PeedAntics

Scenes from a service desk (yes, the conversation is verbatim to the best of my ability):

Customer: I bought this battery charger here yesterday, and the stupid girl who checked me out didn't deactivate the thing inside so when I tried to leave I got stopped like a common criminal, and the jerk at the door said he wasn't going to tell the girl that she'd forgotten to deactivate it because he wanted to keep his job. THEN, when I got it home, I hooked it up to my dead battery, which I bought here by the way, and it clicked and hummed but this 'connect' light didn't come on, and my battery didn't get charged. So I want to exchange this piece of crap. But I'll have you know that I drove 5 miles to get here, and I am NOT going back home with another defective charger, so I want YOU to go back there to the automotive department and find me a replacement, AND try it out yourself on one of those batteries back there to make sure it works before you waste my time making an exchange.
Me: (looking at the line of 10 people that has formed during this tirade) Ma'am, I'm sorry you're dissatisfied. I'll get an associate from the automotive department up here to find out what kind of charger you need, and they'll get you set up with something that will work for you.
Customer: I'm NOT going to wait here for someone to wander over here when they get around to it.
Me: Well, your other option is that you can go back to the counter there yourself, and I'll page the Zone Supervisor to meet you there.
Customer: Why should I have to go all the way back there? You can do it just as easily as I can.
Me: Madam, look around you. I am the ONLY person here at the Service Desk. Look behind you. Unfortunately for you, you are NOT the only person requiring service. I cannot and WILL NOT leave this desk. In any case, anyone who helps you back there is going to need to ask you specific questions about what kind of battery you're charging, and what kind of charging capabilities you need. They know the inventory better than I do, and they're going to be able to help you more quickly than I can.
Customer: Well, yes, I suppose so. I doubt you could be trusted to remember that kind of information anyway.

(I page the ZS to the automotive counter and she huffs off, only slightly missing a stride when one of the other customers in line turns and says to their companion, "What a tin-plated BITCH!" She comes back about twenty minutes later; the other SD associate has come back from break and is waiting on a customer, and there is no line. I'm clearing returns off the back counter.)

Customer: Well, are you going to wait on me now, or do I have to wait in line?
Me: Ma'am, there IS no line. You are welcome to wait until one forms.
Customer: I shouldn't have to put up with people like you!
Me: In all honesty, madam, NEITHER SHOULD I.



Scene Two: the phone rings. I pick up the phone and rattle off the standard "Thank you for calling your 24-hour Houghton Lovely Workplace..."; then this happens:

Customer: I was just at your store about 10 minutes ago, and I have a box of diapers here that isn't on my receipt, so I need to come back and pay for it.
Me: Well ma'am, we appreciate your honesty! Just bring it in, you can pay for it at any register or here at the service desk.
Customer: Well, I'm at another store right now, but I can come back there as soon as I'm done here... but here's the thing. My son is with me, and he's asleep. So I'm wondering if I pull up to the pharmacy entrance, whether you can send someone out and have them bring my credit card in, ring it up, and then bring it back out with the slip for me to sign.
Me: Well, ma'am, technically by store policy we're not supposed to handle a customer's money of any kind for them without direct management supervision. Are you by any chance calling from a cell phone?
Customer: Yes.
Me: If you'll call back when you get here, I'll see if I can round up a manager and an associate for you, but I have to warn you that it may take a few minutes, as we're very short-staffed this morning.
Customer: Oh, that's OK. A nap is a nap, I don't want to rush it.

(45 minutes later the phone rings again)
Customer: I've been waiting out here for half an hour and no one ever came out here so I just pitched the diapers out the window at the front door. Thanks anyway!

Situation #1. This past Saturday, it was **NUTS** at the Lovely Workplace. Friday was a Tech payday, it was Homecoming weekend at both Tech and Lake Linden High Schools; there were a LOT of people in town, and ergo, at the Lovely Workplace. Just before lunchtime, I had a long line of people, most of them with a lot of merchandise, several of them with multiple transactions. The CSM (Customer Service Manager) comes along and tells me to shut off my light. This means my register is closed, I finish out my line, log off and go to lunch. OK, fine; my customers know the drill. Normally, the CSM will also put a 'Lane Closed' at the end the register counter to underline the situation, but sometimes we run short of them, or (as in this case) they forget. Still, my light is off, and the customers in my line know that I'm closing down and in fact are warning other customers away. A couple minutes after my light has been turned off, I'm down to the last couple, a multiple transation big cart-o-crap, and another customer approaches with a full cart.

My customers: He's closed. (They're ignored.)
Me: I'm sorry, sir, this register is closed.
Newcomer: No, it's NOT.
Me: (to my customers:) I'm sorry, excuse me a moment.
(I lean over the counter, plant both fists on the belt, give the newcomer the full-bore Parental Consequences From Hell glare and tone:) Yes. It. IS.

The CSM, having last heard this tone from me immediately before I bodily marched a recalcitrant 8 year old out of the store by the ear, hurries over to shepard the newcomer somewhere else.


Situation #2. (After lunch, same Saturday...) The madding crowds continue to mill. My latest entry in the joy lottery is a customer in one of our motorized scooters; its' basket is full, but not excessively heaped.

Customer: Can I have my stuff packed in those large bags?
Me: Oh, certainly. (sigh)
Customer: Oh, that's enough for that bag.
Me: (looking in bemusement at three not-particularly-large-or-heavy boxes of cereal knocking around in the bottom of said bag) All right then.

[similar packing instructions continue. During the packing of a later large bag, which at this point contains a small roll of heavy plastic (for windows) and a container of cleanser....]

Customer: Oh, that's far too much for that bag. I don't mean to be rude, but have some common sense.
Me: (looking pointedly at her scooter basket, which now contains quite a few large bags, each absurdly underpacked)I buy *REAL* garbage bags, rather than trusting a household's worth of trash to shoddy plastic bags given away for free. Do you REALLY want to talk about common sense?

To be (believe it or not) continued...

I made this for this month's meeting of the Keeweenaw Gluttony Society (KeGS). It came out, if I do say so myself, spectacularly well. This is probably a bit much amount-wise, so scale it to your preferences; or don't -- it should freeze well.

As always, volume measurements are approximate...

INGREDIENTS:
* 5 lbs. chicken -- your favorite cut. I used leg quarters sectioned into thighs & drumsticks, with the extra fat trimmed off & rendered.
* 4 Tbsp fat -- this can be butter, rendered chicken fat (schmaltz), or oil.
* 1 1/2 large onions, peeled, halved, and sliced thin.
* 3 Tbsp sweet Hungarian paprika
* 1 1/2 tsp salt
* 2 - 3 cups chicken stock
* 2 large tomatoes, seeded and chopped
* 3 Tbsp flour
* 2/3 cup sour cream

METHOD:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Saute the onions in the fat over medium heat until they are golden and translucent. Remove from the pan and set aside; brown the chicken in the same pan in batches. Note that you're not cooking the chicken completely here, you're just getting some nice color on them. Place the chicken pieces in a large heavy dutch oven and set aside.

Pour off all but a couple tablespoons of the fat, return the onions to the pan, add the paprika and the salt and cook over medium heat for a couple minutes; stir in the tomatoes and about half of the chicken stock and simmer for 7 or 8 minutes.

Pour the onion/paprika mixture over the chicken, cover, and bake for an hour to an hour and a half, until the chicken is tender and starting to slip off the bone. Remove the chicken to a rimmed platter or serving dish, cover and set aside; place the dutch oven on the stovetop over medium-high heat, and whisk in the flour briskly. Cook for a couple minutes, and then whisk in the remainder of the chicken stock, adding more if you need it to get a gravy consistency that you like. (It should have a velvety body but not be overpoweringly thick.) Turn off the heat, let it stand for a minute (you want it to drop just below the boiling point), and then whisk in the sour cream. Pour over the chicken and serve over wide egg noodles or with dumplings.

It's been an interesting few weeks at the Lovely Workplace. Fear and loathing are running rampant among the associates, for two reasons. The first reason is that our store is teetering on the brink of being organizationally restructured. The current organization of department managers and floor associates will go away, to be replaced with zone managers (each zone being made up of several current departments), zoning teams (who will spend their time straightening up the store), price change teams, and module deployment teams which will set up and take down product displays. The Store Manager, co-managers, and assistant managers will no longer directly oversee store operations by walking the floor; they'll be sitting in the administration office coordinating teams while the zone managers do the walking and make recommendations for team deployment.

Needless to say the set of current department managers are all up in arms... because the zone manager position is obviously a step up, and team assignment is obviously a step down. Competition is rife and tensions are high. None of these changes in arrangements have a particularly profound impact upon the front end operations, other than to further blur the line between front end associates and floor associates; more front end associates will find themselves working the floor on occasion, and more floor associates will find themselves working registers from time to time. The only real impact it's likely to have on me is that my role as a generalist will probably become official... so I won't have any real idea what I'm likely to be doing on a day-to-day basis until I get there. Variety, they say, is the spice of life.

Reason #2 for fear and loathing is that, starting this Thursday, our Lovely Workplace will no longer issue paper checks. Paper copies of paycheck stubs will still be available -- it seems to be required by law in Michigan -- but all paychecks will be disbursed electronically, exclusively. Associates who don't have direct deposit into a bank account are being compelled to either set it up, or to receive their paycheck on a cash-based Mastercard (which they can subsequently cash out immediately if they want to). The folks who already have direct deposit are unfazed. Everyone else is convinced that the Lovely Workplace is doing this so that Big Brother/Organized Crime/The Corrupt Banking & Insurance Industry/Gay Athiest Communist Aborting Terrorist Hippie Hackers can immediately swoop down upon all these defenseless electronically available funds while the Lovely Workplace shrugs and says "not our problem".

(The current issue of the supermarket tabloid Sun trumpeting that the world will end on October 11 isn't helping.)

Seen on a T-shirt yesterday: "You have the rest of your life to be a jerk. Why not take today off?"

For you hunters & commandos on the go, Remington sells camoflage makeup in a compact. (I spent much of the day snickering at random moments at the visual image of deer hunters perched in a tree, peering into a little mirror while dabbing on black, brown, and green makeup.)

Yesterday's Difficult Customer: I don't think I've ever been called 'Madam' before.
Me: Oh, don't worry, I save it for my special customers.

(The problem is, I didn't HAVE any particularly spicy food last night... but I digress.)

I dreamt that I was working as a software project manager in New Orleans. (Yay!) The software development company was located in second-floor offices over a bar in the French Quarter. (Double Yay!) The bar's clientele was mostly flesh-eating zombies and their evil masters. (Um...) Also, in an effort to preserve the picturesque historic ambiance of the area from the detrimental ravages of carbon monoxide and squished zombie pulp, cars had been banned from a several block radius of the office's location, so that all travel in the area had to be done on foot... amongst the flesh-eating zombies. (Double Um...)

To deal with this less-than-optimal commuting problem, the owner of the company hit upon the following solution. All employees would live at this quiet, staid boarding house several blocks away from the office, and commute on foot en masse, via the buildings themselves: across rooftops and along window ledges. Gaps between buildings were bridged either by rickety hand-built spans of scrap lumber or by screaming and hurling one's self across the chasm.

After about a week of these forays I threw in the towel and refused to do it anymore. It was at that point that I woke up.

This type of subconcious commentary really doesn't bode well for my state of mind, methinks.

Seriously, this would never have occurred to me... but having lived it now and survived (well, I have tomorrow yet), I can testify matter-of-factly that it is an ordeal to strike fear into the stoutest of hearts.

What is this terrifying experience?

Being second-in-charge of Stationery, e.g., Office / Back-To-School Supplies. at the Lovely Workplace... during the last two weeks before elementary & high schools start (and of course during the influx of returning students at the local area colleges).

WHOLLY. FREAKING. GHU.

Parents are excited about the looming advent of school. Kids, not so much. However, they can all agree that they sure-as-heck LOVE to shop for it. So much so that they run amok throughout the store from display to display, changing their minds faster than a sugar-laden toddler channel-surfing on Saturday morning. As cooler supplies are discovered, uncool supplies are soulessly abandoned... resulting in significantly large parts of the store looking like the aftermath of the Blitzkreig. Meanwhile, the managment, in an effort to shamelessly pander to these madding crowds, order ever-increasing supplies, so that we have had six or eight pallets of freight to price and get out onto the floor (or more amusingly to jam Tetris-like into storage) a day where before we might get one or two.

It was SO much fun this year that the management of the Marquette Lovely Workplace got into the act (on our local management's request) and sent us their entire last year's stock of "high-end" drafting supplies -- never mind that we had our own 36 cubic feet of compasses, protractors, globe protractors, triangles, rulers, T-squares, circle templates, colored pencils, micro-fine pens, 4 different kinds of erasers, and let us not forget, erasing templates -- to say nothing of nifty premier sets of all of the above assembled in fragile plastic cases -- to get rid of somehow. That's right, 36 cubic feet. When each item is at most an average of 6 cubic inches, that's a lot of "high end" drafting supplies. (Yes, those quotes are sarcasm. The engineering students generally don't buy their supplies here. That's why both we and Marquette had all that stuff leftover from last year. You'd think someone would get a clue, but NOooooo....)

Ultimately, it's the sheer shopping bedlam that floors me... well, that and the fact that almost NO ONE can be freaking well bothered to put stuff back where they got it. Honestly, people, whatever happened to responsibility and due diligence? Yes, it is in our job description to pick up after the customers' lazy asses, but we're not supposed to be spending a full QUARTER TO A THIRD OF OUR ENTIRE WORKDAY DOING IT.

#define SIDE_RANT
A couple months ago, the Lovely Workplace's employee magazine had an article exhorting us associates to be shining examples of "Servant Excellence". EXCUSE THE HELL OUT OF ME? "SERVANT EXCELLENCE???!?"

For the record: I cashier (still far and away the fastest damn cashier in the store); I pick up and clean up after customers; I work the service desk; I cover breaks for people greeters; I price merchandise and stock shelves for any department that needs me; I help customers; I maintain inventory in the back room; I train new employees; I troubleshoot recalcitrant equipment; I've even been known to push carts in the parking lot and unload trucks. In other words, I PROVIDE SERVICES to the store and to the consumer public. The fact that I provide services does NOT make me, in any way, shape, or form, ANYONE'S "Servant", thank you very frigging much. It is a subtle distinction to draw, but a damnably important one.
#undefine SIDE_RANT

(Oh, and as a capper: today the assistant manager in charge of the Front End informed me that I 'Exceed Expectations'.
Damn freakin' straight, bucko. I just wish it were reciprocal.)

I happened to notice that The Globe in its last issue was shouting about a plot to steal Michael Jackson's body. My first reaction was "Oh please, who in their right mind would have any use for it?"

And then I realized exactly what *I* would do with Michael Jackson's body.

I'd mummify it with the latest technology, install animatronics, and unveil the concept of live-action dance-along 'Thriller' karaoke.

I'd make **MILLIONS**!!!!

27 years ago, give or take a week, I graduated from Midway High School, south of Kingston, TN. After high school, I went to the local community college (Roane State) for 2 years, and after that, packed up my car and moved a thousand miles away to finish my bachelor's degree at Michigan Tech. I literally have not been back to TN for more than 7 or 8 days at a stretch since then... and the last time I got down there was 9 years ago for my mother's memorial service.

For all that I grew up in TN, I can't say that I particularly miss much about it (other than my family members who still live there). Raised as a political and religious liberal, I never particularly fit into any of the social circles in school; while there was a small crowd of smart/geeky kids that I hung out with, at the end of the school day we generally went our separate ways and really didn't socialize much at all outside school. It was a rural area, and there was too much to do on the farms, and/or our houses were too widely scattered to make much socialization practical if we didn't have our own transportation. There were other contributors to this isolation; the home social networks revolved very much around the churches -- which left my mom & I out completely as we didn't attend any of the local ones -- and the shopping centers, which were scattered as much as our homes were. As a result, outside of that small group of folks I hung out with, I didn't really know many of my classmates well, nor they me.

27 years later, Facebook is starting to bring me back into contact with some of my high school classmates -- I've found and friended 5 so far, including 1 in that small geeky clique. It is an interesting dance we execute. Whether or not we still live in the area, the rural East Tennesee circumspection is still VERY much in play. Thus far, our exchanged email and comments have been very restrained, limited to only the most banal social generalities. I look at their info and see that, at least among us 6, we've not done too badly for ourselves. One's an economist. Another's a medical administrator. A couple of us are veterans. We all appear to be working and living relatively normal, happy, reasonably mundane lives. Although, if any of them have gone digging, I can't imagine what they make of me; but then, I was always seen as being on the fringe -- so that may be what inspired a couple of them to comment "Except for the beard, you're still the same Andrew!" (I know it was meant as a compliment, but I'm still vaguely insulted...)

(This will get copied over there automagically, and I needed a more public place than there to post it.)

If you have seen my name on Facebook in your suggested friends list, and we aren't friends, and you think we could/should be, by all means add me.

If I haven't added you already, it's nothing personal; I haven't added you for one or more of the following reasons:
* I haven't seen your name come up;
* I've overlooked your name due to the Facebook reloading mechanics;
* I don't have a real name &/or face in my memory to go with you (e.g., I may know you only by an online moniker);
* I can't come up with a context for you. (This happens occasionally between facebook profile permissions and profile content (or rather, lack thereof).)

OR it's because you fall into one of the two following groups, I've seen your name, I know who you are, and yet haven't added you just on general principles which are explained below.

* You're primarily a friend of my daughter's. It's not that I don't think you're a cool person; it's that in your position, I'd be a little wierded out by a friend's parent wanting to friend me in Facebook, no matter how much time you may have spent hanging out at my house in high school. :)

* You're a non-family minor &/or a child of a friend of mine. Same reasoning... in your position I'd be a little wierded out. :)

In either of these last two cases, if you want to add me, please do! I'm delighted you think I'm sufficiently cool. :)

Please pass the word along to any and all you know who may be affected... or you can point them to my blog (in LiveJournal).

Thanks!

Firstly, someone seems to have recently placed a sign on my aura which reads:

==============================
ATTENTION!
I am currently engaged in doing something dangerous, difficult, and/or involving heavy loads which will squish you like an insignificant bug if they fall on you.

Please distract me, get in my way, place things behind me or in my blind spots, or send your children to play chicken with me. I enjoy it.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION.
==============================

Honestly, some people have no sense of self-preservation. If we didn't live in such a litigous society, I'd be sorely tempted to let some social Darwinism take place. In the past week, I've had people squeeze through a gap between a fixed metal post and the moving forklift, despite the protests of myself at the wheel and not one, but TWO spotters warning them away; I've had children break away from their parents and run under the descending load, and had people trying to take plants off a rack while I'm moving it, despite the fact that we had the SAME plants in place, priced, and ready to be purchased not two feet away.

People in the throes of spring fever are STOOPID.

--

Some of you may know (or for that matter, may be) folks who are rabid about their lawns. You know the type -- they assiduously put down new topsoil and reseed bare or thin spots, carefully fertilize the entire lawn twice a year, wage an ongoing full scale war with weeds, and meticulously mow and groom it on a religiously regular basis. If you are someone like this, or know someone like this, be informed: I've uncovered a sinister conspiracy. We sell a number of Scotts products for lawncare, including TurfBuilder of several flavors for seeding and weed control, PatchMaster for spot repair, a few insecticides and herbicides, three colors of mulch (all of which have added weedkillers) and their Premium Topsoil for new lawn preparation. Of the several brands of topsoil and lawn soil we sell, the Scotts Premium Topsoil consistenly has the highest density of germinating weed seeds included free of charge; in every pallet I've unwrapped this week, about half the bags have weeds sprouting out of them, and a few of those plants have been better than a foot or so in length. Interesting, no?

--

Stupid Customer Report: For the record. we carry 9 flavors of mulch: cypress, eucalyptus, pine bark mulch, pine bark nuggets, two colors of rubber mulch, and the three aformentioned Scotts colored mulches.

CUSTOMER: I need to buy some white cedar mulch.
ME: I'm sorry ma'am, we don't carry any cedar mulches.
CUSTOMER: I bought it here last year, I just need a couple bags.
ME: Ma'am, we haven't carried any cedar mulches for the past three years that I know of.
CUSTOMER: Well, can we go look at what you have?
What's this?
ME: That's a cypress mulch, ma'am.
CUSTOMER: It's not really white, though, is it? It's more of a tan. I need white cedar mulch.
... it's not cedar, is it?
ME: No ma'am, we don't carry any cedar mulches... or any white mulches for that matter.
CUSTOMER: What's this?
ME: It's a pine bark mulch.
CUSTOMER: It's not white at all, is it? Is it cedar?
ME: ... No ma'am, it's not.
CUSTOMER: I need white cedar mulch. What's this?
ME: Well, the label says "Pine Bark Nuggets", so I have to assume that's what it is.
CUSTOMER: It's not white either. Is it cedar? I need white cedar mulch.

... and so on, down the line, until the bitter end several minutes later:

CUSTOMER: This mulch (the Scotts black mulch) isn't white either. I don't suppose it's cedar?
ME: Uh, no ma'am.
CUSTOMER: Do you have any other mulches?
ME: No ma'am, (gesturing down the length of the line of mulch facings, some 120 feet) this is all we've got.
CUSTOMER: You don't have ANY white cedar mulch?
ME: No ma'am.
CUSTOMER: Well, why didn't you say so?!?

And a new entry in the Inappropriately Sized Vehicle category.
One of the things we have in the Patio Furniture category is a free-standing patio swing. It seats 3 people and has a awning over the top; assembled, it's about 8 feet long, 4 feet wide, and maybe 6 feet high.

CUSTOMER: I'd like to buy one of these swings. Can I buy this display?
ME: Actually sir, this display is already on hold for another customer, but we can assemble one for you; you can pick it up tomorrow.
CUSTOMER: Oh. It's a gift for my daughter out of town. I was hoping I could just put it in my truck and go.
ME: Let me talk to the assemblers, sir, we might be able to get one assembled by this afternoon.
CUSTOMER: That would be great, thanks!

So I get the assemblers on the phone; no dice, they're already pressed for time with a big backlog. I talk to the department manager, we look at projects on the agenda, and decide that we can spare someone to slap it together.

ME: Sir, if you can come back after 4:00pm (it's about 11:00am now), we should have one ready to go at that time.
CUSTOMER: Great!

He wanders off, and one of the other L&G associates retires to a quiet corner with the boxed swing. About 10 minutes later, the swearing starts. The instructions, replete with detailed drawings, are nonetheless nearly incomprehensible. It takes about 3 hours, several consultations among the L&G folks, and constant comparisons with the assembled piece to get the thing put together. at 4:00pm, the customer re-appears, we hand him the sticker with the UPC on it, he goes to the register while we wrestle it to the gate. He hustles past us with the reassurance that he'll be right back with his truck. We look at each other and say "At least he's got a truck." He has a truck, all right: a dinky little Toyota with a bed about 6 feet long... and a cap. We ended up having to partially disassemble it to get it in, and he called back the next day so that we could coach him through the reassembly over the phone.


More to come...

Your result for Which Supreme Court Justice Are You Test...

You are Justice John Paul Stevens

You agreed with Stevens 76% of the time.

Take Which Supreme Court Justice Are You Test at HelloQuizzy

If anyone has sent me email within the last month or so and not received an expected or desired reply, please resend it. I discovered last night that my spam filters have gone seriously awry, and are flagging all kinds of things as junk -- some of which I want to keep.

(I found about 300 messages in my junk folder that shouldn't have been there.)

I typically keep only 2 weeks of junk around, so if it's older than that, it's already gone.

I turned off auto-filing, and I'm still tweaking junk filters, so if you resend, I should get it this time.

Apologies for the inconvenience...

I expect most of you know the drill. Soil, mulch, paving blocks and the like are all very big and bulky, so we set them up outside in the parking lot. Inexplicably, outside in the parking lot is a place where this strange phenomenon called "weather" happens.

Customer: Hey! All these bags of soil are **WET**!
Me: Yes ma'am. It's been raining.
Customer: Don't you have any dry ones?
Me: No ma'am. It's been raining.
Customer: But why are they all **WET**???!?!?
Me: ...!!!!

And my friend Mike, who is a cashier, has encountered a new high, or low, in customer obtuseness. He was riding herd on the self-check registers, when he noticed a customer trying to feed bills into the bill acceptor while staring abstractedly at the ceiling. He watched her for a few minutes, and then she turned to him...

Customer: How are you supposed to do this?
Mike: Excuse me ma'am, what are you having problems with?
Customer: I'm trying to insert bills, face up.

He's not entirely sure whether she was having him on or not.

As of Saturday, I am an 'Associate Sponsor'. I'm such a gosh-darn cool-and-fabulous employee that I'm going to be mentoring new employees on a regular basis. (I already get tagged to train people on the registers on a regular basis. This role expands that training into general Lovely Workplace employee behaviors and mechanics. No, there's no additional recompense other than egoboo and something else to put on a resume.)

This distinction comes with (yet another) badge for the badge clip*, the back side of which has a list of sponsor behaviors associated with "exceeding expectations" and "best in class sponsorship". (If anyone had practiced these on me when I started, I'd have thought I was being stalked. If there's interest, I'll jot 'em down and post 'em later.)

*My badge clip currently holds my nametag, my "cashier" and "sales associate" badges, and my "licensed operator" badge which gives me corporate permission to menace people and destroy merchandise and property with the pallet stacker and the sit-down forklift. (Well, not seriously, but those activities are much more entertaining than the verb "use".) I haven't carried this many pieces of plastic on a clip since the Minicon (Minicon 30?) where all the different volunteer gigs had different badges...

Small Gods, by Terry Pratchett. Not only is it fantasy satire at its very best, it's a pointed and pertinent commentary on what happens when an organized religion worships itself rather than its god.

I had already kinda done this by refusing to use the IM service and ignoring my Yahoo Mail, but I'm going to make it official: on 05/14/09 I will be flushing Yahoo and deleting abpeed@yahoo.com. This is due to many ongoing Quality Of Service and customer support issues that I've been having over the past year or so.

Most of you already know how/where to contact me elsewhere, but if you don't and would like to keep in touch, please drop me a line.

Thanks!

Well, it's early in the season yet (and up until about a week ago, we were still getting snow), so I have no entertaining customer stories from this year's stint in Lawn & Garden.

However, there has been plenty of corporate and store management asshattery going on...

For starters, for whatever reason, our store didn't get designated as a 'Superstore' for the buyers this year. This means that we are not going to be getting several items of merchandise this season, some of which are normally big sellers. No lawn decor (wind socks, wind chimes, cheesy resin statuary, etc.) -- which I can see, none of that ever sold well; but also, no shepherds hooks or deck hangers for hanging baskets (always very popular with the summer people), no planter stands (the people who patio-garden in big planters are seriously bummed), no hammocks or lawn umbrellas (enh), fewer patio sets to choose from (enh again), and NO FOLDING CHAIRS. NONE. Denying folding chairs to the local customer base (summer & permanent) is akin to denying flannel shirts to the grunge scene in Seattle; only riots can ensue.

We're already getting customer flak about it; unfortunately, we can do nothing other than refer them to the online website and push the "site-to-store" delivery. We've considered printing up a business card with contact numbers/methods for customer complaints and handing them out, but we haven't taken that step yet.

We have a new assistant manager over us this year. He's young, enthusiastic, driven, and a motivator. Okay so far, but he's also a control freak, doesn't plan or manage his resources well, doesn't necessarily communicate his plans to his peers, doesn't defer willingly to the voice of experience, and has only lived in the area for five years. (This last wouldn't be much of an issue in any other department, but L&G success/profitability is VERY much driven by familiarity with and acceptance of the local climate and customer base's needs/wants.) As a result, the FIRST question nearly every L&G associate now asks has changed from "What's on the agenda?" or "Any deliveries today?" to "Is D in?" When the answer is in the affirmative, the usual reaction is an indrawn breath and a wince, because we know that the day is going to be significantly less productive than it could be.

As always, I remain completely mystified by the Secret Formulas that are used to drive product ordering for L&G. I surmise that at the beginning of the season they are based upon past product performance, and that ongoing ordering is based upon past performance for that week of the fiscal year, and that they should at some point change their emphasis to respond to actual Point-Of-Sale numbers, and that they are occasionally overridden by buyers in response to store requests, regional management requests, corporate marketing promotions, product availablity, and/or unpredictable drug/metabolism interactions. That being said, it's quickly becoming apparent that that shift in emphasis to POS response isn't happening nearly as quickly as it ought to for some products. Here's a specific example: bird seed and bird feeders. We have **STUPID** amounts of bird seed and feeders on hand, and more coming every day. In previous years, lots of people were spoiling the local wildlife rotten... but the stuff is expensive, and people this year are more concerned with feeding themselves, so it's not selling nearly as quickly. Our bird seed aisle is full. Our bird seed features are full. Our flex counters (think of them as overflow shelves for extra product) are full. Our storage shelves in the bin are full... and yet, they STILL come. If such things interest you, keep an eye on your local Lovely Workplace; sooner or later, if we are indicative of the general scheme of things, there's going to be a MASSIVE sale on the stuff just to get shed of it.

Well, there's more, but I expect that's enough for starters. Coming soon: The Saga of T & A. (No, it's not what you think.)

Every now and then you find something truly wonderful that makes your day.
(I'll never look at Bizet, Beethoven or Irish folksongs in quite the same way.)

* I've shifted (by hand) an estimated 2 tons of merchandise (dirt/soil, plants, charcoal, grills, planters, etc.) and equipment;
* I've moved, with the help of a pallet jack, approximately double that weight of the same types of items;
* I've spent about 8 hours using (e.g., wrestling with) an ancient Big Joe Mfg. straddle truck, sort of an mini-forklift used for moving and lifting pallets. (It weighs about a ton.)
* I've walked (and this is confirmed with a pedometer) almost 40 miles.

Last week I was thinking I should get back to working out on a regular basis. I guess in a sense, I have. (eyeroll)

No outstanding customer stories this week, so I will instead regale you with a couple of my favorite episodes from Lawn & Garden in the past two years.

I had one customer who had been all over the store, and finished her visit to the Lovely Workplace out in L&G; she picked up a few odds and ends there, including a couple packages of seeds... which she specifically requested to have bagged separately.When I commented that she must have picked them up for someone else, she replied "Oh no, they're for me. But I don't want them bagged with everything else because they've been genetically altered, and I don't want them to contaminate the rest of my groceries." Well! I couldn't ignore the evil little voice in the back of my head. "Ma'am, you do realize that any vegetables that grow from these seeds will also have been genetically altered?" Presented with this horrifying information, she decided she didn't want the seeds at all. People, vegetables have been being genetically altered for centuries. It's called SELECTIVE BREEDING.

Folks who buy grills can either buy them in the box or have them assembled. Some of those boxes are pretty big. The assembled grills are even bigger. We've had any number of customers who have had to go home to get a bigger vehicle because their purchase wouldn't fit into the one they brought. Most of them go borrow a pickup truck from a friend or relative, and then have to face the realization that when the carrying space is larger than the purchase, the purchase MOVES around in the carrying space. In most situations we've been able to convince them to go buy bungee cords, but on one memorable occasion we had one customer load his brand new assembled bigass $700 grill into the back of his pickup truck, refuse to lay it down in the bed, but instead park it against the cab of the truck with the wheels locked, secure in the knowledge that, since the wheels couldn't turn, the grill wouldn't move. Bungee cords? He didn't need no stinkin' bungee cords. He got to the highway, but when he accelerated to turn onto the highway, the immovable grill flipped out over the side of the pickup bed and bounced down the embankment, there to land in the parking lot of Applebee's just in time to suffer a head-on collision with a car. He was very irate when we refused to allow him to return it.

The alltime winner in the Inappropriately Sized Vehicle category, however, is the fatuous daddy who bought the biggest swingset we had in the store for his darling daughter. It came in a box about 12 feet long that weighed about 250 lbs. Another associate and I wrestle this behemoth to the curb, there to be met by Fatuous Daddy, driving a VW Rabbit. Specifically, a VW Rabbit crammed to the ceiling with crap from the backseat forward, leaving a spacious gap about 2 feet wide in the hatchback. He asked us to strap it to the roof of the car, but decided that it would be a bad idea when we pointed out that it would probably result in a deep dent. He announced that he would go get a bigger vehicle, we breathed a sigh of relief and parked the swingset by the entrance gate, he drove off, and we went back in to do other things. 15 minutes later another associate wanders in through the entrance gate, stops me, and says "I can't believe you guys allowed that customer to put that big box into that little car like that." I look over and sure enough, the swingset is gone. It seems Fatuous Daddy drove around the parking lot, came back to the gate, manhandled the swingset diagonally into the back of the Rabbit, tied the hatch down with what appeared to be several plastic shopping bags knotted together, and drove off with about 8 feet of swingset sticking out into oncoming traffic. He must have made it home, because we never did hear any reports of an accident involving multiple cars and a swingset, or of a swingset ripping the hatchback off the car.