Cluster Hump

I stayed up last night making edits to a poster we keep with all the pictures and names of the supervisors, managers and administrators at the store I work at.  My company has low turnover for a retail environment, but... it's still retail... and promotions are always happening, so the poster needs frequent maintenance to stay up-to-date.  I realize at 11:30 last night I didn't copy down the new Assistant General Manager's last name, and don't know it.  I txt or Facebook msg the handful of co-workers who are both (1) up at that hour and (2) friendly enough with me to find it normal for me to contact them... None of them knew, either.

My 6 mo old was fussy and not sleeping at all last night. So even after I stopped being productive on the poster, there was no sleeping.  I crashed at 1am, but remember my wife getting out of bed to take care of the boy at 2... and 6.  I got up at 7 to start my day.

First thing I did was call work and get the A.GM's name.  Finish the poster. Go to order a print of it from my photo lab through our website... and the website is down.

TimeWarner is sometimes pretty wonky, and the gear running my wireless network at home isn't terribly reliable either... so I chalk it up to my connection, copy the JPEG to a thumb drive, and bring it with me to work.

Before I clock in, I show the image to the other A.GM, and she points out I forgot to remove a supervisor who transferred to another building. I forgot to mess with him in part because they haven't filled his position again yet.  oops.  She told me to print it anyway, and update it after the replacement is announced, probably later this week.

Oh, and she need to talk to me once I clock in.
Convenient she should mention that... it's time to clock in RIGHT NOW.

I hit the time-clock, go back into the office and get turned down for the position I applied for. Not really surprised, and I don't dislike where I am at, so it's not a huge deal for me, but still a little let down.

Get back to my photohut to find the company's photolab server's are down; it wasn't just my connection. No internet orders today ... and since the boss closed down early last night to run some maintenance on the printer, the 90 minute order delay had been in effect for all of the orders that had been downloaded to the lab before the web broke.

Which turned out to be a small blessing because even thought the Net orders were not comming in, I was soon to be running behind...  one of the paper-magizne bays on my printer was malfunctioning, and trying to diagnose and repair it was eating minutes... meanwhile the equipment we use to refill customer's printer ink cartridges was fritzing... and the phone was ringing 2 lines at a time with customers informing me they couldn't place online orders and demanding I either fix it or tell them how long the outage would last.

When it rains, it pours.

On the bright side... I HAVE lost more than 100 lbs. since I started...

A Whole New Person

I don't know how many people have asked whether I feel like a whole new person now... but it's a lot.

Honestly no, not at all.  I feel completely like myself.  It is easier to get up and down the stairs, to stand up out of couches and chairs, and to get off of the floor.  My stomach isn't preventing as much of my flexibility as it had recently, and I am sleeping better... but mentally, emotionally, and in several ways, physically, I am as I was, and as I will be. As of Monday I broke the 300 lb barrier. One I had not crossed since a few years before my 3 year old was born, and even then, the previous time only lasted one weigh-in before settling in around  320 for a while, then creeping back up to around 400 during the time before the surgery.

In order to maintian the suggested level of activity, I've committed to a year of Jujitsu/Judo lessons under Mr. Steve Kinser, at Mr. Steve Stillwell's dojo.  I'm encouraging everyone to join with me, and getting mixed results.  Most are balking at the price, which I really do understand, but it's still disappointing. I may have my supervisor on the hook though... I think it was due to having got her into the Dresden Files, where her favorite character is Karrin Murphy.  Muwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!

Just another day...

Texting - me to boss: How much must a customer DESERVE it before I am allowed to pluck her left eye from her inconsiderate skull? ... Hypothetically speaking.

boss to me: You can't do that, my friend. Sorry you had a bad one.

me to boss: Can I convince you to do it for me?

boss to me: lol, I don't know, man. I kinda need this job.

me to boss: I'll talk you into it in the morning.

Typically a 1/2 hour before we close, I start turning off all the equipment and cleaning up, counting down the cash register till and such. Once the doors close I take my paperwork up front and get it signed off on and my shift is over 5 minutes after the store closes.

I am not obligated to keep the machine running until 1/2 prior to close; being a 1 hour lab, 59 minutes until close and I could start shutting down and cleaning, but I generally like my customers and want to give them as much up-time as I reasonably can.

In an effort to bend over backwards in exceptional cases, I can sometimes hold out until just 15 minutes before close to shut down the equipment...  but that's about all I can really muster without going into unapproved overtime.  And now-a-days unapproved overtime is the only type of overtime there is, and it is frowned upon.

Tonight at T-minus 31 minutes until closing time, my phone is ringing.

I answer with my usual business greeting and on the other end of the line is a frantic mother who needs pictures tonight for her son's Eagle Court of Honor in the morning.

"A failure to plan on YOUR part does not constitute an emergency on MY part." I thought, but did not say.

She asks if she can get an order to me in the next 5 minutes, if I could still have it ready for pickup tonight.  I explain that it depends on how many images are in the order and what sizes she is ordering; without knowing that I can't tell how long it will take to print.  She lets me know she needs about 30 5x7 lustre prints.  I tell her that IF she gets the order to me in the next 5 minutes I can still get that done tonight.

At 20 minutes until close she calls back and lets me know she just hit the send button, and asks if I have her order to print yet.  I do not, but manually tell my computer to pull new orders down from the server and it starts downloading...  all 174 images for her 4x6s, 5x5, 5x7s, and 8x10s...  I try to tell her I'm not certain this will all download and print before the store closes, and she says she'll be here in 10 minutes and can wait for them if they won't kick her out once she's inside, then hangs up...  Well, Fuck.

A part of me want to say 'Fuck-it' and shut everything down.  "Tried to tell you it wouldn't be done tonight, sorry." But I have a reputation as a photo-miracle-worker, and my lab has a reputation of being one of the best in the metro, and my company is known WORLD WIDE for treating it's customers exceptionally well... so I commit myself to making it happen...

I'm irritated but not at eye-plucking levels yet...

She gets there a few scant minutes before the doors go down, and wonders around our closed store while I finish up her order.  I'm packing them up at closed+10 when she comes back by to pick them up and pay.  As I'm ringing her up she says "You know, I really did order more than I'm going to be able to use, I can return the ones I don't need, right?" ... ... ...

Are you shitting me? ... not quite there yet...

"Ma'am, we offer a satisfaction guarantee on all of the products we produce; if for any reason you are dissatisfied with the quality of the work we did, we would offer you a refund for the product, but normally on a custom order of photographic prints we would expect you to want what you have ordered."

"So if I return them, tell them that they are too fuzzy?"

NOW... now is when I'm thinking, It wouldn't be homicide if I just ripped out one eye... she would live, she would even adapt to having a fairly normal life.  She could be a pirate for Halloween. She's EARNED it!

"Thank you very much for doing this for me tonight, most people wouldn't have."  You're damn strait most people wouldn't have and YOU'RE the REASON people don't want to help people.  I bend over backwards for you and whilst I'm contorted so, you try to find a way to slip a knife into my back!  Your son may be an Eagle Scout, but you, madam, are an awful human being.

One of the managers I hold in high regard once said something that stuck with me...  and it kept ringing in my head tonight: At our company "we bend over backwards for our customers, but don't bend over forwards for them!"  I feel like she's trying to give it to me up the ass in this one.