“Weekend” doesn’t just mean Saturday and Sunday, you know…
May 17, 2005, 5:44 PM
You know, a weekend is a state of mind, and not necessarily two specific days. My weekend is usually Wednesday and Thursday, and like most people for Saturday and Sunday, I’m so glad when those two days roll around.
It’s interesting how that mindset is, too. If you call Wednesday and Thursday your weekend, then it’s your weekend! So many people at work complain about not getting weekends off, yet you don’t ever hear a peep out of me. My weekend just doesn’t happen to match with the days traditionally designated as weekends. I’ve in fact asked not to be scheduled off on traditional weekend days because I like my mid-week weekend.
So I normally start my week out on Friday, and so Friday is like Monday to me. So the traditional weekend is like Tuesday and Wednesday in my week. Then my “Friday” is actually Tuesday. So for me, today was like Friday, where I know that if I can make it through the day, I get two days of freedom from that big, green building known as Wally World (our store, for those not familiar, is tan and green instead of the normal gray and blue).
Continue reading…You’ve got to do the voice correctly…
April 22, 2005, 10:46 PM
It seems I can always find a way to make fun of the cigarette register at Wal-Mart (where the customers can’t hear me, of course). I had the term “vice counter” back a few weeks ago, and now I’ve got a new one. I hold up two fingers as if holding a cigarette, and then in my best lifetime-of-smoking voice, say the slogan for a cigarette brand. It really cracks people up, and makes people laugh OUT LOUD when I do that voice.
Imagine me doing a smoker voice, and pretending to hold a cigarette, saying something like “Come to Marlboro Country”, “We built the House of Menthol” (Kool), and, the one that gets the most laughs by far in the smoker voice, “You’ve come a long way, baby!” (Virginia Slims)
The things I come up with… it even surprises me sometimes.
Categories: Walmart
I still don’t understand…
April 21, 2005, 4:51 PM
I still don’t understand how I managed to get a screw lodged in my tire on Tuesday. I must have run over it somewhere between Wal-Mart and home on Tuesday, since the tire was in good shape when I went to work on Tuesday, and it was in good shape when I left work on Tuesday. And I had no problems on the ride home. Then on Wednesday morning leaving for work, the tire was deflated.
So we ended up rearranging the cars in the driveway, and I took Sis’s car to work. Her car has air conditioning. My car, you see, had air conditioning at one time. It no longer works, along with a whole bunch of other things on that car. Once I find a real job in DC, getting a new, smaller car is on my list of priorities.
Still, on my lunch break today, I took the car around to Tire and Lube Express (TLE), and I picked it up after work. I got a new tire on it, and so now the car is happy again. It was also nice to not have to walk practically halfway across town to get to my car after work, which is where associates normally park for work. I just paid for my tire and then slipped out through TLE.
Meanwhile, one of my coworkers told me on Tuesday that I was driving slowly coming to work. And this on a day when I was pushing it on speed. Thus now we have nicknames for each other. I say, “Hey, speedy!” and they say, “Hey, slowpoke!” I’m just tickled by the whole thing, since I was in a hurry that particular morning that I got told I was driving slowly.
So all in all, life is interesting.
Categories: Driving, Toyota Previa, Walmart
Amazing what bad press will do…
April 17, 2005, 10:50 PM
Seems that after the Washington Nationals got some bad press due to their decision not to pay for extra Metro service, the DC Sports Commission stepped up to the plate and agreed to keep Metro running. And a spokesman for the DC Sports Commission, according to the article, “insists there will be a deal in which the Nationals agree to cover any costs.”
I learned about this just moments after putting out the Journal entry about A16, where I discussed, among other things, “corporate welfare”. As long as the Nationals actually pay for the extra service that their events require, I’m satisfied. Though that will evaporate if the Nationals don’t pony up the funds, since all that this move does is take the cost of extra service out of Metro’s hands and move it to the DC Sports Commission, which is also a governmental agency – an independent agency under the DC government, but a government agency nonetheless. And I’m not particularly fond of tax dollars going to subsidize professional sports.
I’m all for the Nationals, as long as DC doesn’t sell its soul for them.
I got a compliment…
April 12, 2005, 7:02 PM
Today, as I was clocking out for lunch, I found this on a paper by the time clock:
Cashier Ben – phone call from customer – friendliest associate in store – would wait in his line no matter how long.
That absolutely made my day, you know that? That put the spring in my step, and I was just tickled pink. It’s always good to know that someone appreciates you.
Categories: Walmart
Today was a Monday, and there was no mistaking it for anything else but a Monday.
April 11, 2005, 9:45 PM
Now I know why Garfield hates Mondays so much. This particular Monday seemed out to get me. Two significant occurrences happened today.
The first was my shoes. Now, since it’s gotten warmer out, I’ve switched from the Airwalks to some Faded Glory sandals, which I normally wear with socks. Today, I was wearing the sandals. And a piece that holds the top of the sandal together near the toe gave out as I was going to my break. Thankfully, that had an easy quick fix, and an easy permanent solution. The quick fix was to borrow some tape from the bike assemblers. My coworkers suggested duct tape to fix it. I couldn’t find any. So I used masking tape. It held until my lunch break, when I could make a permanent fix. On my lunch, I got another pair exactly like them off the shelf and exchanged them. Problem solved. Hopefully that first pair was just a fluke, and that these will go the distance.
The second thing to go wrong involved the bag spinners at the cash registers and a gallon of milk. I guesstimated how much space I had on top of my spinner, and was wrong. Thus I accidentally shoved a gallon of milk off the top of it, where it bounced off the bottom of the spinner, and then hit the floor. There, the container was compromised, sending milk all over the floor. Thankfully, it was a slow day, plus it spilled into an open area, and so no one was hurt, and nothing was damaged aside from the milk container. Still, I had no idea that a gallon of milk could go so far. But three of us managed to get the spill under control.
Categories: Shoes, Toyota Previa, Walmart
“I told you I was on a budget!”
April 10, 2005, 1:41 AM
Kids say the darndest things sometimes. This was one of those cases. On Friday at Wal-Mart, a really young girl, probably around first grade or so, said to her mother, proudly, “I told you I was on a budget!” after buying a few things on her own ticket in my line.
Of course, the thing that amused me more than that was what she said while I was ringing up her mother’s stuff. This girl, on her budget, presumably being a real cheapskate with her own money, then turned to her mother, and asked her if she could buy her something. Now we know what “I’m on a budget” really means. We’re not spending much if we’re on our own budget, but on mother’s budget, on the other hand…
I was quite amused, to say the least.
Categories: Fire drills, Middle school, Some people, Walmart
The ice man cometh on Tuesdays!
April 5, 2005, 8:24 PM
In our Wal-Mart in Waynesboro, the guy from Reddy Ice comes on Tuesday mornings to fill up the ice machines. And so it’s an excuse to be funny. I say, “The ice man cometh.” And it’s one of those things where it’s perfectly accurate. The ice man did cometh. And he bringeth ice. I asked the Reddy Ice guy one time how many people say “the ice man cometh” when he comes to do the ice machine. I found out that he hears that A LOT… practically at every stop he makes. Of course, if you are the ice man, you must cometh. And we prefer an ice man who bringeth ice. That way, we can selleth ice to the customers.
I remember the first time I heard the phrase “the ice man cometh” (or “the iceman cometh”, your pick). It was on America’s Funniest Home Videos. The video showed a man in a martial arts uniform on a stage coming up to a rack of four large blocks of ice. He strikes it, and then falls off the stage, through the ice. The voiceover by Bob Saget was, “The ice man cometh. The ice man breaketh. The ice man falleth.”
Otherwise, though, today was a decent day. I got to rectify my pet peeves today. In other words, I got to neaten up and pull the trash out of the registers today. And dust what needed dusting. Nothing irritates me more than when I come to a register to work, and find that the people before me left me some “surprises” stuffed in weird places. And I always discover them at the most inopportune times, too.
Maybe one day I’ll have a job where I have a desk that only I use, and so I won’t come to work and find little “surprises” in funny places.
Categories: Television, Walmart
And we change the clocks again…
April 3, 2005, 12:27 AM
I can’t believe that our time with Standard Time has come to an end once again. And now it’s time for Daylight Savings! Amazing. I also can’t believe that it’s April, and that A16 is only two weeks away.
Meanwhile, Katie had a birthday on Thursday, March 31. So now she’s 23. She and I and her mother and her mother’s boss all went to Sanzone’s Italian Restaurant in Stuarts Draft for dinner. It was a lovely dinner, too. We all had some sort of pasta. And let me tell you… Sanzone’s is a wonderful restaurant. They really did a number on the old Tastee Freez building. Inside, you wouldn’t think that it was fast food. It’s a gorgeous Italian restaurant now. Now outside, its former use is still evident, as the drive-thru canopy is still there, though not in use, and the exterior looks like it was once fast food. But all in all, though, Sanzone’s is a good place to take your family if you’re interested in Italian food. Good food, and good service.
Okay, end of ringing endorsement. But they are good.
Categories: Katie, Schumin Web meta, Walmart
“Boiling popsicle isn’t exactly a romantic dance…”
March 25, 2005, 12:05 AM
Today I worked what I recently dubbed the “Cinderella shift” at work. That would be the 3 PM to 12 midnight shift. At the stroke of midnight, I’m outta there, because at that time, my car turns into a pumpkin, my Wal-Mart vest turns into rags, and I am required by the guidelines set forth in the story to leave one shoe in the breakroom. The assumption is that CSM Charming must then go to all the associates in the land with the shoe and see who it fits so that I can work happily ever after. The “boiling popsicle” comment came from the Today’s Special interpretation of Cinderella, which had Cinderella and the Prince dancing something like rock and roll before doing something a little more romantic.
Okay, all joking aside, I did really work the 3-12 shift, and ask my coworkers – I really did call it the Cinderella shift due to its ending at midnight.
Speaking of work, it’s funny what people will assume when you leave a few pieces of the puzzle missing. With the exception of my friend Katie, I gave none of my coworkers any details about the operation I had on February 28 beforehand. So people knew I was going to be out for two weeks for an operation, but not for what. So when I came back to work, I found out that people were speculating, and trying to fill that gap in their knowledge that I left.
Categories: Personal health, Walmart
I told some coworkers about a dream I had, and I had another one!
March 21, 2005, 6:11 AM
I told two coworkers at Wal-Mart who had also worked with me at CFW/Telegate (though only one was from the Telegate era) about the dream that I had that I told you about in my March 5 Journal entry entitled “Six days in the house thus far…” And after telling them about the dream, now last night I had another weird Telegate dream! And this one is a real doozie.
I don’t know if this dream satisfies some internal urge for getting revenge on Telegate for closing our call center and costing us all a job or something, but this was a weird one.
In this dream, a number of us were working for Telegate. Then we found out that our call center was closing. This was due to the company mismanaging all sorts of whatever. And in this dream, the “company” was basically one man who owned the place and was also our boss. And the whole focus of the dream was that if we were going down due to the closure of the center, that we were taking him down with us. Since in this dream, you see, this man was not exactly without sin. He was raising large amounts of strange, genetically modified, mutant rodents in his office. Now notwithstanding any legal or ethical standards in the real world, in my dream, this practice was highly illegal, and we knew it was and were going to report the guy, as well as on the way he mismanaged the call center (it was never revealed how it was mismanaged in the dream, but it cost us our jobs, and it was also criminal, whatever it was). After taking our last calls, a number of us stormed the guy’s office for something or other. But we confronted him, basically to the extent of either getting the center back up and running or he was going down. The man showed us out of the building via the employee entrance. We went right back in via the main entrance, saying it wasn’t going to be so easy to get rid of us.
And then I woke up. Always when we get to the good part, too. And when that happens, it’s like poof. The dream is gone. And I even tried to go back to sleep so I could pick up again where I left off in a naïve attempt to return to the dream.
Strange dream, indeed. That’s two Telegate-related dreams in one month. One hopeful, and the other one vengeful. Weird.
“We don’t want you to worry about cooking while you’re shopping, so come to your McDonald’s in Wal-Mart…”
March 20, 2005, 9:51 PM
I have now been back at work for three days, and you know what? I am still getting back into my groove. I’m still getting used to standing up all day once again. Before this operation, I could stand up all day, no problem. Now I’ve got to work my way back up to that again.
Meanwhile, what has just amazed me is one of the automated announcements that the in-store McDonald’s runs over the loudspeaker. The announcement in question goes like this: “We don’t want you to worry about cooking while you’re shopping, so come to your McDonald’s in Wal-Mart…”
I think that what McDonald’s is trying to say that they don’t want you to worry about having to cook up a meal later on, and thus why they want you to come to the in-store McDonald’s. But that’s not how the announcement comes off. To me, it sounds like they don’t want people cooking food while they are shopping, since they talk about taking a “shopping break” at McDonald’s. It’s like if it weren’t for McDonald’s, people would be putting a hot plate in the kiddie seat and start warming up a can of soup right there in the middle of the store.
Categories: Advertising, Walmart
Six days in the house thus far…
March 5, 2005, 6:34 PM
Yes, this is day #6… Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and now Saturday. I have been at home recovering from this procedure. And according to Mom, it’s slowly but surely healing up. I have to ask, because the wound is not somewhere that I can see myself.
Meanwhile, it’s Spring Break at Virginia Tech, and my sister is in Europe! Her boyfriend Chris is doing a study abroad program this semester, and so Sis is going to visit him. Of course, the trip nearly didn’t happen, as there was a small snafu with the passport, as we didn’t realize that since she was under a certain age that it expired sooner than the rest of ours did. But with some scrambling, a phone call to the office of our Congressman, Bob Goodlatte, and an unexpected trip to Washington DC (vs. just Dulles Airport, where the flight was), my father managed to get the whole situation straightened out, and she’s over in Europe now. So I hope she has fun.
Meanwhile, the TV is showing nothing but wall-to-wall Martha Stewart. My exact thought is, who cares? She just happens to be a celebrity that went to jail, instead of someone less-known.
Categories: CFW, Dreams, Family, Personal health, Walmart
“I will gladly pay you Tuesday for a credit card today.”
February 25, 2005, 10:34 PM
My friend Katie was working a table in the front of the store today getting people to sign up for a Wal-Mart Credit Card, instead of working in her usual spot back in the Garden Center. So Katie was right near me, in my usual spot somewhere along the front end. So as I was passing by, I borrowed a line from J. Wellington Wimpy, better known simply as “Wimpy” from the Popeye cartoons, saying, “I will gladly pay you Tuesday for a credit card today.” Of course, Wimpy used to say, “I will gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.”
But it was still amusing. Some people got my Wimpy reference and were amused by it, and for others it went right over their heads.
Otherwise, though, my day was good. I read in the newspaper in the breakroom that NASA has figured out a way to prevent the Columbia disaster from reoccurring. If the shuttle is damaged so as to make reentry dangerous, the crew will wait in the International Space Station until another shuttle with a four-man crew can arrive. For this first launch, Discovery will be the shuttle going on the mission, and should something go wrong, they’ll send Atlantis after it. Then should something go wrong, they’d undock Discovery from the station and dock Atlantis. They would then ditch Discovery by remote control and send it to a watery grave in the Pacific Ocean. Then Atlantis would return with eleven people on board – a world record.
I think it’s odd to hear them talking about ditching a Space Shuttle. The thought of this huge, expensive vehicle having to be “ditched” is just someting that struck me as strange. But it is a possibility, and it must be considered. I’m sure if they could do a rescue mission and then ditch Columbia, those seven astronauts would still be with us today.
Categories: Space, Television, Walmart
I knew I’d find myself a woman one day…
February 22, 2005, 10:59 PM
Yes, I had a woman literally fall into my arms today at work. She was a little stiff, though, I must admit. However, having a woman falling all over you is still a wonderful thing. I even had a picture made of the woman and me. Check it out!
Okay, now I admit – it was a picture of a woman that fell into my arms. We on the safety team at our store were doing a walk-through, and I noticed that the woman in question was hanging kind of oddly. So I bumped the sign to test its stability, and it came on down. Needless to say, that made for some interesting conversation at work today, though. I was amused.
But at least no one was hurt when the sign fell down.
Categories: Walmart