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Update At 0700 This isn't anything minor like "Grand Unification Theory" or a cure for cancer or the common cold. No, men, what I speak of this morning is perhaps the most fundamental question in the universe - er, the male universe, at any rate. That question? Why Do Women Shop. Yes, my friends, I have discovered this truth in a relatively short period of research which, frankly, disturbs me. Someone, somewhere, out there in the wide world, should have observed this long ago - but then again, perhaps it was observed, and the discoverer killed. No matter. I'm willing to take that chance, so I can explain to you, my friends, why it is that women will shop. It's actually a very, very simple reason. They get to act like we men do all the time. In a word, like pigs. Last night, after doing a couple of boxes of leftover freight, the four-person night crew was all dedicated - for nearly all of our ten hour shift - to recovering from Saturday's business. Saturday was the day when, for some strange reason, all the knuckleheads came out, and our sales plan was exceeded by a factor of about 100%. Now, if we were talking small potatoes, that would be one thing. When we expected to do nearly six figures, and we did in excess of that, well, damn. That's busy. And it seems that most of it came from women, shopping, and trying on clothes. Now, ladies, some of you are not pigs. But there are enough of your sisterhood that are that I'm sorry, I'm going to have to tar the entire bunch of you with a rather wide brush. I found clothes that were turned inside out - tied in knots - stained (and no, I refuse to re-live those moments). I found four bins - five feet long by two feet wide by three feet deep - full of clothes that had been removed from hangers or unfolded, tried on, and dumped. Our job was to return the clothes we could to a semblence of sale-ability, and put it back on the shelves. By the end of the night, we had managed to work our way through a third of the mountain. My God. And that reminds me - I need to apologize to the kids. I have a new definition of "my God, what a mess."
[Link] Then again, what am I worried about - I'd be more likely to fly as cargo than as a passenger anyway... |
Update At 1420 ("ah, that's proper 1420, that is") This morning, after coming home from work, I wrote a post. It was in two parts. The first part was about a dream/fantasy I'd long had about winning the lottery. The second part was a short note, stating that I would be ending this journal. The reasons were many, varied, and amounted to the same thing. I needed to conserve my energy and my efforts for something more important - finding anohter part-time job, which would lead to more income, which would, some day, lead to at least some form of solvency. This morning, while I slept, I got a call. The individual who was offered the position I did not get last week declined the offer of the employer in question. And while I'm second choice, I'm the one who has the opportunity to do the job. In other words, tomorrow afternoon - on my birthday - I go into a meeting wherein we discuss the specifics of the offer. And I will come out of it employed. It has been two long, dull, dreadfully boring, dreadfully dull, dreadfully terrifying years. I thank you good folks for sticking in there with me - because it seems likely that I've hit that bottom of the valley. Finally.
[Link] Tonight we had a meeting for Jack's first communion - he'll be making that this coming April. We need to start planning / learning now, however. After that, I went over to a friend's house, to check on their computer. They have an HP - relatively new - which has been the source of unending struggles. First the thing refused to load certain games/software. When I worked on it, it ran fine - for a while. A few days later, the entire drive crashed. I had nothing to do with it, but as it's Windows ME, so you know what that means. WME should stand for What, ME worried? Yup.
But they still had the machine under warranty, so they went back to the point of purchase - which rebuilt it. Then it came home and worked - but didn't have some things they'd had originally on it - like Office and the like. Nice people, the folks at Of course, they use AOL. And tonight, I went over to troubleshoot that (as it hadn't connected for a few weeks now). Banging away, I got the modem to dial, the connection to get made - and then it would disconnect. A message saying Error 691 popped up. Of course, there's no local documentation on error 691. For the record, a DUN error 691 is "Username/Password mismatch". Doh. Now I know. |
Update At 1900 Today is my 24,837th (note no superscript) day on this planet. Whoo hoo - I survive another 163, and I'm 25,000 days old - Or in other words, the day after St. Patty's day, 2005... It also marks the 1,599th day I've been sitting down, banging out something for a site. It's the 1,528th day since I started this - or what has grown into "this". It's also the 1,395th day since I last started a "W2 Job" - not contract, but "employee". It is, as noted previously, the 807th day since I walked into an office as an employee. It is the 377th day since I started the contract gig last year - which, if it had been signed, would still be going until the end of this month - and probably longer. It is also the 275th day since I found out "oh, no, don't go in today - your contract wasn't approved." And it's official. I start October 18, 2004, at ... well, I'm gonna stick to my previous standard of not naming the employer - but it's a good 'un.
Oh - I forgot one other thing - it's a dog-friendly office. So yes, Daisy can visit with me on occasion. Pay-wise, it's not great. It marks a 30% reduction in where I was four years ago. However, it's a ton more than I'm making now, which makes it more than "good enough". And someday, perhaps, I'll get back into that "great" territory. On the other hand, I've learned to stretch and do without - so "not great" is still "good enough". Other than that, one final hurdle to clear - the inevitable "fill this cup, please" test which will happen in the next 24-48 hours or so, and then we'll go on from there. And the next big thing will be to investigate blogging software. Not for me, for She Who Must Be Obeyed as she does not like the weekly format, would like to write directly, and take it from there. So, Mr. Beland, should you have any thoughts, let me know... Now I have to write a letter to the fine folks at the overnight gig, asking if they can use me at another time of day - if not, well, I'd hate to lose the job, but I'll need to lose the job. I'm sitting here, now, in a quiet house, enjoying it. I've sent Ann and the kids off - first, to the library, where they're paying the $70 in overdue fines we had from last year (when we forgot to return books that were overdue for a couple months), and then to get some dinner. Yeah, we're splurging. It's been a long, long, long time. And it will be a long time before it happens again. |
Update At 0645 One of the benefits, I suppose, of unpacking boxes from all over the world is that once in a while you unpack some gigantic monstrosity like that. In other news, I dropped the bad news on them last night/this morning. Unfortunately, they just - for next week - finally got me onto the schedule in the computer. That's the good news. The bad news is that I'm unavailable next Tuesday - and I'm scheduled. So I let them know I was unavailable, and if there's a problem, well, it's not mine. Oh - one other thing - for those of you who only look at the top of the page, I forgot to update the header from Monday until today. What did you miss? Well, I finally got a job, for starters.
[Link] One of the things that this experience has taught me is that many organizations go through difficult times. Most of these tend to foist off the difficulties onto their employees - by making them former employees. Through no fault of their own, people are laid off, and that's that. I spent several years in college learning about management. Which is, I suppose, a sure way to destroy a leader, but that's the way of things sometimes. One of the things I learned in my management courses, and have had it pounded into me again and again and again is that, until quite recently, the highest single cost of doing business - be it manufacturing or services - is your labor cost. Which makes your labor your biggest asset. But there's a small problem. Is your labor an asset or is it an expense? Many firms look at their employees as an expense. Those are the firms which, sadly, find themselves struggling, and eventually, they'll go through layoffs. Some survive. Some do not. But some organizations do not lay people off. They work hard at keeping their employees happy. Why? Simple. 99% of your customer interaction isn't through the board, CEO, executive management, or a similarly high level. Your customers interact with your staff. Which means that a happy staff will work hard to satisfy the customers - and a satisfied customer won't have reason to leave. At my "night job" they have a policy and motto - "never say no". We're instructed from the start to do whatever it takes to make sure the customer is happy. No, that doesn't mean we give them stuff for free - nor does it mean that we "service the customer" (and you can take that just about any way you'd like to). We - as an organization - know that without customers, we're an expensive piece of real estate with a building full of ... well, useless things, unless people want to buy them. I would be willing to bet that a portion of our merchandise can be found elsewhere - and the price tags will almost certainly be less. It is a gospel fact, however, that no one ever pays the ticketed price - unless it's a clearance markdown - in which case they're paying well less than half the ticketed price anyway. And since we're selling the same thing other people are, we can compete on a couple of different levels. We can compete on service - which is a waste of time and effort, because (unfortunately), these days it's cheaper to replace than repair. We could compete on stock levels - and we do. We rarely issue rainchecks, because our products are almost always in stock. We can - and do - compete on price. But we also have nice-looking, attractive stores, helpful staff, and we're quite willing to work with you. Because we know you can go elsewhere. Each employee knows they have this ... responsibility, authority, what have you - and we therefore feel more involved with the organization. Which is one of the many reasons I want to stay with them even when the day job kicks in. Organizations which enlist the willing aid of their employees aren't going to be laying people off - usually because they have good people looking for good people. I don't quite know how it happened, but when I sat down to go through an interview with these people, they started with a "group interview" format. There were five of us in the room - and I arrived last, late. Two of the guys in the room with me had recent, pertinent, and specific experience in retail. Two of the ladies were looking to add to existing full-time jobs. Of the five people in that room, I was the only one hired. I don't know what they saw - I only know that I was the one they hired, and because of that, I know what responsibility is on my shoulders. So I work hard. On my overnight shifts, I'm constantly doing something. Most of the crew is. I try to move faster than the rest of the people there, because I know the faster I move, the less time I have to think, and the faster the night goes. It's also nice to know that people see me as a hard worker. But I think that, in the future, I'm going to start investing any extra money I have in firms and organizations which are people-centric. Sure, I might not make a boatload of money - but I might not lose one, either... |
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Update At Last night we must have received something like three or four trailers. When I arrived at 10 pm, they were only halfway down the final trailer. The scary part was that the entire dock, backstock, and any and all other areas where we tuck things as we unload were absolutely filled to the hilt. We normally close at 10 pm, but last night, someone had the bright idea to keep us open until 11 pm. This meant that our normal "clear the dock" routine of rolling racks and carts out onto the store floor to get ourselves some room to organize couldn't happen until after 11 pm. We spent an hour unloading the final trailer. There were stacks of boxes at least ten feet high, and we had nearly every single rolling clothes rack in use. The normal plan is to empty the trailers, get the plastic off the clothes, sort and secure the appropriate clothing, and get that rolling before our first break at midnight. Between first and second break (at 3 am) we spend a lot of time unboxing material and putting it on rolling carts. We usually have about three or four people unboxing, and about eight to ten running about, putting things on the floor. Between last break and quitting time, we spent a lot of time unboxing stuff - because the day people can put some things out if they know what they are - and we can spend the time in backstock to unpack it. Last night we didn't finish emptying the last trailer until 11:30 pm. We were still pulling plastic at 1 am. I was on my way back to get the sixth or seventh rolling cart of the night (on average, somewhere between 200 items (clothes) to over 1000 (ornaments) fit on each rolling cart. Bad loads - for me - include womens and young men's clothing (those departments totally stump me) and picture frames. Loads I don't mind are men's clothes, domestics, and just about anything else - except lingerie), when I realized it was 6 am. Yikes. Oh well. Done's done. |
Update At This article shows their thinking. Specifically, they're taking a quote from Kerry, where he says that we need to push Terrorism down to a low-noise level, not a front-page-of-everything-we-do level, and the Bushies are upset by this. Of course they're upset. Bush is ahead when people are scared - though I can't for the life of me figure out why. Then again, he scares me, so there might be something to this. I don't pretend to be a mind-reader for Kerry. I do think what he's saying is that we need to ratchet DOWN the noise level on terrorists, and ratchet UP the cooperation level. For example, if we and the Russians were working more closely together on terrorism, would there be 300 people in Beslan still alive? Would there be fewer people in Israel mourning because of bombings in Egypt? Who knows. Kerry made a point the other night when I saw one of the debates. The discussion was about doing everything you could to prevent terror attacks from happening. Bush said "I'm doing everything I can." Yet he's not. It stands to reason that five hundred people watching for something are better than five people watching for the same thing. It stands to reason that you will know your neighborhood and what is out of the ordinary more than I will. And it stands to reason that there are people who are likely to attack again. What we do not need are other countries out there watching these terror groups and saying "well, as long as they're not going to attack us here, what do we care?"
[Link] After I'd been out about a year, one of my regular stops, Mr. Barkman, came back with what appeared to be some minor health news - a tumor in his esophagus. I figured if Mike could face something like that with such a positive outlook, then what right did I have to bitch? From that day until Mike's last post I visited regularly, e-mailed occasionally (I didn't want to bother him with the minutae of my life, but I did let him know I was pulling for him), and otherwise just soaked up his attitude. I kept reminding myself it could be worse. And once in a while, I'm right. For those of you who come by here after the obligatory AP-supplied story has expired, the link refers to a local fellow by the name of Bee Her. Yes, he's an immigrant. And yes, there's a long story behind this. Almost five years ago now, his brother killed his wife - and then himself - leaving eight children orphaned. Bee Her took the kids in. He also had three kids of his own, and a stepchild. Since January of 2000, he's added two other children. If you're doing the math, that's 16 people. And he's doing it all on one salary. Mr. Her's been getting a lot of help, but what happened last week wasn't a help. He ran to the grocery store for a quick trip. He took the two little ones with him - 3 and 4 year old girls. On the way home, driving the family car, he was struck by a minivan stolen by a young fellow by the name of Waco Duane Little Soldier, who was fleeing police and had run a stopsign. The two little girls, who were apparently crafty little monkeys, managed to unbuckle themselves, and were thrown from the vehicle - and are now laying in the hospital. Their father, who was just on a quick run to the grocery store, is now left without transportation to his job, and can do little but watch his daughters in the hospital. I'm reminded time and again that what I went through was, relatively, nothing compared to the problems of others. I was lucky. Not lucky enough to win the lottery, but lucky.
[Link] "Nah" thought I - "I've been stunningly healthy over the last few years. This thing'll skip right by me." Not. I suspect it's been a force of will that's kept me from acknowledging the fact that I did, occasionally, feel like crap. When you're unemployed, it's tough to "take a day off". I'd go camping, for example, and feel like I was doing something wrong - I wasn't looking for work. This morning, my stomach was cramping worse than it's done in years. The usual side-effects ran through, and by mid-afternoon, I was feeling just generally crappy. I dozed off-and-on in my chair (best $15 we've ever spent), and now I'm feeling positively ... under the weather, instead of absolutely hammered. I'll take what I can get. Tomorrow starts the last week of head-down overnights, and after that, the Real Job starts. I honestly cannot wait.
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