The cats must have knocked over my soap cause one of the round ones is in two big pieces with lots of crumbs next to it, and the rest were strewn about the floor. One of my labels got ruined, but the rest of the soap is fine. I guess this means I get to use the remnants of that one that broke. Which I guess is a good thing because yesterday I had to break into the store-bought soap. (I had bought a big thing of soap when I started making my own) It was good that I used it because now I see just how much superior my soap is. The store bought soap left a bad smell on me, and it felt weird. It looked and felt almost grimy. Some of that might be old age, since it is a year and a half old, but it was still pretty bad.
So we finished the Games Master Challenge at Neopets. The last day was yesterday. I completed all 35 challenges and got a gold trophy. I am Games Master Level 8. See my pretty trophy? btw, does it surprise anyone that I won the Cheat Champion gold trophy? :D And this is not my first account either, I've actually been playing Neopets since I was 15, in 2002. Or 14. I don't remember. I think I was 15. But this account I made 7 years ago. Isn't my Xweetoc adorable? I need to feed her. Anyway, we also won the community 45,000,000 plays challenge, which I stayed up till 8:30 to help us complete. We were at 44,200,000-something when I went to bed. We won a tunic for that, which I will put on my Quiggle later. A lot of my prizes are going straight to my shop. I've been hoarding them for some time now and will put them on sale maybe today. I was kinda torn about the Games Master Challenge stamp, because it's apparently worth quite a bit, several thousand, but I ended up putting it in my stamp album instead. I'm not really into the stamp collecting so much, but I do enjoy it a bit here and there. I mainly just read books to my Quiggle. Whatever he doesn't read my Xweetoc does. My Quiggle is at 120-something books read, which isn't bad, but to get the trophy I'll need 2,000-something books. I believe my Xweetoc only has about 30 books. That's not counting the Booktastic Books, of which you only need about 100 and my Quiggle's read about 15.
Work:
Zhaun told me to cover the handicap carts out back with a tarp, I told him I'd told Dustin to do it ages ago. Apparently he hadn't. So I got out there and there wasn't any way back to them. So I had to step up on something that I assume was a stack of pallets, brushing off a bit of snow with my boot to see where the boards were. But then I could only sweep off snow from one side of the near pallet, never mind the other two. I saw a board that was on top of some bags (we recycle bags so we always have garbage bags full of bags out back to send in) and who knew what was under that, so I carefully tested it's weight capacity, and it felt solid enough, so I stepped out on it and balanced while I swept off the first pallet. Then came the other two pallets. I couldn't reach them and there was a large thing of plywood or something leaning against the wall at an angle. So I boosted myself up and over, set my feet against that, my butt against the first pallet of carts, and swept off the other two. Then I went for the tarp, and something I did on my way back dislodged the board cause I couldn't get far enough out to step on the plywood again, so I used a shovel to push the tarp as far as I could and then left it. Bonnie knows, so today if Zhaun gets mad she can defend me and tell him it's not safe to cover the other two. As if it really matters at this point. It's been hovering around 0 the last week, their electronic parts are probably broken by now. Not to mention they were covered with snow already. It has been getting a little warmer, I think it even got above freezing for a bit yesterday, maybe he didn't want slush to drip into them. I kinda don't like that it got warmer, that means when it gets cold again the slush will turn to ice and make driving scary.
We also apparently had a bale break out back. Zhaun blamed me, but I've never had a bale break. It's always the guys, they tie it too tight. He'd told Dustin to pick it up on Friday and Saturday but he didn't, so we did it yesterday. His excuse was that he needed a second person to help him tie it back together. What??? We use a machine to compress the boxes. A machine. Do you think two people have that kind of strength? So he was out there with a jack moving the pallet to get it at a better angle to retie and I was inside with Bonnie, who quite agreed that Dustin was being stupid. I grabbed us carts and went out in time to find Dustin staring dumbly at the mess of cardboard that had fallen everywhere the moment he'd tried to move the bale. Yeah. So we picked up the cardboard on the carts and brought it all in to throw in the crusher. Dustin's stack fell over going in the door. Being a much better stacker mine stayed solid. I've always enjoyed stacking. That took about an hour, picking up the bale. It was wet and soggy and I'm getting a hole in my glove so I'll have to replace it soon. Good thing the store pays for those! I heard we're not suppose to transfer gloves anymore but whatever, I heard it from Dustin, so if anyone ever says anything I'll claim I didn't know that it's always been ok. As long as transfers are over 1.00 or under 100 no one ever pays attention to what you transfer. Everyone occasionally transfers stuff from nonfoods to their own department.
None of the trucks had shown up when I left. hm.
And we apparently have a visit today. Zhaun started to tell me to come in early today and I told him I was off. He shrugged and went, "Oops." I don't think it's that big a visit. I only heard about it yesterday. And if he's shrugging it off and not caring that we don't have anyone in till 11 today then it can't be big. Bret didn't even get mad at me about the milk splatters down on one of the 2% doors. Normally he'd be yelling about that if it was a big visit. So if the phone rings I'm probably not answering it because it would most likely be Zhaun telling me to come in and fix something.
Also, the Christmas Party was Saturday night. People are always so surprised when I don't go and ask me how come. There is no polite way to say that I don't want to spend time amongst people I don't like. I always just tell them it's past my bedtime. Then they get all surprised when I say I go to bed at 8. Well if you got up at 5 in the morning and you often didn't actually get to sleep till closer to 9 you'd go to bed at 8 too. Am I the ONLY person who needs 9 hours??? I read all these sleep tip articles that say you need 8-9 hours, yet it seems everyone at work only gets 6 every night. I went through a period of only getting 6 a night and it was horrible.
Oh, and the winners of the costume contest were announced finally. Someone named Becky whom I don't know won first prize, I don't know what she wore. David won second prize with his lame costume of a dollar bill. Amber won third with her lame costume of a blue crayon. What is wrong with people that a 5 dollar costume that looks like a child designed it that is basically a sandwich board and is something really stupid wins out over a handmade costume with real design and what probably cost around 100 or so (taking the boots, belt, and lightsaber into account as well as the fabric) A crayon? Seriously? A dollar bill??? Course I always knew Amber would win a prize, the costume contest always being a popularity contest. If one of Deana's kids had dressed up they would have won first prize no question. Remember when Dena (not to be confused with Deana) was Bret's pet? She won first prize and all she did was throw on a black dress and a witch's hat. Or when Pharmacy won the group prize for wearing cowboy hats? People are just stupid and weird. So what was this Becky person dressed up as? I want to say she's the fuel center night person, if so, I bet she wore the hamburger costume, since we're going for sandwich board costumes this year. I probably should have stuck with my original idea and made the pioneer costume and went as a milk maid. :p Oh, and someday, I will take pictures of my Jedi costume, I really will. It will probably be without the lightsaber as I still need to fix it. I need a new push nut to replace the one I broke and then I need to reglue everything back on.
Also, I was told that dairy is going to get shelf stripping. I almost started crying. Facing over holes is going to be near impossible now. Shelf stripping is a strip of white cardboardy stuff that has pictures of the products that go on the shelf in that spot. Zhaun's figured out how to get around this, but it's still going to make my life a lot harder. You basically just turn tags backwards and cover the pictures with them and hope no one notices.
About Me
- Miba
- Having just moved from the city to the middle of nowhere this is the tale of our getting set up and going.
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Sunday, November 28, 2010
knee pads
The Gamesmaster Challenge at Neopets is almost over. It ends tomorrow. And here when it said to play 60 games today I did. I didn't know I only had to play an additional 15 more off the list. Well I guess tomorrow if it says to play 75 games I'll just play 15 extra. I guess now I know. So far I've beaten every challenge, with a little help via cheats. Like Hasee bounce, I'm fairly bad at that. And Meepit Juice Break, ugh, don't think I cheated with that so much as I connected pipes to of any color to any color goal without worrying about matching.
Work:
This year they mixed the Christmas music in with the regular. Oh, thank God. That still didn't prevent me from hearing The Christmas Song four times today. A lot of them seem to be instrumental, which is nice. I did break down a little when Rocking Around the Christmas Tree came on and it was the voice-crack version.
My back was really bothering me today.
I wore my knee pads for the first time today. And you know, years ago when we used to have a few girls on night crew I'd see them walking around with their knee pads down around their ankles and I used to shrug it off by saying that everyone on night crew's on drugs so who knows what they were thinking. Well, now I know. It must just be a difference in male vs female legs. I put them on, knelt down, and all was wonderful. I stood up and took two steps and they started slipping. The guys walk around in them without issue. Huh. I'd just put velcro on except for when I'm not wearing them I'd look silly with velcro on my pants. I do need to work out a solution though. There were no women's knee pads available on the order guide. Maybe put on an extra strap at the bottom, like one to go around the top of the knee and one around the bottom. Right now there's just the one, around the top. Other than that they're working out great.
This morning I was late for work because I had to scrape ice off my windshield. I didn't know it was going to be icy, lately it's been light snow. And since I hadn't expected that I hadn't put on my coat or gloves before going out to start and brush the car. So when I went in I had snow in my hair and my fingers were cold and wet. My hair was icky all day due to that, it looked super greasy. Tomorrow I'll have to cake on the baby powder! Hair washing day is tomorrow, but not till after work.
Someone had already made a bale and the garbages weren't so full I had to dump them. So that was good. I also didn't end up seeing Zhaun. And it was just Deana today, and Mike, so overall it was a fairly good day.
I was listening to Deana and Mike (front end manager and csm) talking about their back and shoulder pain and how throwing freight for so many years will do that to you. And if I already have this pain what will it be like when I'm 50 if I keep this up? It's a good thing I'm not. If you work yourself to death you can at least afford a decent coffin.
Work:
This year they mixed the Christmas music in with the regular. Oh, thank God. That still didn't prevent me from hearing The Christmas Song four times today. A lot of them seem to be instrumental, which is nice. I did break down a little when Rocking Around the Christmas Tree came on and it was the voice-crack version.
My back was really bothering me today.
I wore my knee pads for the first time today. And you know, years ago when we used to have a few girls on night crew I'd see them walking around with their knee pads down around their ankles and I used to shrug it off by saying that everyone on night crew's on drugs so who knows what they were thinking. Well, now I know. It must just be a difference in male vs female legs. I put them on, knelt down, and all was wonderful. I stood up and took two steps and they started slipping. The guys walk around in them without issue. Huh. I'd just put velcro on except for when I'm not wearing them I'd look silly with velcro on my pants. I do need to work out a solution though. There were no women's knee pads available on the order guide. Maybe put on an extra strap at the bottom, like one to go around the top of the knee and one around the bottom. Right now there's just the one, around the top. Other than that they're working out great.
This morning I was late for work because I had to scrape ice off my windshield. I didn't know it was going to be icy, lately it's been light snow. And since I hadn't expected that I hadn't put on my coat or gloves before going out to start and brush the car. So when I went in I had snow in my hair and my fingers were cold and wet. My hair was icky all day due to that, it looked super greasy. Tomorrow I'll have to cake on the baby powder! Hair washing day is tomorrow, but not till after work.
Someone had already made a bale and the garbages weren't so full I had to dump them. So that was good. I also didn't end up seeing Zhaun. And it was just Deana today, and Mike, so overall it was a fairly good day.
I was listening to Deana and Mike (front end manager and csm) talking about their back and shoulder pain and how throwing freight for so many years will do that to you. And if I already have this pain what will it be like when I'm 50 if I keep this up? It's a good thing I'm not. If you work yourself to death you can at least afford a decent coffin.
Going Downhill
We went back for the interfacing yesterday. And I'm glad, it was a good deal. I got 50 yards. I also got two more things of thread. All together I spent about 40 dollars at JoAnns and saved 80-90. (between Friday and Saturday) I looked at the buttons yesterday, but there were so many I liked that I decided to just wait to buy them until I needed them.
I made labels for my rectangular soaps, and I think they turned out really nice. Now I just need to make labels for my round soap. I'm not entirely certain how I'll do that. I'll probably make it something of an oval. The label I made for the rectangle soap is 2 1/2" x 7" and wraps around it, I used tape to secure it in the back. I did that because I want people to be able to see the soap. But they won't fit on the round ones right. So later today I'll design one for them.
I have also begun re-reading the first Green Rider book. I'm about 50 or so pages in. She's just leaving the Berry sister's house. I made Victor start reading it once but he gave up after a few chapters. Which is ok. He reads books I don't like.
I started organizing my various hair things into a container. It's one of those little ones with drawers. I have black elastics in the top drawer, black hair ties in the middle, and pins in the bottom. I'm not entirely done organizing, but it's getting there. It will make things so much easier and less cluttered. Often I feel my house is a pack rat nest. But I hate getting rid of anything because you generally need something two weeks after you throw it away. And you never know when something might come in handy. I'm sure if it was all organized better it would look neater. Once I'm out of here I will keep everything organized! I don't know where other people get the energy to to clean well and have a job. Yesterday I was running around the house cleaning and after a time my legs started to feel exhausted and I had to stop. Usually after I come home my legs and back will barely let me get out up enough to get something to eat.
On the bright side here we've reached the peak and are on the way down the other side of the mountain. When I first started counting down it was 9 months and something days. Now it's 5 months and 29 days. We're past the 6 month mark.
Home depot had some stoves on sale but they were all electric start. So we'll keep waiting.
The light in the bedroom started flickering and the light switch was buzzing so we moved a lamp in there and aren't using the overhead anymore.
Unless I really get moving the only things I'll have ready for the sale are the soaps. Tonight I need to hem the one bag I have ready and put the handles on it. Then see if I can get the other one lined and ready to be hemmed and handled. We'll see how much energy I have. Probably most things will have to be for the next sale. And all the Christmas stuff I had wanted to make I'll just wait and buy fabric on markdown after Christmas and save them for next year.
I need to start going to some soap forums and get some tips. I've never been able to cut my soap without it splitting wrong, even when I use store-bought water. And I don't know how to get the tops smooth. So I need to start posting somewhere and find these things out. Cause my labels look really neat. I signed my name, then scanned it into the computer, then put it on the label. I found a nice mostly-cursive font that I used for the ingredients list. I don't know what to name my soap yet since I don't have any set recipes. I really should start a recipe folder going.
I have to do my hair and start getting ready for work. I don't know how I want to do my hair today. Since I have time before work I could do something more time-consuming, but I don't know what I'd want to do.
What I want to do is get a cup of tea and settle down by a heat source in my snuggie and read my book until it's light out then maybe take a walk in the snow and then putter around cleaning. Around 9ish or so I'd make breakfast. After which I would sew while Victor played a video game. Then after a while of that we would stop for lunch and then do something together, a game of some sort. Sometime we'd stop to shovel or play in the snow and then we'd have dinner and sit together reading until bedtime, maybe we'd have hot chocolate too. That is what I want to do.
Instead I'll go to work, where it's cold and miserable. I'll get anxious since people are extra-angry on Sundays and treat me extra bad. I'll have the stress of customers and the stress of getting everything done I can in order to not get in trouble tomorrow, with the yogurts mostly. I'll have to deal with aching shoulders and wrists and knees because no one but me seems capable of rotating the milk so I'll have to kneel down and lift gallons from the fourth and third shelf up to the first shelf. I'll have to deal with dried out hands. With going to lunch where I always read sewing magazines and people probably wonder why I read something instructional, if I even remember everything I read. With tired legs and an aching back, with shoulder and neck pain. With driving through the slushy snow to get to work and then back. With gloves that get wet and then dry and scratch on my hands. With being in my boots all day, boots that are too big and yet I have nothing else suitable for work in the snow except my good shoes which I will not wear at work and my old shoes which are too big. I could wear my regular work shoes, I suppose. With the snow being slushy right now it's not too deep or bad. I guess I'll do that. See how cold I get. I'll bring my boots in case I do get too cold. And Sundays are usually shop days. As if anyone should care what the secret shoppers think, it's all fake anyway, as I've said, the shoppers will give you any score they feel like regardless of what reality says. "Every checkstand has a bagger in a neon vest that says Courtesy Clerk on it? Ok, let's mark them off for not having baggers available." And at some point Zhaun might be in to give me a list of stuff to do that we both know I won't have time for. I'll have to deal with trying to excuse my scanouts. I'll probably have to make a bale right away even though I haven't touched the baler since Thursday. I'll have to empty the garbages and since me and Bonnie are, seemingly, the only people who know how to work the compactor I'll have to fix it cause someone will have jammed it. I'll have to deal with being hungry when it's not lunch time then 5 minutes before lunchtime I'll stop being hungry and will have to force myself to go on break. Plus.... Christmas music. *weeps*
I made labels for my rectangular soaps, and I think they turned out really nice. Now I just need to make labels for my round soap. I'm not entirely certain how I'll do that. I'll probably make it something of an oval. The label I made for the rectangle soap is 2 1/2" x 7" and wraps around it, I used tape to secure it in the back. I did that because I want people to be able to see the soap. But they won't fit on the round ones right. So later today I'll design one for them.
I have also begun re-reading the first Green Rider book. I'm about 50 or so pages in. She's just leaving the Berry sister's house. I made Victor start reading it once but he gave up after a few chapters. Which is ok. He reads books I don't like.
I started organizing my various hair things into a container. It's one of those little ones with drawers. I have black elastics in the top drawer, black hair ties in the middle, and pins in the bottom. I'm not entirely done organizing, but it's getting there. It will make things so much easier and less cluttered. Often I feel my house is a pack rat nest. But I hate getting rid of anything because you generally need something two weeks after you throw it away. And you never know when something might come in handy. I'm sure if it was all organized better it would look neater. Once I'm out of here I will keep everything organized! I don't know where other people get the energy to to clean well and have a job. Yesterday I was running around the house cleaning and after a time my legs started to feel exhausted and I had to stop. Usually after I come home my legs and back will barely let me get out up enough to get something to eat.
On the bright side here we've reached the peak and are on the way down the other side of the mountain. When I first started counting down it was 9 months and something days. Now it's 5 months and 29 days. We're past the 6 month mark.
Home depot had some stoves on sale but they were all electric start. So we'll keep waiting.
The light in the bedroom started flickering and the light switch was buzzing so we moved a lamp in there and aren't using the overhead anymore.
Unless I really get moving the only things I'll have ready for the sale are the soaps. Tonight I need to hem the one bag I have ready and put the handles on it. Then see if I can get the other one lined and ready to be hemmed and handled. We'll see how much energy I have. Probably most things will have to be for the next sale. And all the Christmas stuff I had wanted to make I'll just wait and buy fabric on markdown after Christmas and save them for next year.
I need to start going to some soap forums and get some tips. I've never been able to cut my soap without it splitting wrong, even when I use store-bought water. And I don't know how to get the tops smooth. So I need to start posting somewhere and find these things out. Cause my labels look really neat. I signed my name, then scanned it into the computer, then put it on the label. I found a nice mostly-cursive font that I used for the ingredients list. I don't know what to name my soap yet since I don't have any set recipes. I really should start a recipe folder going.
I have to do my hair and start getting ready for work. I don't know how I want to do my hair today. Since I have time before work I could do something more time-consuming, but I don't know what I'd want to do.
What I want to do is get a cup of tea and settle down by a heat source in my snuggie and read my book until it's light out then maybe take a walk in the snow and then putter around cleaning. Around 9ish or so I'd make breakfast. After which I would sew while Victor played a video game. Then after a while of that we would stop for lunch and then do something together, a game of some sort. Sometime we'd stop to shovel or play in the snow and then we'd have dinner and sit together reading until bedtime, maybe we'd have hot chocolate too. That is what I want to do.
Instead I'll go to work, where it's cold and miserable. I'll get anxious since people are extra-angry on Sundays and treat me extra bad. I'll have the stress of customers and the stress of getting everything done I can in order to not get in trouble tomorrow, with the yogurts mostly. I'll have to deal with aching shoulders and wrists and knees because no one but me seems capable of rotating the milk so I'll have to kneel down and lift gallons from the fourth and third shelf up to the first shelf. I'll have to deal with dried out hands. With going to lunch where I always read sewing magazines and people probably wonder why I read something instructional, if I even remember everything I read. With tired legs and an aching back, with shoulder and neck pain. With driving through the slushy snow to get to work and then back. With gloves that get wet and then dry and scratch on my hands. With being in my boots all day, boots that are too big and yet I have nothing else suitable for work in the snow except my good shoes which I will not wear at work and my old shoes which are too big. I could wear my regular work shoes, I suppose. With the snow being slushy right now it's not too deep or bad. I guess I'll do that. See how cold I get. I'll bring my boots in case I do get too cold. And Sundays are usually shop days. As if anyone should care what the secret shoppers think, it's all fake anyway, as I've said, the shoppers will give you any score they feel like regardless of what reality says. "Every checkstand has a bagger in a neon vest that says Courtesy Clerk on it? Ok, let's mark them off for not having baggers available." And at some point Zhaun might be in to give me a list of stuff to do that we both know I won't have time for. I'll have to deal with trying to excuse my scanouts. I'll probably have to make a bale right away even though I haven't touched the baler since Thursday. I'll have to empty the garbages and since me and Bonnie are, seemingly, the only people who know how to work the compactor I'll have to fix it cause someone will have jammed it. I'll have to deal with being hungry when it's not lunch time then 5 minutes before lunchtime I'll stop being hungry and will have to force myself to go on break. Plus.... Christmas music. *weeps*
Friday, November 26, 2010
Friday Sales
We had Thanksgiving dinner with my mom and everyone, it was nice. Me and Victor will have our Thanksgiving today. That's fine with me cause it means I don't have to figure out what to make tonight and we can cook at leisure.
I hurt my toe tripping over the laundry basket last night. It still hurts today some.
Last night was the first time I wore my trench coat. Actually it's a civilian version of the navy coat. Victor's already been wearing his for a while now, but I haven't worn mine till last night. It was nice. The shoulders are kinda small, but Victor says that's normal. It's weird that when I lift my arms the entire coat comes up and the neckline moves up. Especially when I wear my hat (it's a black cloche!) sometimes it knocks on the back of the neck where it sticks up.
I stayed up till 9:30 last night because I had forgotten to do the Neopets Game Challenge. It's the 2010 week-long event. And there's new challenges each day. I got all but one of them within ten minutes, but that last one took forever because I didn't fully read the instructions and didn't know you could kill enemies for bonus points. So far I've managed to win three day's worth of challenges. Today's the 4th day.
We got up at 4:30 to go to Wal-Mart because they had a deal going on a laptop but they were out. Best Buy was out of theirs too. But when we got back to Wal-Mart we found a 400 dollar one that's extra super good so we got that one instead. (it was originally, like, 800) This one can run Sims 3, Left 4 Dead, and other big games. The one we got a few days ago can run all the games I like to play like Plants vs Zombies, Jewel Quest, Civilization IV (I'm not getting V till it's cheap-cheap), Zuma, and etc. It can't really do Sims 3, but that's ok, if I can play the whole lot of PopCap's games I'll be happy for months. Now we have all the netbook/laptop/whatever we need for when we don't have electric. We didn't get anything else at Wal-Mart that was on the Friday sale, we only got things we needed like cat food.
Target had a Foil-Card Obi-Wan so I had to get it cause it's one of the rare hunt items. I also had to get the Clone Wars pajamas that were on the Friday sale.
At Jo-Anns Victor grabbed a cart and got in line. The line wrapped all the way around the building. Not so unusual for Jo-Anns. So I grabbed what I wanted and we waited and waited and waited and waited and eventually I overheard someone say that after you get your fabric cut there is no line for the checkout so I asked them and turns out we were in the cutting table line! aurgh!!!! So I went over to the checkouts and got out in about 10 minutes. There was no sale on things like needles and zippers this year. I did get some thread on the buy one get one free deal, one huge spool of white and one huge spool of black. Guuterman(sp?) even!! And I got two things of black, two things of gray, and two things of dark green yarn on the buy one get one 50% off. And I got two patterns for 99 cents. Oh, and some gosgrain I needed for bag making which weren't on sale. The reason everyone was lining up like that for the cutting table was the 1.29/yd fleece and flannel sale. Which, you know, for the few things I would have wanted wasn't worth the wait, so I put them back. Also, the 2.99/bolt of interfacing is tomorrow, not today. I'm trying to decide if I want to do that or not. I should, for how much I use interfacing it would be a great deal. I spent less than half there than I usually do due there not being any sales on needles or grommets. I forgot about the sale on buttons though, I wonder if that's tomorrow as well? hm.
After that we were tired and so skipped ShopKo. Dunno what they had on sale cause their site was broken last night.
We went to work where we had 15% off all nonfoods items so I got all my stashed markdowns. A black granite canning pan with a jar rack for 7.00 (minus whatever the 15% would have made that come out to, about 6 dollars I believe?), a tea kettle, containers, Galactic Heros. And then we got some regular grocery stuff we needed, like broccoli for tomorrow's chicken penne dinner, and bread. I did my milk order while I was there, and I saw Bret and he seemed fairly pleasant so I guess he wasn't upset about the yogurt.
I still feel like I'm wearing my hat, it's weird.
Anyway, now I can cross off computers, canning pan, and tea kettle from my list. I think I forgot to mention that we had one or two things of canning jars on markdown that I got a week or two ago. So we're slowly building up our stockpile of things we'll need. Now that I'm getting my overtime and holiday pay (576 dollars in today's paycheck for 49.50 hours from last week) we'll start having money to start buying bigger things. We've been checking on things like generators, and Home Depot has the best price. And asides from things like that we don't have anything else to do except save, save, save. A few small things for Christmas, but we really don't need anything else, I don't think there's even any games coming out.
We got Michael Jackson The Experience
a few days ago, which is a lot of fun and I feel silly and shy playing but I know I'll get more into it once I get over being shy because I am fairly graceful. I know this sounds silly but I like to pat myself on the back because I can spin. I have yet to try the Billie Jean level but I do wonder if you get bonus points for being able to do a toe stand, cause I can do that too. I don't know how it's even possible for the game to work the way it does. You hold the wiimote in one hand and that's it. Basically you only have to sit there and swing one arm. But it does know if you aren't cause you get more points if you're standing and using both arms and legs. And the game doesn't really come with instructions, it just kinda leaves you to figure it out on your own. But it's also not very hard to figure it out. One of the tips says to follow the people on screen like a mirror, so that's what I do. It does show upcoming moves to the side but I rarely look at those as it's easier for me to just watch what the people do.
Work:
Yesterday was a lot busier than I thought it would be, but not so very busy.
One of our trucks had shown up on Wednesday, but two of them needed to show up yesterday. Produce got in fairly early, but grocery/deli/frozen showed up around 2:30. So I was offloading till 3:15 and then after that I had to scurry to get yogurts looking full. It was one of those days where every time I got started doing something something else would come up. I was grabbing bread to put in the display for the pan promotion (12.99 buys you a pan, bread, eggs, juice, it's over now though) and Julie stopped me to tell me to take these pallets of pepsi to the back and to make some signs, so I get on the pallets and then find out that immediately after Julie had left me to get the pallets she'd gone back and freaked out at Bob that I hadn't made the signs already so he just made them for her to make her happy. Odd, Julie normally doesn't get upset like that. Usually she's laid back, relaxed. I tell Bret bad news and he gets upset, screams about it a bit, usually swears some, stomps around, and leaves you to figure it out on your own. Julie calmly takes it, sometimes she's a little frazzled, or lightly swears under her breath, but she nods, accepts it, and then offers a solution.
Anyway, I didn't end up leaving work till 4:19. eek.
I hurt my toe tripping over the laundry basket last night. It still hurts today some.
Last night was the first time I wore my trench coat. Actually it's a civilian version of the navy coat. Victor's already been wearing his for a while now, but I haven't worn mine till last night. It was nice. The shoulders are kinda small, but Victor says that's normal. It's weird that when I lift my arms the entire coat comes up and the neckline moves up. Especially when I wear my hat (it's a black cloche!) sometimes it knocks on the back of the neck where it sticks up.
I stayed up till 9:30 last night because I had forgotten to do the Neopets Game Challenge. It's the 2010 week-long event. And there's new challenges each day. I got all but one of them within ten minutes, but that last one took forever because I didn't fully read the instructions and didn't know you could kill enemies for bonus points. So far I've managed to win three day's worth of challenges. Today's the 4th day.
We got up at 4:30 to go to Wal-Mart because they had a deal going on a laptop but they were out. Best Buy was out of theirs too. But when we got back to Wal-Mart we found a 400 dollar one that's extra super good so we got that one instead. (it was originally, like, 800) This one can run Sims 3, Left 4 Dead, and other big games. The one we got a few days ago can run all the games I like to play like Plants vs Zombies, Jewel Quest, Civilization IV (I'm not getting V till it's cheap-cheap), Zuma, and etc. It can't really do Sims 3, but that's ok, if I can play the whole lot of PopCap's games I'll be happy for months. Now we have all the netbook/laptop/whatever we need for when we don't have electric. We didn't get anything else at Wal-Mart that was on the Friday sale, we only got things we needed like cat food.
Target had a Foil-Card Obi-Wan so I had to get it cause it's one of the rare hunt items. I also had to get the Clone Wars pajamas that were on the Friday sale.
At Jo-Anns Victor grabbed a cart and got in line. The line wrapped all the way around the building. Not so unusual for Jo-Anns. So I grabbed what I wanted and we waited and waited and waited and waited and eventually I overheard someone say that after you get your fabric cut there is no line for the checkout so I asked them and turns out we were in the cutting table line! aurgh!!!! So I went over to the checkouts and got out in about 10 minutes. There was no sale on things like needles and zippers this year. I did get some thread on the buy one get one free deal, one huge spool of white and one huge spool of black. Guuterman(sp?) even!! And I got two things of black, two things of gray, and two things of dark green yarn on the buy one get one 50% off. And I got two patterns for 99 cents. Oh, and some gosgrain I needed for bag making which weren't on sale. The reason everyone was lining up like that for the cutting table was the 1.29/yd fleece and flannel sale. Which, you know, for the few things I would have wanted wasn't worth the wait, so I put them back. Also, the 2.99/bolt of interfacing is tomorrow, not today. I'm trying to decide if I want to do that or not. I should, for how much I use interfacing it would be a great deal. I spent less than half there than I usually do due there not being any sales on needles or grommets. I forgot about the sale on buttons though, I wonder if that's tomorrow as well? hm.
After that we were tired and so skipped ShopKo. Dunno what they had on sale cause their site was broken last night.
We went to work where we had 15% off all nonfoods items so I got all my stashed markdowns. A black granite canning pan with a jar rack for 7.00 (minus whatever the 15% would have made that come out to, about 6 dollars I believe?), a tea kettle, containers, Galactic Heros. And then we got some regular grocery stuff we needed, like broccoli for tomorrow's chicken penne dinner, and bread. I did my milk order while I was there, and I saw Bret and he seemed fairly pleasant so I guess he wasn't upset about the yogurt.
I still feel like I'm wearing my hat, it's weird.
Anyway, now I can cross off computers, canning pan, and tea kettle from my list. I think I forgot to mention that we had one or two things of canning jars on markdown that I got a week or two ago. So we're slowly building up our stockpile of things we'll need. Now that I'm getting my overtime and holiday pay (576 dollars in today's paycheck for 49.50 hours from last week) we'll start having money to start buying bigger things. We've been checking on things like generators, and Home Depot has the best price. And asides from things like that we don't have anything else to do except save, save, save. A few small things for Christmas, but we really don't need anything else, I don't think there's even any games coming out.
We got Michael Jackson The Experience
a few days ago, which is a lot of fun and I feel silly and shy playing but I know I'll get more into it once I get over being shy because I am fairly graceful. I know this sounds silly but I like to pat myself on the back because I can spin. I have yet to try the Billie Jean level but I do wonder if you get bonus points for being able to do a toe stand, cause I can do that too. I don't know how it's even possible for the game to work the way it does. You hold the wiimote in one hand and that's it. Basically you only have to sit there and swing one arm. But it does know if you aren't cause you get more points if you're standing and using both arms and legs. And the game doesn't really come with instructions, it just kinda leaves you to figure it out on your own. But it's also not very hard to figure it out. One of the tips says to follow the people on screen like a mirror, so that's what I do. It does show upcoming moves to the side but I rarely look at those as it's easier for me to just watch what the people do.Work:
Yesterday was a lot busier than I thought it would be, but not so very busy.
One of our trucks had shown up on Wednesday, but two of them needed to show up yesterday. Produce got in fairly early, but grocery/deli/frozen showed up around 2:30. So I was offloading till 3:15 and then after that I had to scurry to get yogurts looking full. It was one of those days where every time I got started doing something something else would come up. I was grabbing bread to put in the display for the pan promotion (12.99 buys you a pan, bread, eggs, juice, it's over now though) and Julie stopped me to tell me to take these pallets of pepsi to the back and to make some signs, so I get on the pallets and then find out that immediately after Julie had left me to get the pallets she'd gone back and freaked out at Bob that I hadn't made the signs already so he just made them for her to make her happy. Odd, Julie normally doesn't get upset like that. Usually she's laid back, relaxed. I tell Bret bad news and he gets upset, screams about it a bit, usually swears some, stomps around, and leaves you to figure it out on your own. Julie calmly takes it, sometimes she's a little frazzled, or lightly swears under her breath, but she nods, accepts it, and then offers a solution.
Anyway, I didn't end up leaving work till 4:19. eek.
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Started to Doze Off
I fell asleep at work. It was funny, actually. Bonnie had to go up to the bathroom and while she was gone I watched the back door. So I leaned against the receiving desk, all comfortable. No one was around, which normally when I'm tired and people are around my eyes track their movement just cause, well, movement... it's eye-attracting. But with no one around my mind started to wander and grow fuzzy. Suddenly I came back to awareness and found I had started to lean to one side and I blinked around and asked myself if I'd fallen asleep, and I deduced I must have. At least for a split second before I started to fall over.
Bret got mad about the yogurts again so I had to explain to him the issue. He understood and said I'd better not over order cause we don't want a lot of shrink. *sigh*
I also had to explain to him why I wanted to put the turkey butter on sale. Well, with 34 on hand and having sold 14 in the last month and this being the day before Thanksgiving I don't think anyone will really want to buy any after tomorrow. So me and Julie put it on sale for 1.50. I don't blame people for not wanting it, at 3.59 I wouldn't want one either. Best picture I could find.
Bret also, around noon, asked me if I'd been there all day. At the time I took that to mean he was upset with how little I'd gotten done, but later I thought perhaps he had simply been unobservant?
A woman told me how great it was that the yogurt was front fill so I explained the hardships and she said yeah it must be hard for you but I love your pain and suffering. Not in those words, but she was just too polite to finish the sentence that way.
We have a new commercial. It's a Hallmark one. Oh, Hallmark, your commercials are the spawn of Satan himself. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if writing commercials for them was his night job or something. Every Christmas I say to myself, "well it can't get any worse", oh but it does. Sadly, it does. This one isn't just annoying, it's destructive. Apparently there's some Charlie Brown Christmas promo and the commercial uses clips from the movie. Great. As if I needed one more thing to hate about Christmas, and I really, really, did not want to have that particular bit of Christmas ruined for me, but after this I doubt I'll be able to watch that again without cringing. Oh, tomorrow is my last day of sanity. After tomorrow our Christmas music will probably start. And I almost feel like curling up in a ball and rocking back and forth while gnawing on my knuckles just thinking about the torture that will ensure. One year they did it good, one year they had real music intermixed, and that was the only year I actually enjoyed the music. But normally it's straight Christmas songs, and there are only so many times a day you can stand to hear someone pretending they can sing make their own "original" style of a christmas carol before something in you snaps. I still cringe and feel feverish the moment I hear the first few notes of Rocking Around the Christmas Tree and it's been nearly a year. You'd feel the same way if you heard that song two or three times an hour every day for a month and a half. Especially if it was the version where the singer's voice cracks from time to time. And, yes, I seriously did hear it at least once every half hour or so. Victor didn't believe me. But he was in shopping with me and we were there for about an hour and at one point he looks up at the ceiling and says, "That's the third time I've heard that since we've been in here." It wasn't just the song I previously mentioned, it's all of them. All ten songs we were allowed to play or however many we had. Why is it no one can just follow the way a song's supposed to be? They have to add to it, twist it, make it something new. Jazz it up or whatever. What's wrong with just singing it the way it's supposed to be sung?
Yesterday's truck came in today. They had closed the pass in from Idaho, they do that in really bad weather, so it's not unusual for our trucks to get stranded there. None of the trucks that were supposed to come today had come before I left at 2:30 (a half hour late). So I loaded returns today on yesterday's truck. Or rather I took the shovel and went and dug out the returns while the driver loaded them. At one point he got cold and went to sit in his truck so I continued loading. He asked if I was cold, and yes, I was, but I wanted to get it all done at once. If I went in and sat down I wouldn't be able to make myself go back out. We were finishing up when Bret paged me to fill the 18 count eggs. He knew I was loading returns. I ignored him. He must have filled it himself cause when I finally went to check on it it was full.
The 18 cts are really flying, I had to give some cases to the other store. I probably shouldn't have but oh, well. After today the sales will stop flying and hopefully I won't run out too badly.
I forgot to do my juice order this morning, oops. I suppose I could have sent in a memo order if I'd cared enough.
Broke one fingernail and cracked another. Actually the first one I had cracked a few days ago and it finally broke today. My nails are generally stronger than this, something must be missing from my diet. I usually break one or two over the course of a few months, but in the last two or three months I've broken all of them, repeatedly. hmm. It seems to be slowing down though.
Bret got mad about the yogurts again so I had to explain to him the issue. He understood and said I'd better not over order cause we don't want a lot of shrink. *sigh*
I also had to explain to him why I wanted to put the turkey butter on sale. Well, with 34 on hand and having sold 14 in the last month and this being the day before Thanksgiving I don't think anyone will really want to buy any after tomorrow. So me and Julie put it on sale for 1.50. I don't blame people for not wanting it, at 3.59 I wouldn't want one either. Best picture I could find.
Bret also, around noon, asked me if I'd been there all day. At the time I took that to mean he was upset with how little I'd gotten done, but later I thought perhaps he had simply been unobservant?
A woman told me how great it was that the yogurt was front fill so I explained the hardships and she said yeah it must be hard for you but I love your pain and suffering. Not in those words, but she was just too polite to finish the sentence that way.
We have a new commercial. It's a Hallmark one. Oh, Hallmark, your commercials are the spawn of Satan himself. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if writing commercials for them was his night job or something. Every Christmas I say to myself, "well it can't get any worse", oh but it does. Sadly, it does. This one isn't just annoying, it's destructive. Apparently there's some Charlie Brown Christmas promo and the commercial uses clips from the movie. Great. As if I needed one more thing to hate about Christmas, and I really, really, did not want to have that particular bit of Christmas ruined for me, but after this I doubt I'll be able to watch that again without cringing. Oh, tomorrow is my last day of sanity. After tomorrow our Christmas music will probably start. And I almost feel like curling up in a ball and rocking back and forth while gnawing on my knuckles just thinking about the torture that will ensure. One year they did it good, one year they had real music intermixed, and that was the only year I actually enjoyed the music. But normally it's straight Christmas songs, and there are only so many times a day you can stand to hear someone pretending they can sing make their own "original" style of a christmas carol before something in you snaps. I still cringe and feel feverish the moment I hear the first few notes of Rocking Around the Christmas Tree and it's been nearly a year. You'd feel the same way if you heard that song two or three times an hour every day for a month and a half. Especially if it was the version where the singer's voice cracks from time to time. And, yes, I seriously did hear it at least once every half hour or so. Victor didn't believe me. But he was in shopping with me and we were there for about an hour and at one point he looks up at the ceiling and says, "That's the third time I've heard that since we've been in here." It wasn't just the song I previously mentioned, it's all of them. All ten songs we were allowed to play or however many we had. Why is it no one can just follow the way a song's supposed to be? They have to add to it, twist it, make it something new. Jazz it up or whatever. What's wrong with just singing it the way it's supposed to be sung?
Yesterday's truck came in today. They had closed the pass in from Idaho, they do that in really bad weather, so it's not unusual for our trucks to get stranded there. None of the trucks that were supposed to come today had come before I left at 2:30 (a half hour late). So I loaded returns today on yesterday's truck. Or rather I took the shovel and went and dug out the returns while the driver loaded them. At one point he got cold and went to sit in his truck so I continued loading. He asked if I was cold, and yes, I was, but I wanted to get it all done at once. If I went in and sat down I wouldn't be able to make myself go back out. We were finishing up when Bret paged me to fill the 18 count eggs. He knew I was loading returns. I ignored him. He must have filled it himself cause when I finally went to check on it it was full.
The 18 cts are really flying, I had to give some cases to the other store. I probably shouldn't have but oh, well. After today the sales will stop flying and hopefully I won't run out too badly.
I forgot to do my juice order this morning, oops. I suppose I could have sent in a memo order if I'd cared enough.
Broke one fingernail and cracked another. Actually the first one I had cracked a few days ago and it finally broke today. My nails are generally stronger than this, something must be missing from my diet. I usually break one or two over the course of a few months, but in the last two or three months I've broken all of them, repeatedly. hmm. It seems to be slowing down though.
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Wearing Slippers at Work
My milk load didn't show up till 10ish and wasn't finished being checked in till 11. Usually he shows up around 6:30 on Tuesdays I think. But it was Sam, the backup driver. By time I got to him to tell him, "If you're going to be late call us, my wheelers and pallets have been on the floor since 6 waiting for you." (to give him room to get the milk down to the milk section I pull all the wheelers and misc pallets out and then when the milk is in I put them back in) And I gathered from his wince that Bonnie had already yelled at him so I went and asked her and she said she had. Good.
I spent forever front-filling the yogurt. It took so long. And my poor thumb edges. Some of the tips of my other fingers hurt too. From the way you have to open the yoplait cases to case-fill. I almost think it might be easier to just fill it normally and toss the cases. Either that or I'll build up calluses. For now it just hurts though. And my hands got so dried out, I had to keep applying hand lotion.
Bret got mad at me for not having enough yogurt and every time he walked by he'd tell me I'd better have more. It's not that I under ordered. I have the same amount of yogurt I normally do. The issue is that I have more room than I normally do. So a shelf with two facings of each kind of yoplait would look full with what I've got. However since almost all of them have six facings now, well, that's the whole case right there. And then that leaves no yogurt behind the first row to make it look full. So of course it looks kinda empty. I suppose I was supposed to be able to know how to order for the new organization right away, just like that. I guess if it takes a week or two for everything to settle into place that means I don't know how to order. He probably just needed someone to take stuff out on and I was an easy target at that moment.
For two days before Thanksgiving it's really, really slow and quiet at work. We even had moments where the checkers were on the line waiting for people! It is insanely slow for what day it is.
Victor was out because he got in on an early Black Friday deal and so he came by work and we went shopping for our Thanksgiving stuff. He wants to make cranberry sauce, so we got him berries. We bought a little frozen turkey thing. I have canned cherries cause I want to make a pie. We got stuffing. Potatoes. We have rolls, they're hawaiian rolls too!
My right arm hurts from filling yogurt. Because we no longer have somewhere to sit cases while we fill I can't use two hands to stock anymore because one hand has to hold the case while the other stocks. So my right shoulder hurts.
I wore my snowboots to work today and I was certain that I'd be amongst the only to do it. But turns out quite a few people were wearing their boots. Especially the baggers, but that's understandable since they have to bring in carts. I realized that my boots are a tad too big because my feet were slipping around in them. I might stuff the toes a little for tomorrow. But I am really glad I wore them because my feet kept nice and warm all day. It was almost like wearing slippers to work.
They hung a floor-length mirror that covers most of the wall right in front of the door when you open it in the women's bathroom. It makes me jump when I open the door cause I see movement and think someone's in front of the door so I want to step back to let them pass and then I see myself. Weird. I am glad they finally hung mirrors in the bathroom though, it was awful not having any. The one over the sinks is nice.
I spent forever front-filling the yogurt. It took so long. And my poor thumb edges. Some of the tips of my other fingers hurt too. From the way you have to open the yoplait cases to case-fill. I almost think it might be easier to just fill it normally and toss the cases. Either that or I'll build up calluses. For now it just hurts though. And my hands got so dried out, I had to keep applying hand lotion.
Bret got mad at me for not having enough yogurt and every time he walked by he'd tell me I'd better have more. It's not that I under ordered. I have the same amount of yogurt I normally do. The issue is that I have more room than I normally do. So a shelf with two facings of each kind of yoplait would look full with what I've got. However since almost all of them have six facings now, well, that's the whole case right there. And then that leaves no yogurt behind the first row to make it look full. So of course it looks kinda empty. I suppose I was supposed to be able to know how to order for the new organization right away, just like that. I guess if it takes a week or two for everything to settle into place that means I don't know how to order. He probably just needed someone to take stuff out on and I was an easy target at that moment.
For two days before Thanksgiving it's really, really slow and quiet at work. We even had moments where the checkers were on the line waiting for people! It is insanely slow for what day it is.
Victor was out because he got in on an early Black Friday deal and so he came by work and we went shopping for our Thanksgiving stuff. He wants to make cranberry sauce, so we got him berries. We bought a little frozen turkey thing. I have canned cherries cause I want to make a pie. We got stuffing. Potatoes. We have rolls, they're hawaiian rolls too!
My right arm hurts from filling yogurt. Because we no longer have somewhere to sit cases while we fill I can't use two hands to stock anymore because one hand has to hold the case while the other stocks. So my right shoulder hurts.
I wore my snowboots to work today and I was certain that I'd be amongst the only to do it. But turns out quite a few people were wearing their boots. Especially the baggers, but that's understandable since they have to bring in carts. I realized that my boots are a tad too big because my feet were slipping around in them. I might stuff the toes a little for tomorrow. But I am really glad I wore them because my feet kept nice and warm all day. It was almost like wearing slippers to work.
They hung a floor-length mirror that covers most of the wall right in front of the door when you open it in the women's bathroom. It makes me jump when I open the door cause I see movement and think someone's in front of the door so I want to step back to let them pass and then I see myself. Weird. I am glad they finally hung mirrors in the bathroom though, it was awful not having any. The one over the sinks is nice.
Sunday, November 21, 2010
cold and snowy
I actually don't have a whole lot to say about work today. The yogurt was weird, I found that I simply can't be ocd about it. I can't! The way it is set up prevents it. Except for the people taking from the tops of two stacks side by side instead of simply taking the entire stack. That one will remain forever, I'm sure. But I can't complain about there being yogurt back behind that aren't stacked, it kinda has to be messy behind the front. It was weird. I... I kinda guiltily admit that it felt kind of freeing... The stool I was using was the perfect height. I need knee pads. And I have to wear gloves because I almost broke three nails trying to open a box of Dan-o-Ninos. If Dan-O-Ninos were cheap and came in flavors I liked I'd buy them just because they have a dinosaur on the front. Alas, they are almost 4 dollars for this tiny little six-pack and each of the cups is about a little more than a spoonful. Clearly for kids. But they're cute. And no one buys them unless they're on markdown.
I took a long, relaxing bath after work. While there I had some chocolate ice cream made with real chocolate. It's part of the new Private Selection ice cream thing, "Because we both know you deserve it". They're insanely expensive, about 5 dollars for the tub, but I got it for 3 on the mega event. Still kinda spendy but actually well worth it.
And this reminds me, a commercial at work that's for pears. The woman advertising the pears is suggesting you eat a pear for breakfast, alongside a sandwich at lunch, as a snack, with dinner, and then as desert. So they want you to eat five pears every day?
If you're a guy or don't want to be grossed out, this next bit is a bit personal:
Anyway, I would very much like to recommend this product to every woman everywhere, it is truly wonderful: Diva Cup Model 1 Pre-Childbirth
and Diva Cup Model 2 Post Childbirth. Yes, kinda spendy, but well worth it. And imagine how much money you save in the long run. My last one lasted a year and a half before I had to break down and buy a new one. Besides which... they're better for the environment, and if there were a survival situation they'd be real handy. This new one I'm going to take better care of, maybe it'll last longer.
Still not done with DH. I just finished the Kings Cross chapter. I get it a lot more this time around, I didn't quite get it last time. Course last time I was rather distraught by that point. Victor was saying some interesting things about Neville last night that I need to make him write out some day so I can post it here.
The snow is bad enough now that the roads are getting icy. I slid twice on my way home and had issues getting going after stopping. Nothing bad, nothing big, just annoying. It's that time again, where I have to wake up early in order to spend extra time driving to work, and I have to start getting out earlier to get the car warming up so it'll, you know, warm up, and so I can see if I need to shovel behind the car. I have 4-wheel drive... so I guess I'm just an idiot. Like once last year I got stuck in the drive-way and Victor just came out and with one try got me out. And another time I had skidded around so bad that we had quite a time getting me out and then he told me what I'd done wrong and how to fix it next time. We do need to weigh down the back of my car again. Last time we just stocked up on kitty litter. Maybe we'll do that again. I still have some ice melt back there, though that won't be enough in and of itself.
I have decided I dislike Rhonda even more than I previously did. (at work, she does checking and non-foods) First, she suggested that anyone who is caught not smiling be sent home from work. As a reward for getting good customer service scores she wants a ride in Bret's boat. She has super short hair, which is dyed some weird, sickly blondish/grayish/brownish. She doesn't like cats. She hates peanut butter. She bought everyone on the front end gloves. She is just creepy.
Oh, and while Bret was at work today he wasn't really very active. He made time to watch the football game in his office and left soon afterward.
I took a long, relaxing bath after work. While there I had some chocolate ice cream made with real chocolate. It's part of the new Private Selection ice cream thing, "Because we both know you deserve it". They're insanely expensive, about 5 dollars for the tub, but I got it for 3 on the mega event. Still kinda spendy but actually well worth it.
And this reminds me, a commercial at work that's for pears. The woman advertising the pears is suggesting you eat a pear for breakfast, alongside a sandwich at lunch, as a snack, with dinner, and then as desert. So they want you to eat five pears every day?
If you're a guy or don't want to be grossed out, this next bit is a bit personal:
Anyway, I would very much like to recommend this product to every woman everywhere, it is truly wonderful: Diva Cup Model 1 Pre-Childbirth
and Diva Cup Model 2 Post Childbirth. Yes, kinda spendy, but well worth it. And imagine how much money you save in the long run. My last one lasted a year and a half before I had to break down and buy a new one. Besides which... they're better for the environment, and if there were a survival situation they'd be real handy. This new one I'm going to take better care of, maybe it'll last longer. Still not done with DH. I just finished the Kings Cross chapter. I get it a lot more this time around, I didn't quite get it last time. Course last time I was rather distraught by that point. Victor was saying some interesting things about Neville last night that I need to make him write out some day so I can post it here.
The snow is bad enough now that the roads are getting icy. I slid twice on my way home and had issues getting going after stopping. Nothing bad, nothing big, just annoying. It's that time again, where I have to wake up early in order to spend extra time driving to work, and I have to start getting out earlier to get the car warming up so it'll, you know, warm up, and so I can see if I need to shovel behind the car. I have 4-wheel drive... so I guess I'm just an idiot. Like once last year I got stuck in the drive-way and Victor just came out and with one try got me out. And another time I had skidded around so bad that we had quite a time getting me out and then he told me what I'd done wrong and how to fix it next time. We do need to weigh down the back of my car again. Last time we just stocked up on kitty litter. Maybe we'll do that again. I still have some ice melt back there, though that won't be enough in and of itself.
I have decided I dislike Rhonda even more than I previously did. (at work, she does checking and non-foods) First, she suggested that anyone who is caught not smiling be sent home from work. As a reward for getting good customer service scores she wants a ride in Bret's boat. She has super short hair, which is dyed some weird, sickly blondish/grayish/brownish. She doesn't like cats. She hates peanut butter. She bought everyone on the front end gloves. She is just creepy.
Oh, and while Bret was at work today he wasn't really very active. He made time to watch the football game in his office and left soon afterward.
wasted space
Yesterday I got a really bad headache at some point after I came back from break, so around 11ish I guess. Turns out Victor had gotten a migraine around then. We call it "weird married telepathy". Cause it happens often enough. Sometimes I'll just get a really bad headache and then it'll turn out he has one. Or I'll be sleeping bad when he has a bad night. Or sometimes I'll get a feeling in the middle of the night and go see him and turns out he kinda needed a hug.
Work:
Yesterday I was about 40 minutes leaving. So I've got about 49 1/2 hours for last week. This week I'm only scheduled 40 but I expect it'll actually come out to about 42-45. Especially due to the day before Thanksgiving, that day is just insane. Overall, though, this year it's been very quiet for the week before Thanksgiving. Good.
The men's bathroom still isn't done and the guys are just whining about it endlessly. Us girls put up with our bathroom being gone just fine, but the guys are lining up and complaining and going out to use the portapotties out back. Blaine keeps walking around saying he's going to start using the sink in his back room. eww. (produce guy) I never liked him.
Anyway, Bret was in a really bad mood. He left me alone, though, which was nice. Bret was trying to help Meat Dept with turkeys and a few boxes fell off the top of a pallet and landed about four feet from me, which was unnerving.
Robert was at work yesterday. Which I found interesting because I wasn't aware he still did dairy. I do keep seeing his paycheck in the stack but I didn't know where he was working. Robert is a jerk. He's Julie's pet and he works Sunday and Saturday mornings sometimes, usually he was in dairy, but we got sick of him and sent him to produce who eventually got sick of him and gave him back to us. Anyway, he was his usual, annoying self. Doubting my ability to order because of how much milk backstock we have. Yeah, I over ordered. This time of year that's not bad. It's better to have too much right now. And he thought I was an idiot for wanting to case-fill the yogurt.
I ordered some knee pads for filling the yogurt, I told Zhaun I needed them. My knees are bad enough as it is, and I've thought of asking him for knee pads in the past, but I've always been fine using empty boxes crushed flat. But if I'm going to be on the sales floor to fill my stuff I won't want to have to pick up my box every time a customer makes me move. It'll be easier if I have knee pads cause then I can simply stand. Besides, those knee pads are comfortable. The guys go through them fairly fast, but some of them are three times my size and wear them all night long every night. I knew how to order knee pads, but management decided the guys went through them too fast and are only giving them so many per so many days or something I dunno how they arranged it but they're not just ordering a bunch and leaving them for anyone to take anymore. The supply guide is kinda neat, there's all sorts of stuff on there. Ever since Zhaun told me how to pull it up me and Bonnie have been taking care of ourselves rather nicely. New printer cartridges whenever we need them, instead of having to ask people for a month after they're so empty we have to take them out and shake them from time to time. Baling wire, shrink wrap, instead of hoping Zhaun eventually remembers.
Anyway, with how they're moving all the product around I gather we'll be a very good specialty store with very little variety. I now have two doors of 1%, two doors of 2%, two doors of whole, two doors of Viva, and two doors of Darigold. There's a whole cooler case for cold 12pk soda. All the yoplait has 4-6 facings. It's just unnecessary. It's a waste of space. I don't sell anywhere near enough 1% to need two doors. Or Viva. Or Darigold. I'll admit the 2% is a good idea, though. The only section we actually did need expanded upon was frozen. Otherwise the rest of the store was fine. But like I've said, they're playing to the outlier departments. I guess sales in Bakery and Service Deli are more important than sales in Grocery. You know, seeing as Bakery makes 7,000 a week whereas Grocery makes about 150,000. I don't know where Bakery gets the hours to have three people a day. I made 25,000 a week and barely have enough for two people a day and one of them isn't even a full shift person. I have Patty on my side about this though, she says that now that dairy is bigger we'll need more hours and I agree with her completely. I even told her it's going to take forever to fill yogurt now, especially when it's on sale. Yogurt customers tend to be the rudest. But it is weird, it's like they're trying to kill our sales. Before, they had cling-shelves stuck to the dairy and frozen doors, they had shippers at the end caps and down the aisles, round display shelving at the ends of the coolers and some of the end caps and down some of the aisles, product displayed on the registers, etc etc. I mean, sure non-foods could stand to shrink a little, no one bought appliances from us anyway, but grocery? And who really buys from the olive bar anyway? Like I've said before, in the last few years we've had an olive bar I've seen people buying it two or three times. Even produce shrank, their new tables are smaller.
I need to figure out where to put my markdowns. They took my spot away and now there's no room to drop an empty egg box into the egg case to put them into.
I need to get going, I need to get ready for work. I go in at 7 today. Back in dairy. Kinda. Even for having stayed almost an hour late last night I still need to print the consolidated reports for the last week and work the reclamation into non-perishable tracking.
Oh, just a funny thing, quick, on the 709s there's a section called Blanket Credit, and this is a bit of money they give to the department each week to help combat shrink and scan outs. Well for one department they gave 6 cents. Wow. You know, if MY department got a whole 6 cents credited against my shrink/scan outs well, gee, I'd be just so much better off. What do they think 6 cents is going to do??
Work:
Yesterday I was about 40 minutes leaving. So I've got about 49 1/2 hours for last week. This week I'm only scheduled 40 but I expect it'll actually come out to about 42-45. Especially due to the day before Thanksgiving, that day is just insane. Overall, though, this year it's been very quiet for the week before Thanksgiving. Good.
The men's bathroom still isn't done and the guys are just whining about it endlessly. Us girls put up with our bathroom being gone just fine, but the guys are lining up and complaining and going out to use the portapotties out back. Blaine keeps walking around saying he's going to start using the sink in his back room. eww. (produce guy) I never liked him.
Anyway, Bret was in a really bad mood. He left me alone, though, which was nice. Bret was trying to help Meat Dept with turkeys and a few boxes fell off the top of a pallet and landed about four feet from me, which was unnerving.
Robert was at work yesterday. Which I found interesting because I wasn't aware he still did dairy. I do keep seeing his paycheck in the stack but I didn't know where he was working. Robert is a jerk. He's Julie's pet and he works Sunday and Saturday mornings sometimes, usually he was in dairy, but we got sick of him and sent him to produce who eventually got sick of him and gave him back to us. Anyway, he was his usual, annoying self. Doubting my ability to order because of how much milk backstock we have. Yeah, I over ordered. This time of year that's not bad. It's better to have too much right now. And he thought I was an idiot for wanting to case-fill the yogurt.
I ordered some knee pads for filling the yogurt, I told Zhaun I needed them. My knees are bad enough as it is, and I've thought of asking him for knee pads in the past, but I've always been fine using empty boxes crushed flat. But if I'm going to be on the sales floor to fill my stuff I won't want to have to pick up my box every time a customer makes me move. It'll be easier if I have knee pads cause then I can simply stand. Besides, those knee pads are comfortable. The guys go through them fairly fast, but some of them are three times my size and wear them all night long every night. I knew how to order knee pads, but management decided the guys went through them too fast and are only giving them so many per so many days or something I dunno how they arranged it but they're not just ordering a bunch and leaving them for anyone to take anymore. The supply guide is kinda neat, there's all sorts of stuff on there. Ever since Zhaun told me how to pull it up me and Bonnie have been taking care of ourselves rather nicely. New printer cartridges whenever we need them, instead of having to ask people for a month after they're so empty we have to take them out and shake them from time to time. Baling wire, shrink wrap, instead of hoping Zhaun eventually remembers.
Anyway, with how they're moving all the product around I gather we'll be a very good specialty store with very little variety. I now have two doors of 1%, two doors of 2%, two doors of whole, two doors of Viva, and two doors of Darigold. There's a whole cooler case for cold 12pk soda. All the yoplait has 4-6 facings. It's just unnecessary. It's a waste of space. I don't sell anywhere near enough 1% to need two doors. Or Viva. Or Darigold. I'll admit the 2% is a good idea, though. The only section we actually did need expanded upon was frozen. Otherwise the rest of the store was fine. But like I've said, they're playing to the outlier departments. I guess sales in Bakery and Service Deli are more important than sales in Grocery. You know, seeing as Bakery makes 7,000 a week whereas Grocery makes about 150,000. I don't know where Bakery gets the hours to have three people a day. I made 25,000 a week and barely have enough for two people a day and one of them isn't even a full shift person. I have Patty on my side about this though, she says that now that dairy is bigger we'll need more hours and I agree with her completely. I even told her it's going to take forever to fill yogurt now, especially when it's on sale. Yogurt customers tend to be the rudest. But it is weird, it's like they're trying to kill our sales. Before, they had cling-shelves stuck to the dairy and frozen doors, they had shippers at the end caps and down the aisles, round display shelving at the ends of the coolers and some of the end caps and down some of the aisles, product displayed on the registers, etc etc. I mean, sure non-foods could stand to shrink a little, no one bought appliances from us anyway, but grocery? And who really buys from the olive bar anyway? Like I've said before, in the last few years we've had an olive bar I've seen people buying it two or three times. Even produce shrank, their new tables are smaller.
I need to figure out where to put my markdowns. They took my spot away and now there's no room to drop an empty egg box into the egg case to put them into.
I need to get going, I need to get ready for work. I go in at 7 today. Back in dairy. Kinda. Even for having stayed almost an hour late last night I still need to print the consolidated reports for the last week and work the reclamation into non-perishable tracking.
Oh, just a funny thing, quick, on the 709s there's a section called Blanket Credit, and this is a bit of money they give to the department each week to help combat shrink and scan outs. Well for one department they gave 6 cents. Wow. You know, if MY department got a whole 6 cents credited against my shrink/scan outs well, gee, I'd be just so much better off. What do they think 6 cents is going to do??
Friday, November 19, 2010
Deathly Hallows
Almost made it to the end of the book, I was just starting the memories part of The Prince's Tale chapter. And I have to say, we got a crowd of idiots at our showing. A bunch of immature girls who kept laughing at everything and after a lot of lines they'd repeat it and then laugh some more, and make comments about this that and everything. And every two minutes someone walked past to go to the bathroom or something, it's like, can't you people sit still for two and a half (three?) hours??? How can you really get into a movie like that, how can you feel it?
Anyway, there were a lot, and I mean a LOT, of things in the movie that only people who've read the books would understand. Or people who will eventually own the dvd and can pause to see things or read things.
*Spoilers for DH - The Movie*
*
*
*
Overall, very well done! A bit rushed, but then they all are. So glad they made it into two parts. No one but people who read the books would understand what the mirror shard is about, since they didn't include that crucial bit into the OOTP movie. I teared up when Hermoine obliviated her parents. And I cried a little when Hedwig died, which of course I did in the book too. A bit awkward how they randomly, and suddenly introduced Bill and Mundungus. "Oh, look at my scars, see, see?" Harry should have been like, "Yeah, I know, I was there, earlier this year, at Hogwarts." and we've known Mundungus since OOTP I believe? Maybe he was mentioned in passing earlier, she likes making small mentions only to later bring them up as big characters. Sirius Black, Mrs. whatshername the cat lady who babysat Harry, even Bathilda Bagshot! Anyway, always love Kreacher, he's awesome. Surprised George didn't say who shot off his ear.... And I believe Snape killed the muggle studies teacher in the book. I was miffed at the lack of polyjuice potion at Godric's Hollow and I was so looking forward to seeing the memorial statue. Alas. No mention of Ariana either, odd. And they didn't say anything about who Grindelwald is, just that he was mentioned in The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore. Nothing about him being a great dark wizard, nothing about him being best friends with Albus, nothing about Ariana being locked in the basement or her death, just a random mention that his dad killed some muggles. I do kinda like how Xenophilius summoned the death eaters, though, that was a nice touch. And I totally love Hermoine's gray coat. Thought the dancing scene was a tad unnecessary. Loved the doe patronus, *sigh* Victor figured it out as well as I did, who's it was. btw, I did so not need to see Harry in nothing but his boxers. ewwwww, I shall have nightmares, I'm sure of it!!! The destruction of the locket was great, better than it was in the book. I am sad they didn't do the line I like so much. When Ron says Dumbledore gave him the deluminator "cause he knew I'd bug out on you" and Harry's all, "He knew you'd come back", cause I think that was really powerful in the book, but I guess the movie people didn't. Either that or I didn't listen hard enough and they did say the line, because the idiot girls behind us were talking again at the same time. Anyway, miffed also at the lack of polyjuice potion at the wedding. I had to explain to Victor about the Fidelius Charm that was on Grimmauld Place, cause he said it was a bad idea to go there, but they actually stayed there a good few months safe and sound. Wish they'd shown Wormtail's death. Oh, well. And there was no mention about who's house Shell Cottage was. I had to tell Victor it was Bill and Fleur's house. Like who they got for Bill's actor, though he should have been a bit more rugged, I always imagined him with his hair in a strangly ponytail and a bit of a beard, with burns and scars from having worked at Gringotts, like the book says. Course the movies do have a tendency to leave out important facts. Like how Snape called Lily a mudblood in Snape's Worst Memory, they didn't even show Lily in that scene in the movie! Didn't show her saving him or anything. Also, the deluminator is different than it was in SS, and I noticed that right away and just checked and it is some different. Close enough some people probably wouldn't realize it. I guess we can brush it off that Dumbledore made improvements to it since SS?
*
*
*
*end spoilers*
Work:
Yesterday, I forgot to say, in the morning I had come in to a mess. Cat food all over the floor, dirt, shrink wrap, wood shards, stacks of pallets everywhere. No one ever empties the garbages, no one ever crushes the crusher.
Today I got all but two of the 709s worked and in the books. Still need to file Monday's paperwork and work the Zero Cost report. But ever since I walked in on someone getting a written warning I've been weary of going in the office to file paperwork when people are in it, so I'm waiting for a good opportunity. Anyway, today went fairly well for a Friday.
I'll have to ask Zhaun for some knee pads because I am not filling the eggs and yogurt without them. Not with the way they have my cases set up. Rotation's going to be impossible. Especially with customers all over the place. Like I was telling Bob, when yogurt's on sell there will be no filling it. I won't be able to. I'll be able to put one or two cups on the shelf before I'm shoved out of the way by some greedy person who takes a few dozen, knocks over half a shelf, and then leaves, getting mad at me for existing.
I'm so tired. I want sleep. A good night's sleep. Sleep without interruption, sleep without worry. Sleep where I go when I'm tired, wake when I'm not, sleep where the alarm doesn't set me off, doesn't make me lay there with chills running over me and a sense of dread, knowing that if I allow my eyes to close for a second I might drift off again, yet knowing I can't possibly keep them open, and so I close them, hoping I don't fall back to sleep, and eventually I sit up, feeling dizzy, I stand, and sometimes I wobble, sometimes I almost fall. Nothing helps it. 10 hours of sleep... 6 hours... and everything inbetween. I've found that on really unbearable nights Vitamin B allows me to fall asleep alright. Even on my days off I wake up with a headache sometimes. Usually on my days off I get 10-11 hours of sleep, but I'm still tired. I had always been up into the late night, before I was dairy manager. Midnight... 1AM, this was my bedtime. Wakey time was 9 or 10. I used to sleep until I wasn't tired, these days on my days off if I wake up and see that it's after about 6 I tell myself to get up regardless. Once a few weeks ago I slept till almost 8, and I felt somewhat refreshed. I can't wait until my sleep can normalize again. I think in the last few years I've felt refreshed two or three times. Most days I wake up exhausted. And staying up late to write about my lack of sleep won't help anything. Tomorrow's my last day as ICM before Bonnie comes back. In a way I'll be glad to be able to go to work at 6 again, instead of 5. And very glad that Sunday's shift is a 7-3, I can sleep in till 6.
Anyway, there were a lot, and I mean a LOT, of things in the movie that only people who've read the books would understand. Or people who will eventually own the dvd and can pause to see things or read things.
*Spoilers for DH - The Movie*
*
*
*
Overall, very well done! A bit rushed, but then they all are. So glad they made it into two parts. No one but people who read the books would understand what the mirror shard is about, since they didn't include that crucial bit into the OOTP movie. I teared up when Hermoine obliviated her parents. And I cried a little when Hedwig died, which of course I did in the book too. A bit awkward how they randomly, and suddenly introduced Bill and Mundungus. "Oh, look at my scars, see, see?" Harry should have been like, "Yeah, I know, I was there, earlier this year, at Hogwarts." and we've known Mundungus since OOTP I believe? Maybe he was mentioned in passing earlier, she likes making small mentions only to later bring them up as big characters. Sirius Black, Mrs. whatshername the cat lady who babysat Harry, even Bathilda Bagshot! Anyway, always love Kreacher, he's awesome. Surprised George didn't say who shot off his ear.... And I believe Snape killed the muggle studies teacher in the book. I was miffed at the lack of polyjuice potion at Godric's Hollow and I was so looking forward to seeing the memorial statue. Alas. No mention of Ariana either, odd. And they didn't say anything about who Grindelwald is, just that he was mentioned in The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore. Nothing about him being a great dark wizard, nothing about him being best friends with Albus, nothing about Ariana being locked in the basement or her death, just a random mention that his dad killed some muggles. I do kinda like how Xenophilius summoned the death eaters, though, that was a nice touch. And I totally love Hermoine's gray coat. Thought the dancing scene was a tad unnecessary. Loved the doe patronus, *sigh* Victor figured it out as well as I did, who's it was. btw, I did so not need to see Harry in nothing but his boxers. ewwwww, I shall have nightmares, I'm sure of it!!! The destruction of the locket was great, better than it was in the book. I am sad they didn't do the line I like so much. When Ron says Dumbledore gave him the deluminator "cause he knew I'd bug out on you" and Harry's all, "He knew you'd come back", cause I think that was really powerful in the book, but I guess the movie people didn't. Either that or I didn't listen hard enough and they did say the line, because the idiot girls behind us were talking again at the same time. Anyway, miffed also at the lack of polyjuice potion at the wedding. I had to explain to Victor about the Fidelius Charm that was on Grimmauld Place, cause he said it was a bad idea to go there, but they actually stayed there a good few months safe and sound. Wish they'd shown Wormtail's death. Oh, well. And there was no mention about who's house Shell Cottage was. I had to tell Victor it was Bill and Fleur's house. Like who they got for Bill's actor, though he should have been a bit more rugged, I always imagined him with his hair in a strangly ponytail and a bit of a beard, with burns and scars from having worked at Gringotts, like the book says. Course the movies do have a tendency to leave out important facts. Like how Snape called Lily a mudblood in Snape's Worst Memory, they didn't even show Lily in that scene in the movie! Didn't show her saving him or anything. Also, the deluminator is different than it was in SS, and I noticed that right away and just checked and it is some different. Close enough some people probably wouldn't realize it. I guess we can brush it off that Dumbledore made improvements to it since SS?
*
*
*
*end spoilers*
Work:
Yesterday, I forgot to say, in the morning I had come in to a mess. Cat food all over the floor, dirt, shrink wrap, wood shards, stacks of pallets everywhere. No one ever empties the garbages, no one ever crushes the crusher.
Today I got all but two of the 709s worked and in the books. Still need to file Monday's paperwork and work the Zero Cost report. But ever since I walked in on someone getting a written warning I've been weary of going in the office to file paperwork when people are in it, so I'm waiting for a good opportunity. Anyway, today went fairly well for a Friday.
I'll have to ask Zhaun for some knee pads because I am not filling the eggs and yogurt without them. Not with the way they have my cases set up. Rotation's going to be impossible. Especially with customers all over the place. Like I was telling Bob, when yogurt's on sell there will be no filling it. I won't be able to. I'll be able to put one or two cups on the shelf before I'm shoved out of the way by some greedy person who takes a few dozen, knocks over half a shelf, and then leaves, getting mad at me for existing.
I'm so tired. I want sleep. A good night's sleep. Sleep without interruption, sleep without worry. Sleep where I go when I'm tired, wake when I'm not, sleep where the alarm doesn't set me off, doesn't make me lay there with chills running over me and a sense of dread, knowing that if I allow my eyes to close for a second I might drift off again, yet knowing I can't possibly keep them open, and so I close them, hoping I don't fall back to sleep, and eventually I sit up, feeling dizzy, I stand, and sometimes I wobble, sometimes I almost fall. Nothing helps it. 10 hours of sleep... 6 hours... and everything inbetween. I've found that on really unbearable nights Vitamin B allows me to fall asleep alright. Even on my days off I wake up with a headache sometimes. Usually on my days off I get 10-11 hours of sleep, but I'm still tired. I had always been up into the late night, before I was dairy manager. Midnight... 1AM, this was my bedtime. Wakey time was 9 or 10. I used to sleep until I wasn't tired, these days on my days off if I wake up and see that it's after about 6 I tell myself to get up regardless. Once a few weeks ago I slept till almost 8, and I felt somewhat refreshed. I can't wait until my sleep can normalize again. I think in the last few years I've felt refreshed two or three times. Most days I wake up exhausted. And staying up late to write about my lack of sleep won't help anything. Tomorrow's my last day as ICM before Bonnie comes back. In a way I'll be glad to be able to go to work at 6 again, instead of 5. And very glad that Sunday's shift is a 7-3, I can sleep in till 6.
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Front Fill Yogurt = Disaster
The snow has somewhat melted but it was snowing and really, really cold today. Just freezing.
Work:
I'm behind. I haven't filed the reports from Monday. When I got in the 709s had only half-printed and then it was on sign stock. So I had to reprint the whole lot. And it took a while for me to figure out which ones to print.
They tore up dairy today. When I got in I couldn't find the eggs and Zhaun told me they hadn't been on the shelf since Tuesday. Lovely, so how are my sales doing? They were still in the process of moving the yogurt over when I left. It's horrid. You have to break your back putting 18 counts on the shelf because you can't just cut a box and drop it in, oh no, you have to hand stack them and get down and bend over to push them under the shelf above them and there's wire racks you put them on so that won't work well at all. And they have, like, four facings of each of the yoplait, which is just unnecessary. And they're all supposed to be case fill. Which means you cut open a case and put it on the shelf. Yoplait's been coming that way for ages now. But nothing else does. So are they going to talk to Dannon and all the other yogurt companies and get them to make special boxes just for this one store? It's a disaster, a total disaster. And now I'll have to front fill the entire yogurt section and it'll be awful. Having to super-fight the customers. Instead of 10-20 minutes to fill kroger yogurt it'll take at least an hour. Because now we'll have to wade in and out between them, stop to direct people, answer questions, try to get people out of the way so you can do your job, having people whine at you for your wheeler being in the way, have Bret get mad at you for not being cheerful about all this.
And I'm so glad they're doing it while I'm not in dairy or I'd have been freaking out.
Apparently our pizza goes pay per scan in December, so that gives us more time to get all the product authorized.
I stayed an extra half hour to try and get some scan outs done. Sometimes doing the grocery scan outs makes me want to date check all my food, all the time. There were two tubs of canned tomatoes that had expired in 2009. (some had only expired in March, though) And these had been pulled from the shelf, the remodel crew found them. And it's not really too unusual to find things like that though, we're always finding a group of one food or another, like once it was beans that expired three years ago (tells you how often we sold them, though!). Another time it was baking nuts that had expired four or five months prior. etc. And I know dates don't really matter quite as much as they make it out to be, but after having spent 6 years having it drilled in that you can't sell expired product it kinda sticks. Julie told me years ago that law says it has to be pulled by 8am the morning after it expires. I have never double checked, because I like having that fallback if anyone ever asks, I can say well Julie told me this and I never did my own research.
My last day off was yesterday, my next is next Friday. Much better than usual. Usually I have Sunday off them work straight through 11 days straight until Friday after Thanksgiving.
Work:
I'm behind. I haven't filed the reports from Monday. When I got in the 709s had only half-printed and then it was on sign stock. So I had to reprint the whole lot. And it took a while for me to figure out which ones to print.
They tore up dairy today. When I got in I couldn't find the eggs and Zhaun told me they hadn't been on the shelf since Tuesday. Lovely, so how are my sales doing? They were still in the process of moving the yogurt over when I left. It's horrid. You have to break your back putting 18 counts on the shelf because you can't just cut a box and drop it in, oh no, you have to hand stack them and get down and bend over to push them under the shelf above them and there's wire racks you put them on so that won't work well at all. And they have, like, four facings of each of the yoplait, which is just unnecessary. And they're all supposed to be case fill. Which means you cut open a case and put it on the shelf. Yoplait's been coming that way for ages now. But nothing else does. So are they going to talk to Dannon and all the other yogurt companies and get them to make special boxes just for this one store? It's a disaster, a total disaster. And now I'll have to front fill the entire yogurt section and it'll be awful. Having to super-fight the customers. Instead of 10-20 minutes to fill kroger yogurt it'll take at least an hour. Because now we'll have to wade in and out between them, stop to direct people, answer questions, try to get people out of the way so you can do your job, having people whine at you for your wheeler being in the way, have Bret get mad at you for not being cheerful about all this.
And I'm so glad they're doing it while I'm not in dairy or I'd have been freaking out.
Apparently our pizza goes pay per scan in December, so that gives us more time to get all the product authorized.
I stayed an extra half hour to try and get some scan outs done. Sometimes doing the grocery scan outs makes me want to date check all my food, all the time. There were two tubs of canned tomatoes that had expired in 2009. (some had only expired in March, though) And these had been pulled from the shelf, the remodel crew found them. And it's not really too unusual to find things like that though, we're always finding a group of one food or another, like once it was beans that expired three years ago (tells you how often we sold them, though!). Another time it was baking nuts that had expired four or five months prior. etc. And I know dates don't really matter quite as much as they make it out to be, but after having spent 6 years having it drilled in that you can't sell expired product it kinda sticks. Julie told me years ago that law says it has to be pulled by 8am the morning after it expires. I have never double checked, because I like having that fallback if anyone ever asks, I can say well Julie told me this and I never did my own research.
My last day off was yesterday, my next is next Friday. Much better than usual. Usually I have Sunday off them work straight through 11 days straight until Friday after Thanksgiving.
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
*snif*
*spoiler for DH*
*
*
*
The last time I read the book, which was the first time, I was distraught and was fearfully skimming more than reading as it built up to Snape's death scene and so I didn't fully understand why Voldemort killed him. Re-reading it I understand and it makes sense now. That doesn't mean I didn't get teary and start sniffling. I went to Victor for hugs because I was depressed. On the upside I now have The Prince's Tale to read. When I first read the book I stopped to have a good cry and after a while I went back to reading only cause I wanted to know what that chapter was about. You know, I knew the doe patronus was Snape's the moment I saw the picture above the chapter title. It just made sense to me. I was on the Trust Snape! side, so of course I thought he was helping them. I chose Snape as being the owner of the patronus due to the likely-hood that since James' patronus was a stag that Lily might be a doe, and since I was a big Snape/Lily shipper I figured that since she was dead he would inherit her patronus. Kinda like how Tonks' patronus changed when she fell in love with Lupin. And I was right about it being his, even the reason it is what it is. *sigh* I'm going to be a crying mess in the theater I know it. Not this upcoming one, but next year when part 2 comes out.
*
*
*
*End*
*
*
*
The last time I read the book, which was the first time, I was distraught and was fearfully skimming more than reading as it built up to Snape's death scene and so I didn't fully understand why Voldemort killed him. Re-reading it I understand and it makes sense now. That doesn't mean I didn't get teary and start sniffling. I went to Victor for hugs because I was depressed. On the upside I now have The Prince's Tale to read. When I first read the book I stopped to have a good cry and after a while I went back to reading only cause I wanted to know what that chapter was about. You know, I knew the doe patronus was Snape's the moment I saw the picture above the chapter title. It just made sense to me. I was on the Trust Snape! side, so of course I thought he was helping them. I chose Snape as being the owner of the patronus due to the likely-hood that since James' patronus was a stag that Lily might be a doe, and since I was a big Snape/Lily shipper I figured that since she was dead he would inherit her patronus. Kinda like how Tonks' patronus changed when she fell in love with Lupin. And I was right about it being his, even the reason it is what it is. *sigh* I'm going to be a crying mess in the theater I know it. Not this upcoming one, but next year when part 2 comes out.
*
*
*
*End*
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
HP7 tickets
I got tickets for DH!!! Eee! It's for the 3:50 showing. Because I work till 1 we couldn't do the 12:30, and this was the next one up. I can't decide if I want to wear my Slytherin Crest tshirt or my Trust Snape! tshirt. I guess it depends on how cold I think I'll be. The Slytherin Crest shirt is a bit bigger, so it would be easy to wear a long-sleeved shirt under it, but the Trust Snape! shirt is a little tighter and thus I couldn't really wear a long-sleeved shirt under it. And if I just wore my coat zipped I wouldn't be showing off my shirt.
It was stormy all night, and throughout the morning we had snow, hail, rain, more snow, and finally it became big, fluffy flakes. So we have a lot of snow right now and it's still coming down. There's snow predicted for every day. On one hand it's kinda nice, on the other I don't really want to be driving in it.
Work:
Tuesday is one of the biggest receiving days of the week. I started at 5:30 (instead of the usual 6). And within an hour or two I was turning around to yell everytime I heard a cart roll near me. Even if they weren't going outside. Everyone was trying to go over the doorframe in the little door with their carts and they can't do that! That breaks the frame! And everyone acts so surprised, even the vendors! I was certain Bonnie's yelled at just about every vendor already. I was in the process of making up a paper to hang on the door that said to go out the roll-up when someone simply left the rollup open and it was open all the rest of the day. It was still open when I left at 1:30.
We had corporate in and I'm sure they would have been mad if they saw what I was doing. Policy is two vendors in the red zone, one vendor waiting in line. I had three vendors in the red zone, two of them scanning their invoices in, and one I was currently checking in when I let another bread guy in to sit in a corner. Receiving only has two guns so I had to go get my dairy one out of hiding.
Two of the corporate guys went out back behind the store to look around so I followed them and told them that we're doing all we can to keep it organized but it's a losing battle. They were very displeased.
I also ran out of room. I had Fun lined up to one side, but they didn't have enough room so they had one pallet in the next row over, then Pepsi took up all but two of the remaining spaces in the back room, so when Coke showed up and said they had 7 boards I had to make room for them, which meant blocking the trailer, and then Meat Dept comes back and says they need turkeys so Coke can't stay there and I told him if he wants his turkeys to ask Bret if he can put Coke on the floor cause I didn't have any room, and then Flathead Showed up and I was so very happy when he told me he only had one pallet that I let him put it in front of the little door, as it was the only really out of the way place to stick it.
I skipped my break because I had to sit in on an hour-long conference call. They had sent out emails detailing a new dairy program where we scan donations in the E-40 system (what we use to transfer product from one dept to another, or store to store, or store to donations, or store use, or something). And people were asking if they can trust dairy managers to give the ICM's the correct upcs. Goodness, give us some credit. As a dairy manager myself I am slightly miffed. Although it does vary from store to store. Apparently the meat guys at 168 offload trucks! *gasp* And when Zhaun was in the hospital last year and we had Dwane filling in he was treating me like a baby and reminding me of everything I had to do and I was all, "Actually I do my job plus some of his job and I'm the backup ICM, no need to worry." Anyway, so they were saying that we pull milk on the 8th day and went on and on about it so I asked them if, since we get our milk with 10-11 days on it as per state law if we still had to pull them on the 8th day, so Teresa from the other store chimed in to tell me we weren't part of this new rule. Well maybe they should have made this clear, and apparently that confused others cause then someone was asking which stores this DOES apply to.
And apparently Nestle, pizza, is going Pay Per Scan. Lovely! Seeing as 75% of their product is listed as Discontinued. So as soon as the conference call was over I submitted all the bad upcs to be authorized. I was dragging my feet cause I was unsure if submitting it to the forums was the right thing to do. I guess it is though.
Oh, and Bonnie will be so happy! I was pulling the ESIs (electronic store invoice) and I discovered how to print them at our computer in the back. Ever since the new Critix computer terminal emulator thingie came out earlier this year we've been having to print in the office and then run to get it before someone tossed it or lost it. We always hit Print and then selected if we wanted it landscape and only the store director's printer and the scan office printer were available, but if you hit Page Setup you can hit the Printer button which gives you a list of all the printers in the store, so you select the DSD printer and then close that out and then hit Print and you'll print to the DSD printer! I tested it when I printed the E-40s too, and since it worked on those I bet it works on the IDR (inventory difference report)!!! This will more than make up for any mistakes I make this week.
It was stormy all night, and throughout the morning we had snow, hail, rain, more snow, and finally it became big, fluffy flakes. So we have a lot of snow right now and it's still coming down. There's snow predicted for every day. On one hand it's kinda nice, on the other I don't really want to be driving in it.
Work:
Tuesday is one of the biggest receiving days of the week. I started at 5:30 (instead of the usual 6). And within an hour or two I was turning around to yell everytime I heard a cart roll near me. Even if they weren't going outside. Everyone was trying to go over the doorframe in the little door with their carts and they can't do that! That breaks the frame! And everyone acts so surprised, even the vendors! I was certain Bonnie's yelled at just about every vendor already. I was in the process of making up a paper to hang on the door that said to go out the roll-up when someone simply left the rollup open and it was open all the rest of the day. It was still open when I left at 1:30.
We had corporate in and I'm sure they would have been mad if they saw what I was doing. Policy is two vendors in the red zone, one vendor waiting in line. I had three vendors in the red zone, two of them scanning their invoices in, and one I was currently checking in when I let another bread guy in to sit in a corner. Receiving only has two guns so I had to go get my dairy one out of hiding.
Two of the corporate guys went out back behind the store to look around so I followed them and told them that we're doing all we can to keep it organized but it's a losing battle. They were very displeased.
I also ran out of room. I had Fun lined up to one side, but they didn't have enough room so they had one pallet in the next row over, then Pepsi took up all but two of the remaining spaces in the back room, so when Coke showed up and said they had 7 boards I had to make room for them, which meant blocking the trailer, and then Meat Dept comes back and says they need turkeys so Coke can't stay there and I told him if he wants his turkeys to ask Bret if he can put Coke on the floor cause I didn't have any room, and then Flathead Showed up and I was so very happy when he told me he only had one pallet that I let him put it in front of the little door, as it was the only really out of the way place to stick it.
I skipped my break because I had to sit in on an hour-long conference call. They had sent out emails detailing a new dairy program where we scan donations in the E-40 system (what we use to transfer product from one dept to another, or store to store, or store to donations, or store use, or something). And people were asking if they can trust dairy managers to give the ICM's the correct upcs. Goodness, give us some credit. As a dairy manager myself I am slightly miffed. Although it does vary from store to store. Apparently the meat guys at 168 offload trucks! *gasp* And when Zhaun was in the hospital last year and we had Dwane filling in he was treating me like a baby and reminding me of everything I had to do and I was all, "Actually I do my job plus some of his job and I'm the backup ICM, no need to worry." Anyway, so they were saying that we pull milk on the 8th day and went on and on about it so I asked them if, since we get our milk with 10-11 days on it as per state law if we still had to pull them on the 8th day, so Teresa from the other store chimed in to tell me we weren't part of this new rule. Well maybe they should have made this clear, and apparently that confused others cause then someone was asking which stores this DOES apply to.
And apparently Nestle, pizza, is going Pay Per Scan. Lovely! Seeing as 75% of their product is listed as Discontinued. So as soon as the conference call was over I submitted all the bad upcs to be authorized. I was dragging my feet cause I was unsure if submitting it to the forums was the right thing to do. I guess it is though.
Oh, and Bonnie will be so happy! I was pulling the ESIs (electronic store invoice) and I discovered how to print them at our computer in the back. Ever since the new Critix computer terminal emulator thingie came out earlier this year we've been having to print in the office and then run to get it before someone tossed it or lost it. We always hit Print and then selected if we wanted it landscape and only the store director's printer and the scan office printer were available, but if you hit Page Setup you can hit the Printer button which gives you a list of all the printers in the store, so you select the DSD printer and then close that out and then hit Print and you'll print to the DSD printer! I tested it when I printed the E-40s too, and since it worked on those I bet it works on the IDR (inventory difference report)!!! This will more than make up for any mistakes I make this week.
Monday, November 15, 2010
Bonnie's on Vacation
Eeee! I forgot! Deathly Hallows PT 1 on Friday!!! *bounce*
*spoiler*
*
*
I bet the ending of the first movie is when Voldemort gets the Elder Wand.
*
*
*end*
I accidentally mouth-washed with Victor's mouth wash this morning, which is stronger than mine. So my tongue feels quite a bit better today.
Work:
I was the ICM today. So I had a fairly stress-free day. I was unable to get down the chip aisle to do my scans but that's ok, Frito rarely has holes anyway. They were doing all sorts of work everywhere, the construction crew. It was noisy. They stuck the horrid light brown paneling under the yellow walls in the back hallway. And for some reason there's super large wheat stalks painted in blue above service deli. Service deli was ripped to pieces this morning, so when the girls got in at 5AM they couldn't do anything, and Bret wasn't in till 7. I don't know how they spent those two hours, but Nora, our service deli manager, looked stressed all day.
Patty and Mike (who was our reset guy, but is obviously out of work till after the remodel and so was hired on to do stuff while he waits) were doing markdowns in the back room so I got to chat with Patty some. She's great. She says the funniest things and she just babbles on and on.
Patty told me something Bret wanted to do, but I don't think she let him. We had marked down some flower thingies and they were driving and passed a cross someone had put one on the side of the road and Bret wanted to pull over, pick it up, take it back to the store, and resell it. And this does not surprise me.
Patty causes so much shrink. She opened a bag of chocolate covered marshmallows, and told Bret later on that she stole them, and she doesn't care. She also refused to mark down anything that was damaged and instead tossed them, unless it was candy which she set out to eat.
I only had a few problems while receiving. Nabisco had a few discontinued items, and since it was a driver I don't know I told him to take them out. The regular guy might not have wanted me to take them out. But I refused them and now they'll probably have holes but I don't care. I don't know how to do a corrections invoice on a Nex vendor or if you're even allowed to. I had to do a corrections invoice on Schawns because he had all this pizza that was unauthorized, and I know I can do that with Dex vendors. I don't know how to authorize the product though. Do I submit it to corp or do the two companies work together to fix it and I stay out of it? I should have asked Teresa (icm at the next store over) when she called but I didn't think of it.
And Teresa had called me to make sure I saw the email with the Open Statement report on it, which I had and had already responded to a few hours prior. Good for her for checking on me though, she said her backup would never have caught that. Ha! I can't wait to tell Bonnie that. Bonnie tells me everything, shows me how to do every aspect of her job. Teresa keeps all but the essentials from her backup. And it shows. When we did the ICM certification last year me, Bonnie, and Teresa all passed easy, but Keri would have failed if me and Bonnie hadn't helped her out. (we were allowed to discuss amongst ourselves) In fact, I believe the scores went like this: Teresa 99, Bonnie, 96, Me, 94, Keri, 89, out of a possible 100.
We did get ads in today. Good. My Thanksgiving ad is the smallest I've ever seen it. This makes me suspicious. Very suspicious. I wonder what's going to go on sale that I won't know about until Wednesday? *sigh* I'll probably have to go in and order on Wednesday. I think I'll do the regular order on Tuesday, then maybe pop in for a few minutes sometime on Wednesday to see what surprise sales I have. I did the milk order today so that I wouldn't have to scramble to do it tomorrow. I already have the weekly conference call to attend. The call says to have receiving closed on the Friday after Thanksgiving. I think I'll forget to mention that to Bonnie, which she'll probably have it open, since she's had her Thanksgiving schedule drawn up for a week. But I want that day off.
I look forward to this week every year. It's one of the busiest weeks of the year and I get to skip out on it. Sure, Bonnie's the one who's actually on vacation, but it feels like I get a vacation too. Without this break from dairy I might go insane.
*spoiler*
*
*
I bet the ending of the first movie is when Voldemort gets the Elder Wand.
*
*
*end*
I accidentally mouth-washed with Victor's mouth wash this morning, which is stronger than mine. So my tongue feels quite a bit better today.
Work:
I was the ICM today. So I had a fairly stress-free day. I was unable to get down the chip aisle to do my scans but that's ok, Frito rarely has holes anyway. They were doing all sorts of work everywhere, the construction crew. It was noisy. They stuck the horrid light brown paneling under the yellow walls in the back hallway. And for some reason there's super large wheat stalks painted in blue above service deli. Service deli was ripped to pieces this morning, so when the girls got in at 5AM they couldn't do anything, and Bret wasn't in till 7. I don't know how they spent those two hours, but Nora, our service deli manager, looked stressed all day.
Patty and Mike (who was our reset guy, but is obviously out of work till after the remodel and so was hired on to do stuff while he waits) were doing markdowns in the back room so I got to chat with Patty some. She's great. She says the funniest things and she just babbles on and on.
Patty told me something Bret wanted to do, but I don't think she let him. We had marked down some flower thingies and they were driving and passed a cross someone had put one on the side of the road and Bret wanted to pull over, pick it up, take it back to the store, and resell it. And this does not surprise me.
Patty causes so much shrink. She opened a bag of chocolate covered marshmallows, and told Bret later on that she stole them, and she doesn't care. She also refused to mark down anything that was damaged and instead tossed them, unless it was candy which she set out to eat.
I only had a few problems while receiving. Nabisco had a few discontinued items, and since it was a driver I don't know I told him to take them out. The regular guy might not have wanted me to take them out. But I refused them and now they'll probably have holes but I don't care. I don't know how to do a corrections invoice on a Nex vendor or if you're even allowed to. I had to do a corrections invoice on Schawns because he had all this pizza that was unauthorized, and I know I can do that with Dex vendors. I don't know how to authorize the product though. Do I submit it to corp or do the two companies work together to fix it and I stay out of it? I should have asked Teresa (icm at the next store over) when she called but I didn't think of it.
And Teresa had called me to make sure I saw the email with the Open Statement report on it, which I had and had already responded to a few hours prior. Good for her for checking on me though, she said her backup would never have caught that. Ha! I can't wait to tell Bonnie that. Bonnie tells me everything, shows me how to do every aspect of her job. Teresa keeps all but the essentials from her backup. And it shows. When we did the ICM certification last year me, Bonnie, and Teresa all passed easy, but Keri would have failed if me and Bonnie hadn't helped her out. (we were allowed to discuss amongst ourselves) In fact, I believe the scores went like this: Teresa 99, Bonnie, 96, Me, 94, Keri, 89, out of a possible 100.
We did get ads in today. Good. My Thanksgiving ad is the smallest I've ever seen it. This makes me suspicious. Very suspicious. I wonder what's going to go on sale that I won't know about until Wednesday? *sigh* I'll probably have to go in and order on Wednesday. I think I'll do the regular order on Tuesday, then maybe pop in for a few minutes sometime on Wednesday to see what surprise sales I have. I did the milk order today so that I wouldn't have to scramble to do it tomorrow. I already have the weekly conference call to attend. The call says to have receiving closed on the Friday after Thanksgiving. I think I'll forget to mention that to Bonnie, which she'll probably have it open, since she's had her Thanksgiving schedule drawn up for a week. But I want that day off.
I look forward to this week every year. It's one of the busiest weeks of the year and I get to skip out on it. Sure, Bonnie's the one who's actually on vacation, but it feels like I get a vacation too. Without this break from dairy I might go insane.
Sunday, November 14, 2010
hurty
The sharp, pointy tooth that's been bothering me the last few years gave me the worst cut I've gotten from it. Over the last few years every time it's cut my tongue it's healed in under a day. This cut I got on Friday. And today I've been super cold and I feel kinda feverish. I bought orange juice. Because I'm trying to hold my tongue away from that tooth when I swallow my throat feels odd. Everything I find online says to go to a dentist to get it filed down. The only other suggestions are to use a nail file and I have been using the one on the end of my nail clippers. Perhaps I should get an actual nail file and see if that works. The tooth itself does not hurt. It just keeps cutting my tongue is all, which makes me talk funny. And even if I had elected to have insurance through work (which I didn't cause I don't need insurance, I never go to doctors, other than the eye doctor for my glasses) it probably wouldn't cover something like this because filing down a pointy tooth is "cosmetic". If my insurance wouldn't cover a root canal, and barely covered having teeth pulled, it certainly wouldn't cover this. Everyone boasts about how great our insurance is at work, and I don't know a lot about this sorta thing, but I look at it this way: If I pay money into something, and by the end of the year I've put a thousand dollars into it, and yet I haven't visited a doctor at all that year, I've just thrown a thousand dollars into the pockets of the insurance people. I'm healthy. But I bet if I went in right now and got a checkup they would discover I have some disease (neurosis most like) I need a handful of prescriptions for. If people would stop obsessing about how sickly we all our maybe everyone would be a lot more healthy. Sometimes it really is all in your mind.
I really should spend more time sewing. I was going to make a bunch of bags, but I've only got two that are partially constructed. Maybe tomorrow I'll have more energy. It's what I keep telling myself.
Work:
Today was a normal Sunday. People seem to be extra angry on Sundays.
I had to hang the ROP ad tags. ROP, whatever it stands for, is a special ad that starts on the Sunday before our Thanksgiving sale starts. (I believe it happens again around Easter too) It was the usual, chips, crackers, and soda.
And for our next ad holding our biggest and best sales of the year that we don't want to run out of product on they aren't in a hurry to send our ads. They're three days late and no one knows what's going on sale next week! They'd better show up tomorrow or no one will be able to order for the sales til Wednesday, and that's when our ad breaks. So if my half pint whipping creams are in it they'll have to wait till Thursday's milk load. Oh well.
I seem to remember last week or the week before some guy had asked for frozen orange juice. Well, I believe it was the same guy who asked me where it was today too. And, sure, the store has been rearranged. But the frozen section is just as obvious as ever. Even more so now that we have a whole extra aisle of it.
And, btw, for having 12 doors of pizza I still didn't see any that were just sausage. Course there might be some coming, I didn't check every price tag.
And I sure hope that's not where the chips and candy are staying. Ok, before the remodel our store was divided into non-foods being on one side of the freezers with grocery on the other. (except for soda and juice which was one aisle into the non-foods side) Now we've got soda/juice all the way down at the end of non-foods, and chips/candy in the middle of non-foods, with two aisles of non-foods on either side (or something like that).
In addition to our lovely trees they've decided to paint stalks of wheat in random places with what could either be a cloud or a bird over top of them, we couldn't decide which it was supposed to be. I mean, at least the trees are vaguely decorative and I don't have a problem with them. But stalks of wheat??? What's that about? It's over Wall Deli that I saw that, and that doesn't really make sense. If the wheat was over Bakery, that might make sense. I said that if they had put the pictures over the right departments, then the tree over mine was cause I carry orange juice, and oranges come from trees? And the tree over pharmacy is for hanging yourself after you see how much money you spent there.
A woman picked up a carton of eggs, and then decided she didn't want it. So she set it down in front of the stack she'd taken it off of, looked at me, then left. (after picking up a different brand that she had decided on instead) Just left the carton in front of the stack, didn't bother to put it on top of the stack.
I went ahead and did the markdowns today, though I don't usually do them on Sundays. Because I don't trust Dustin to do them. Last time Bonnie went on vacation I discovered he hadn't done any markdowns all week, except for milk, and I had a whole cartload of stuff to throw away.
I really should spend more time sewing. I was going to make a bunch of bags, but I've only got two that are partially constructed. Maybe tomorrow I'll have more energy. It's what I keep telling myself.
Work:
Today was a normal Sunday. People seem to be extra angry on Sundays.
I had to hang the ROP ad tags. ROP, whatever it stands for, is a special ad that starts on the Sunday before our Thanksgiving sale starts. (I believe it happens again around Easter too) It was the usual, chips, crackers, and soda.
And for our next ad holding our biggest and best sales of the year that we don't want to run out of product on they aren't in a hurry to send our ads. They're three days late and no one knows what's going on sale next week! They'd better show up tomorrow or no one will be able to order for the sales til Wednesday, and that's when our ad breaks. So if my half pint whipping creams are in it they'll have to wait till Thursday's milk load. Oh well.
I seem to remember last week or the week before some guy had asked for frozen orange juice. Well, I believe it was the same guy who asked me where it was today too. And, sure, the store has been rearranged. But the frozen section is just as obvious as ever. Even more so now that we have a whole extra aisle of it.
And, btw, for having 12 doors of pizza I still didn't see any that were just sausage. Course there might be some coming, I didn't check every price tag.
And I sure hope that's not where the chips and candy are staying. Ok, before the remodel our store was divided into non-foods being on one side of the freezers with grocery on the other. (except for soda and juice which was one aisle into the non-foods side) Now we've got soda/juice all the way down at the end of non-foods, and chips/candy in the middle of non-foods, with two aisles of non-foods on either side (or something like that).
In addition to our lovely trees they've decided to paint stalks of wheat in random places with what could either be a cloud or a bird over top of them, we couldn't decide which it was supposed to be. I mean, at least the trees are vaguely decorative and I don't have a problem with them. But stalks of wheat??? What's that about? It's over Wall Deli that I saw that, and that doesn't really make sense. If the wheat was over Bakery, that might make sense. I said that if they had put the pictures over the right departments, then the tree over mine was cause I carry orange juice, and oranges come from trees? And the tree over pharmacy is for hanging yourself after you see how much money you spent there.
A woman picked up a carton of eggs, and then decided she didn't want it. So she set it down in front of the stack she'd taken it off of, looked at me, then left. (after picking up a different brand that she had decided on instead) Just left the carton in front of the stack, didn't bother to put it on top of the stack.
I went ahead and did the markdowns today, though I don't usually do them on Sundays. Because I don't trust Dustin to do them. Last time Bonnie went on vacation I discovered he hadn't done any markdowns all week, except for milk, and I had a whole cartload of stuff to throw away.
Saturday, November 13, 2010
cookies
These are all the hair things I got on markdown. All but three of them were 49 cents. Two of them were about 70 cents, and one (the brush) was 1.19 or something.
Victor's snoring was keeping me up so I slept on the couch last night. That's why our big blanket is on the couch. He didn't kick me out, I left on my own.
Work:
Yesterday I went ahead and talked with Zhaun and he said he'd give me the day after Thanksgiving off. It means I might work Saturday but that's fine. And I don't mind working on Thanksgiving, in fact I prefer it due to holiday pay. And I don't go anywhere for Thanksgiving, and with it being just me and Victor we can have dinner anytime. We're usually open till 6:00 on Thanksgiving, so I'll probably work a 10-6 or something, which is fine, because I can come home and we'll have a nice little dinner. Last year's was really good, I made just about everything, and the right amounts of it! I made the mashed potatoes, we had a little turkey (I believe it was a tiny hormel pre-packaged in gravy and in a dish you just take the top off and throw it in the oven), stuffing, I think I even opened a can of cranberry sauce.
Anyway, we had a pallet come off the grocery load that was a half pallet of cans on top of a half pallet of pastas. Good job, guys! I filled out a report and faxed it in. Like it'll do any good.
Apparently corporate's coming in again on Monday. Bonnie starts vacation next week, so I get to be ICM during the visit. I've done that before, when it was Renee who was in charge. Now that Brian is our main guy I don't know how that'll go over. I still see Renee sometimes, and she likes me. She was very pleased when she found out was the backup ICM. Which Bonnie says is a good thing because if she ever quit and Bret tried to push in Patty (his live-in GF who can work at work because they don't have the same last name, she was an ICM at some other store when they met) I'd have Renee on my side.
Dee and Deana were whining about losing their office up front so Bonnie's worried while she's gone they'll steal her office. She told me not to put up a fight because I don't need to be involved in that, that she'll deal with it when she gets back. And if it happens I hope I'm there to see it!
I got into it with Mike a little yesterday, the CSM. He brought back a cart of broken dog food and set them around Bonnie's desk.
Mike, "Bret wants me to empty carts so the customers can use them."
Me, "They have to go over in the reclamation cart, they can't stay there."
Mike, "Well I don't have time."
When I started to sputter at him he said, "I know where it goes."
Well, fine. I immediately went and told on him. I told Bonnie, who got upset too, but didn't do anything about it except tell me to scan it out and throw it away. She was already pretty frazzled from trying to keep the remodel team in control. We were both yelling at them all day not to go out the little door with wheelers, and they're such pigs out behind the store. Later on Mike apologized saying that Bret was really getting on him. Well, yeah, I can understand that. I told him thanks for letting me know though.
What made it all worse for Bonnie, though, is that Bret came back around 9 and told her that they were resetting pizza in a few hours and can she have the guys bring in larger orders. Well, by 9 both our pizza vendors had already been in. Not only that, but they probably didn't have the right stuff sitting around, and because of needing to order stuff in they won't have the product till Monday or Tuesday, and even then some of it is stuff they don't even carry up here and will have to special order in from other states. Around 2:00 one of our pizza guys showed up and of course Bonnie was gone by then and her desk was locked so I had to scan it in under Vendor Scan instead of Dexing and everyone is different when it comes to Vendor Scan so I had to play with it until I got it right. And then only two items were authorized, the rest were discontinued, so to follow policy I had to call Bret up to ask him if I can bring them in anyway, knowing full well he'll tell me yes. (So I told the pizza guy to go ahead and stock while I took care of the paperwork and stuff) And Bret's tone of voice said I was an idiot, so I told him I had to verify, you know, CYA, and his tone changed to understanding. So I had to do a Total's Correction invoice to bring in the discontinued items. And by time all this was done it was 2:30.
On remodel stuff, they have started to paint cream colored trees on the walls. There's one above dairy, there's one between where the yellow walls meet the blue walls down by pharmacy, and I presume there'll be more up when I go in tomorrow.
And speaking of which I work six days next week. Dairy tomorrow and then ICM the rest of the week. So that's 7-3 tomorrow and 5-1 the rest of the week.
And since ads didn't come in yesterday I'll have to call Paula and see about getting stuff added to my milk order for Tuesday. I know there'll be half pint whipping creams in the ad, there always are, but I didn't want to order my customary 30 cases until I knew for sure. Because my luck they won't be in the ad this year and I'd have ordered 30 cases of something I'd then sell 2 cases of. But I'm pretty sure they'll be in the ad, since they've been in our 2-week Thanksgiving sale the last four years I've done this.
Food:
Victor loves oatmeal cookies. He loves egg nog cookies. But the only oatmeal-egg nog cookie recipes I could find had ingredients I don't have. Such as molasses or butterscotch chips. So I looked for plain oatmeal cookie recipes and didn't see any I particularly liked. So I decided since I had vanilla pudding and I've heard pudding cookies are good, and I could sub egg nog for milk I looked for pudding cookie recipes. And I found one for oatmeal pudding cookies. So... I went from there and got this: (picture taken after we'd eaten several)
2 Sticks of Butter (1 cup)
3/4 Cups Brown Sugar
1/4 Cup White Sugar
1 (3.5oz) Package Pudding (I only had a 5ozer and used most of it, next time I'll use an actual 3.5 one)
1 tsp Nutmeg
1/2 tsp Cinnamon Powder
1 tsp Vanilla
2 Eggs
1 1/4 Cup Flour1 tsp Baking Soda
1/2 tsp Salt
3 1/2 Cups Oats
1 Cup Chips (optional)
Make the pudding and wait for it to harden while mixing the butter and sugars till creamy. Add the nutmeg, cinnamon, and vanilla to pudding and mix into sugars. Add eggs and mix till what the original recipe calls "fluffy", but I dunno, I never got it to look fluffy, it just looked kinda creamy and lumpy, probably should have used the electric mixer. Mix the flour and baking soda then add to mixture. Add salt. And now a lot of people were complaining that there's too many oats and to reduce to 2 1/2 cups, but I used 3 cups and it seemed a little light so I think the original 3 1/2 sounds about right. Then I put in chips, and I don't know if I should have left them out entirely or if I should have used more. Either way, it's 350° for 8-12 minutes (I went with 11 minutes).
Victor really, really, really loves them. I think they're pretty good, but I'm not a real big fan of oatmeal cookies.
Cats:
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Yellow is my least liked color
Work:
They painted the back hallway yellow. And the one over by meat/produce is orange. The wall behind the customer service desk is sea green. The walls in floral are green. They put up fake wood paneling around the bottom of the wall in the sitting area by service deli and in the orange back hall. It is a lighter brown, so it will look awful under that yellow they're using, but they have yet to do the yellow back hall. It already looks bad enough under orange. From the looks of things the olive bar will be more or less a large U-shaped buffet almost. I can't imagine how many types of olives and icky smelling (I have to hold my breath while passing the olive bar or I sometimes start to choke on the stench) foods there can be to have an island that big. Nor can I figure out why they think we have that many sales. I'd say out of just about every section of the store this is the one that sells the least. We've had that thing for a few years now and in that time I've rung up olive bar stuff two or three times. Unless they're just place-holding for now and are actually for something else. I don't know. They keep moving stuff, here, there, one place, then another. The amount of times they've moved some stuff (the chip aisle is in a different place every day) makes me wonder if a remodel takes so long because the team just moves stuff randomly for a month before they do real work. Example: Hamburger helper was on Aisle 16. Yesterday they had had it moved to 19. And as I was passing they were in the process of moving it to 15.
Me and Bonnie went to take a break but the compactor was being pulled and he needed help. They had jammed the compactor so I had to unjam it. Someone had also thrown a huge box in on top so I plucked that out. I wish they'd start handing out write ups to people who throw cardboard in the garbage. Anyway, inside it was a scrub pad. And later when I was emptying the garbages I found product, perfectly good product, in the garbage. You know, I think I'm really very glad I won't be around for our next inventory cause out shrink will be atrocious.
So on my way back to my cooler I heard a crash, a tinkle of glass hitting the ground. I saw customers turn to look at the noise and knew it was closeby. So I ran for it. I grabbed my door and was going to spin and shut it, as I've done so often in the past, only my hand slipped off the door and I went stumbling sideways into the door jam. Which was kinda funny, really. But at least I avoided cleaning up a mess. Glass. Always means something bad happened.
Then later Keith called me to call him and I found out there's a reason he's never going to amount to anything besides a checker. I already knew there wasn't a whole lot of light behind his eyes.
Keith, "There's a customer who wants the Kroger Egg Nog that's in the ad for 2.99."
Me, "Ok, which one does she want?"
Keith, "The Egg Nog for 2.99."
Me, "There are four varieties, which one does she want?"
Keith, "The Kroger Egg Nog that's 2.99."
Me, "Yes, does she want Regular, Low Fat, Pumpkin, or Vanilla?"
He finally got it and asked her. I suppose he's not intelligent enough to have "varieties" in his vocabulary.
So a guy was taking butter and dropped one busting open the end and letting a stick out. He scooped it up, mumbling something about how he doesn't want that one, and shoved it onto the shelf. Wow.
When I first got to work the customers had bought out the top two shelves of the 2% leaving the third shelf with lots on it. No surprise there. They insist upon taking from the top shelves first, even if taking from the top shelf means making a big gaping hole. So it was a surprise to me later on to find that after I had filled the top shelf entirely and left the bottom three nearly empty (to rotate the dates) they insisted upon buying from the bottom shelves and did not touch the top shelf at all. So they only go for the shelves that are nearly empty?
I also hate it when I'm in the cooler and I hear the sound of product being knocked over. It makes me cringe. I know that 90% of the time when someone knocks stuff over they leave it. You know, if I was at your house and I knocked something over and didn't pick it up you might kick me out of the house. It's my sad misfortune that I can't ban you from the store. I especially hate it when they look through the cooler at me to see if I was watching and then walk away anyway even if we make eye contact.
They painted the back hallway yellow. And the one over by meat/produce is orange. The wall behind the customer service desk is sea green. The walls in floral are green. They put up fake wood paneling around the bottom of the wall in the sitting area by service deli and in the orange back hall. It is a lighter brown, so it will look awful under that yellow they're using, but they have yet to do the yellow back hall. It already looks bad enough under orange. From the looks of things the olive bar will be more or less a large U-shaped buffet almost. I can't imagine how many types of olives and icky smelling (I have to hold my breath while passing the olive bar or I sometimes start to choke on the stench) foods there can be to have an island that big. Nor can I figure out why they think we have that many sales. I'd say out of just about every section of the store this is the one that sells the least. We've had that thing for a few years now and in that time I've rung up olive bar stuff two or three times. Unless they're just place-holding for now and are actually for something else. I don't know. They keep moving stuff, here, there, one place, then another. The amount of times they've moved some stuff (the chip aisle is in a different place every day) makes me wonder if a remodel takes so long because the team just moves stuff randomly for a month before they do real work. Example: Hamburger helper was on Aisle 16. Yesterday they had had it moved to 19. And as I was passing they were in the process of moving it to 15.
Me and Bonnie went to take a break but the compactor was being pulled and he needed help. They had jammed the compactor so I had to unjam it. Someone had also thrown a huge box in on top so I plucked that out. I wish they'd start handing out write ups to people who throw cardboard in the garbage. Anyway, inside it was a scrub pad. And later when I was emptying the garbages I found product, perfectly good product, in the garbage. You know, I think I'm really very glad I won't be around for our next inventory cause out shrink will be atrocious.
So on my way back to my cooler I heard a crash, a tinkle of glass hitting the ground. I saw customers turn to look at the noise and knew it was closeby. So I ran for it. I grabbed my door and was going to spin and shut it, as I've done so often in the past, only my hand slipped off the door and I went stumbling sideways into the door jam. Which was kinda funny, really. But at least I avoided cleaning up a mess. Glass. Always means something bad happened.
Then later Keith called me to call him and I found out there's a reason he's never going to amount to anything besides a checker. I already knew there wasn't a whole lot of light behind his eyes.
Keith, "There's a customer who wants the Kroger Egg Nog that's in the ad for 2.99."
Me, "Ok, which one does she want?"
Keith, "The Egg Nog for 2.99."
Me, "There are four varieties, which one does she want?"
Keith, "The Kroger Egg Nog that's 2.99."
Me, "Yes, does she want Regular, Low Fat, Pumpkin, or Vanilla?"
He finally got it and asked her. I suppose he's not intelligent enough to have "varieties" in his vocabulary.
So a guy was taking butter and dropped one busting open the end and letting a stick out. He scooped it up, mumbling something about how he doesn't want that one, and shoved it onto the shelf. Wow.
When I first got to work the customers had bought out the top two shelves of the 2% leaving the third shelf with lots on it. No surprise there. They insist upon taking from the top shelves first, even if taking from the top shelf means making a big gaping hole. So it was a surprise to me later on to find that after I had filled the top shelf entirely and left the bottom three nearly empty (to rotate the dates) they insisted upon buying from the bottom shelves and did not touch the top shelf at all. So they only go for the shelves that are nearly empty?
I also hate it when I'm in the cooler and I hear the sound of product being knocked over. It makes me cringe. I know that 90% of the time when someone knocks stuff over they leave it. You know, if I was at your house and I knocked something over and didn't pick it up you might kick me out of the house. It's my sad misfortune that I can't ban you from the store. I especially hate it when they look through the cooler at me to see if I was watching and then walk away anyway even if we make eye contact.
restless
I'm having a sort of depressed day where I feel like I want to run everywhere and do everything at once and at the same time I have no energy or will to. It's like a sort of itch, but I don't quite know where to scratch. Maybe I could take this as a planning day and make some lists of things to do or look at. I stayed up late last night (mainly due to reading Deathly Hallows, of which I have read 388/759 pages) to find a countdown widget. I ended up getting one off the Windows Sidebar thing. I have it set for 12:00AM May 28th.
We looked at cement blocks at Lowes, but we still need to look at Home Depot, and we still need to wander into Habitat for Humanity some day and then repeatedly go back to see what we might find. While there we looked at generators. There was a 400 dollar one that puts out 3,000-something and can run for something like 13-16 hours. Victor says he's seen cheaper ones at thrift stores that put out 5,000.
I think I'll clear out behind the couch for us to start putting stuff in. and I think I'll get a crate to put my loose fabric stuff in so they're not in bags on the floor. Maybe. Maybe I'll see about stuffing them into buckets. That might be nice. At the same time I want to just start organizing and packing I know I shouldn't because I'll need some of this stuff before May. I do have a box going with stuff in it like all that tang mix I got when it was on sale, and those teas I got on markdown. I would say that I can safely pack up my halloween stuff except I keep it stored in a crate anyway.
We do have to start acquiring stuff. Probably tomorrow I'll ask Zhaun what he thinks he'll schedule me for Thanksgiving week, see if I can get Friday off so we can go shopping. Not sure what all we might want that might be on sale, but I'm sure something will be bound to be on sale. I think probably in January we'll start buying the more expensive stuff cause then I'll have had all my overtime and holiday pay saved up. Cause I'll probably work Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, New Years Eve, and New Years Day, all of which give holiday pay.
Then sometime in late April or early May I'll take my vacation, in which we'll set up the foundation and do anything else, like start setting up the solar or whatever.
When I get back from my vacation I will start bringing home egg boxes (seriously, best boxes to pack in, they take a ton of weight and they have handles) and start packing. I'm not sure where to start first, but I'll figure it out later. Maybe I'll go through my desk first. Or pack the books. Pans, dishes, and clothes will be last. And of course anything really perishable like milk will be very last. My sewing stuff, as I already said, will be somewhat packed from my stuffing my loose bits of fabric into buckets or whatever. I guess movies will be packed around the same time as books. Video games will come a little later.
Also when I get back from my vacation I'll have a talk with Zhaun and let him know I'll be quitting, also probably put up my notice too. Or I might wait till closer. I'm not sure. Maybe I'll ask Bonnie as it gets closer to time. (Bonnie's known since August)
May 15th will be my anniversary date at work, and that is a Sunday. So I'll get the paycheck from that on May 27th. I figure also sometime in May we'll place our order for our stuff at Home Depot or someplace. I don't know if we'll get the stuff delivered on the 27th or the 28th, probably the 27th, and then we'll go up ourselves on the 27th or 28th. Probably I'll take one last shower here, we'll have dinner, and then head out. Maybe? I wonder what the payment is, like, can we pay them on the 27th with my vacation cashout check? Or do we save, save, save, and use that to pay for our building materials and then just keep my vacation cashout for ourselves, for stuff later on? hm.
Then we will spend the next months building our house. I know it will probably take a while for my sleep to normalize. I fully intent to stay up till I'm tired and then sleep, with no real set bedtime. No set wake-up time.
Here is my floorplan, which I changed a little. I swapped the kitchen and livingroom areas.
We looked at cement blocks at Lowes, but we still need to look at Home Depot, and we still need to wander into Habitat for Humanity some day and then repeatedly go back to see what we might find. While there we looked at generators. There was a 400 dollar one that puts out 3,000-something and can run for something like 13-16 hours. Victor says he's seen cheaper ones at thrift stores that put out 5,000.
I think I'll clear out behind the couch for us to start putting stuff in. and I think I'll get a crate to put my loose fabric stuff in so they're not in bags on the floor. Maybe. Maybe I'll see about stuffing them into buckets. That might be nice. At the same time I want to just start organizing and packing I know I shouldn't because I'll need some of this stuff before May. I do have a box going with stuff in it like all that tang mix I got when it was on sale, and those teas I got on markdown. I would say that I can safely pack up my halloween stuff except I keep it stored in a crate anyway.
We do have to start acquiring stuff. Probably tomorrow I'll ask Zhaun what he thinks he'll schedule me for Thanksgiving week, see if I can get Friday off so we can go shopping. Not sure what all we might want that might be on sale, but I'm sure something will be bound to be on sale. I think probably in January we'll start buying the more expensive stuff cause then I'll have had all my overtime and holiday pay saved up. Cause I'll probably work Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, New Years Eve, and New Years Day, all of which give holiday pay.
Then sometime in late April or early May I'll take my vacation, in which we'll set up the foundation and do anything else, like start setting up the solar or whatever.
When I get back from my vacation I will start bringing home egg boxes (seriously, best boxes to pack in, they take a ton of weight and they have handles) and start packing. I'm not sure where to start first, but I'll figure it out later. Maybe I'll go through my desk first. Or pack the books. Pans, dishes, and clothes will be last. And of course anything really perishable like milk will be very last. My sewing stuff, as I already said, will be somewhat packed from my stuffing my loose bits of fabric into buckets or whatever. I guess movies will be packed around the same time as books. Video games will come a little later.
Also when I get back from my vacation I'll have a talk with Zhaun and let him know I'll be quitting, also probably put up my notice too. Or I might wait till closer. I'm not sure. Maybe I'll ask Bonnie as it gets closer to time. (Bonnie's known since August)
May 15th will be my anniversary date at work, and that is a Sunday. So I'll get the paycheck from that on May 27th. I figure also sometime in May we'll place our order for our stuff at Home Depot or someplace. I don't know if we'll get the stuff delivered on the 27th or the 28th, probably the 27th, and then we'll go up ourselves on the 27th or 28th. Probably I'll take one last shower here, we'll have dinner, and then head out. Maybe? I wonder what the payment is, like, can we pay them on the 27th with my vacation cashout check? Or do we save, save, save, and use that to pay for our building materials and then just keep my vacation cashout for ourselves, for stuff later on? hm.
Then we will spend the next months building our house. I know it will probably take a while for my sleep to normalize. I fully intent to stay up till I'm tired and then sleep, with no real set bedtime. No set wake-up time.
Here is my floorplan, which I changed a little. I swapped the kitchen and livingroom areas.
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Markdowns, yay!
Work:
This morning the grocery truck was in first thing. But first I had to empty the garbages. So I got it offloaded and went and filled the eggs. After that George came with the truck for returns. He had waited till it was daylight so I wouldn't have to mess around in the dark. Behind the store is a lot of junk, so much that most the returns had been stuffed down in front of the compactor.
After returns I had plenty of time to do stuff. But around 9:45, just as I was really looking forward to my break, dairy/deli/frozen showed up. And the driver had a bad arm (15 stitches, couldn't lift anything) so I asked Zhaun if I could have Joe help me offload, and Zhaun just made fun of me, went on about how I'm young and strong and can do it myself. Bret overrode him and told Joe to help me. haha! Bret also saw what a mess it was, with me clearing the hallway, taking out meat dept's pallets, and was all annoyed and bothered and said, "You shouldn't have to do all that, I'll fix this someday, I promise". Empty though that may be it was still nice to hear. Really nice, actually.
Keith and Rowan were clearing out room to get to the trailer so they could get some nonfoods off it and I told them to put the pallets out of the way so I could get the truck offloaded and of course they looked at me blankly and I ended up moving the pallets later, with Rowan trying to help because he's a good kid. And they said maybe the pallets they wanted were on the other trailer and I had to point out (three times before they got it!) that it was new freight, just pulled in, could not possibly have the nonfoods stuff they wanted. And they were all confused because there were some pallets of turkeys in the front and Bob said the entire trailer was full of turkeys, which I knew wasn't possible. Especially since I saw totes back behind the turkeys. So Bret had them pull off the turkeys and rearange everything so the nonfoods stuff was on one side and turkeys on the other. It was nearly an hour till I really got going on the truck. But then around 11 Dustin came in so I made him take over and I went on break.
The rest of the day passed fast and I left about 20 minutes late.
Got a lot of good markdowns though! A large thing of vinegar for 1.25 or something, clothespins for 60 cents, some tools or other for 2.00 I figured Victor could use them and he was happy when I showed them to him, ice cream for 2.00, clothesline for I don't remember how much, hair stuff (a pretty barrette, pins, and a large brush with a minibrush that has a mirror on the handle), and some other things I don't remember what all. Seaweed for 50 cents a packet, I only got two cause we don't use it often enough to buy any more with an expiration date of May. Electrical tape. Honey. Ketchup. Lemonade.
This morning the grocery truck was in first thing. But first I had to empty the garbages. So I got it offloaded and went and filled the eggs. After that George came with the truck for returns. He had waited till it was daylight so I wouldn't have to mess around in the dark. Behind the store is a lot of junk, so much that most the returns had been stuffed down in front of the compactor.
After returns I had plenty of time to do stuff. But around 9:45, just as I was really looking forward to my break, dairy/deli/frozen showed up. And the driver had a bad arm (15 stitches, couldn't lift anything) so I asked Zhaun if I could have Joe help me offload, and Zhaun just made fun of me, went on about how I'm young and strong and can do it myself. Bret overrode him and told Joe to help me. haha! Bret also saw what a mess it was, with me clearing the hallway, taking out meat dept's pallets, and was all annoyed and bothered and said, "You shouldn't have to do all that, I'll fix this someday, I promise". Empty though that may be it was still nice to hear. Really nice, actually.
Keith and Rowan were clearing out room to get to the trailer so they could get some nonfoods off it and I told them to put the pallets out of the way so I could get the truck offloaded and of course they looked at me blankly and I ended up moving the pallets later, with Rowan trying to help because he's a good kid. And they said maybe the pallets they wanted were on the other trailer and I had to point out (three times before they got it!) that it was new freight, just pulled in, could not possibly have the nonfoods stuff they wanted. And they were all confused because there were some pallets of turkeys in the front and Bob said the entire trailer was full of turkeys, which I knew wasn't possible. Especially since I saw totes back behind the turkeys. So Bret had them pull off the turkeys and rearange everything so the nonfoods stuff was on one side and turkeys on the other. It was nearly an hour till I really got going on the truck. But then around 11 Dustin came in so I made him take over and I went on break.
The rest of the day passed fast and I left about 20 minutes late.
Got a lot of good markdowns though! A large thing of vinegar for 1.25 or something, clothespins for 60 cents, some tools or other for 2.00 I figured Victor could use them and he was happy when I showed them to him, ice cream for 2.00, clothesline for I don't remember how much, hair stuff (a pretty barrette, pins, and a large brush with a minibrush that has a mirror on the handle), and some other things I don't remember what all. Seaweed for 50 cents a packet, I only got two cause we don't use it often enough to buy any more with an expiration date of May. Electrical tape. Honey. Ketchup. Lemonade.
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Christmas Tree
So I assume that it was the people who fixed the willow tree roots that messed up the plumbing because it turns out the pipe I was helping replace was for letting dirty water leave. (they had me flush the toilet when we were done to test it) And the manager guy said that we should save the receipts so that when they get on the plumbing company for this we'll get our money back. Good. But I'm all covered in bruises. My elbows, because I military-crawled under the house. Not a whole lot room to do much else, and it was easier than using my hands. My left hip for some reason, that one really hurts, I guess I jabbed it on something. My left shoulder from where I hit it on something. I'm surprised I don't have a bruise on my head from where I hit it on something. And after we were done I kept reminding Victor what a good wife he has that would willingly crawl under the house amongst the ick, in the cold, and after work. I did end up having to put two more pins in my hair to hold it in place. He should be back over this morning to check it out and see that everything's held together under there, but I haven't seen him yet. Course I did just spend the last hour or two playing AudioSurf with the headphones on. Meh.
Christmas:
After telling Victor that we weren't doing the tree till after Thanksgiving I surprised him on Saturday morning by getting the tree out of the shed and assembling it while he was sleeping. So far all we've done are the lights and garland but we'll do the ornaments sometime, maybe today.
Christmas:
After telling Victor that we weren't doing the tree till after Thanksgiving I surprised him on Saturday morning by getting the tree out of the shed and assembling it while he was sleeping. So far all we've done are the lights and garland but we'll do the ornaments sometime, maybe today.
The area I put the tree in.
The tree after being assembled.
These are our new LCD (LED? I always get them confused!) christmas lights that Victor's opening. This picture is at a really awkward angle. I was on the couch looking back, so I was much lower to him than normal.
The tree with the lights on it. Ha, Victor was right. He said that the lights were flickering at a something-or-other rate and that if we took a picture of the lights when they're on that some of them would appear off and some would appear on.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)