Instead, I’m playing on CafePress. I have a cheesy new store, with a boring new name: schnuthdesigns. I have one design (which is actually a ripoff of a shirt my Mom had when I was little), and I’ve got it in infant tee and creeper, baby doll tee, and baseball jersey. I only wish I could do different colored tees than just white… oh, yeah, and I wish the base prices weren’t so damn high. Nobody’s going to buy this shit.
Let’s see… where’s the list as long as my arm of random piddly blogables…? Ah, yes.
Funny story from work. We at Sky Bank have couriers that haul interoffice mail from Toledo to Findlay to Adrian to Columbus and all the branches in between — even meeting up with other couriers to head off to Cleveland and Pittsburgh. Usually they’re retired men who either a.) can’t stand not to be busy, or b.) can’t stand to be home around the wife all day.
So, there’s this new courier who doesn’t really know his car too well. Seems he was told to refill his windshield washer fluid… but instead he poured into his reservoir, not washer fluid, but used oil. The head courier told him he could use the wipers, but for God’s sake, he’d better not use the washers!
More randomness… I kind of feel like we were beaten over the head with this 9/11 shit. I mean, yes, it was absolutely tragic. It was horrific. It was unprecedented. But it was also a media extravaganza, and a lot of people wanted to put it to a dignified rest after the first month of it, back in 2001. So, now, on the second anniversary of this nightmarish event, even though we’re shown new and improved footage and computer graphics of the crash and the collapse of the towers, I for one am staying as far away from it as possible.
Looking through the calendar at work, I came across Pearl Harbor Day (December 7). Not all calendars mark this day. Very few people our age know when it even is. I wonder sometimes whether people ever thought of Pearl Harbor Day the way we think of *scoff scoff* "Patriot Day." Were the citizens in 1940’s America more patriotic than today? Or were they simply less inundated with media blitz? Or was the fact that the event pulled them into an already-raging war something that validated the loss of life, and made it that much more patriotic? (Rather than instigating a "war on terrorism," which led to a war on Iraq to save face, which is leading to a long-term occupancy, which could lead to god knows what else…)
You know, if I hadn’t heard about 9/11 every goddamned day for a full year, I might actually spend today reflecting on my good fortune and sorrowing for the misfortunes of others.
Oh! I suppose you want to know how today’s meeting at work went.
Let me preface by saying that sometimes I hate my ability to see both sides of most everything. Everyone thinks our supervisor is a tool, and is no good at dealing with people or running a department. However… when he shows a good-faith effort to better the department, and listens to everyone for a change, no one gives a shit. Except me, and then I feel like a goddamned suck-up.
For instance — you know that two-page e-mail I was talking about? The one that I wondered if I’d get in trouble for? Well, he filled in the answers to all my questions and used it for his meeting agenda. 🙂 And during the entire meeting, I was the only one who would keep eye contact with him, so he kept looking at me while he was talking. The whole time. *rolls eyes*
Positives: 1.) He addressed every concern I put to him. 2.) A regular departmental meeting has been reinstated. 3.) My co-workers and I who process work on the citation systems are allowed to switch up accounts as we see fit — so, we won’t have to do the same thing every day for two or three months, like we’ve been doing.
Negatives: 1.) the temps didn’t get a definitive answer on if or when they will be hired — only that they will still have a job in Lockbox through at least next June, if they want it. 2.) He wants us to come in later in the morning, and take our full hour lunch (instead of the half-hour we’ve been taking, if any). Since he says that our days will stretch from "normal" seven- to eight-hour days up to ten-hour days, this means we could be working from 9:00 or 10:00am to eight o’clock at night. That is not cool. 3.) We still don’t know what new kind of processing system we’ll be adopting in the next year or so. We’re still renting one of our current systems, and have no plans to purchase it. We’ve already paid twice the purchase price in rental charges.
4.) No one is taking his suggestions seriously.
Literally as soon as we came out of the meeting and got back to our little corner of the world, everyone was bitching about what they didn’t like about what he said. "I’m not coming in at 9:00 everyday — that’s too late in the day to start!" "I told my husband I’d find out today when I’ll be getting hired. I feel stupid now." And so forth. I finally told them that if they had a problem, well, that’s what the meeting was for. Maybe they should have said something then. But, no, they all said he wouldn’t listen.
WHAT DO YOU THINK HE WAS TRYING TO DO?
WAS THIS WHOLE THING JUST FOR HIS FUCKING HEALTH?
*deep breath*
So, now that everyone thinks Andrew will listen to me, but no one else, Loni and Rama have decided that all questions and requests should go through me. Greeeat. Make me the heavy. So, even though he said that, if we had any questions, we should e-mail him, it’s informally become my job to e-mail him. Hey, it’s not my fault that I’m better at stating things than some people (ahem, Loni).
I’m beginning to think that maybe I am as good of a writer as my 8th grade English teacher claimed. 🙂 I thought it was a skill everyone had… but not so. Maybe it’s just our age group, since it was drilled into us. Or maybe I hang with a more intelligent crowd.
Naaah…