MY LIFE - NOVEMBER

Monday, November 13, 2000

Today was a day when the phones just wouldn't stop ringing. It was non-stop and Joanne wasn't helping the cause by pretending to not hear either the phones or the drive-thru. She tried to throw a fit over me not getting the drive-thru until she was told that I was in the middle of taking two phone calls. I didn't say anything to her because I just didn't really care what she thought.

This was one of those days for her though. I was filling today along with Peggy until 4pm and all Joanne did was ask if we were ever going to fill the stuff that had come in off the order from earlier in the morning. We both must have just glared at her because she didn't mention it again. We were having enough trouble keeping up with the stuff that was coming in as we worked, much less stuff that shouldn't be picked up until a few hours later.

She also thought I was the one who wasn't marking bottles with "X's" to indicate partial bottles. I asked her to look at the bottles lined up in front of me, all of them marked with a red X. I then pulled out the only red marker in the pharmacy, which was in my pocket and told her it wasn't me. She didn't say anything on that either. It's much too hard to make someone look bad when it isn't them causing the problem.

Joanne doesn't run the pharmacy, even though she acts like she does. She's a tech. There are four pharmacists at that store. They run the pharmacy whether she likes it or not. I'm just saying this now in case there's any doubt. She doesn't bother me most of the time, but she best not be trying to make me look bad. I didn't have to transfer to the store. I chose to. If I were to ever leave, she'd be the reason.

But I'm not going anywhere. Contrary to how I might sound, I had a lot of fun today. The rest of us were cracking jokes left and right and having a good time despite it being fairly busy, but not overwhelming. The phones were probably the biggest problem, but I didn't mind answering them today. Most of the lines I answered were doctor calls anyway, making it a little easier on me.

I did have one nincompoop in drive-thru later in the day. First off, she said that she heard that we carried some sort of arthritis patch in our store. I had never heard of it (of course, she didn't help by not knowing what it was called) and couldn't find anything in the rest of the pain and arthritis care sections. She didn't seemed convinced, but she moved past that. Then after some interesting adventures with what scripts we were supposed to have, I was finally able to get her out of the way. She didn't seem to realize that the receipt I gave her for using a credit card was the one she had to sign. She signed it, then wouldn't give it to me. I told her it would be pretty stupid if she had to sign something she kept and pointed out it said "merchant copy" on the bottom.

There was also a person on the phone who wanted to know what a medication was. I told her it was and what it was generic for, then she wanted to know what it was for. I let the pharmacist tonight, Jim, take it and he explained to her what it was for. Then she apparently asked him what it was generic for and he told her exactly what I had told her. Then he had to tell her two more times and spell it for her too.

Is it just me, or are people getting more and more stupid everyday? How many people and how many times must something be explained before you finally figure out what we're saying? It's sad and funny all at the same time. This country is dumbing down at a pretty good rate.

This is probably why we don't have a president. We're so stupid we can't even figure out what we're looking at. I hope it gets better soon or we won't need sitcoms to parody real life. Pretty soon, we won't know the difference.

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I still have a somewhat stiff back at this point in time, caused by god knows what, but probably related to work. I'm sure that at some point I have to get some new boots/shoes to where to work since the ones I have are about two years old and just aren't cutting it anymore. So next chance I get, I should probably do something along those lines.

It doesn't hurt that much anymore though. I didn't really feel any pain, I was just uncomfortable from it being stiff. I sat down when I could and no one objected to this since the last thing the store and I need is for my back to go out and keep me from working. Otherwise, I would have cleaned cassettes again. As it stands, I didn't get that done, so I'll probably do that tomorrow after it slows down.

I don't know what I'll be doing, but since I've been doing mostly filling since my first day on the job, I wouldn't be surprised if that's what I end up doing tomorrow too. I would like to type for a while though since I haven't done that too much. I don't really care what I do though. It doesn't bother me one way or another and I don't mind filling or typing, nor do I prefer one over the other. Both are fairly straight forward and easy.

I'm scared because I'm actually calling people, or at least attempting to call people. I've had two wrong numbers in two days and that doesn't bode well for me. I've tried though, so what more can you do? I'm also one of the best on the register. I have a 100% scan and coupon scan rate (okay, so I've only done one coupon) and that's over 143 sales last week. I was one of the few with perfect scans.

But that's way off what my point was going to be. I have a body that sometimes just flat out rejects me. I've had days where my shoulder has killed me when I'm walking, if that makes sense. I had an interesting stretch of a week and a half where I apparently pinched a nerve in my right hand and could not write at all. I couldn't even hold on to a pen or pencil to even try to write.

My knees are always raising hell, especially after any vigorous activity. My ankles aren't as troublesome as they used to be, but every now and then I can have some pain in an ankle. I have off and on stomach cramping that I haven't been able to find a cause for. It has to be something I've eaten, but I can't figure out what it is that's causing the cramps.

I half expect my body to reject my liver, my brain to just shut down, my heart to enlarge, my kidneys to fail, my stomach to pop a hole the size of a softball, and my intestines to literally tie into a knot. All while playing football and getting creamed in the head by someone else's knee.

Then acid rain would fall and melt me away like the wicked witch of the west (or east, I can never remember the damn difference), wash me away into one of the rivers in Ohio that's supposedly off limits to people because of contamination, be mutated by the pollution into something like swamp thing, only less imposing, and eventually be attacked by a group of fish that were experiments in what happens when you cross minnows with pirhanas.

I just tried to picture that in my head. That would never happen. Pirhanas crossed with minnows would never waste their time on my mutated ass.

---

None of the forecasters can decide when it's going to snow and how much snow we're going to get. It was at first supposed to be tonight into tomorrow with some light accumulation in some areas. Now it's tomorrow into Wednesday with lake effect kicking into gear a little bit that could bring some accumulation in the snow belt. Others don't think there will be anything more than flurries.

The weekend is the only snowfall forecast anyone agrees on right now. Everything I've heard points towards a pretty decent snow storm coming in Friday into Saturday and probably into Sunday too. It isn't going to be any warmer than 45°, and that's only for Thursday when it's supposed to rain. Otherwise, mid to upper thirties is the general range of temperature.

The cold air and the weekend is the only thing they agree on right now. Come to think of it, I think a little competition would be nice between forecasters on different stations. Now that I think of it though, that would probably be really boring. You might get forecasters getting big heads too and demanding $200 million over a period of ten years, causing cable prices to jump by $30 each year.

Yeah, anyone in Cleveland who knows baseball knows I'm alluding to the situation with Manny Ramirez. This guy turned down a seven year, $119 million contract. It's absurd the Indians even offered him that much. He's a great hitter, but you don't see all around players getting that contract yet. I mean in a couple weeks you will when Alex Rodriguez signs, but not just yet.

If that offer isn't good enough for Manny Ramirez, then fuck him. Let him walk. All that talk about wanting to stay in Cleveland is bullshit and he's been listening to his agent, who's going to get fat off the deal too. If Manny really wanted to stay in Cleveland, he would've signed. But he didn't, so just let him walk. Let some other sorry team paying him $20 million a year.

Besides, we have people who can't get off the streets. $20 would look great right now, much less $20 million for a year. Even at $17 million a year, which was the Indians' offer, he would make more per at-bat than many people would make in a year. It's sad, silly, and shows just how badly things have escalated in baseball.

What are you going to do though? The bottom line is winning and owners have been willing to sacrifice everything to try and get one great player, rather than 25 good ones. We don't need Manny if that offer isn't good enough.

No one needs that kind of money. Especially not any athlete who's already rich. It really makes me sick how greedy some people are. If I hear one more athlete say "it's not about the money," I'm gonna shove their jewlery down their throat.