Things are going to change.

I meant to do a post yesterday, but I only sat at my desk for an hour, which is when I drink my chai latte and eat my breakfast, and then the other receptionist showed up early to take the desk because we were shocking short handed yet again.

Though it was nothing like Friday when there were seriously only three of us for a majority of the day.

And Manager Man actually had the nerve to tell Jay Jay on Thursday, "Do we really need Origami to come in on Fridays? You guys are always so overstaffed."

Overstaffed? On Fridays? Let me break it down for you. Yeah, we've got everybody to come in on Fridays, except Manager Man and Denominator because it's their day off. But then you have the people who always call in on Fridays, the people who come in late because they gigged the night before, and the people who come in hungover and then claim they are too sick to stay. Almost everybody takes advantage of the fact that Manager Man, who doesn't really inspire hard worth ethic and self discipline anyway, is off on Fridays. We are never fully staffed on Fridays. 

Ever. 

And it was a busy, miserable ass day, too. There was one point when I was running three contracts by myself, and when it was slow I was putting up boxes and boxes of sheet music. Is that my job? No. No, it's not. But if I don't do it the Reverend never will. He spends his days either calling in (for various reasons including bu not limited to: he couldn't find a ride, his tooth hurts, there's a snake in his car, he has to take his son to the emergency room, he has an inner ear infection again, or my personal favorite *total sarcasm there*, he's got the runs), showing up three hours late, and/or spending the entire day on personal phone calls, then leaving early because he has to find a ride and sometimes that ride isn't willing to wait until seven to drive him all the way back out to Florence, which is where he lives. We've got twenty thousand dollars worth of sheet music just sitting in boxes not doing anybody any good. Things that we need. And the Reverend is just happy as pie to tell people, "No, I'm sorry, we don't have that here, but if you go talk to Chanel she can call the South Store for you and have it sent up." 

Then I call the South Store and Bee Tee (the new sheet music manager) says, "Why are you asking me to send that? You've got it! It's in those boxes that I sent you!" 

To which I can only reply, "Well, Reverend isn't going through it at all and I'm trying to help, but--"

"No, it's not your job to do it. You've got other things to do. He gets a monthly salary for running the sheet music department himself. You don't get paid anything for sheet music. Tell him to call me when he get's the chance. I'll tell him to do his job."

And she did.

And for one day he worked in the Sheet Music Department and put out two whole boxes. (This is sarcasm. Between everything else I do all day, and I'm always busy, I can put out six boxes. If I had a whole day to dedicate to it I could put out twice that many.) Then he went right back to either not showing up or just talking on the phone.

And Manager Man won't say a damn thing to him.

But it's okay. We've finally got a survey where we can say exactly what's wrong with the store and shed some light on what's really going on.

And I will be mentioning everything. Everyone's constant tardiness without even bothering to call first, Reverend refusing to stock the Sheet Music, Manager Man sending two people to organize the Stock Room when it's insanely busy, sending three people to break down boxes in the hallway when we're already talking to customers, making some people stock certain departments but then refusing to let them sell the products after making them learn about them. Every single thing that goes on that is stupid, useless, or unprofessional, I will be commenting on. And what it really boils down to, of course, is that Manager Man, though I do like him as a person, has no inclination to exercise his authority in a productive, useful way.

In closing, I thought I'd let you guys see how Choo Choo likes to play. This video is something that occurs several times a day: when I'm trying to clean, when I'm trying to get ready, when I come home from work or the park (and yes, I have bike stories for you guys), when I'm sitting on the couch reading. She always defaults to doing this to get me to play with her.

You can't hear it very well, if at all, since I used my cell phone for this instead of a real video recorder, but she can do this for hours. When I went to visit Daddy a few years ago and took Choo Choo with me it always made everyone laugh to see me walking around with my dog attached to my jeans. I was so used to it I hardly noticed the weight trailing behind me. It's one of her more endearing doggy tactics, though I'd be annoyed if she ever actually damaged my jeans.