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Rude much?

Rich — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 02:39:57 +0000

The scene: I’m doing some painting at the store and I’m dressed for painting. I’m sorry. I get paint on myself so I’m not wearing khaki’s and a nice button down shirt. I’ve got on nice jeans (that I only wear for painting) and a polo (that I also only wear for painting.) I’m not a grub by any means, but maybe I don’t look all that managerial… or maybe it was the paintbrush. I don’t know. But in comes a trio of ladies, a mother and two daughters.
I welcomed them to the store, and offered to help. Daughter #1 said it was unlikely I could help her or that she’d need my help.” Daughter #2 said “Quit being mean.” I didn’t think she was mean, just rude. Mom didn’t say anything. They shopped for a while and I offered to help the other two periodically and the mom said “yes” and I helped her find what she was looking for. Meanwhile Daughter #1 is walking around being condescending and snotty. At the register while Daughter #2 is paying Daughter #1, the rude one, asks, “Are you hiring?”
“Not at the moment.”
“I’d love to work here and make fun of the customers.”
“Would you like an application?”
“I thought you weren’t hiring?”
“We’re not, but I’m required to offer you an app even though I’d never hire you.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’ve been rude the whole time you’ve been here. Even your sister thinks so.”
“But I wouldn’t be to the customers. You’re not a customer.” She said.
“You can’t work here, but Daughter #2 would be good here.” Mom said to Daughter #1.
Daughter #1 looked at me expectantly, waiting for her answer.
“I’d be your boss and I wouldn’t put myself through that.” I smiled at her and her mom. Her mom laughed. Evidently her supercilious condescension wasn’t a one time thing. She wasn’t even pretending to be upset I wouldn’t hire her.
Fast forward two hours and the daughters came back sans Mom and spent a decent amount of money… she was still doing her “better than everybody” shtick but it was in general and wasn’t aimed at me this time. As she left she smiled at me, “I’ll be back! You’ve got a frequent customer now!”
What the heck just happened? She was rude to the point of confrontational the first visit until I told her there’s no way I’d put myself through working with her and THEN she got what passes for nice for her? AND she spent almost a hundred bucks at a store where she’d just been borderline insulted by the manager?
I’m not saying I handled it right (I probably didn’t.)… and my tone of voice was such that what I was saying could have been considered a joke and funny the whole time… self-deprecating, laughing, smiles all around… but really? This is how my Monday went? What’s the rest of the week going to be like? I don’t think I want to know!

What’s up?

Rich — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 04:52:46 +0000

“What are you doing?”
“Nothing. Just watching the river.”
“It’s pretty high right now.”
“Yeah. Biggest flood I can remember in a while at least.”
“Lotta water.”
“Yeah. A lot. You notice how many people come to watch it?”
“I did notice. It’s funny. Nobody comes to this park normally, but you add a bunch of water and people line up to watch it.”
“It’s nature. They’re looking for something outside themselves. Something uncontrolled. Something new. Something untamed. They’re looking at what drove the caveman back into the caves. And when they’re tired of looking at the elemental fury of it they’re happy because they know they can go back to their homes, shut the door, turn on the air conditioning, and ignore it. It reminds them that the world isn’t as safe as they are used to… that contrast makes their safety feel more secure.”
“You mean they come here to be afraid?”
“Just a little afraid. The safe kind of afraid of a Freddy Krueger movie… not the new one where they made him banal and normal, out of the headlines… the first Freddy… that one was scarier.”
“They come to be afraid?”
“Yeah. Awe and fear are really close. They come. The watch the river, they listen to the sound of it, the unstoppable roar of it. They see trees moved by it. They fear it. This is the river that ancient man created gods to. This sort of power requires worship. It requires our attention. It demands it.”
“And then they go home and forget it?”
“They don’t forget it. They never forget it… but they do hide from it. They can’t help but watch it… but that doesn’t mean they want to live it. It’s one thing to glimpse the greatness and awesomeness of nature… it’s OK in small doses, but too much is too humbling. We’re too self-important for that these days. It’s too much. Watch them. Nobody stays for more than 10 minutes or so.”
“Well it IS just water. It gets pretty boring.”
“No, not boring, intimidating.”
“How long have you been here?”
“Since sunrise.”
“It’s after lunch now!”
“I know. I just had a ham salad sandwich.”
“That stuff will kill you.”
“I don’t think so. Listen, I hope I don’t make you mad or anything, but do you mind just leaving me here alone for a while to watch? I’ll be over tonight. I just want to watch it a little longer.”
“What’re you looking for?”
“In the water?”
“Yeah.”
“Answers.”
“To what?”
“Everything.”

Two weeks? Where’d the time go?

Rich — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 02:26:31 +0000

I can’t believe it’s been two weeks since I updated my blog. I’m not dead. I’m pretty busy, but I’m not dead and neither is this blog. I recently twittered, tweeted(?) that I had taken on a couple projects at work and I did and the first was super busy and fun and the second I was considering backing out of because I’m the only one that’s excited about it. Then I decided that was stupid. That’s exactly the project I should be doing!

So, I started writing a bunch of training material for employees. Once upon a time when I was a store manager, (this is 1998-1999 time here) I wrote a manager manual that we still use today. I think it was my writing the Manager Manual that got me my job as Supervisor.

So, my work time is still very busy with work related stuff and my free time is now filling up with more work related stuff that I volunteered to do lol. I really should have thought it through better. The part where I take on a couple projects and then my boss decides to throw more balls at me to juggle makes me want to scream. He KNOWS I took on more work so he decides now’s the time for HIM to take on more work which means he delegates down, only the work I took on I can’t delegate down. And the work he’s delegating down to me I can’t delegate all of it down. I’ve got a real time management issue going on here. So what suffers is my personal stuff, and my blog. Heck, facebook is practically off the scale any more. I’m almost never on there any more, and it’s not just the privacy thing, which is part of it too. My yard needs mowing too, exhibit A, I could write MOW ME in the clover it’d gotten so out of hand.

Anyway. Not dead. Super busy. Mostly happy. Still making time to read, just re-read Dan Millman’s Way of the Peaceful Warrior. I really like that book.

I’m fine, just busy.

Rich — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 20:29:13 +0000

Hey all! It’s been forever since I did a real blog post and I recently got an e-mail chastising me for leaving the same one up for so long. I’ve slacked off on both my website, my writing, my journaling, and my running as work has gone into some sort of weird over-drive. It’s not bad busy. It’s good busy, but I get home beat and read for an hour then go to bed.

I’m in good health. I’m feeling fine (other than tired of the grey of winter that won’t let go, it’s snowing now, March 19th!!!) and work stress is no worse than ever, in fact it’s sort of less as things come together and real progress is being made.

I’m going to go running today after work. I’m also going to cut out of work early to go do it. I deserve a little me time and the boss agrees so, mental health time here I come!!!