A few weeks ago we had a call from our head office telling us about a kiosk they were going to set up in the mall which would be totally independant and would sell school supplies. And could we please give our resume file to the individual (let's call him M), that was to be in charge, also would any of our staff like to go over and help out?
A couple of the girls decided that, yes, they'd like to supplement their hours and would take the job down there, after all it's our company and they're treated quite well where they are, and it's close, etc.. etc... So, they had meetings with M and were signed up. One girl was to go there full time, and the other was to have a couple of hours a week to supplement the 20+ hours she was getting from us.
The kiosk opened today. The girls got their schedules for this week on Friday, and no more information than that. The girl who was supposed to work full time (lets call her K) was given 30 hours for the week, and the girl who was supposed to have a couple of hours (known from here on in as J) ended up with 32, and also was scheduled to work today when she was to be working for us at the store. Which is ridiculous, because I spoke to M last week and gave him her schedule.
So, the kiosk wasn't even open yet, and there were already problems. When I spoke to the girls on Friday neither of them knew where the kiosk was going to be, who was coming to help them set it up, how the cash register worked, where the float was coming from, or...basically anything. M phoned to arrange for our manager to be at the mall at 7:30am to let him in to get his product (which was taking up our entire back room) out so that the kiosk could be set up.
He didn't show up, nor did anyone else. K was there, and another girl that works there (whom I don't know). The lugged all 300 boxes to the location that M told them, and then found out from the mall employees that their kiosk was located at the other end of the mall. Which required them to move everything back down to the other end. So then, there they were, with 300 boxes of school supplies, nobody from the office to set it up, and no planogram as to how to set it up.
I don't really know what time the planogram arrived, and I really don't have any idea of the chaos that they experienced this morning. I just know what happened this afternoon and evening. I went down on my break to see how J was doing, she was practically in tears. Her training on the cash register was absolutely ridiculously brief (in fact, I witnessed it and would NEVER have left someone alone with that little training). And anything that had already been set up was set up incorrectly, so she basically had to take everything down and start over according to the plan.
K came back to work at the kiosk and J came down to the store to work. Which was fine. There were about three calls from K this evening as we were closing. She had all kinds of boxes of stuff that she couldn't fit on the cart and needed to store in our back room, but couldn't bring them down till after we were closed, which meant I needed to wait for her to come. Then we got a call asking what the float was on the till (like we're supposed to know? she opened). Then finally a call to say she couldn't cover the cart up properly with whatever she had.
I was at the mall until 10 pm tonight closing up that damn kiosk. K was absolutely useless, and eventually it was J and I that figured out how the cover went on the cart. By the time we finally got it covered up I was absolutely furious. And then we still had to bring all the boxes back to the store and store them. On top of all that, she hadn't taken any of the garbage to the garbage room, which you can actually spit on from the location of her cart.
I don't do well with helpless people, and the whole "I don't know how this works, I can't leave because there's nobody else to watch it.... blah, blah, blah" was just making things worse.
At the moment I am so tense that I can actually feel it in my head and neck. This stupid kiosk which was supposed to be no trouble to our store has sure put me out tonight. It's not that I mind helping, but since M hasn't put any effort at all into his stupid project, I fail to see why I should.
When I was a kid my grandparents rented a house from a man named Albert. He lived next door to them in the big farm house with his family. My grandparents house was set back from the road a bit, to get to it you had to drive up a winding hilly driveway. At the end of the driveway there was a cold shed, which Albert used for...storage I guess. Honestly, I don't remember.
Believe it or not, when I was young, I was a cute and precocious kid. I was extremely friendly and would talk to just about anyone. Really, I'll bet I was a nightmare for my parents. Thankfully I tended to befriend older people, who weren't in the mood to kidnap, or kill me.
Albert was one of those people. He had a farm, and used to grow produce, which he would take to the farmers market at the mall twice a week. Therefore two nights a week he was out in front of the cold shed getting his vegetables ready for market. Sometimes it was celery, sometimes it was lettuce. I'm sure there were others, but I don't remember.
Every time I saw him there, I'd go out and talk to him. I may have actually been pestering the hell out of him, but he didn't seem to mind too much. In fact, I think he enjoyed it, his kids are older than me, and he really seemed to be the type of person that enjoyed children.
As we'd drive to my grandparents house I'd ask my mom if Albert was going to be around that day. Of course, she didn't know, but could guess based on market days. It was a highlight for me, I enjoyed chatting with Albert and helping him clean up his veggies for market.
Of course as years passed, Albert stopped going to market, I stopped going to my grandparents house every day, and I didn't see Albert at all. He came over to talk to me at my grandmothers funeral, which was difficult for me for many, many reasons. He also came to talk to me at my grandfathers wedding. Which was certainly more festive.
I noticed as I was driving to work that his house was for sale, I mentioned it to my mom and she said that he'd passed away and she figured his kids were selling things off.
It's sad. And strange how something is forgotten till you're reminded of it.
There's this bird out back that seems to think it'd like to come inside. It's been flying into the basement window repeatedly now for several days. I don't know why it hasn't learned it's lesson, but it's gone past the stage of "oh, the poor bird" to the "It serves him right" stage.
Yes, I assume the bird is male, because only a male would be that stupid. :)
I don't have a lot to talk about lately. Nothing terribly exciting has been happening.
Last weekend I was at the cottage, and had a fantastic time, but it rained a whole lot and we only ended up having one day out in the sun. Even still, we all ended up with sunburns. It didn't bother me a whole lot because it was mild in comparison to the ones I'd had previously this year, but still, it was slightly uncomfortable.
Then this past week nothing terribly exciting happened, I saw the Pirates of the Carribean and really loved it. It was a whole lot of fun. I've never been good at writing reviews of either movies or books, so I'm not even going to try. Except to say that I loved it, it was fun and I thought Johnny Depp was absolutely fantastic, eye makeup included.
In the past week I've noticed some unusual things around here though. First of all, they pained all of the fire hydrants gray. I don't know why they would do that, I would think that you'd want the fire hydrants to be bright, bright enough to stick out, so that when there's a fire you're able to actually see them. Aren't fire hydrants supposed to be red?? I'll bet they're just priming them, but still, all the hydrants are gray.
Secondly they've dug up sections of the curb all along our road for no reason. They just dug it up and then immediately poured more concrete in. I don't get it. It just seems like a big waste of money to me.
Oh well, these are my random observations for the day.
Tomorrow I'm headed to the cottage for the weekend. A long weekend, in the middle of the month! It's amazing.
Anyway, I'm excited about going because the last time I was there it was the long weekend in May and I'd just had surgery and really couldn't do a whole lot of anything. I cleaned the cottage, and then was dragged to the bar by my cousin who was absolutely disgusted that I hadn't thought to bring jeans with me. Yeah, I had incisions all over my stomach and she wanted me to wear jeans?
Anyway, as I was saying, the last time I was there, there really wasn't a lot to do, planting flowers and cleaning aside, so it'll be good to be able to swim and go out in the boat and stuff.
See you next week.
Today while I was looking around at one of the message boards I like to visit, I found a post that just seemed so simple yet incredibly cool that I had to rip it off.
Yes, that's me, thief of incredibly cool ideas. Don't mind me, it's just a feel good, make me happy kind of entry. So, without further ado...
I like...
Because I'm that desperate for something to write about I am going to fill in the Friday Five this week even though I don't remember half the answers. But also it has to do with reading, which is like totally my thing. ;)
1. What were your favorite childhood stories?
When I was a very young child I had this Golden Book which was called the Forest Hotel. It was the only story I wanted read to me at night, and I wanted it read every night, at least once. My entire family could recite that book without even looking at it. I'm talking grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins....everyone. :)
2. What books from your childhood would you like to share with [your] children?
I don't plan to ever have children (evil beasts that they are), but I have always loved the book Harriet the Spy, so when kids I know get to that age, I'm going to make sure that they read it. My cousin Ashley is getting close to that age, so she'll probably be the next to get it. I reccomend it to people in the store all the time as well.
Also, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator. I loved those books when I was a kid.
3. Have you re-read any of those childhood stories and been surprised by anything?
No.
4. How old were you when you first learned to read?
I was in kindergarden I think, which I guess makes me about 5. I don't remember if I knew how to read before that or not. It was over 20 years ago after all, those particular moments are not burned into my brain as memories.
5. Do you remember the first 'grown-up' book you read? How old were you?
I actually don't remember what the first grown up book was that I read. If what the other kids in school were reading was any indication, I was reading far above all the other kids for a very long time. I can recall that I read the Hobbit for English class in grade 8. I remember reading the trashiest romances you could buy all summer between grade 8 & 9. But I'm fairly certain that I'd been reading 'grown up' books for longer than that.
I seem to remember my mom giving me this huge hardcover book and telling me to read it one summer. At the time it seemed like a real treat, so perhaps that was the first real book I read. I'm not sure how old I was though, but the book was a hardcover compilation of half of the books in the Belgariad series by David Eddings.