Just a quick note. My cell phone battery died earlier today. I don't mean it used up all of its stored charge, I mean it spontaneously - well, Rose was holding it at the time - became unable to power my phone, and is defying any attempts to recharge it. Thus, I've been completely unreachable by phone since about 2:30 this afternoon. You can always try calling David or Rose, chances are, they can give me a message. I'll be getting a new battery as soon as possible - I've got 5-C until Saturday, which, when coupled with my sleeping habit's further deterioration, means that I won't have a lot of spare time in the middle of the day 'til next week. After work is another matter, but I don't know where I could get a cell phone battery at 4 am. Well, maybe Wal-Mart, but I don't feel like driving all the way out there right now, especially if Mindy's not even going to be there.
And yes, those of you who've been thinking one thing this whole time, I'm quite aware how few people ever call me or need to get a hold of me. But it gives me something to do.
Candee Jay -- Lose This Feeling
2005-10-31
2005-10-30
And I wonder if you know how it really feels
I didn't mean to leave off on the New Orleans story so abruptly, but I realized I was kind of rambling, and decided to come back to it. So yeah, the first day was kinf of fun. There was this guy from Denver that was yelling at us as we were loading the oven in the morning - something like 'Why are there gaps in the oven? Keep it full!' It would be a lot more reasonable if he wasn't also the one yelling at us later about there being all these extra pizzas sitting around. Luckily, that was the only instance I ever had to deal with him. I think Jenn and Kassandra had him later, and they didn't like him any better, nor did anyone else that was down here. So once lunch was over, things cooled down a bit.
We were working with a group from North/South Carolina and Georgia. They were fairly cool, I s'pose. They were all excited, since it was their last day there. They'd been home a total of eight (?) days in the past month and a half, or so. The middle of the day was incredibly slow. We took turns going out and holding a huge sign at a major intersection about thirty seconds from the store. That was fun - the guys from up north were complaining about the heat outside; they didn't like being on 'sign duty'. It was around 90, so it wasn't that hot. We also threw a football around in the parking lot for a while - it was that slow.
'Bout 5, we started gearing up for the dinner rush, which hit 'bout six. I ended up on the order taking station, since none of the guys knew how to use the system the computers there used, which was the same system we used, albeit with different codes for the crust. I was paired up with Cita, who was cool, except she couldn't make change. That was *really* annoying. I tend to take math - especially at that level - for granted as being common knowledge, though I can understand her situation. The whole thing was really busy, really chaotic, due in no small part to the lack of orginization. Well, I'm not sure that's entirely fair. The NC guys had a system going, it just felt very loose with a lot of room for improvement. It was their last day there, and I had just gotten there and was still asking a lot of questions, so I wasn't about to say anything. Ambra was on the makeline the whole time, so we didn't really get to talk at all once five hit.
The customers' reaction was very interesting. First of all, Domino's had a store up and running three days after they started allowing people back in - the first competitor was... 14? 17? days later. We were one of the only places available to get food, and even when we were there, a month or so (? - no idea - ?) later, there still weren't many places open. So we had a lot of people who thanked us for being open and gave us tips. That provided an interesting contrast to the people that were upset we only had pepperoni and sausage, and the people on the phone that got *really* upset when they found out we weren't delivering - we had *no* drivers - and felt they had called for nothing. It was fun getting such opposite responses within very close proximity.
So the evening rush ran right up until 9 o'clock, when we closed. I didn't get to see sales figures for the day, though I'd guess it was somewhere in the 6k range (By comparison, 4k is a very, very busy day for us in San Marcos). Closing didn't take long at all, given that there were like five or six of us doing it, and they were all really, really anxious to get out of there. We met up with Jenn and Kassandra at the Command Center and headed back to the room. They had made plans to go to Bourbon Street that night, and Ambra jumped at the chance to go along as well. I passed, since a) I don't drink, b) I hate drunk people, and c) I've been in such an anti-social mood lately. So I hung out in the room, watching TV - CSI, Friends, Familly Guy, and Futurama - 'til they got back.
They were trashed. Jenn was the worst, by far. Kass and Ambra weren't showing it that much. The main problem was that the people they went with were severely trashed, as well. There was one guy in particular that kept wanting to get into our room. He knocked a few times. Finally, I answered the door instead of Jenn or Kass, and he got the hint. I had trouble falling asleep, and I could hear them out in the hallway for quite a while.
Second day comes around - they don't enjoy waking up at all. I know at least two of them, and quite possibly all three, had to throw up. That was fun, hearing each of them in turn. Yeah. We finally got everyone loaded and left. Same arrangement as the day before - Jenn and Kass in the trailer, Ambra and me at the store. She had to throw up a few more times as we were opening, though she was very conscientious about washing up quite thouroughly between the two. We had a different group, as well. First and foremost, Scott, the actual GM of the store, was back. We also had Adam, a driver from Pennsylvania. There were two more locals - Dwayne and Patrice, bringing the inside total up to 3. Equally exciting was that we had finally gotten a driver, who began training that day. Eric, the really cool guy from California, was in and out, as he was selling pizzas throughout the city and just using us as a supply base. The day time was even slower than the day before; Ambra and I were pretty bored. We prepped a crapload of wings, which was kinda fun. Well, not really, just different from what we're used to doing.
The evening, however, was where things got really interesting. With the new factors - the NC group was gone and the Gm was there, creating a much clearer chain of command, and with a day of experience under my belt, I felt much freer to open up, experiment more, act more natural. So I started being more 'managerial', and it showed. Ambra said she felt much the same way. They noticed, as well - when Calvin came through and commented on how few people there were, and asked Scott if he needed a few more, Scott said something to the effect of 'No, Ambra and Billy have things under control.' That felt good. Once the dinner rush started, Scott stayed on one of the order taking stations, while I was on the oven. Their store's set up fairly similiarly to ours, meaning that the oven is centrally located, and is a natural place to run the store from. So I did. I was letting people know when they needed to grab phones, when to load up 20 and 30 more deep dish, etc., making sure the special stuff was getting in (we'd just added sausage to our list of available toppings as well), that kind of thing. And it felt *great*. A couple times throughout the shift, I'd be helping arrange an order on the heat rack, Scott would tell me "Hey, I need 20 more deep dish in", and I'd get to respond "We started loading those about a minute ago." Ambra was a huge help as well - she was on makeline, and kept that area running smoothly; I think Dwayne and Cita were helping her.
The night went *much* smoother than the night before. That might be somewhat biased, though I can confidently state that wait times were lower and there was much better communication all around. Closing was about the same, maybe a little slower, since we were helping teach the new people what to do. I did forego tip money, though I borrowed two from Ambra to buy a two liter of Sprite (note: that soda will make an appearance later.) Samantha ended up giving us a ride home; Jenn and Kass were going out to eat with some other Domino's people. So Ambra and I hung out at the hotel room for a while, it was cool. Talked a bit, watched some TV. Oh, somewhere in there, the fact that she didn't mind sharing a bed with me came up, so I was looking foward to sleeping in an actual bed that night.
Anyway, Jenn and Kass finally got back, and they brought leftovers - chicken tenders, fries, and some weird sauce for them. We attacked it, 'cause it was great. Comparitively, at least. So yeah, we finally all got settled in for the night. It was a little weird sleeping in the same bed as Ambra, right next to her. We weren't touching or anything, but it was fairly close. It was just... different, I guess - I'd gotten used to Lilie being the other person in bed, and if we were in bed together, there would be a great deal of touching going on. The only other person I'd ever really shared a bed with before that was Rose, and while we weren't all up on each other or anything, we were touching. So anyway, there were maybe eight-twelve inches between Ambra and I - it wasn't that big of a bed, but we gave each other what space we could.
So yeah, I was looking foward to a peaceful, comfortable night's sleep. Yeah, that didn't happen. I woke up in the middle of the night, sometime around 3 or 5. Somewhere in there. I was really thirsty, and I remembered that I had the remains of the bottle of sprite sitting right next to the bed. I was very gentle, made very smooth movements so as to not disturb Ambra. I carefully sat up, and slowly opened the bottle. I heard, very distinctly, the "krsh!" sound when the seal broke on the bottle and air was allowed in.
That's when all hell broke loose.
Seriously.
I'm guessing the air noise hid the speaker turning on, because less than half a second after I opened the sprite, this INCREDIBLY loud alarm goes off.
And that's where I'll cut it tonight. I'll post the aftermath later, followed by a work update and a social (ha! ha!) one as well, probably tacked on to that one. Fun stuff.
Anastacia -- Left Outside Alone
We were working with a group from North/South Carolina and Georgia. They were fairly cool, I s'pose. They were all excited, since it was their last day there. They'd been home a total of eight (?) days in the past month and a half, or so. The middle of the day was incredibly slow. We took turns going out and holding a huge sign at a major intersection about thirty seconds from the store. That was fun - the guys from up north were complaining about the heat outside; they didn't like being on 'sign duty'. It was around 90, so it wasn't that hot. We also threw a football around in the parking lot for a while - it was that slow.
'Bout 5, we started gearing up for the dinner rush, which hit 'bout six. I ended up on the order taking station, since none of the guys knew how to use the system the computers there used, which was the same system we used, albeit with different codes for the crust. I was paired up with Cita, who was cool, except she couldn't make change. That was *really* annoying. I tend to take math - especially at that level - for granted as being common knowledge, though I can understand her situation. The whole thing was really busy, really chaotic, due in no small part to the lack of orginization. Well, I'm not sure that's entirely fair. The NC guys had a system going, it just felt very loose with a lot of room for improvement. It was their last day there, and I had just gotten there and was still asking a lot of questions, so I wasn't about to say anything. Ambra was on the makeline the whole time, so we didn't really get to talk at all once five hit.
The customers' reaction was very interesting. First of all, Domino's had a store up and running three days after they started allowing people back in - the first competitor was... 14? 17? days later. We were one of the only places available to get food, and even when we were there, a month or so (? - no idea - ?) later, there still weren't many places open. So we had a lot of people who thanked us for being open and gave us tips. That provided an interesting contrast to the people that were upset we only had pepperoni and sausage, and the people on the phone that got *really* upset when they found out we weren't delivering - we had *no* drivers - and felt they had called for nothing. It was fun getting such opposite responses within very close proximity.
So the evening rush ran right up until 9 o'clock, when we closed. I didn't get to see sales figures for the day, though I'd guess it was somewhere in the 6k range (By comparison, 4k is a very, very busy day for us in San Marcos). Closing didn't take long at all, given that there were like five or six of us doing it, and they were all really, really anxious to get out of there. We met up with Jenn and Kassandra at the Command Center and headed back to the room. They had made plans to go to Bourbon Street that night, and Ambra jumped at the chance to go along as well. I passed, since a) I don't drink, b) I hate drunk people, and c) I've been in such an anti-social mood lately. So I hung out in the room, watching TV - CSI, Friends, Familly Guy, and Futurama - 'til they got back.
They were trashed. Jenn was the worst, by far. Kass and Ambra weren't showing it that much. The main problem was that the people they went with were severely trashed, as well. There was one guy in particular that kept wanting to get into our room. He knocked a few times. Finally, I answered the door instead of Jenn or Kass, and he got the hint. I had trouble falling asleep, and I could hear them out in the hallway for quite a while.
Second day comes around - they don't enjoy waking up at all. I know at least two of them, and quite possibly all three, had to throw up. That was fun, hearing each of them in turn. Yeah. We finally got everyone loaded and left. Same arrangement as the day before - Jenn and Kass in the trailer, Ambra and me at the store. She had to throw up a few more times as we were opening, though she was very conscientious about washing up quite thouroughly between the two. We had a different group, as well. First and foremost, Scott, the actual GM of the store, was back. We also had Adam, a driver from Pennsylvania. There were two more locals - Dwayne and Patrice, bringing the inside total up to 3. Equally exciting was that we had finally gotten a driver, who began training that day. Eric, the really cool guy from California, was in and out, as he was selling pizzas throughout the city and just using us as a supply base. The day time was even slower than the day before; Ambra and I were pretty bored. We prepped a crapload of wings, which was kinda fun. Well, not really, just different from what we're used to doing.
The evening, however, was where things got really interesting. With the new factors - the NC group was gone and the Gm was there, creating a much clearer chain of command, and with a day of experience under my belt, I felt much freer to open up, experiment more, act more natural. So I started being more 'managerial', and it showed. Ambra said she felt much the same way. They noticed, as well - when Calvin came through and commented on how few people there were, and asked Scott if he needed a few more, Scott said something to the effect of 'No, Ambra and Billy have things under control.' That felt good. Once the dinner rush started, Scott stayed on one of the order taking stations, while I was on the oven. Their store's set up fairly similiarly to ours, meaning that the oven is centrally located, and is a natural place to run the store from. So I did. I was letting people know when they needed to grab phones, when to load up 20 and 30 more deep dish, etc., making sure the special stuff was getting in (we'd just added sausage to our list of available toppings as well), that kind of thing. And it felt *great*. A couple times throughout the shift, I'd be helping arrange an order on the heat rack, Scott would tell me "Hey, I need 20 more deep dish in", and I'd get to respond "We started loading those about a minute ago." Ambra was a huge help as well - she was on makeline, and kept that area running smoothly; I think Dwayne and Cita were helping her.
The night went *much* smoother than the night before. That might be somewhat biased, though I can confidently state that wait times were lower and there was much better communication all around. Closing was about the same, maybe a little slower, since we were helping teach the new people what to do. I did forego tip money, though I borrowed two from Ambra to buy a two liter of Sprite (note: that soda will make an appearance later.) Samantha ended up giving us a ride home; Jenn and Kass were going out to eat with some other Domino's people. So Ambra and I hung out at the hotel room for a while, it was cool. Talked a bit, watched some TV. Oh, somewhere in there, the fact that she didn't mind sharing a bed with me came up, so I was looking foward to sleeping in an actual bed that night.
Anyway, Jenn and Kass finally got back, and they brought leftovers - chicken tenders, fries, and some weird sauce for them. We attacked it, 'cause it was great. Comparitively, at least. So yeah, we finally all got settled in for the night. It was a little weird sleeping in the same bed as Ambra, right next to her. We weren't touching or anything, but it was fairly close. It was just... different, I guess - I'd gotten used to Lilie being the other person in bed, and if we were in bed together, there would be a great deal of touching going on. The only other person I'd ever really shared a bed with before that was Rose, and while we weren't all up on each other or anything, we were touching. So anyway, there were maybe eight-twelve inches between Ambra and I - it wasn't that big of a bed, but we gave each other what space we could.
So yeah, I was looking foward to a peaceful, comfortable night's sleep. Yeah, that didn't happen. I woke up in the middle of the night, sometime around 3 or 5. Somewhere in there. I was really thirsty, and I remembered that I had the remains of the bottle of sprite sitting right next to the bed. I was very gentle, made very smooth movements so as to not disturb Ambra. I carefully sat up, and slowly opened the bottle. I heard, very distinctly, the "krsh!" sound when the seal broke on the bottle and air was allowed in.
That's when all hell broke loose.
Seriously.
I'm guessing the air noise hid the speaker turning on, because less than half a second after I opened the sprite, this INCREDIBLY loud alarm goes off.
And that's where I'll cut it tonight. I'll post the aftermath later, followed by a work update and a social (ha! ha!) one as well, probably tacked on to that one. Fun stuff.
Anastacia -- Left Outside Alone
2005-10-27
Gnometastic, international goodwill ambassador
I should explain this chat log a bit. For whatever reason, I often get random tells from Chinese farmers. I know that happens to a lot of people as they hawk their wares... but I get them IN CHINESE. Yeah, kinda weird. Anyway. It kind of annoys me, so I respond in the only Chinese I know - swear words. Tends to get them to leave me alone. Sometimes, we trade insults (well, I can only assume they're throwing insults back at me - I do recognize every third of forth word, but I'm not sure how heavily context-dependent they are). This last response definitely sets the record for the longest response I've ever gotten... and I'm fairly certain he's telling me off the whole time. I might have to track someone down who can tell me what he said, just for kicks.
2005-10-26
It's time I changed the combination
So here is the complete dump of the pictures I took during the New Orleans trip. A lot of them aren't terribly exciting unless you work in a Domino's, since I was documenting a lot of the cool stuff they had. That's a big chunk of the pictures. Another big chunk is just pictures of people - not necessarily in cool situations or anything, just a picture of them. There are only like three of the city itself, and none of them really do any justice to the state of everything.
Sugababes -- Conversation's Over
 |  |
| That's Kassandra, when we finally got to our room and (somewhat) settled in. | Our room even had a TV. All the comforts of home. |
 |  |
| It did have a nice view, though. We were on the ninth floor. | That's Jenn, who wasn't terribly happy about waking up Tuesday morning. 'Course, she'd be much less thrilled about waking up the next morning. |
 |  |
| That's my bed right there - blanket, pillow, care bear. | Jenn got dressed first, then climbed back into bed. |
 |  |
| Exterior shot of the hotel. | Military vehicle parked on the side of the road. Growing up in San Marcos, that's not a sight I'm used to. |
 |  |
| That's Dale, the second guy to man the command center. He was off Monday and Tuesday. | Their walk-in was full of deep dish boxes. That's the middle stack we're looking at. The area to the left is just as full. |
 |  |
| The middle boxes are all pepperoni; the lower boxes are cheese. You can also see a few sausage on top. | The guy about to cheese a pizza is Eric, from California. Really cool guy. |
 |  |
| Ambra. | Those pepperonis are actually about the size of a quarter. Quite small. |
 |  |
| Cita, the first of the locals to get hired. | Calvin, the VP. Of something. |
 |  |
| They had security monitors, which was really cool. | That's our full menu. Even with that, people still asked for all kinds of random stuff. At least this time, I could just point to this and say "This is our full menu, sir." |
 |  |
| Approved for re-opening. Yay. | Full shot of the lobby. Two security window-opening things. |
 |  |
| They had a *huge* driver map. That's Adam providing a sense of size. He was about my height, give or take an inch. | Another security monitor, showing the lobby, side door, back door, and front walkway. |
 |  |
| Yet another security monitor, showing the part of the store just inside the side door. | Three tiered, padded heat rack. |
 |  |
| Boxes of parmesan and crushed red peppers. They do exist. | Their pizza peel had bent up rear edges, which was both good and bad. |
 |  |
| That ladle was much, much wider, but much shallower, than ours. Made saucing much quicker and easier to evenly distribute the sauce. | Sink area. |
 |  |
| They also had a weird cutter, but we weren't using it. | Command center board, which had constantly updated stats on the status of all of their open stores. |
 |  |
| Random shot of a store. | That's the store Ambra and I worked at. |
 |  |
| Back area. | Manager office. |
 |  |
| They gave us candy. The thing that got my attention was Hershey's Cherry Kisses, which had a thick cherry sauce in a normal Hershey's chocolate kiss. Almost as good as a chocolate-covered maraschino cherry. Almost. | Miniature laminted driver maps. Another cool thing they had. |
 |  |
| No comment. | That's Scott, the GM of the store we were at. Constantly reminded me of Kevin Nealon, but with a New Orleans accent. |
 |  |
| Patrice, another of the local people that got hired. She played computer games; she pronounced Diablo "Dee - ab - low". Wasn't sure what she meant at first. I told her about gamefaqs.com. | Military vehicle getting pizza. |
 |  |
| Adam and I spent about an hour and a half each day holding up that sign. Well, the second day, we each held up a sign. | Note: He has a visor. Bleh! I want a visor! |
 |  |
| The Venue - The hottest club around, apparently. Nice cars out front. | An example of said cars. |
 |  |
| Me and Ambra. | Me and Dwayne, another local that had just been hired 'cause he "Had nothing to do at night, might as well be getting paid for something." Cool guy. |
 |  |
| Me and Scott. | Me and Patrice. |
 |  |
| Mark, from Pennsylvania. Didn't like him. | Samantha (left) and Samantha (right). Samantha said that she wanted to take all of us back to her store, since we were all "Cool as shit and actually had senses of humor." |
 |  |
| The exposed wiring at our hotel. | Also, exposed duct work. |
 |  |
| They gave us hard hats. | Devastation. |
 |  |
| Ambra. | Jenn. |
 |  |
| Not sure. | Dale at the command center, as we're getting ready to leave. |
 |  |
| A picture of the picture of a store that got really flooded. | That couple was coming in as we were leaving. |
 |  |
| The four of us. | Had to get a shot of military guys with pizza. "That's not how you eat those wings, soldier!" |
 |  |
| Devastation. | Car on a fence. |
 |  |
| Boarded-up Sonic. | FEMA center for pets. |
 |  |
| "I'm proud of my ladies." One of the best quotes the whole trip. | "Elysian Fields Ave." I think that's awesome. |
 |  |
| Obligatory big church picture. | We were operating a trailer that made and sold pizzas. That's where Jenn and Kassandra were working. |
 |  |
| Inside shot. Kinda. | Ricky would take that bike around and sell pizzas. |
 | |
| Subway had their full menu, but they closed at 3. They even had the Spicy Italian, which Mom likes, but you can't order (directly) here. | |
Sugababes -- Conversation's Over
