we are determined to make this week better

when I got to work, there was
a poem on my keyboard next
to my wrist brace, and the poem
was deep and wise and magical
and the tree on it was where the
magic lived twisted ink branches
bereft of leaves that will live next
to the painted full moon waiting
for whatever happens next

Being sick is gross; also, how do you deal with office jerks?

I bet for once I'm the one driving my cube neighbor nuts. It might be an overall stalemate, though, because I'm miserable, too. I'm sure he really enjoys hearing me blow my nose every 37 seconds. At least when I'm trying to clear my nose, I can't hear him talking on the phone. :)

If only I could be this obnoxious while sitting next to the passive-aggressive meanie-head I've been working overtime for the last few days. Then again, it's probably good I never see him. It might be hard to keep from saying the hilarious/cutting things I've been thinking up to say, especially if he actually said some of the things he's written in his emails recently. Am I really working so hard to make a jerk like this look good?

I find myself curious to know if he realizes how awful of a co-worker he is. I hear stories from other people; it seems he treats everyone the same. Does he know the effects of his behavior or is he just awkward (not realizing he's being so mean, difficult, and disrespectful)? I wonder what would happen if I asked him? Would it be worse if he did realize or if he didn't?

How do you confront people like him when you know you have to keep working with them? How do you let them know when their thoughtlessness has crossed a line (especially when you suspect they are actually doing it on purpose) without making your working relationship worse?

When Wally is your cube neighbor

Two short ones about my dreadfully annoying cube-dweller next door.

He can't possibly be

looking forward to his vacation

as much as I am.

*

Enjoy this moment;

don't waste it wondering when

he'll come in today.

Yep.  You can find poetry anywhere.  :)

If you're happy for other people and you know it/them, buy their stuff

Isn't it funny how excited we get when people we know get famous or recognized or well-known?  It's not like we did anything, but we're so happy and excited that we want to tell everyone, "Hey, I know this person!  You should support them by buying their stuff!"

Just today I found out that an upperclassman I had a little interaction with in college published a book this year.  I wanted to buy it sight unseen just to support him.  (It's actually an interesting topic to me, though, so it's not like I'd be wasting money.)  I'd been keeping an eye on his career at one of the major publications in our area of interest, and I cheered when he got to write big articles, when he won an award, and now when he has an ISBN number!  I'm just so happy for him!

A band with a few members I went to high school with has a new single that's been getting a lot of airplay on the two radio stations that play their music in my area.  This is exciting because it's rare for their music to have serious cross-over appeal on both adult contemporary and rock stations. It's great because there's a xylophone involved.  It's also exciting because the music video is much less cringe-worthy than some of their others.  :)

I am very happy every time one of their songs comes on.  (It did get a little ridiculous the week I heard them played 27 times in one week [the record was the day I heard them 5 times in a 24 hour period when I was only in the car listening to the radio for a total of one hour].)

I bought trade magazines when they had features on the band.  I got ridiculously excited when I saw a guy wearing one of their t-shirts at my retail store far away from their main original fan-base in Ohio.  I was all smiles the day I read some really positive professional critic reviews online.  I bought their albums before I even heard any songs off them because I wanted to support my former classmates, and I was really pleased with their third album (my favorite so far), but I liked that one so much I haven't spent much time with #4, and #5 just came out this year, so I'll have to give those some serious consideration soon.

Piece of trivia: the lead vocalist started out as the drummer and was teaching himself/learning the piano by the time we were seniors because he was so serious about the band.

Did I mention it makes me giddy when I hear them on the radio.  :)

I like it when people work hard and get rewarded.  I like to rejoice with people.  

Am I the only one who gets excited like this?

Am I passive-aggressive?

I have been accused of being passive-aggressive for writing letters to my bosses when there are specific issues I feel need to be addressed (and no one else will talk to management about them because they're smart enough to know management doesn't care).  I'm a little confused by the way this term is used.

From what I understand, a passive-aggressive response to, say, her terrible, are-you-seriously-a-college-graduate constant grammar/spelling/syntax errors would be to put a stack of hilarious and difficult to understand memos and emails on her chair with grammar and style comments marked in red and place a copy of "I Judge You When You Use Poor Grammar" on top of the pile.

I consider writing an essay with bullet points and formatting designed to clearly communicate problems and proposed solutions to be a form of properly documented alternative conflict resolution.  (Except that it never works because getting any kind of response in writing is impossible, thus making the whole exercise pointless.)

Am I really being passive aggressive?  Is the only correct way to air grievances (especially to an illogical, combative, defensive, incompetent boss) to have a conversation that escalates into a shouting match that could get me fired?  If it is, I'd rather be passive aggressive and have all those letters formally on file for my defense should the time come.

In your opinion, where is the line for passive-aggressive behavior?

Why I hope the Ultimate Dinosaur exists

There was no snow when I woke up.  :(  Why do I even bother to believe the meteorologists anyway?  I know they're only right about 2% of the time, but I still get excited when they promise snow.

One of my former-co-workers, who constantly lit up my life while we worked together because he had the strangest sense of humor and loved to say inappropriate, weird, off-the-wall-and-sometimes-apparently-from-another-universe things, used to talk about how when he would take over the world with his Ultimate Dinosaur, his first victims would be career politicians and meteorologists because of how useless they both were.

I like my snow to fall on days I don't have to drive in it (such as Thanksgiving), so I hope it doesn't come tomorrow.  I don't want to fight crazy traffic on the way to and from work on "Black Friday," and I especially don't want to fight crazy traffic driving on snow.  I like going to work at 5:30 because there's usually no traffic since what store in its right mind would open at, say, 3 am?  (I mean, besides the one right next to mine.)  I hope there's room in the parking lot for the employees . . .

Happy Thanksgiving!  May you survive the upcoming "Holiday Season" with style and grace!

Thanksgiving for the blessed

At work yesterday, someone said something wonderful to me.  He knows I've been having trouble with a particular manager who is doing her best to get me fired, and he said that if I needed a witness, he would speak up on my behalf.  I nearly cried; it was that touching.  He knew that they might not even care what he said, and he knew it might get him in trouble, but he said he thought it would be a real shame if I got fired. 

As Willy Wonka said, "So shines a good deed . . ."  Since things have been so bad lately, it really meant a lot to me, and it reminded me of the importance of telling the people important to you how you value them.  (Just in time for Thanksgiving!) 

I think this year I'll give Thanksgiving cards to the people at work who make working there a positive experience, and I hope it encourages them to appreciate the people who make their lives brighter.


Do you have anything you do for Thanksgiving to show people you're thankful for them?

Yet another one sails away

Well, that tears it.  My new friend at work had enough and left.  What a huge, stupid waste.  She was worth at least two of my incompetent sales manager.  There is very little justice in a world where I'm stuck with the stupid sales manager and have to lose a great co-worker because our management is . . .  Yeah, you've heard it before.  Sorry.

But I can't resist this great example of my sales manager's greatness.  Because of this sudden situation, I was asked to come in and work on my day off, and, because I desperately need the hours/money, I came in early in the morning after a late night leading a small group for church.  Then, that morning, I picked up another sick co-worker's shift for that night, but I could only work from 6-10 (so I could get some rest before coming in early the next morning for my next shift).  As I was leaving at 10:15, my sales manager got extremely snippy with me for having to leave before 10:30 .  Yes, she got mad at me after I came in and saved her bacon twice in the same day on my day off outside of my regular availability.  She is a real winner.

I'm looking for a new hopefully less crappy retail job along with my regular job hunting. 

Morale is just so shot right now at our store, and sales, which were up, are dropping.  It's sad because it doesn't have to be and shouldn't be this way.  I wish there were something I could do to make it better, but I really have tried everything I can.

I was thinking about good companies and how they value their employees.  Maybe I'm still kind of an idealist, but I thought companies wanted to hire good employees and use their strengths as individuals and team members to help the company prosper.  My RetailEstablishment never read these books, I guess.  They would rather try to force everyone into the same (bent) mold and break them. 

We're all breaking. 

It's rough to watch.  I have so much to give, and they don't want it.  It's . . . frustrating not to be able to use any of your skills, talents, personality, etc. in a way that helps people.  It's worse when you can't just quit, when you're too damaged already to be sure you'll ever be able to find another job.  Being so invested in one place used to make me sort of stubbornly determined to do my best to help things change for the better, but when you have resistance and an endless landslide of dumb policies coming from your district manager to your store and thus know that the "open-door" policy is a quick way to get fired, it just grinds you down.

At least I'm proud I've hung on for over 6 years.  :)  Find your sunshine where you can, I guess.


Do you have any suggestions for retail jobs that would be good for a cripple?

A Little Pre-Holiday Retail Rant

I really want a new job.  This is getting ridiculous.  You want to know why RetailEstablishment is failing?  It's because of corporate stupidity, inefficiency, and wasteful practices that were going on for years before the economy tanked. 

Corporate HQ's new policies explain that our poor sales have nothing to do with a slumped economy and ridiculous HQ policies but are a direct result of our (the sales peons') failings.  We're not pushy enough.  Also, sometimes customers see us drink water or coffee on the sales floor.  Obviously, these are huge problems that must be corrected before they further kill our sales!  The solution?  No water and no water breaks.  (Those of us with severe allergies and asthma are ignoring this dictum and hiding behind desks when we need a drink to keep ourselves from choking or having asthma attacks.)  Also an emphasis on pushiness and customer harassment to keep from getting written up for not "doing our jobs." 

And here I thought they would emphasize knowledge, training, efficiency, or anything else that makes a long-term difference and leads to satisfied, repeat customers.  I am so silly sometimes.  What a kidder I am.

I feel like I live in a cross between You've Got Mail and Nickel and Dimed.  Management does not care if you can help the customers find what they really want and get them to it quickly.  Management just wants obedient little brainless sales drones who know 15 ways to segue into a pushy sales tactic.  They also like uniforms, apparently.

I'm stuck in this non-living-wage full time job with no options because I'm a cripple abandoned by the government.  I am a little frustrated. 

Some new and particularly stupid policies are rolling out soon, and I foresee a return to that 90%+ turnover rate our store is famed for.  (Joy, right before Christmas madness begins!  That's the best way to have happy holiday customers: half-trained employees trying to push unwanted merchandise on customers and being utterly incapable of actually helping them get what they came for.) 

We usually have a lot of quitting over the holidays, especially once management starts enforcing two months of no time off.  Most people want to at least have a couple days in a row that they can spend with their families, and they know that being jobless for a while won't kill them, so they leave.

And why not?  These bright, young, non-crippled, healthy things have options!  Of course they should take them!  Why would I want them to continue being miserable, treated like interchangeable cogs in the retail wheel, their talents wasted because of corporate stupidity?  I wish them well as they leave me behind!  I really do. 

I just wish I could go with them.

P.S. Hey, RetailEstablishment, go read that Norm Feuti book Pretending You Care (and think about it really hard), listen to your field employees (not the managers, but the troops, especially the ones who have been around for more than 3 years), and wake up!  There are ways not to be this dumb and wasteful, and you should try them before you end up out of business.  You have so much talent available; why are you squandering it?

I'll leave you with a positive quote I just made up:

God never promised us a rose garden, but He still gives us roses along the way. 

And allergy medicine.

Thank you to all the co-workers who have helped make my time in the big house of RetailEstablishment slightly less hellish sometimes.  I'm always sad to see you go, but I know you're in a better place.  It would be difficult to be in a worse one.