty woman seems to be avoiding the place so she hadn't been given the bad news yet, oh boy Friday is going to be fun. But the manager said to show up anyhow, looks like I am officially working afternoons.

They then told me Ray is now on the chopping block. It seems after calling around last night he decided to just not show up. The manager is already looking for one new person and it won't bother her to find two. Plus it clearly says in the employee contract everyone has to sign that if you are taking off you have to find someone to cover your shift. Also for the first 30 days you are on a trial period and they can fire you for no reason and without warning. Ray didn't even have a good excuse. I wonder how much longer he will be around.

Now I am getting ready to take mom to Sam's. Time to clean up and get ready. And I get to sleep tonight! 

~ 

It was your typical trip to Sam's. First there was the long drive but since it was Thursday morning the traffic was pretty light. I didn't have to curse at one person the entire time, well there was that time I wanted to change lanes and someone wouldn't let me but I got over in time to make the turn so I wasn't that mad.

We ate lunch at Red Lobster. Some people think I'm weird since I order the same thing every time but I only go there ever two to three months and I might as well get what I like. Now that I was stuffed and could barely walk it was off to the store.

I asked my mother if there was anywhere else she wanted to go and she commented that she had a gift card to Barnes and Noble and I mentioned how book stores were closing nationwide so she decided that we had better stop. In the end she found four books she wanted and used up the card. It was a good thing I confused Borders with B&N.

Finally we went to Sams Club. We managed to pack the shopping cart to the top, and then some. In addition to stocking up on the essentials, and a big bag of Hershey's miniatures, I found the complete DVD set of the documentary The World At War at a third of what it costs on the internet so I had to buy it. I also picked up a copy of the Shrek series so it was a good movie day. Amazingly the woman at the check out was able to pack everything back in the card, usually we have to get two baskets to haul it all out. Once loaded up we were on the road.

I did make a stop at a convenience store to get a soda, I was feeling tired and wanted the caffeine boost. I couldn't believe the place, no Coke and no Dr. Pepper, what the heck? I figured the delivery guy hadn't been around and that was why they ran out, working at one makes you a lot more sympathetic to the people behind the counter. So I used the facilities and we hit the road. Home again and unpacked I kicked back, between my interrupted sleep pattern and driving almost three hundred miles I was exhausted. Since I am starting a new shift tomorrow I tried to stay up until 10 but by 8 I couldn't keep my eyes open, I just hope I can sleep in tomorrow morning.

Found money, one "less than shiny" penny. 

9/9

No such luck. By 3 am I was wide awake again. I decided to not go for another long early morning walk so I did some work on a project I have been putting off. I got all the preliminary set up done and now I am ready to dive in, but I decided to put it off until later.

After sunrise I went for a walk and stopped to visit a friend. I chatted with her about the going's on at the gas station, she knows several people there but she didn't have any information for me. I should note that I avoided the place today since I don't want to know if any drama broke out either because of Ray not showing up or the chatty woman getting fired. I hope the chatterer did drop by since I don't want to be there to see her storm out, but I get the feeling there is no avoiding it. I also have to wonder who all knows that she was getting her walking papers. I know the woman who has been on the afternoon shift knows because she was there the day I found out. Oh well, today is going to be interesting. Wish me luck. 

~

Five minutes, I kid you not the phone rang just five minutes after I typed the above paragraph. It seems the owner hired someone new, a woman with kids, and he feels she needs to be on the afternoon shift. Yep, I got bumped back to the graveyard position. I know I shouldn't feel this way and I know it's bad Karma but I really hope the woman turns out to be a total disaster. Seriously WTF! when you work at a place that is 24 hours you start off on the graveyard shift regardless. Oh well, I guess I will take a nap this afternoon and get ready for another week in the dark. Hang on, the phone is ringing again....nope, still on the graveyard. Wish me late night luck.

Oh and in Ray news, since he didn't show up for work on Wednesday he got an official written warning. One more screw up and he is outta there! I wonder if he was paying attention when they fired the chatty woman? Probably not. 

~ 

 The good thing about Friday is that there are three people on shift, Me, Ray and the shift manager. (I'm going to start calling her Diane since I accidentally did that one night) Considering I got screwed over for the afternoon job I needed a buffer between me and the incredible mouth. If I actually had to put up with Ray's ego I might just punch him one and as I am standing over him I would continually shout "Just Shut The Hell Up!!!!"

I did find out why I got passed over for a daylight job. It wasn't because the new woman actually needed days off, it was because she is somebody's niece, or as I like to put it "promoted by DNA". She has black dyed hair and multiple bits of metal hanging off her face. It's quite the good look to say "a true professional in the job place". Yeah, she's going to last.

By now I'm not shocked by the condition of the walk in cooler on Fridays, where I like to hide out. What I can't figure out is how they can take a neat orderly place and turn it into an utter disaster area in just two days. I think they actually go in there and toss stuff around. And lets not forget the giant sticky mess all over the floor, if you break a bottle of something how hard is it to get the mop and clean it up? It's the general attitude of "well someone else will do it". Two hours later I got things back in shape, yes, two hours to clean a space about 15 feet long and 5 feet wide. At one point Ray showed up and asked if I needed help, considering the size of the space and the amount of stuff I had to move around to get it straightened the last thing I needed was one of the people who made the mess under foot.

Ray managed to disappear again which was a good thing, I didn't have to deal with him. The majority of the night went rather smoothly. The crowd thinned out and I took apart the cappuccino machine to clean it, what a mess. Diane tackled the restrooms, that woman has a thing about cleaning them and Ray, well Ray was still missing.

Finally the end of the night rolled around and surprise of surprises the hippie actually showed up before the other woman on the day shift. I was shocked. Of course the morning shift woman and Ray disappeared, she swears nothing is going on, so I counted out my drawer and got out of there. Thank goodness Friday was over.

Found money $1.05 and a silver nickle. 

9/10/11 I just like how that date reads out

 My sleep schedule is all messed up. I woke up at 9 am and was wide awake yet groggy. I fell asleep at 2 in the afternoon and slept until my alarm went off. I need to just stay up for an entire day and be as sleepy as heck come 6 am so I can get back to my set timeline. And then next time they tell me I am working the afternoon shift I plan to not alter my sleeping pattern until I am actually on the clock.

I don't like to complain about other people, what the heck am I saying, the majority of this current blog is about complaining about other people! I figured I knew how things would be when I showed up at work and I wasn't disappointed. The regular afternoon woman tends to glue herself to the register and not do anything else. She is training the new person and you can't teach someone to do side work when you don't do any yourself. So of course the place was a mess.

The restrooms hadn't been cleaned, the cooler hadn't been stocked, the trash hadn't been dumped and so on. I don't care about that since it gives me something to do during the slow hours of the night. What did make me angry was when I counted in my drawer and the afternoon shift hadn't left me any mid range bills. There was almost $70 in ones and a hundred dollars in $20s but only $20 in fives and no tens at all. That means I had to start off the shift by dropping money from the safe, including pennies since they left me about 10 cents. 

There are two registers so when we are doing shift change the incoming shift can open one register while the outgoing can close the second, it makes for a smooth transition without customers hanging at the counter. Well I hadn't even started counting my drawer when Ray decided he was going to wander outside and check the trashes, this generally means he won't be back for an hour. I yelled at him to come back and told him he had to run his register until I opened mine. Considering his record I am not touching his cash drawer  otherwise when he turned up $100 short he could claim, "Well Ocular was in there, maybe he took it." That's not going to happen.

Ray decided he was going to complain to the owner about how the afternoon shift left the place so I gave him fair warning. I told him owners don't want to hear whiny complaints from the wage slaves and he was better off going to the manager. Also all he was going to be told was that since they were training a new employee is wasn't a big deal and to let it go. He proceeded to tell me all about how he is about to come into a large sum of money and when he does he is going to be an investor in the company so the boss's will listen to him. That is the last piece of advice I plan to give him and considering he is on the edge of getting fired anyhow. 

The State Fair is kicking off this weekend and there are also a lot of snowbirds (people who live in RV's and have permanent rental spots in Colorado for the summer and Arizona for the winter) so we were busy. Ray kept saying, "I wonder why we are so busy tonight" but after about the hundredth time of being told how stupid I am I just don't answer any of his questions. He kept coming up with various reasons like "it's 9/11, that must be it" or "It's Grandparents day, that must be it". Finally he decided that there must be a wedding somewhere and that was the reason. I just kept waiting on the customers.

When business dropped off I went to work on the side jobs. I stocked the cooler and the shelves and then checked the ice hoppers in the soda machines. Considering the afternoon crew hadn't done anything else I wasn't surprised when they were empty so I started filling up the buckets to haul to the front. After three hours of doing nothing Ray suddenly showed up and got right in the middle of what I was doing. All things combined I had enough and told him "There are ten things that need done around here, why don't you go to one of them!" Well....he took off like a whipped puppy and hid out for the next half hour. When he finally came back he started cleaning the restrooms, two hour early. Sure enough he got halfway done and a busload of volleyball players on their way back from some game showed up. They all headed straight to the restrooms and in a matter of minutes they were a mess again. Ray had just wasted a half hour and had to start all over again. I would have told him, "that is why we don't clean before 3 am" but I'm not his mother or his kindergarten teacher and I am tired of dealing with him.

Ray spent the next 2 and a half hours doing a job that takes 30 minuets tops. This was great for me because I could do stuff without him trying to help or have to listen to him.  When he eventually came back he started blathering on about getting on people's nerves and how he sometimes talks too much. Yes, for the next half hour he talked about how he talks too much. Oh Ray....seriously, I could put up with him a lot better if he would just stay out of what I was trying to do.

It was about a half hour til the end of the shift. Ray had closed out his drawer in preparation for the shift change and had plopped down with Sundays paper. He had to keep pointing out stuff about 9/11.  I was planning on reading it myself after work so I didn't need a play by play. Plus there were still plenty of things to do, which I ended up having to take care of and keep an eye on the register to make sure Ray's sticky fingers didn't accidentally wander off with a $20.

Then I had back to back customers who wanted to buy a couple of dollars worth of stuff with a $100 bill. Seriously, if you are going to use a large bill you had better be buying more than $50 worth of stuff. I told them it was almost shift change and I had dropped all my spare cash. One guy pulled out his debit card and the other decided they would go to the other convenience store that was open, they were going to be told no to their $100 at the other place too.

At the end of the night a guy came in who is working the natural gas drilling sites. Ray was doing his usual of chatting non stop so he asked the guy for a job, as a joke. The guy offered him one running a big Cat. Ray commented that he, of course, was a professional heavy equipment operator but couldn't take the job right now. Yeah, that would be terrible, a daylight job, outdoors and getting paid around $20 an hour. I can see why he didn't walk out the door right then and there. 

The woman on the morning shift showed up on time, mostly so I counted out my drawer and closed the shift. After doing nothing for an hour Ray was still hanging out, and still on the clock. I told him he could clock out and go home but he claimed he had to wait for his ride, which I knew was a lie. I asked the morning shift woman if she wanted me to hang around until the hippie showed up and she gave me a non committal grunt, so I clocked out and left. She and Ray think they are being "oh so secret" with their fooling around but everybody knows, plus everybody knows about Ray and the chatty woman, and at least I know about Ray and the married woman who keeps dropping by, plus his wife. What a sleaze ball. If the morning shift woman complains about me leaving her alone with Ray I am going to tell her flat out to not try and get me into the middle of her latest affair. Like I said, I don't mind being in the soap opera but I refuse to be a main character.

Home and bed. Did I mention how much I am looking forward to tomorrow? 

 Found money $3.32 and a 1942 silver nickle. 

9/11

 I've been trying to adjust my sleep schedule. When I was told I was going to afternoons I actually slept at night on my days off. Then they pulled the rug out from under me and ever since things have been off. So today I slept in the morning, stayed up most of the afternoon and only caught two hours of sleep in the afternoon. I was really tired and not looking forward to a night of Ray, must not lose my temper....must not lose my temper....

What a pleasant surprise. When I arrived the woman from the afternoon shift told me Ray had called and he wasn't coming in, hooray! He claimed he had to go to the emergency room but the night before he was making plans to have a guy help him with repairing his truck. One has to wonder why a "certified mechanic" would need a real mechanic to help him out. I somehow doubt he was anywhere near the hospital, but then again I have noticed that people desperate to be the center of attention tend to be hypochondriacs to boot.

Anyhow it was a very quite night, both in volumn and customers. I had planned on cleaning racks but the woman who was filling in has a habit of not doing anything so I figured I would end up doing the majority of the side work, and that is how it worked out. I didn't mind because it made the night go by faster.

The only interesting part of the night was a visit from the Mennonites. They are a branch of the Amish faith and although they follow the traditional route of clothes and facial hair they embrace modern technology so they can drive. They pretty much act like any other tourist, including one thing that really ticks me off, if you are buying something that needs to be heated in the microwave pay for it first then nuke the thing! I ended up with melted cheese all over my fingers when I tried to scan some breakfast sandwich, sheesh.

The night rapped up quickly and surprisingly the manager was in a good mood when she came in. I think she was hoping Ray just didn't show up and didn't call so she could fire him on the spot. I decided to get out before someone did something to tick her off, and of course the woman who was filling in did something wrong when she re-clocked in last night so they were going to have to straighten out the time card before she left. In the end I was home by a quarter after 6 and in bed, and what do you know, I slept until the crack of noon. Things are back to normal-ish.

Found money, 10 cents. It was a really slow night. 

9/12

 I like Monday. It's quieter, I can get more side work done and there's no Ray. I shouldn't be bad mouthing the guy all the time but it turns out everybody feels the same way about him. The afternoon shift has some kind of betting pool, they wouldn't say what the bet was but I figured it had to do with his fooling around or how long until he got fired. Some people are so unintentionally entertaining.

Anyhow the whole not moving to the afternoon had thrown my sleep schedule off. I was wide awake in the morning and falling asleep around 2 pm so I decided to try to change that. Each afternoon I was going to bed later and later and yesterday I just stayed up, so I got about 4 hours of sleep all day. By 10 I was kind of groggy and all night long I was on the verge of falling asleep, thank goodness for cafinated soda.

Diane spent the entire night cleaning. She wiped down all the counters and scrubbed the restrooms. Then she wiped all the windows down and cleaned the entire floor, including pulling out the shelves agian. Sometimes I think she is on overkill. The problem was I was stuck behind the counter and trying to stay awake, and last night was one of those one customer at a time nights so there wasn't a real gap in which I could get away from the register. But I stayed awake until 6.

A woman came in about 11 and she was pretty memorible. She was on the positive side of pretty but she had one of those big patterened tattoo across her chest between her shoulder blades, the ones I like to call future regrets. She got gas and some stuff and left. Around 5 am she came back through, I knew it was her because who could forget that tattoo. It turns out she and a friend had made a 600 mile round trip, all night long and when she got home she was going to have to go to work all day. I expressed my sympathies to her and wished her luck. It's funny how people in the middle of the night will share their life story if you let them.

And on a side note, when you pay a cashier be sure your bills are straightented. Don't pull a wad of cash from your pocket and drop it on the counter like a pile of wadded up tissues from the bottom of your grandmothers purse, it's just rude. Yes I had a string of customers right at the 5 am rush just tossing out crumpled up bills that clogged up the register. 

And on a postive note, getting shafted on the afternoon shift seems to have had a positive effect. Instead of whining and threatening to quit I just accepted the situation and kept doing my job. Since then the manager has been really nice to me. Perhaps there will be a bit of good Karma after all.

And I was able to sleep until noon today so the whole adjustment of the schedule seems to be working. 

Found money, 23 cents. 

9/13

 I don't know why I get mad over the mess in the walk in cooler, but I do. Perhaps I have staked it out as my territory. After all, even the most mediocre job has to have some kind of challenge.

Overall the cooler wasn't bad, people hadn't messed up the shelves and there was only a bit of wayward stuff scattered around, thanks to a delivery by Pepsi but.... There was a milk delivery, it no longer comes in wire baskets and glass bottles, who remembers that? These days milk comes in little plastic bottles that are shrink wrapped in cardboard trays. The problem was one of the bottle caps was broken and there was milk everywhere. What ticked me off was that the delivery guy must have seen it, the person who put it in the cooler had to have seen it and the second shift should have seen it. So why was I the one with the mop cleaining it up?

The only good thing about the milk mess was that it happened on Tuesday instead of Wednesday. Had it happened on my day off it wouldn't have been cleaned up until Friday, when I came in, and by then it would be a dried on and stinky mess. The whole idea of "let someone else take care of it" really gets on my nerves. Anyhow I got the spill cleaned and the milk loaded on the rack according to expiration date, lets see what it's like when I return, I am fully expecting to spend another hour or two cleaning up two days worth of neglect.

The majority of the night was pretty quite. Diane went on another cleaning binge and I mostly manned the register. Interestingly enough it was busier than on Sunday night, mostly due to truck drivers. One guy paid for $400 worth of diesel with cash. Seriously who carries around that type of money in the modern world? In the end I managed to stay awake and get a bit of work done to boot. All in all a good night.

A funny thing did happen, there is this internet game called Where's George. Basically you get on the web site, log in the serial number and date for a dollar bill and then mark it with the internet address. When someone else gets the bill and enters it on the site it tells you where it came from, how far it traveled and how long it had been since the bill was first logged on.

Anyhow on Sunday night I found a bill so I copied down it's information and then gave it out to a guy who works in the gas fields. I then got on the internet and logged it in. Last night someone came in and gave me another Where's George bill so I copied it down and then ironically gave it to the same gas driller. When I got on the internet I found the second bill had been one I gave to someone on Saturday night. It had gone out, got passed around and had come back, and I gave it to the same guy. What are the odds of that? See, the internet can be educational.

At the end of the night I logged out and got ready for the shift change. When the manager came in she and the other woman on the morning shift started their paperwork, and I ended up running their register. I had to stick around for an extra 20 minutes and take care of the construction worker rush. How the heck does that happen and does anyone else do that for them? I keep trying to remind myself that the company screwed me over for the afternoon shift job but then they turn around and show me that they value me as an employee. Such mixed messages. Oh well I have two days off and I'm not answering my phone, Ray will just have to find someone else to cover his shift when he doesn't feel like working tonight. 

Found money, 32 cents.