Math is hard

Life sure does have it's ups and downs..we all know this.

I just haven't decided yet, if I'm on an up swing or a down swing! LOL

The new job is............well, it's a job.
I semi like it..and I semi don't.
They have pushed very hard to get me 'power trained' ..it's the best way to describe it.
Here's what I mean.
As a lower level manager, there are certain 'corporate' things I have to know, comply with and learn, along with basic store 'management' details. According to their 'official' training manual (of which I did not get) there are 3  levels of training that I should be going through in order to reach the management position I have been hired for.  I am supposed to be finished with 'level 1'training after 40 hours, 'level 2' after another 120 hours and finally 'level 3' after another 40 hours. Total amount of hours.........200.
I started my job on Sunday of last week..one week ago today. I had worked a total of 2 days (appx 10 hrs) when on the third day and the beginning of my shift, I walk in and the current manager said to me "we have to get you through all your training tonight..up to and including level 3."  SCUZE ME?

"yep, Bryan wants you trained so that you can be given alarm codes and such so you can open and close the store by yourself ASAP"...............UHMMM..I DON'T THINK SO!

Not only was I supposed to 'power train'..but the current store manager and I were supposed to get it done DURING WORKING hours. ................."YEAH RIGHT!"

Needless to say, we didn't get it done that day ..but, information was shoved into my head for the next 2 days.
How many hours have I worked there? Total: 22
Now..minus 22 from the 200 I'm supposed to train for and you get??  178 more hours of training left. Am I going to get it? NO
Today when I go into work, I have to partake of a 'phone conference testing' with Bryan to see if I pass and can be given the alarm code. (I received my keys on day 3).

REALLY?
Am I ready? Not even!
Will I pass? Doubtful
Am I happy about this? PFFFT!

I've done all I can to 'crash course' some of this stuff this morning..it is not sticking.
This company has more acronyms then the fucking dictionary! (and I'm supposed to know them all!)
This company has NO TRUST in it's employees whatsoever. That is no lie.
Example: All the cameras in the store and not aimed at the door and the floor where customers are..ohh no..they are aimed at the employees.

 <BLINK BLINK!>
WHY?
A portion of the training information that has been shoved into my head has been about 'policy' and theft. (by employees) Maybe..just maybe I've been out of the 'retail' business too long. Do employees really do this type of stuff..? I mean..REALLY?
The rest of the training has been...........OHMYGAWD kinda shit. Acronym after acronym of this and that and what you need to do daily and emails and category counts and where to go for this information and so on and so on..
The basic training of the meat of the store, like "HOW TO FRIGGIN CHECK SOMEONE OUT AT THE REGISTER has been..catch it if you can! JJJEEEEESUS KEEERIST!

You're kidding me right??

Oh..and well, I can't take smoke breaks either..........GASP!! No..I cannot even step out the front door (with the store being empty mind you) and take a quick smoke..nope. A manager has to be IN the store at ALL TIMES! Even if another (non manager) employee is in the store..you cannot step outside!   WTH?

oh..and you can't sit down at any time either!...............what? A shift without a break or the ability to rest your feet for a moment?? Excuse me?
NOPE..........

Ohh..and those 32-40 hours I was told I would get..Hmm He must have meant every TWO weeks..cuz as it stands..I'm getting about 20 hrs a week.
Now..mind you, for part time, this is great..but..when you consider that I have to travel 38 miles round trip to and from work for a shift...and in order to get those 20 hrs a week, they are splitting it up into shifts of 3-7 hrs..how many times a week do I have to drive that 38 miles. 5. Five is the answer here.
5x's 38 = that's almost 200 miles. 200 miles in my car will cost me about 60 bucks. My paycheck for 20 hours, minus taxes is only going to be about 120. Now minus 60 for the gas (not to mention the miles I'll be adding to my car!) and you tell me...........is working this job going to 'pay me'??  (just in case you don't want to do the math..that leaves me about 60$ to deposit in the bank) ..uhmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Probably not is the answer here. Probably not.

So as I said at the beginning of this post..life sure does have it's ups and downs..and I just cant' seem to figure out if I'm on an upswing or a downswing.
............................but I can figure out math..and the math is not calculating in this equation.

The Crone of Corporate Yo'yo's

Sage

Wine thoughts

This will be short and sweet, I promise.


Let me say this..so you'll know. (and some day I may divulge all, but for now)
In life, we all make decisions that we HAVE to make.

No questions. No changing your mind.

Some decisions are brought about due to morals, goals and past or fore knowledge of a situation.
Either way, we choose and decide upon things that cannot ever change again.

Once that decision is made, there is no going back. Period.

The sad part of all this is..
...when you are faced or presented with what you gave away for what you made a decision to keep.
It's still out of reach, and always will be.......................and it hurts more then you will ever know.

Till it happens to you.

The Crone of decisions

Sage

A new gamer on the scene

Here we are again...and I can honestly say, my life has been candy. Meaning..sweet since I don't have to deal with mini hitler!  ATILLA is no longer a part of it and I can say I'm glad glad glad!

My new job has been daunting and they want you to learn a lot quick quick quick. Tonight I suffer from burnout for sure, but alas, it's all good I suppose. I was paid for a few hours on Friday when I filled out the 'new employee paperwork..I worked Sunday from 2-6 and again today from 6-9:30ish. I'm off tomorrow and go back in Wednesday morning (9am) to learn 'opening' (only for an hour or so) then back to work at 3pm till close.

From what I could see today, I'll be working Fri, Sat and Sun of this week too. This is all good. The more I learn, the better.
It appears we don't have a 'lead manager' at the moment..(I mean we do, but she's not normally here, she's  a fill in from Charleston who will be leaving in a month and my gawd does she know her STUFF!) so she told me tonight that once they decided 'what they are going to do or bring someone in' she'll be going back to her store. ..so we could have a new lead manager soon.
I can tell you, it's a lot to learn..and tonight the input of so much information made my brain hurt! HOWEVER..that being said, I'm doing pretty good at learning a good bit of it. I'll be closing by myself on Wednesday, given my keys and my security codes, etc, etc..and I'm not sure I'm ready for it, but alas..I have no choice really. It's do or die at this point. LOL

And of course, tonight was the night that I bought my system. Yep..a gaming system..an xbox 360 w/250g HD and Kinect along with 4 games. I mean, seriously, how am I supposed to know anything about 'gaming' systems if I don't own one??   Well, now I do. :) I'll hook it up tomorrow and give it a go. We'll see what I think if it. And..since I bought it at my store..I saved over $100, so I am pleased with this.

I can honestly say, I think I'm ready for bed..my brain hurts..really. I'm on overload.
So I'll say farewell for the night. This addled brain is surely going down for the count.

The Crone of 360
Sage

Gamers and a LONG post!

Life sure is funny. And sometimes confusing. (it's also a pain in the ass!)

Let me give you a recap of the last 4 days of my life. If you read from the last post, you remember that Atilla didn't come to work Mon, Tue, or Wed of last week. We all had our fingers crossed that she wouldn't come in on Thur, or Fri either, but alas, she showed up on Thursday and ruined everyone's day!

It just so happens, that all our work was caught up and ahead a bit and Atilla was finding it hard to find things for me to do. She tried to 'pimp' me out to another team, but alas, no one needed an extra hand. Now I have to say I truly truly hate it when there is not enough work to keep me busy because that's when Atilla keeps me next to her showing me new things to do and riding my ass even harder. I HATED being 'without work'..it meant I would constantly have to work with her. EGADS!

Her four days off did nothing to change her attitude...trust me.

By 10am I was pissed. She was surly, rude and completely in an egotistical state of mind. She pulled me to learn another girls station (she was absent that day) and I had no problems doing the job, it was easy as pie..and got finished with all the work she had given me in about 20 mins.
Atilla did not like this..no no no she didn't. She got irritated ...again. So she grabbed me and took me to another machine and showed me how to work it and set me to doing that. Again..I had finished all that in about 20 mins.
The time now is about 15-20 minutes before our lunch break..and having already dealt with her pissy assed attitutde for about 2 hours, I was just about fed up.
When I had finished again she looked at me and said (in a very negative way, loud and with malice I might add
"Well then, you can just fix yourself another box to work on..come with me!"
And she took me up front near her desk to pull flags from a bin and put into a rolling cart. They had to be placed in a specific way, and make sure to not let them drag (she yelled that at me by the way) and so I started pulling flags. She didn't like the way I was pulling them, nor the speed in which I was doing it..it was too slow for her and well, that's all it took for her to start in on me....again.
She yelled ,"This is production MAN!..you're too damned slow!, you need to pull them and get them in the cart!
I replied back (irritated too I might add).."I'm just making sure they aren't dragging..it's what you said..to make sure they don't drag!"
She replied: LOOK! I've done a whole cart and you're just finishing your first one........." then she turned away from me and bitched about the laziness of people and other things that I could not hear.While she slammed and threw things about.
That was it for me man. I was done. I could not deal with this anymore.

I took the cart..did what needed to be done with them on both machines..as soon as I was done, our lunch bell rang.
I went to my station, grabbed all my personal items..walked to the time clock and clocked myself out.
I then went straight into the office and said
"I'm going home for the day, because if I don't I'm going to punch someone in the nose and be arrested for assault. I can no longer work with 'atilla'..either switch me to another team or consider this my resignation effective today!" I was pissed..and she knew it.
The girl sputtered and jumped up..asking me to at least speak with 'Dave' our head guy (he's about 3rd down on the totem pole of owners/important people"
SO..to make a long story short..I did talk with Dave, gave him the same options I had already stated..and then I went home. Taking all my things with me, with the promise that I would call back at about 3 to see what they had decided. Needless to say, that call back didn't produce a good outcome. Dave informed me that right now they just did not have a place they could place me, but he had talked with Atilla and steps were being taken to correct the issues, so would I please come back and give it a few weeks. The answer was.."I can't give you an answer right now Dave, I need to think on it" He agreed and we hung up.

Bright and early Friday morning, I was up. I tweeked my resume a bit more, made 6 copies, dressed in a decent casual wear and hit the road by 8:45.
I went everywhere! From all the factories we have to a 'mobile home' selling place, to rent a centers and to local stores. NOTHING..do you hear me..nothing. HOWEVER what I did find was that many many many of the places I went to wanted you to fill out the application on line.
Now, mind you, I had done this already with many of these places, but the idea that someone is only going to look at a computerized 'application/resume' and decide on that alone whether they want to go to the next step..bothered me. What happened to human interaction? this was crazy. I was now depressed..I was upset..and I again felt so stuck it wasn't funny.
Now, this particular Friday was "Rita Friday" and all the girls had plans to meet and have Rita's and lunch at 11:30.
the time was now 10:45 and I was already tired..in and out of the car, in and out of the car, talk talk, in and out of the car..see what I mean?
So here I am..sitting in the shopping center parking lot in front of Walmart and the strip mall of stores. (sigh) I sat there..for about 10 minutes. At this point, I figured WTH..let me go drink a Rita while I wait and began to pull out. When I did I scanned down the row of stores and saw "GameStop"...
"Hmmm..I could treat myself to the newest 'Sims' expansion....Why the hell not!" So I parked, shut off the car and walked into the store.
The young lady behind the counter looked up when I strolled in and said "HI! How are you today?!"
That was it..I knew I needed to relax or something..and in a joking manner I slumped my shoulders..got a sad look on my face and said "You would have to ask me that wouldn't you?" and then I smiled.
It was over after that..she was laughing and we were talking..I was bemoaning the job hunting was horrible..and that the human interaction was gone from searching for a job, now everyone had to apply on the net..and how could they know anything about me just by looking at a resume and on and on we went. For about 10 minutes.
Then she looked at me and said "Do you have management experience"? Well of course I do! She handed me an application and we continued to chat while I was filling it out. Suddenly the door opened and a man came in with his arms loaded with products and things for behind the counter. I figured he was just another employee of the store. I continued filling out the app and the young lady behind the counter finally said to the man.."She's filling out an app for the manager position"..he turned to me, gave me a hardy hand shake introduced himself as "Brian" and we began talking. We talked of games and gaming, of sports cars (he was drooling over mine) and life in general. We laughed and had a nice conversation. He took my app and scanned it and we talked some more. He told me then he'd "make sure the lead manager got my app and then she would schedule me for an interview and then you'll have a second interview with me."
Wow..this guy must be someone a bit higher then I thought!
We chatted a few more minutes and I left the store  heading for 'Ritaville'. I was in the store almost an hour. WOW!
(and I did buy my expansion too!)
When I got to the restaurant noone was there..I sat outside and ordered my first Rita. After 1/2 an hour of eating chips and sipping the Rita, I realized I had been stood up. So..I called Dementor and said "I'll treat you to lunch and a rita if you get up and come meet me" he agreed and 45 mins later he was sitting down at the table. He said to me "A girl named 'Stephanie called from a 'Gamestop" place and wants you to call her immediately..and Dave called"
I was in shock. I had only been gone from the store an hour and she had called already! So..on the spot I called her back..her exact words to me were "I understand that you had a very impressive impromptu little interview today!?" I was floored. We talked, I told her I could meet her in a hour and do an interview"

So..two ritas down..I went to an interview! LOL..anyway, when I walked in, the young lady behind the counter that I had spoken with previously came to me and said "You made quite and impression with Brian! When Stephanie got in here, he grabbed your app, slapped it down on the counter and said "Call her..ASAP! Get her back in here..you don't want to miss this one". Then she told me "Your timing couldn't have been better..Brian is the regional manager!"
Again..I was floored. Needless to say the interview went GREAT..and I was offered the position of Manager (one of 2..and the lowest one of course) with opportunities to move up very quickly in the company. Stephanie told me I was absolutely awesome (and yes, that's the word she used) and she couldn't wait to work with me. By the by..Stephani is the lead manager.
So..I now have a new job..as manager of "Gamestop" (and if you don't know..gamestop is a store that sells 'games for computers, xbox's, ps2'..etc..you know..gaming systems that you hook up to your tv)

I got paid for 2 hours while I filled out the new employee paperwork..and my first day is today..I go in at 2. The hours will be random and it won't always be full time. I'll be working anywhere from 30-40 hrs. a week..and unfortunately, much of it will be nights and weekends, but hey..I'm ok with this.
WOOHOOO! I'll be an official "game techy'! LOL

Now..back at the ranch..remember, Dave had called and left a message. By the time we got home it was a little after 6 and I just had to call and tell 1 of 5 the news. So I called the daughter..she said to me "A Dave called me earlier..and wants you to call him..he gave me his personal cell number."
<blink blink>
Ok..so I took the number, got off the phone and called him.
It seems they did some twisting and shifting and could offer me a position on another team..making $8 and hour. I told Dave I appreciated all that he had done to work with me, but alas..I had already acquired another job. His reply "WOW!..ok then..ALREADY?" Yes Dave..already.

Needless to say..I wont' be going back to the local sweat shop!
Better yet, I NEVER EVER EVER have to lay eyes on Atilla again!!!

The crone of 'gamers'

Sage

OH..PS: When I got home and off the phone, I was doing some general cleaning up/picking up of the house..and I just happened to run across a fortune that I had saved from a chinese fortune cookie..it read:
"Out of confusion comes new patterns"  How true.