MY LIFE - JUNE

Thursday, June 27, 2002

I've realized that rollerblading when it's 90° outside is asking to sit in a puddle of sweat for the next half-hour, even with the air conditioning cranking in my car. But I guess the point is that I did do it, even though I went through a bottle and a half of water along the way.

Right now, my goal has been to go from Bagley Rd. to Royalton Rd. and back, about 14, 15 miles total if I manage to pull it off. The last time I went, which was sweatfest, I almost made it to Royalton Rd. before realizing that I had already drank more than half my water and was going to run out long before I made it back to my car.

I turned around, rollerbladed to the water fountain that's about a quarter mile away from where I was parked, and absolutely drank myself to death. I just kept drinking water like there was no tomorrow, then I decided I needed to get back to my car where I promptly sat down, and just started sweating like crazy. I turned my car on, turned the air on, and sweated more. The humidity was so high, I could've put a wind tunnel in front of me and still sweat like crazy.

I guess the moral victory was actually being able to rollerblade despite the conditions. It's something I've pledged to do partly because I'm not in great shape, partly because it keeps me active. I think the next time I'll be out is either Monday or Tuesday when I'm off of work.

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Some issues to contend with while at work. Number one, what do we do when a customer is swearing at us over something that we can't control? Number two, what about all these people who don't know their insurance, have new cards, or don't know which card is right? Number three, what about people who want to wait in DRIVE-thru? Number four, what about this day vs. night thing that was reignited (by my manager of all people), number five, why am I responsible for practically everything back there? Number six, who keeps putting things in the wrong place when the order's being put away?

Yeah, there are a lot of issues going on. The first one is simple. If we say we can't control something, we really can't control it. If we order something and it does not come in, there's obviously a manufacturing issue (and with this being the year of the backorder, there's a lot of stuff) and we can't guarantee anything. I've had more than one person complain because we said we'd order something and it didn't come in. There's only so much explaining I can do.

Also, if the insurance is run on a prescription, we cannot control or change the price that comes back. As much as I'd like to charge everyone $5 for a prescription, the truth is that's no longer the case anymore. If it comes back higher, call your insurance company. We CANNOT control the price, nor can we control what's covered by your insurance.

If you don't know your own insurance, I suggest you not yell and scream at anyone in a pharmacy who tells you something isn't covered or if the price is different from what you expected. We don't know, so if you don't know, then there's not a whole lot of explaining that can be done. We are not psychics. Oh, and throw out your old cards already. I cannot believe how many people hold on to old cards, then don't know which one's the right one.

My manager evidently tried to reignite the day vs. night people thing that went on last year when he was talking about the shop backs (stuff that customers decided not to buy but did not return to the shelf) that were in the pharmacy. He evidently said that day people had said it was the night people's fault and then said night people blamed it on the day people. I have no idea why he even said that. I have not heard one word about it from the day people or night people myself, so he must have been looking for something to yell about.

The two other things both involve me. First off, I don't think Steve or Jim are doing a whole lot to try and get other techs involved in the extra activities that need to be done. I seem to be the only responsible for a lot of things and I can't seem to figure out why that keeps happening. Certain things I did ask to do, but other things were just kind of handed to me without anyone even asking me.

I don't mind carrying responsibility, but I can't do it all, and will not be doing it all this fall when I go back to school.

Second, I need to figure out who keeps putting stuff away wrong in the order. Over the last month, we have found more things out of place than in the previous year overall and I can't tell if it's someone who just doesn't know where something goes or if someone's just not paying attention, but it's getting out of hand. I need to talk with everyone back there at some point and try to emphasize if they can't find it, ask someone. Don't just go and put it where you think it should go.

The meeting itself was a joke, only something that Bob found necessary and I think he only did it because someone higher up forced him to.

One more thing. Who's fucking brilliant idea was it to try and get the pharmacy to stay open until midnight on July 4th? I know I won't work it if they try to pressure us into doing it and I don't know of anyone who'd agree to work it either. I do know the front store is open, but the pharmacy is not right now, which is going to lead to some people coming in demanding to know why the pharmacy's closed.

I know I'm not that old, but it seems to me that on holidays, it used to be no one was open past six other than Drug Mart and the gas stations. No one was open Christmas and very few places were open on other major holidays. Now people demand that these stores be open normal hours on holidays and I don't know when this started happening. It's getting to the point where we might as well keep everyone open 24 hours and never close again.

I mean, are we that dependent as a whole?

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I have to both congratulate and condem the people responsible for gummie lifesavers. It's the most dangerous combination for me: gummies (which I love), and lifesavers (which I also love). As a result, I have not been able to stop eating the damn things since I found them in little containers that contain a whole lot of them.

I'm like that though. I find something that gets me going for a while, then after the novelty's worn off, I find something else. For a while, it was chocolate creme oreos, now it's the gummies. Before that, it was orange gummies. Before that, rainbow cookies. I'm just fucking queer like that I guess.

Anyway, that was just something that I wanted everyone to know. Not that I expect anyone to care. God help you if you do.

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I played a little bit of a video game called "Fatal Frame," and Jim was right. This game will scare the shit out of you. The ghosts come out of nowhere and they are freaky looking. Then you realize that you have to actually do something to get them to go away.

Other games that I've been playing are Grand Theft Auto III (it's just such a sick game), High Heat Baseball (at least in my game the Indians are good), and Medal of Honor: Frontline.

GTA III is sick because you can just cause so much mayhem without actually having to do anything in the game. Sure, you could do the missions, but why do that when you could take a tank and go and shoot everyone in sight? Why go do another job for the mafia when you could sit there, cheat, and let every pedestrian in the game have a weapon? Nothing like watching a girl with two shopping bags wield a flamethrower.

High Heat is good because it actually simulates a game. Try and pull an outside pitch and watch your batter swing and miss. Try to sneak a 2-0 fastball past the best hitter on the team? You'll be watching the cinematic replay of the home run. Score 22 runs in a game? Better believe you're only scoring 2 the next game. Sure, the Indians are 22-2 in my game, but I've had a lot of games where I didn't think I was going to win. I also just jacked the difficulty up and have watched batting averages plummet. Then Chuck Finley goes out and gives up 7 runs.

MOH: Frontline, well, it's just a good game. I guess there's a certain satisfaction in shooting one Nazi after another. That, and that first mission just get your heart pumping.

I just now realized that I'm describing a bunch of masculine video games when a majority of the people who read this site are females. This ought to get me a couple of interesting questions.

Did I mention that The Sims is a good game? *ahem*