Monday, November 27, 2006

so yeah, this whole thing with Joe Muggs is getting ridiculous. I was told WHEN I WAS HIRED that I wouldn't be closing on school nights. They don't close 'til 11, last time I closed on a school night there was two of us and I didn't get home until after midnight. When I have to be up at 6:30 in the morning. Well, so far I've closed on 3 school nights. Sundays I don't mind so much, but the other two SUCKED. Saturday I mentioned to Jeremy (the cafe manager) that I would work this Wednesday, which I was scheduled for, but after that I didn't want to work any more school nights. He said okay. I look at the schedule yesterday and I'm scheduled to close on a Tuesday and a Thursday the second week in December. Okay. Leave a note in the book saying I can't work those days.

Today around 5:15 the phone rings. Pick it up, "hello?" "Yes, is Michelle there?" "This is her..." "This is so-and-so from Books A Million, and you were scheduled to come in at five today." "Uh, what?" "Jeremy said that he told you." "Um, no, he didn't, we even talked about scheduling on Saturday because I keep getting scheduled to work school nights even though when I was hired I was told that I wouldn't be." "Well, it looks like you were scheduled to work Tuesday and Thursday, and that got scratched out and moved to today and Wednesday." "Nobody told me about this..." "Well, can you come in and close or not?" "Um, no, I don't think so, I'm not trying to be a pain but I'm not supposed to be closing school nights and I closed last night"

And she got a bit huffy and said bye. Seriously, do they not get the fact that I live damn near 30 minutes away from there and that I have to get up at six thirty in the morning for school? It's not like I haven't explained it. I mean, the classes I'm taking don't require a whole lot of attention, (woohoo, stuck in that freakin' school for A PE CREDIT) but if I don't get enough sleep I'm tired and cranky all day, and I'm coming down with a cold which is probably due at least in part to lack of sleep.

So yeah, if they don't decide that I'm not a good worker or whatever, then I'm turning in my notice on Wednesday. Aside from all of the scheduling crap, I just really hate food service work. So maybe next time I'll go with another retail job. I can handle that. But this is just driving me insane.

Thursday, November 23, 2006

so we go to my grandparent's house on my dad's side to celebrate Thanksgiving. everything was okay, I actually had enough food to fill me up when you counted the dessert, my biggest annoyance was that my grandma had to make a big deal about my tattoo which of course got a lot of comments. that and the fact that I realized one of my favorite pairs of pants has a huge hole on the butt and was showing a good two inches square of my panties. me and my mom decided to escape for a while and go get a paper so we could look at the black Friday ads. We take 71 to the Conoco. slow down. turn signal on. sun roof open. I hear my mom say "oh my god" and then everything gets all JARRED way too fast and I hear screeching metal my head is being jerked all over the place and slammed back and I don't know what happened.

scream three times at the top of my lungs before I realize I'm not hurt outside of a freaking pounding headache and then I start yelling "what the hell who the hell hit us what the hell is going on" before I take a few deep breaths. my mom pulls over. I look, there's a van smashed all to hell on both sides and cars behind us too. we make sure we're okay, my mom says call your dad, he doesn't pick up his cell phone, I call my grandma's house while she's calling my aunt's cell phone and when someone - I still don't know who - picks up all I can say is "put dad on the phone put dad on the phone there was a car wreck, we're okay, we're on 71, somebody's hurt" and then when he says bye I hang up without saying bye. and then we get out of the car, there's glass and bits and stuff all over the road, there's a person climbing out of a white car behind us we walk up and there's a man - probably 40 - lying on the ground. he has blood all over his face. somebody had already called 911. I wasn't fast enough.

one time I read something that said you know it's real blood because it looks fake. it was so bright and he kept saying "every fucking Thanksgiving, last year it was my fucking van, this year it's my fucking Taurus" "dad, don't talk like that, are you okay?" "I can't feel my left side, I can't feel it, I don't know" his daughter had blood all over her hands. There was a baby. The baby was okay. I've never seen so much blood in my life.

This lady in a purple dress walks up to us and says "are you the one driving this car? you passed us like a dirty shirt, I hope you're happy, now my child and grandchildren are hurt, I hope you're happy" "ma'am, I didn't pass anyone" "oh, WELL" I don't know what to say, I just stare and keep my mouth shut because if I open it, words that are not very nice and include expletives are going to come out and she's just upset because her son is lying on the road bleeding

I hold in the tears until Ashley and Logan show up with my dad to make sure we're okay and then I can't any more, cry for a few minutes and then I'm okay. I get a Coke to take some Aleve with and as soon as I take the pills realize I have to go to the bathroom, walk across the road into the gas station and get the key. I realize I still have a huge hole in the seat of my pants and can't help but be embarassed, that and the fact that I can't stop sniffling like a baby. have to walk past this row of people I don't know they all stare. I get into the bathroom, after I wash my hands I lean on the sink for a second and think, I'll call Jessica, no, I'll call Alicia, no, I can't call anyone because I'm crying again and if I call them and I'm crying I won't be able to get any words out and I'll just upset them. Leave the bathroom, sniffling more, get stared at again. get a paper, walk back across the road. we sit. and sit. and all I can think is

oh my god look at the Cadillac it's totalled that guy is in an ambulance what if he's not okay what happened whose fault is it if we had taken the Escort, if we hadn't been wearing our seatbelts, oh god we'd be in the ambulance too, we're okay, we're okay, my head hurts, my back and neck, but I'm not bleeding all over the place, we're so luck, we're okay, thank you, we're okay

I look at my clock, holy hell, it's 3:30, last time I looked it was one. We talk to four different officials. No, we don't need to go to the hospital.

As near as they figured out, there were three cars on our side of the road in close succession. We slowed down to turn. The van behind us slowed down to turn. The truck behind the van didn't slow down, rear-ended the shit out of the van, which swerved a bit to try and avoid us but got us hardcore anyways. When they swerved, they either hit or almost hit an oncoming truck on the other side of the road. Which swerved back into our lane and hit the white car with the man. The people in truck #1 were trying to push it off on the Mexicans in the van behind us, probably because their English wasn't great. But it wasn't their fault, they were slowing down.

And now, I'm so tired.

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

hah...

so I have a day off for like the first time in almost two weeks, I think. I thought I had one yesterday and it turns out the schedule at Journey's got changed. So I went in from 2-6:30ish and then was back from 9-10:30 for the staff meeting (and helping Andy with stockroom work some).

conclusion: work...sucks.

umm...let's see. Saw Casey and Kassie yesterday. and two of my cousins.

House was DEPRESSING tonight.

the Minneapolis trip (the one perk of DECA) is next weekend...that should be cool. I'm looking forward to having a freaking HUGE Journey's to use my discount on. muahahaha! Which is why
I'm going to try not to spend a whole lot of money on black Friday. I want to trade in my DS for a DS Lite and get a few new games. maybe some cheap DVDs. but that's it! really it is!

it should be nice because I get my first paycheck at JM on Thursday (or Friday, I think it's Thurs. at midnight since I have direct deposit) and my paycheck for Journey's on Wednesday at midnight. so I'll actually have spending money.

I don't really LIKE Joe Muggs, there are parts of it that are good, but for the most part I just kind of feel ehhh towards it. I'm getting to where I can at least talk to the people I work with which is good. I dunno, I just don't think the food industry and I work together well. But I really need the money, so unless/until I get another job secured then I'm just going to be stuck there. What with wanting to move out at the end of the year and all. I think I'll stick around for holiday stuff definitely, and maybe a month or so after that to see if it calms down a whole lot and if that significantly affects stuff. If not, I'll start the whole fun job searching process again. (and next time, end up with someplace that DOESN'T close at midnight...)

I find it kind of ironic, because the whole working retail thing makes me just want the holidays over ASAP. I like Thanksgiving. Kind of. In principle. I like the giving thanks part of it. I don't like the mass genocide and fibs. Or all the turkey. Never was a big fan of turkey. And the whole giving thanks thing is made incredibly ironic by the mass consumerism the day afterwards. "hey...we're super-thankful for what we have, but let's GO BUY MORE!" just doesn't make a whole ton of sense.

And don't get me started on Christmas. All this crap about the war on Christmas, oh no we can't shove propaganda down childrens' throats, there's so little religion associated with the season any more (or, truly associated, not just "hey it's Hannukah/baby Jesus/Yule/whatever, now let's get some PRESENTS") that it's not even funny.

Yeah so I have no idea where I'm going with this and half of that probably didn't make any sense. Oh well. I posted, you can't complain now.

Monday, November 20, 2006

the best thing about winter nights:

how the stars look.

Sunday, November 12, 2006

I keep meaning to blog and forgetting. I actually tried to post one earlier and it failed. So it's blogger's fault, not mine.

Pretty uneventful week, other than being super super busy. I worked Friday at Joe Muggs 7-11:30, and then again 12-3:30 Saturday. Then I went into Journey's from 4-10:30. I made the mistake of wearing new shoes, and now I have semi-blisters on my heels. It was so cold leaving Journey's, and my feet were so sore, that I almost cried walking allllllll the way across the parking lot to my car. The holidays are going to be crazy and I am NOT looking forward to it. I'm just looking forward to January when everything settles down again, and hopefully then it won't be too crazy working two jobs. I'm going to be busting my ass at Journey's because we were told that if the seasonals do better than we do, there's a chance we'll be the seasonal ones. and I would really like to keep that job.

And I'm rethinking the Joe Muggs job already - it's not so much the extra time or anything, and it's easy as hell work, but it's just that they close so late and I was sooooo exhausted all day yesterday.

Saw a cute boy with potential yesterday, though. That's always a big plus.

Going in to get my tattoo touched up this week. Crazy week. So far:

Tomorrow - work Journey's
Tuesday - AQT meet
Wednesday, Thursday - work Journey's, but I get off earlier (thankfully) so I'll have some time to myself
Friday - nothing yet, but I haven't got my schedule from Joe Muggs yet so I probably close there
Saturday - Journey's. An earlier shift so there's a good chance I close at JM that night too. *shudders*

it'll all be worth it when I get my paychecks the day before Black Friday. And I can shop. yes it will, I'll just keep telling myself that...

Friday, November 03, 2006

You Are An ENFP

The Inspirer

You love being around people, and you are deeply committed to your friends.
You are also unconventional, irreverant, and unimpressed by authority and rules.
Incredibly perceptive, you can usually sense if someone has hidden motives.
You use lots of colorful language and expressions. You're qutie the storyteller!

You would make an excellent entrepreneur, politician, or journalist.


I've been thinking too much lately...it makes me depressed. not cool. and I have had a pretty bad week.

I got the job at Joe Muggs though, start Sunday.

but things are looking up, I hope. I'm going to hang out with Jess and a few other friends tonight and hopefully that'll be fun.