There was an episode of The Office this season where Pam (the receptionist) had to write down, hour by hour, everything her boss Michael did to see if he actually did anything at all. I thought about what I did in a typical 5 hour shift and began to understand why my boss hates me. Today was a particularly unproductive day.
5:35pm- arrive at work 5 minutes late
5:45pm- meeting with co-workers to discuss how many people called in sick today and what might be wrong with them/general bitching and complaining: 15 minutes
6:00pm- cheer up co-worker crying in the bathroom: 20 minutes
6:20pm- shop for digital cameras in electronics department: 15 minutes
6:45pm- try to exlain to size 14 woman why size 6 jeans do not fit her (unsuccessful): 8 minutes
7:00pm- stand at fitting room and chat with co-worker about our boss, movies, our hair, Facebook, and shoes : 60 minutes
8:00pm- mandatory 15 minute break: 28 minutes
8:30pm- fold shirts: 20 minutes
8:50pm- hide in fitting room from manager who may try to train me to use cash register. Clean mirrors while I'm in there: 10 minutes
9:00pm- push empty shopping carts to the front of the store: 10 minutes
9:10pm- unofficial break to take tylenol and apply eye drops: 10 minutes
9:20pm- rate male co-workers on scale of "hot" to "not" with fellow ladieswear staff: 25 minutes
9:50pm- run around like crazy trying to make it look like I did some work: 20 minutes
10:15pm- leave 15 minutes early to catch bus
Thursday, February 01, 2007
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
The next level of weird
I don't know about all this "tagging" nonesense, but I decided I better participate since I haven't been a very good blogger lately. If you read this, you are also tagged!
So here are six weird things about me:
1. Instead of sleeping 7 or 8 hours a night, I sleep in two 3 1/2 hour shifts, usually about 3:30am-7am and 1:30pm-5pm. I have to get up at 7:00 to go to school and I haven't been able to shake my night owl tendancies so I've been doing this for 4 months now. Interestingly, the quality of my dreams is at an all-time high.
2. I often imagine what the CSI team investigating my death would think of me based on my apartment, my belongings and my acquaintances, should I happen to die mysteriously or be murdered. And, yes, I realize it's presumptuous of me to think I would get a whole team.
3. I love walking alone at night.
4. I eat an absolutely ridiculous amount of Nutella. If I were a superhero, my power would be eating Nutella because it's the only thing I can do much better than other people. I think I probably eat more of it than anyone else in the world.
5. I hate being near animals. I'm interested in animals and I respect them but being in close proximity to them makes me extremely nervous.
6. I practice writing backwards because I have this strong feeling that it will come in useful someday.
So here are six weird things about me:
1. Instead of sleeping 7 or 8 hours a night, I sleep in two 3 1/2 hour shifts, usually about 3:30am-7am and 1:30pm-5pm. I have to get up at 7:00 to go to school and I haven't been able to shake my night owl tendancies so I've been doing this for 4 months now. Interestingly, the quality of my dreams is at an all-time high.
2. I often imagine what the CSI team investigating my death would think of me based on my apartment, my belongings and my acquaintances, should I happen to die mysteriously or be murdered. And, yes, I realize it's presumptuous of me to think I would get a whole team.
3. I love walking alone at night.
4. I eat an absolutely ridiculous amount of Nutella. If I were a superhero, my power would be eating Nutella because it's the only thing I can do much better than other people. I think I probably eat more of it than anyone else in the world.
5. I hate being near animals. I'm interested in animals and I respect them but being in close proximity to them makes me extremely nervous.
6. I practice writing backwards because I have this strong feeling that it will come in useful someday.
Monday, January 15, 2007
Undercover Librarian
Only a week back at library school and already we have a ridiculous assignment. We're to go "undercover" to a library and assess the quality of their reference desk staff. My partner and I get to go to the King's library. For my disguise, I will take off my King's ring and refrain from using any telling King's acronyms because we're only supposed to be community college students who don't know anything about research or paper writing. We also can't reveal what program we're actually in to avoid biased treatment. My partner and I have decided to pose as either paralegals or medical transcriptionists. I don't know how I'll keep all the lies straight. I hope the librarian is a real bitch and tells us we're not good enough to use King's library. That will put an end to our investigation and make our report easy to write.
I must say I was sadly misinformed as to what librarians do. I thought I would be taking classes in shushing people and having lessons in slowly removing my glasses and seductively shaking my hair loose from a deceptively prudish bun. But so far it's been all research and customer service. I am still enjoying the program and I like my classmates but I'm wondering if I might take next year to do something different. Perhaps another year abroad.
Facebook me! Check out facebook, as seen on The O.C! Everyone who's anyone is on it.
I must say I was sadly misinformed as to what librarians do. I thought I would be taking classes in shushing people and having lessons in slowly removing my glasses and seductively shaking my hair loose from a deceptively prudish bun. But so far it's been all research and customer service. I am still enjoying the program and I like my classmates but I'm wondering if I might take next year to do something different. Perhaps another year abroad.
Facebook me! Check out facebook, as seen on The O.C! Everyone who's anyone is on it.
Friday, December 01, 2006
Crunch time
I've already eaten the 24 delicious chocolate days til Christmas from my advent calendar and it's only December 1st. I can't have chocolate lying around and not eat it!
The newlyweds stopped by to visit me at Wal-mart to gloat about their Caribbean cruise. They promised me a souvenir. I hope it's a cabana boy.
I spoke too soon about doing really well in school. That project (a presentation) I was supposed to do that required real work was really boring and time-consuming so I decided not to do it. To keep up appearances, I asked the teacher if I would be able to present my (non-existent) project later on. She said no and looked like she was ready to argue her position but I just nodded and tried not to reveal that this was the best news I'd heard all day. I wondered how long it would be before I resorted back to my old slacker ways. I held out for three months; that's pretty good. Just scraping by is my specialty. The next two weeks are going to be hellish.
The newlyweds stopped by to visit me at Wal-mart to gloat about their Caribbean cruise. They promised me a souvenir. I hope it's a cabana boy.
I spoke too soon about doing really well in school. That project (a presentation) I was supposed to do that required real work was really boring and time-consuming so I decided not to do it. To keep up appearances, I asked the teacher if I would be able to present my (non-existent) project later on. She said no and looked like she was ready to argue her position but I just nodded and tried not to reveal that this was the best news I'd heard all day. I wondered how long it would be before I resorted back to my old slacker ways. I held out for three months; that's pretty good. Just scraping by is my specialty. The next two weeks are going to be hellish.
Monday, November 20, 2006
Libraries 101
I thought my days of spending the afternoon in the Killam working on group projects were over but no, that's what I did today. This is the first assignment we've had that's going to require actual work so I'm not very happy about it. I've been enjoying the leisurely pace of this course. It's almost the end of the term and I've passed in every assignment, on time and done reasonably well. I haven't been doing this well in school since the early 90's.
Our class now has an intense rivalry going on with the second year library students. I'm not sure exactly how it started but they snubbed our pub crawl, then we didn't participate in their Halloween potluck and now they're boycotting our class t-shirts which read "Library Technicians are best bound in leather". The only time we manage to come together is when we have to do stuff with the Library Studies Masters students at Dal because we all really hate those snobs. They think they're so cool because they get to be librarians and we're only going to be library technicians. These get-togethers are supposed to be networking opportunities but we usually just gossip amongst ourselves. Librarians are a catty bunch.
Friday's library tour of Mount Saint Vincent went more smoothly than the one last week of the science and technology library where one person had a panic attack and someone else fainted. Community College is rough.
Our class now has an intense rivalry going on with the second year library students. I'm not sure exactly how it started but they snubbed our pub crawl, then we didn't participate in their Halloween potluck and now they're boycotting our class t-shirts which read "Library Technicians are best bound in leather". The only time we manage to come together is when we have to do stuff with the Library Studies Masters students at Dal because we all really hate those snobs. They think they're so cool because they get to be librarians and we're only going to be library technicians. These get-togethers are supposed to be networking opportunities but we usually just gossip amongst ourselves. Librarians are a catty bunch.
Friday's library tour of Mount Saint Vincent went more smoothly than the one last week of the science and technology library where one person had a panic attack and someone else fainted. Community College is rough.
Friday, November 03, 2006
Happy Anniversary
Halloween is over and I pretty much missed it. I just didn't get into the spirit this year, but according to the word on the #1 bus, Halloween at King's was the most awesome it's been in three years. It's good to hear things are finally getting back to normal after our departure.
Work was incredibly boring Wednesday. Luckily I was drunk for most of it. I certainly don't approve of workplace drunkenness; I just had too much wine at Janet's birthday lunch. Given the nature of the work I do, I'm sure the only consequence was that the sweaters weren't folded as neatly as they usually are. Also my co-worker Lynn, who was high on Benadryl talked me into going out back to search for the guy she likes which I normally wouldn't have done. We didn't find him, but we did chat with a foul-mouthed Quagmire wanna-be and took candy from a toothless truck unloader. The girl covering for us said we were gone half an hour but I don't think that's true.
I finally have a Wal-mart stalker. It was starting to get embarassing; pretty much everyone here has at least one stalker. Toby from electronics has an elderly woman. Lynn from ladieswear has a middle aged man who brings her coffee. Noelle from ladieswear has a teenaged former employee who was recently fired for being stoned on the job. Harley from electronics has a group of skanky love-sick teenage girls. My stalker is an "artist" from Montreal. He came into the store on Saturday at 8am with a knapsack full of drawings and asked me to watch them while he went to the washroom (probably to do some crack). When he came back he wanted to know which drawing was my favorite. I found most of them disturbing but finally settled on one of a little girl sitting on Santa's lap. He autographed it for me and included his email address. I told him I had to leave and he didn't have an outburst or stab me so I count it as a positive encounter.
As a testament to my impeccable timing, I was on lingerie duty last week when the infamous Phone Pervert finally made a personal appearance. The Phone Pervert is just the latest in a string of weirdos we deal with on a regular basis. We suspect he's too cheap to pay for phone sex so he gets his kicks by calling his local Wal-mart and asking naughty questions disguised as wardrobe questions. Normally he gets a polite apology that we don't have what he's looking for but he really hit the jackpot when he struck up a conversation with the new girl in the infant department. Nadine, a frumpy girl with a face like a Siamese cat and a knack for boring me to death with stories about her mother-in-law, actually turns out to be quite the freak and talked to the Phone Pervert for half an hour asking detailed questions and offering suggestions. This excited him so much he decided to come in in person, where I was lucky enough to be the one fielding his questions about groin restricting undergarments. I think he was pleased with my calm professional demeanor and left with a slimy smirk on his face. I hightailed it back to the fitting room where my supportive co-workers were concealed in the back room still recovering from fits of hysterical laughter.
It was one year ago that I was first hired at Wal-mart. If I'm very, very good, I'll get a 30 cent raise. I feel I'm owed much, much more.
Work was incredibly boring Wednesday. Luckily I was drunk for most of it. I certainly don't approve of workplace drunkenness; I just had too much wine at Janet's birthday lunch. Given the nature of the work I do, I'm sure the only consequence was that the sweaters weren't folded as neatly as they usually are. Also my co-worker Lynn, who was high on Benadryl talked me into going out back to search for the guy she likes which I normally wouldn't have done. We didn't find him, but we did chat with a foul-mouthed Quagmire wanna-be and took candy from a toothless truck unloader. The girl covering for us said we were gone half an hour but I don't think that's true.
I finally have a Wal-mart stalker. It was starting to get embarassing; pretty much everyone here has at least one stalker. Toby from electronics has an elderly woman. Lynn from ladieswear has a middle aged man who brings her coffee. Noelle from ladieswear has a teenaged former employee who was recently fired for being stoned on the job. Harley from electronics has a group of skanky love-sick teenage girls. My stalker is an "artist" from Montreal. He came into the store on Saturday at 8am with a knapsack full of drawings and asked me to watch them while he went to the washroom (probably to do some crack). When he came back he wanted to know which drawing was my favorite. I found most of them disturbing but finally settled on one of a little girl sitting on Santa's lap. He autographed it for me and included his email address. I told him I had to leave and he didn't have an outburst or stab me so I count it as a positive encounter.
As a testament to my impeccable timing, I was on lingerie duty last week when the infamous Phone Pervert finally made a personal appearance. The Phone Pervert is just the latest in a string of weirdos we deal with on a regular basis. We suspect he's too cheap to pay for phone sex so he gets his kicks by calling his local Wal-mart and asking naughty questions disguised as wardrobe questions. Normally he gets a polite apology that we don't have what he's looking for but he really hit the jackpot when he struck up a conversation with the new girl in the infant department. Nadine, a frumpy girl with a face like a Siamese cat and a knack for boring me to death with stories about her mother-in-law, actually turns out to be quite the freak and talked to the Phone Pervert for half an hour asking detailed questions and offering suggestions. This excited him so much he decided to come in in person, where I was lucky enough to be the one fielding his questions about groin restricting undergarments. I think he was pleased with my calm professional demeanor and left with a slimy smirk on his face. I hightailed it back to the fitting room where my supportive co-workers were concealed in the back room still recovering from fits of hysterical laughter.
It was one year ago that I was first hired at Wal-mart. If I'm very, very good, I'll get a 30 cent raise. I feel I'm owed much, much more.
Friday, October 13, 2006
My crappy apartment is your crappy apartment
I no longer have any houseguests. Mary Stovepipe was here last Friday night and my friend Tina has been here since Sunday. Both received subpar treatment. Tina is just returning from a 2 year stint in England and is having trouble readjusting to our Canadian ways. After class today, I came home to the sounds of British radio and the smell of curry. It was like being back in the old country. We reminisced about all our wild and crazy times in England. We met when I became hopelesly trapped in a sketchy shower stall at a London hostel. She responded to my calls for help. Since we were both Maritimers, we formed our own tour group and managed to visit lots of English points of interest, despite both being wildly incompetent with directions. She was also kind enough to call me from the hostel lounge whenever my Mediterranean stalker had given up and gone home for the night. So that was convenient. She had such a great time visiting me here that she has decided to head over to Ireland at the the soonest possible opportunity.
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