Saturday, April 23, 2011

What a waste of my thirty minutes

Last night, an hour before leaving work, I happened to overhear B-Money telling Raver, "Don't forget you have to be here at nine tomorrow morning!" as she was leaving the store. Nine? That seemed odd. The store doesn't even open until nine thirty. Why did she have to come in early? 

Now, he wasn't talking to me, and I knew I really shouldn't ask, but I was curious (mostly to know if she was being called in to have a meeting with the manager about her frequent tardiness, call ins, and customer complaints) so I asked her, "Why do you have to come in at nine?"

"We all have to come in at nine," she said. "For the store meeting."

What? 

I've been here for three years and I've never been to a store meeting. There's never been a store meeting. I turned to B-Money and I asked, "Um, do I have to come in at nine, too?"

And he said, "Oh yeah, you weren't here Wednesday. I forgot to tell you. Yeah, you have to come early, too."

Fuck. I should have just kept my mouth shut. Then I wouldn't have had to worry about getting up half an hour earlier and nobody could have blamed me for not showing up because it's not my fault I don't work Wednesdays and nobody bothered telling me about the meeting.

You can bet your bottom dollar that I will never make that mistake again. Curiosity killed the cat and all that. 

So I drag myself in here early, and the first twenty minutes of the meeting didn't even apply to me in any way, shape, or form. I do not steal other peoples' sales. I do not take the last of the ice and then leave the empty trays sitting on the counter. I don't leave dirty dishes full of nasty stuff sitting in the kitchen or on the counter tops. I'm not fifteen minutes late or later every day. (In fact, Jay Jay and I are consistently ten minutes early while everybody else is generally fifteen minutes late or later.) I don't eat or drink things in the kitchen that do no belong to me.  I do not leave food in the refrigerator for weeks at a time and I don't leave food sitting out to rot. 

Basically, I'm a clean person and a model employee.

However, at the very end, my manager said, "Chanel, if you could page calls directly to the department instead of all over the store, that would help cut the noise factor down." To which I replied, "That only works for Band Repair. Everybody else can't hear one phone."

And then Dizzy, who I'm still a little miffed with after his tantrum yesterday, said, "Yeah, don't page me nine times when I'm with a customer."

And I snapped, "I page twice, and if nobody picks up I take a message. The ONLY time I keep paging is when the customer refuses to hang up, or when I know you're just talking on your cell phone. If you want to take a break, fine. Go to the kitchen. But if you're on the floor, then you have to take your calls."

And then Manager said, "Yes, guys. Don't blow her off. If you want a break, you get two fifteen minute breaks every four hours. But don't ignore her pages because you don't want to take the calls."

Manger then continued with, "And Chanel, if you could just turn around and tell them when they're standing right behind you, that would help, too."

I smiled and said, "No, I can't do it that way."

"Why not?"

"Because when I tell them without announcing it over the entire store, they pretend they can't hear me and just keep doing whatever the hell they want."

He frowned. "You guys can't just blow her off like that."

"It's also really hard to get you guys to take your messages. If I try to give you one, you can't just tell me no, I don't want it. I don't want to answer the calls in the first place, but I've got to. I if I just decided to not do my job, where would that leave you guys? So just grow up and take your damn messages. If you're with a customer, come tell me like Raspy and Reverend."

Then we all moved on to Coffin, who calls thirty minutes after he's supposed to be at work and then shows up thirty minutes after he calls. Then when he gets here he clocks in before going to the back where he sits down in front of the TV and eats his lunch for an hour before actually getting his ass in gear. 

All in all, the meeting had very little to offer me except for some pretty good juice, a donut, and a kolache. I didn't learn anything new, nothing could improve anything I already do, and I sat down at my desk at nine thirty thinking I would never be curious again.

Now, I need some coffee or tea or something because I'm freaking tired.

23 comments:

  1. Geez! What a pain! What is it about curiosity that inevitably leads to pain and suffering?

    Oh well, at least you got some good snacks out of it, and I am officially giving you permission to enjoy your favorite movie when you get home tonight. Even if Padawan objects to whatever choice you make, watch it anyway. You deserve it. Because I said so. The End. :)

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  2. I don't know. And when you DON'T ask you miss out on something good! Where is the justice?

    My favorite movie is Gone with the Wind. I'd fall asleep before I got to Atlanta burning. Padawan and I are going to watch the Pagemaster because he's never seen it. (Shocking, right?)

    And then I'm going to watch the latest episode of Bones.

    Thank you. You made me feel a little better.

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  3. Yeah company meetings are never a good thing. You never show up and they say, Everybody's getting a five dollar and hour raise, and the companies going to buy everyone pizza and ice cream every day!" It's...it's exactly what you described. You said you worked at Wal-Mart before? Don't they have some kind of creepy brain-washing seance in the morning? Or have I been misinformed?

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  4. It's the first meeting I've ever been to, but I will never expect good things from them. Inventory is better than that.

    Wal-Mart has regular store meetings and employees are supposed to go to one of them every month. But they always had the stupid things on the days I wasn't working, and I wasn't dragging my but out of bed to go all the way to Cedar Park at seven in the morning on my day off. I never went to a single one, and they never said anything about it.

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  5. I get to miss out on a lot of the meetings at work basically because I tend to show up on time and do what I'm supposed to do. I'm not a model employee by any stretch of the imagination. I am extremely opinionated and usually don't hesitate to tell one of my supervisors when he's making a stupid decision that could get someone hurt or in trouble. Once in awhile they will announce a meeting and say it's about call in's or something like that and I'll just say "Leave me out of it. I'm busy." But if they have donuts I'll pop in for a minute or two.... (grin)

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  6. I don't think having opinions takes anyone out of the running for being a model employee. If someone is suggesting something stupid that could cause trouble or get someone hurt, it's good to say something. People just let things happen too often these days.

    And if they're making people go to meetings they should definitely always provide munchies. You should always bribe the employees to attend.

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  7. What's a "kolache"? We have company wide snore fests quarterly. Rarely is there anything worthwhile to show up for. They sometimes pass out the attendance bonuses. Almost everyone in my department gets perfect attendance. The shop guys rarely do, so sometimes they will skip it so the shop guys don't grumble about us always getting the attendance bonus. If they just showed up on time and came to work everyday they could get it too.

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  8. Oh, dear, George. Are you kidding? You ARE kidding, right? Hmmm. Maybe they call them something different where you live...

    Kolache (also spelled kolace, kolach, or kolacky, from the Czech and Slovak plural koláče) is a type of pastry consisting of fillings ranging from fruits (including poppy seed, raspberry, and apricot) to cheeses and/or meats inside a bread roll.

    We prefer ours with sausage and cheese, or ham and cheese down here in Texas.

    You get an attendance bonus? I want an attendance bonus! How do you talk them into giving you one? The Shop Guys should learn to be responsible and then they could have a bonus. I'm always on time and rarely miss work. I should totally be getting one.

    I'm starting to conclude that meetings are, in general, a waste of time.

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  9. I don't think I have ever seen this pastry thing. I have seen lots of sweet pastries as you have described, but never a meat or cheese filled one.

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  10. Wow.

    Okay. I seriously hate suggesting this, but it's the only thing I know is EVERYWHERE.

    Go to Krispy Kreme and order a Kolache.

    They sell them. They aren't nearly as perfect as the ones you will get in a family owned bakery. (No love goes into the making of the Kolache in a mass producing company.) But they are adequate.

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  11. Lots of Polish people in this area with bakeries. Tomorrow is Dyngus Day and I will ask about them when I am out. Maybe they just call them something else here.

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  12. I can't imagine a place without them. They are too delicious. Then again, New Yorkers haven't got the faintest idea how to eat a tamale...

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  13. What's a tamale? Is it made with tomatoes? Just kidding. How do you eat one? I don't like authentic Mexican cuisine. I like the Americanized versions.

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  14. You eat one by pealing off the corn husk. If you don't tell a New Yorker that and just watch them, they'll eat the whole thing, husk and all. It's really funny.

    The Americanized version is okay. But some things, like Tamales, are just awesome.

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  15. I too have never heard of this "kolache" you speak out. I do like meat and cheese wrapped in dough. I would order one, but I'd probably mess up the pronunciation. "Yeah, gimme one of them cool-ache-hockey-meat-cheese-thing-a-ma-jiggers" I'm sure I wouldn't look like an idiot or anything.

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  16. I'm glad George asked what a Kolache was. I'd never hear of them either. Must be a Texas thing.

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  17. Call-ah-chee

    Alright, that's it. You guys need to get kolaches up there. It's just wrong that they go unheard of and unloved outside of Texas.

    They are delicious. You could make them yourself, too, if you were inclined to find a recipe. They're fairly simple.

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  18. LOL @ Bryan! When we go to the local Mexican place I'll mispronounce the things just to make the waiter crazy. He knows I do it on purpose and laughs at me. "Gimme some o' them free-tatters and a chimney-changer and a big mess o' fried ole's, okay?"

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  19. According to Wikipedia (and I take everything it says with a grain of salt), Kolaches are most common in Texas and Oklahoma because of our apparently large Czech population. Also some weird town in Nebraska.

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  20. My mother-in-law makes something she pronounces as "Co-Watts". I have no idea what it's really called because my mother-in-law is batshit crazy and notorious for mispronouncing everything. She calls Chives "Shives". She calls owls "Isles". And, I kid you not, she calls a piano "Pie-Anna" I don't think the dish she makes it's your mythical Kolaches though. It's more like a deep dish sheet pizza with potato, cheese, and (I believe) bacon on it.

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  21. Sounds like a breakfast pizza to me, except one doesn't usually eat potatoes on a breakfast pizza. So maybe not.

    I have a grandmother that pronounces piano "Pea-annie" which makes no sense to me, but maybe it's something really old people do. Because they start to lose their minds.

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  22. I must taste this kolache! It sounds delicious!

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  23. E tu, Nicki?

    You poor, poor deprived woman.

    I'm starting to think I should overnight everybody half a dozen kolaches each so you guys understand what I'm talking about...

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