'Cause there's nowhere you can run

Well, Christmas is over. I s'pose. It was pretty good.

I closed Wednesday - Sunday. It felt good to be back at the store, and I prefer it there, I think. At least while I'm working the second job, I won't be thinking about taking a GM position. Poor Gina, though, has been really sick all week and was only starting to get better on Saturday, but still couldn't keep anything down. And yeah, we have like *no* drivers right now - 8 or 9, I think. And "Don't worry, things will die off?" Ha, no. I mean, things got kinda slow, but nowhere near as slow as everyone kept saying. Especially Christmas Eve - we stayed open until 10, which was our franchise-designated time to close. We were going to try to close much earlier - 8 or so, if things were slow enough, but people kept ordering. We had a 20 and a 40 pie hour. Yeah. But in short, yeah, I'm glad to be back.

Supposed to be getting my truck back Tuesday or Wednesday, something like that. I have Monday-Wednesday off, so it's not that big of an issue, but I can't really get anything done that involves leaving the house. I want to get down to the Wal-Mart Distribution Warehouse and apply there as soon as possible, so I know whether or not that's going to work out. I *really* don't want a second food-service job; that would suck. Hardcore. Someone mentioned the possibility of going back to Sonic, and I just 'bout slapped them. So we'll see how that goes.

David's still in Denver, and won't be getting back for another two weeks or so. So that's fun. It's really quiet and lonely here.

So, yeah. Got a few cool things for Christmas. David got me a raised, split, ergonomic keyboard, which is a lot of fun, though it does take a little adjusting. Mom get me a full-body pillow, which is something I've been wanting for a while. Those are the two things that really stick out. Oh, yeah - Carrie called to wish me a Merry Christmas, which is just awesome! We talked a little - far too little - and she had to go. I still haven't abandoned my hopes of her coming down some time for a visit.

Lemme see, lemme see, what else? Nothing, really. Been playing some WoW, redid my UI from the ground up. Dropped a ton of CT Mod - the bars, mainly, in favor of Discord Action Bars; dropped Statusbars for Nurfed_Hud and Discord Unit Frames. I moved the stuff around on Nurfed_Hud a little, and replaced the outer left bar. It was originally a casting bar timer, but it was kind of awkward, and eCastingBar fit in just fine, so I changed the outer left ring to track my target's mana/rage/energy/focus. Got Discord Art, but haven't done anything with it yet, and once I play Ihatebrooms more, I'll be playing around with Discord Group Buttons (or whatever it's called). Yeah, the Discord Mods are pretty cool. I'll post a few pictures if they ever release my picture blog back to general use.

Anastacia -- I Do

Never ever have I ever felt so low

So Jess asked me today how things are going with Ambra, and Felicia and I touched on that topic when she called about getting some stuff for the Steak Fanatic pizza, since she was about to run out and the office decided at the last minute to prolong the period of time in which we're offering the disgusting abomination. Yeah.

In both cases, I didn't really have an answer. Well, I did, kinda. The answer I had was that there wasn't anything to be going. I think that's my fault, as I haven't really pursued anything yet, mainly due to our schedules. Well, that, and I don't think I'm in an emotional state to even consider seeing someone else, when I can't seem to get past the last person I saw. I don't think it would be fair, the whole thing just sort of screams 'rebound' to me. So every time the oppurtunity arises, I passively let it go. Which got me to thinking about whether or not I should even try. I mean, first off, I'm not over Lilie, not by a long shot. Her stopping by work today and talking was enough to send me to the walk-in, crying, after she left, which was fun. Yeah. But something occurred to me about my relationship history the other day. Generally speaking, if the past is any indicator, this (Ambra) would end up being a disaster, or not ending well, or something like that, for the simple reason that someone else didn't do the hard part already.

That sounds a little weird, so I'm going to go dredging about in my past, a favorite pasttime of mine, and categorize my relationships by some new standards and see what patterns emerge. It should be fun.

Chelsea

Ah, yes, the one that started it all. Now, to be fair, you can't really even call this one a relationship. I mean, holy crap, we were kids. To be fair, yeah, a lot of kids are pursuing relationships - or some twisted version of it - this young, but I sure as hell didn't know what was going on.

• Initiation: Completely by myself. No help, nothing from her.
  
• Duration: A year, from the beginning to the end, but there's a lot of holes in the middle.
  
• Quality: Terrible. As I said, I had no frickin' clue what the hell was going on. My connection to reality has always been tenuous at best, and it was particularly weak concerning the fairer sex when I was younger (not to imply, by contrast, that it's any better now.)
  
• How: She finally realized that the entire thing was a terrible idea, had nothing to do with reality, and ended it. I appluad her for the action.
  
• Now: We never really talked before hand - I was too nervous - and not much after - I was too embarrassed. So, yeah.
  

Overall, a complete disaster. And it was all me. Isolated incident, or ignored foretelling? We'll see.

Shayna

I moped around a lot after Chelsea dumped me; one day, in Gamez's Algebra I class, Shayna raised her hand and asked, "Can I go over to Billy's desk and talk to him to make sure he's okay?" And gosh darn it, she did.

• Initiation: It was kind of a natural progression from the concern she showed for me, and the whole thing kind of grew out of that. I can't remember who asked who out, but the whole thing started from her.
  
• Duration: A couple months? I remember telling her I had a crush on Barbara in Ms. Baker's science class, which was still eighth grade, so I'm going to go with about three months, give or take.
  
• Quality: Pretty good, all things considered. Looking back, I'd say we clicked on certain things, and didn't really on other things, but more so positive than negative.
  
• How: She started things off when she came over and checked on me, and moved the whole thing along, until I torpedoed it all to hell. I'm pretty good at that. Told her I had written Barbara a secret-admirer letter, and that was pretty much that.
  
• Now: Friendly all the way through high school, but I haven't talked to her since. We're friends on MySpace, but haven't actually had any communication since. Good stuff.
  

She started things off, and they went well, until I ended them in my own special way. Inconclusive so far.

Barbara

So I developed a crush on Barbara, and pursued it. We went out for a while. I want to say sometime in April until band camp in the summer of our freshman year. Yeah, that sounds about right - her birthday was in late April, and I went to that as her boyfriend (or whatever), and I remember Josh giving me her break-up note after practice one day in summer band.

• Initiation: I asked her out after telling her I liked her. Nothing from anybody else.
  
• Duration: A few months. Five?
  
• Quality: Meh. We wrote letters back and forth almost every day, and went on a few outings - mainly movies, that I can remember. The Saint, Empire Strikes Back (I think), and Volcano spring to mind.
  
• How: We wrote letters back and forth all the time, so she broke up with me via letter - gave it to Josh to give to me after he was sure she'd left. In it, she said that I was "Immature" and two other things I don't really remember. She later (several years later) told me that she actually felt smothered. Fair enough.
  
• Now: We eventually started talking again later in high school after she spent most of freshmen year ignoring me (actively), except when her and Terri needed help in Biology, since Dufas was really, really bizarre and I was one of the few people who was able to figure out just what the hell he was trying to teach us on any given day. Spent some time with her via David a year or more ago, but nothing recent.
  

So this one is kinda like Chelsea - I started the whole thing, no third party help and nothing from her, and it was... well, lukewarm, for lack of a better word, and it ended with almost no warning.

Mary

Not going to go through the whole thing with Mary, since it lasted... three weeks, if that? I'll just mention that she asked me out within two weeks of school starting, we went on one date, and then she broke up with me. Fun stuff.

Crystal

Almost the exact same pattern as above. Hmm...

Kenni

Ah, Kenni. These were the good old days. Now that I think about it, I'm probably going to drop the structed list format and just kind of ramble. I met her at a pool party when Kristina asked if she could bring her little sister, which she did. Didn't think much of it at the time, 'til school started. Kenni was a freshman; I was a junior. Every morning, she'd come find me and give me a big hug and wish me a good day. Didn't matter where I was - in the cafetaria, chess club, or doing random tutoring in an equally random classroom - every morning, a good-morning hug. I eventually realized that that might be a sign, talked to Kristina about it briefly, asked her mom for permission, then went for it. Great relatiionship - we hung out a lot, enjoyed each other's company, gave each other our first kiss after the Homecoming Dance... good memories. It ended rather abruptly, because of a third party, it had nothing to do with either of us. So yeah, fairly successful, overall, and she started it.

Mindy

I'll try to keep this one brief. Crystal introduced us, since she thought we'd be good for each other, and Mindy wanted an older boyfriend. We hit it off very well right from the start, and had a long (at least by my standards - a year and a half) rollar-coaster relationship. We broke up and got back together eight times, and were a *bunch* of firsts for each other. Finally ended when I started going to UT. Fairly successful overall, and Crystal started it for us.

Suzie

She im'ed me one evening about what a jackalope was, and when we finally started hanging out, she dropped a ton of hints - we were sitting in her bed, and she had me start brushing her hair, a few others, until she finally takes me to this empty beach at like three am, and we had a moonlight stroll with the tide gently lapping at our ankles. I kissed her, she kissed me back, and we launched a four month relationship that lasted until I broke up with her on February 1st.

Lilie

Credit for this one goes to Kristen and Allison, who seriously tried to hook us up, and talked too much about it, respectively. The thought crossed my mind a few times during the relationship if it would have happened without their actions. Meh. Another fairly successful relationship brought about by other people's actions.

Sara

We only went on one date, but this was one that I pursued unilaterally, without second or third party assistance. Bombed when she found out I was an atheist, and told me she wouldn't be comfortable dating someone outside her religion.

Terri

Sort of skipped her, but I threw out any pretense of order a while back, and I'm approaching stream-of-consciousness writing here. We have a longer history than Mindy and I, and most likely just as tangled. It's really hard to say anything about this one in this context, though I remember one evneing at the Alkek library when she was definitely pushing hard to the hoop.

I guess the idea I'm trying to explore is that by far, my successful relationships have been those that were initiated by or came to fruitation through the acions of someone else, even the girl in question - Lilie, Mindy, Kenni, Suzie; whereas those that I initiated completely on my own - Barbara, Heather, Sara - tended to be lukewarm, go nowhere, and end relatively quickly or never even start. Now, it's not a definite rule - look at Crystal and Mary for very good counter-examples. However, as a general hypothesis, it does seem to fit most of the current evidence fairly well. Now, as to why, I have no idea. Granted, there's probably more of a confidence boost when there's definite signals coming in, and the fear of rejection is much, much less. That, and there's several layers of filtering already done, so any early flags that might have been thrown have already been cleared. However, I've never liked depending on other people to carry important messages for me - I'd rather do it myself.

I came to this realization almost a month ago during some reminiscing. I think it scares me, because as I grow more and more socially isolated, the chances of having that third party assistance - which, for the record, I've never solicited - declines rather steadily, not to say anything of the likelihood of second party signals.

I don't think much of this post makes sense, but I'm going to go with it anyway.


All Saints -- Never Ever

Bring me back to when we met, let's start all over

Almost ready to write about work and Chelsea; still working on Lilie.

So... had some weird dreams last night. At one point, Mike Bernal was sitting in the lobby, and I had to ask him about his order. Kinda weird. (Mike is Alan's Director of Operations. He's the one Gina had to tell that she was going to hire me despite what the JCS said.) That's one isolated little segment that I don't really remember anything else about.

The main part of the dream was spent riding around in the passenger seat of Mom's car while she drove around, and one of us was usually on the phone. There was a lot of talk about abortions, but I really can't remember why - someone we knew was going to get one, I think, or something like that. The part I remember really strongly was her talking to Mindy, then telling me that she was going to get one, and the concern that it was mine. Which really doesn't make much sense, since it's been like, well, four years, more or less, since we'd been together?

Yeah, it was kind of weird.

Kate Ryan -- Only If

I hide away my fears, hoping no one will come near

Ow.

So I'm ridiculously bored and lonely, and looking for something, anything, to do to keep me from going insane. David is in Denver spending the holidays with his family instead of here, so I'm watching MST3K by myself.

So I've been thinking. Why is it that some people can't find meaningful sex? Some people have sex with plenty of people they think they actually cared about, relationships they acted like they would actually go somewhere. Yet, when a lot of people try to find a relationship, something beyond just normal everyday sex with someone they couldn't give one tenth of one shit about, they can't find it? First, why the hell are they having sex with someone they couldn't give one tenth of one shit about, if they're looking for a close relationship? Are men today just incapable of actual romance? No, I don't think that's it. I think it's that the vast majority of women are, though they'll deny it, cruel, cold-hearted bitches that are not only incredibly self-centered, but want things both ways - proverbially speaking, they want to have their cake and eat it too. Some people find success at first, by hiding those negative traits for a while, and end up scarring the people they're with, giving them enough emotional baggage to make later attempts doomed to failure. That's why the "good ones" get harder and harder to find later on. What's the world coming to?

Anyway, I write this under the effect of a major negative emotional spiral, a huge downswing, and a night of crying, but that doesn't absolve me of any responsibility of what I say. That is all.

Milk, Inc -- Living a Lie

So why don't you just tell me?

Or maybe not. My picture storage blog is under review, because it displays characteristics of a spam blog. It's understandable - I don't post anything there except a bunch of pictures, which I then link over here. I don't like having just one picture per post, and would much rather have a bunch together, grouped in a table or some such, as I have been doing. So we'll see. I understand what they're doing, and even agree, it's just slightly annoying.

Kojak ft. Olive -- Tell Me (Original Version)

I don't feel like posting about work and my truck yet, nor about Lilie, nor Ambra, or hell, even being stranded alone in the apartment. So instead, I'll post some about the Molten Core raid last night. Screenshots to come.

Get your booty on the floor tonight

I don't really feel like talking about Chelsea just yet, or about the work situation that has been created. I'll get to that soon enough.

So instead, I'll talk about the two weird dreams I had last night. They may have been the same dream, I don't know.

The shorter one, I was driving. Pulled up at Lancaster and Craddock, getting ready to take a left, when this little blue car pulled into that weird little paved area across the street. I knew it was Mindy, but I didn't know how I knew. I then dismissed that knowledge as random speculation, when Mindy stuck her head out the window of the aforementioned car. She yelled something at me which I couldn't hear, but I somehow read her lips, and she was telling me that there was a hundred dollar bill on my windshield. That sounded kind of weird, so I got out and checked, and sure enough... it was right there. As I got out, though, it blew off, and started blowing down the grassy area on the other side of Craddock. Naturally, I got out and started chasing it. She got out and helped. We chased it down easily enough, and started heading back to our cars. I ripped it in half (got two 50's) and gave one to her, and kissed her on the lips. She reacted with surprise, but didn't pull away. It wasn't a long, drawn-out affair, nor was there tongue, but it was open-mouthed. Very weird.

Possible analyzation? A few things. First, I'm dealing with the loss of my truck right now, and a lot of memories of those two are intertwined - Mindy and my truck, I mean. I'm also hurt and alone right now, and dearly wish I had some to hold me and comfort me, which will naturally lead back to thoughts of Mindy as well.

The sceond one was equally strange, if not more so. The entire thing took place in this one classroom. I was on the phone with this other guy, and as a joke, I said some things that would make it strongly seem as though I were gay. This really cute girl was nearby and heard them, though I (in the dream) didn't knew she had, so she thought I was gay. She was very sad, and decided (?) to start liking this other guy, who actually was gay, but she didn't know that. Again, she was very cute. Not "hot" in the classical sense, but very attractive. Freckles and very pretty eyes. This one seems shorter in recollection, but it was in the middle of one of Stapp's classes, and I'm skipping the Statistics parts about alpha levels and the Poissant distribution curves and its proofs (which are fascinating, I assure you. During Statistics at SWT, I was going to leave way early to go help Lilie with something, but ended up staying for the entire class to watch the proofs, then went and helped her afterwards. It wasn't time-crucial or anything like that.)

Technotronic -- Pump Up the Jam

And the system, we'll set to overflow

Made my first student loan payments today. That was fun. Not really. Only 119 more to go. Now, if my transmission could just be moderately damaged, as opposed to requiring a complete replacement...

Well, here goes. The past few days, we haven't really done anything. Moved a couple things, but that's about it. Today, today is when the storm breaks. We're going to open tonight, take some orders. We've got to get everything set up, move some more stuff in, I'll start meeting my crew for the first time... it's going to be crazy. More later... but it's going to be okay, because I am the storm.

Tube and Berger ft Chrissie Hynde -- Straight Ahead

Hear that voice, it's the calm of your heart

This post is going to be sporadic and jumpy. Deal with it.

So I finally got to see my store. It's very much still under construction. When I was there, they were putting in the lights in the cieling, working on the walkin, all kinds of stuff. There were maybe 20 or so people working. I ended up just cleaning up the makeline (It's just like the one at Diana's store, blegh!!) and the oven (which is at a 45-ish degree angle to the cut table - double blegh!!). Eileen rode around in my truck a little, which was, well, fun. Not really. I ended up not being able to go to the work party, which Murph was quite adamant that I had to go to.

Oh yeah, Chelsea's in the shop right now. Transmission problems, which should be fun. So I'll be taking Mom's car to San Antonio tomorrow, which I'm not sure about. I guess I'll just show up about 9 or so, see what's going on.

So yeah, things are getting off to a great start.

Tried to download and run the D&D: Stormreach Online beta stress test, got a horrendous framerate - downright unplayable. Didn't help that David's ran flawlessly. So I can't really comment on the game just yet. Got my video card and processor overclocked now, though I'm waiting on an update of the Rage 3D utility for the 5.12 catalyst drivers. It's kind of annoying - I can pull 60+ fps in WoW, even with Windows Media Player playing a full length movie in the background. Update: Just hit 99 fps. Yeah.

So anyway. Talked to Ambra a little today. Kinda. I don't really remember what was said - I was half asleep the whole time. So for all those people asking me what's going on with that, yeah, I don't know. Probably nothing. Which accurately describes both my current social life and any prospects.

So I'm in kind of a holding pattern right now. I can't really start looking for a place in San Antonio until I find a new roommate for David. I really don't want to, I'll admit - we seem to get along so very well. It'll be a shame to lose that. But, ah, well. And I probably won't be able to find anyone until the students start coming back in January. That, and he's going to be gone for a few weeks, which makes things hard. Then I have to find a roommate and/or a place in San Antonio, preferably near the store. Once I take that step, it gets a lot harder to undo things. It'd still be really cool if Carrie moved down here and we got a place. Kind of random, but really cool.

So, yeah. Blegh. Can I get a reset button? That'd be nice.

No idea -- I wish I knew

Please hold me, don't walk away

So I'm officially a general manager today. Go me, I guess. It's funny - I don't really know *anything* right now, and I'm going to be going in fairly blind Tuesday. I'm much more worried about the housing situation than the work situation. I really need to find David a new roommate to finish out my lease, and one that he gets along with really well. Then, I have to find a roommate in San Antonio, or figure out if I want to get my own place. Which would be interesting, to say the least. Carrie jokingly told me she'd move down here with me, which would be awesome! I'm having trouble focusing on anything right now, so I'm going to cut it short here.

Oh, got a myspace thingy: ajackalope. Let there be much rejoicing.

Kate Ryan -- Head Down

Tri-spec AoE speciailzation. Worth a shot.

Waiting for a star to fall

So that went well. I had a date tonight. Kind of, I think. Not really.

I should back up a little bit.

Opened today. Last night, with the ice storm and everything, was nuts. They closed 'bout 11, with well over four thousand dollars in. I went to Seguin.

Wait, I should back up a little more.

So I opened on Tuesday. We get a call from commissary about eleven; the lady tells me that they're going to be "about twelve hours late." Oh, really? Sara and I start scrambling around, tallying up what we're going to be short on: dough, cheddar cheese, and wings. Felicia was coming down for the meeting, so I call her, and she agrees to let us borrow some stuff until we got our truck later that day. Eileen came in for the meeting and said "Billy, this is your last week here." Oh, okay. They finally officialized everything. Starting Monday, I'll be the GM of a store in San Antonio.

So that's exciting.

Felicia got there with the dough, cheese, et al, and we got it put away and what-not. Was there 'til about 6. I believe Sergio picked up some more stuff on his way in, since the truck got pushed back again to the next morning.

Shelly called me up Wednesday morning and asked me if I could go to Seguin to pick up some stuff. So I did. Ambra was working, so we talked a bit while I was loading up all this stuff. Got ready to leave, realized I couldn't find my sunglasses. She calls me about twenty minutes later, telling me she has them. Great plan, except that I didn't do it on purpose.

--Urgh. I spent about two hours on and off writing this long post about this, but I had to restart my computer, and it didn't save. Most frustrating.

So the short version - Ambra came in and drove for us for a few hours, and I told her I'd take her to dinner afterwards for doing so. She got off about five, I had to stay and drive 'til seven. Called her when I got off, we went to Chili's. It was nice. We sat and talked for like an hour, hour and a half after dinner, covering a wide range of topics. Then we hugged good night.

There's a lot more in there - I had to load up my truck and unload it with about 600 dollars worth of food and take it to Seguin in the middle of the worst part of the ice storm, for instance, but I don't feel like retyping everything.

Cabin Crew -- Star to Fall

So Lilie just quit Domino's. Yeah. Kind of surprised me, though she was having a really rough day and was in tears when I finally talked to her. But she basically quit in the middle of a shift (well, she was willing to stay to the end of a short shift, but not her shift), no advance notice before today, with three (I think; definitely closing shifts Friday and Saturday). She said she's probably going to go work at TNI (?) with Rose. Maybe it's because I've been a manager for a while now and am about to be a GM (oh yeah, it's official - Monday), but I have no patience for people who just walk out.

Artist -- Title

Love, life and laughter is all I believe in

Wow, I just had a series of bizarre dreams, and they're already starting to fade, so let's see what I can get down before they fade completely.

In one, there was a group of ten people - one of which was me, one was Larisa Oleynik, (Edit; Wow, that's a *terrible* picture of her up on IMBD, btw. She's very cute. Edit x2; here is a much better one) one was her big sister, and seven others - heading to her house, which is underwater. Oh yeah, I was a warlock. Which is sad, but given the amount of time I spend playing WoW, it's not *that* weird that I would dream about it once in a while. The others died off or had to leave one by one, until it was just the three of us by the time we reached her house. I forget why that proved anything, but we hooked up, and made out in her room for a while. This was by far the longest dream, and the one I remember the best, as I was in the middle of it when I woke up.


There was another one about Mindy. Details on that one are growing fainter by the second, and I think I'm getting them intermixed with the previous one, because Larisa Oleynik reminds me of Mindy at times. It also doesn't help that they were fairly similiar, except in this one, we went to the movies or something. Made out some (That's going to be a repeating motif).

There was, of course, one about Lilie. I think one of us was a mutant or something, and killed the other one? Not really sure. Anyway.

I even had one about Carrie. I think this may have been the first one, as I barely recall it at all, except for the kissing and hugging and making out and what-not.

It was one of those nights where I really, really didn't want to wake up.

Amber -- I'm a Dreamer

Up on high ground, where the flood wouldn't drown us

So I've got work and WoW updates out of the way, just one or two more to do, depending on how I do it. I still want to do a social one, and one about Lilie. Yeah, I haven't really posted anything about her in a while now, 'cause I keep putting it off. I will make a post about her soon, and unless things change, it'll be the last post about her, save for reminiscing type stuff.

Alex Megane-- Hurricane

So let me find somebody else

So, WoW.

Back before Thanksgiving, David as Bri got invited to go with this guild to Molten Core, 'cause they needed some more warlocks. This invitation got extended to me soon enough, as I was also attuned to MC. We went with them once, and David went again when I was at work. They then invited us to join, so we did. It's cool, 'cause this is a fairly active raiding guild that also does PvP. We've gotten as far as Sulfurion, though we didn't kill him.

I haven't been able to go every time, because of work. One time I wasn't there, the Felheart pants dropped, and they would have gone to me, 'cept I wasn't there, so David got them. Got attuned to Ony, which we then did on Sunday. Downed her on our second try (well, third, except we're not counting the first one, since a Warden respawned and that wasn't going to happen once that occured). I'm up to 5/8 Dreadmist, after finding the head and foot pieces, though I'm not going out of my way to collect the whole thing.

Ihatebrooms has kind of hit a roadblock in her mid 30's, which is frustrating, since I've gotten her alchemy up to 225 and have made a philosopher's stone. I just need to hit 35 so I can keep leveling up her alchemy and being getting arcanite transmutes.

Went ahead and created another alt, Ereneda (pronounced either E*ren*e*da or Er*e*ned*a), a gnome mage with Herbalism/Skinning. Those choices are mainly to make money selling leather and either the herbs or funneling them to Ihatebrooms for potions to use or sell. Having an okay time playing her so far, though she's only level eight, so I haven't gotten the cool stuff yet.

Blue Ice -- You Keep Me Hanging On

I'm sick and tired of always being sick and tired

So it's been kind of a crazy week. I'll start by talking about work, and see how far I get. This week has been... interesting, to say the least. Closed Monday night, nothing special or odd there. Was "off" Tuesday, but I had to go to a meeting with Eileen in Gina's place. Felicia was supposed to go as well, but she had a flat, so she didn't make it. We went over to Murphy's Deli, it was alright. Got back, hung out with Shelly for a while, since I was bored. And, well, Sara was there, and I like hanging out with her. Lesbian or not, she's cool. And purty. So yeah.

Anyway, hung out there for a while. Little later, turned out they were about to run out of wings, so I drove up to Seguin to pick some up. Came home eventually, David and I watched some B5. We're getting pretty close to the end.

Wednesday is when things started to get interesting. That was when I opened for the first time, with Jess to teach me what the hell I was doing. Mal was my opening driver. Things started off kind of badly - I was about twenty minutes late. Didn't miss too much - stocking the makeline, that kinda stuff. She gave me a bit of crap when I walked in, but I deserved it. Things went really smoothly after that.

Well, for a while.

Jess took off 'bout 2 or so. Apparently, she was supposed to stay 'til about 6 or so. If she had, the complete and total disaster that happened would have been at least somewhat mitigated. It stayed slow 'til about 4. That's when all hell broke loose. The phones all started ringing. We'd often have five and six lines on hold at a time - no exaggeration. Mal was the only driver at first, and Lilie came in at 5. That was it until six, when we got two more, and seven, when two more were supposed to come in. Sergio and Patrick came in at 5, which didn't really help, 'cause that's when things started getting really hairy. Patrick was on phones for the most part, with Sergio switching between the oven and makeline, and I was on dough slapping. We eventually switched, so he was in the corner, not that that really helped anything. Things kept coming in faster than we could get them out. We started being like forty/fifty pies down, with a thirty minute load time. Yeah, it was bad. Sergio called in Joe, and Mal ended up calling Gina, who then came in about 6 or 6:30. She wasn't nearly as upset as she could have been. She seemed very relaxed, mainly interested in fixing the situation over assigning blame.

We got things under control fairly quickly. It helped that Mike got here fairly soon, and Joe was there as well. That, and things slowed down very quickly. It was really embarrasing, 'cause I started crying. It wasn't because it was a stressful rush, or that things had gone bad, it was that people were counting on me to have things ready for them, and I failed them. That my decisions were going to screw someone else over. It's hard to explain and put into words. Gina talked to me for a while, then left. I left fairly soon after that, after making a deposit.

Was supposed to be off on Thursday, but I ended up going in to cover Rose's shift, who decided to be pretty immature about things and just not show up. That shift was fairly uneventful.

Opened on Friday, got busy, but overall, fairly uneventful. Saturday, now, Saturday was crazy. We had the UT game, the SWT game televised on ESPN2, plus it was a Saturday. It was busy all day. Sunday wasn't too dissimiliar. So yeah, it was a fairly hectic week. I was even supposed to stay late on Sunday to cover Rose and Theresa's shifts, but I got to go home about 6:30, since it wasn't too bad.

Overall, well, yeah. Not quite sure what to say about all that. Ended up with something like 55 hours for the week. I'm opening twice this week, closing twice, and one short shift. I've dealt with some of the best and worst customers that really exemplify things I like and don't like about them this week. That sentence was really awkward, and I apologize. But:

So, Tuesday was my day off, so I hung out with Shelly for a while (after the manager meeting with Eileen). A call comes in, so I took it, since Shelly was busy. It was a lady complaining that she got a cold pizza last night, and she wanted it replaced. Now, I've been in the food service industry for almost five years now, and I've been dealing with customers for almost the entire time. For the most part, I don't take it personally, and I *hate* screwing up customer orders. And when I do screw something up, I'm more than happy to correct the mistake.

That being said, it's hard for us to give someone a cold pizza. I don't mean because we're so awesome and never screw up, but because there are a *lot* of things that would have to happen for someone to get a cold pizza. First and foremost, those pizzas are *hot* when they come out of the oven. When we make a crew pie, we often have to let it set for a good ten minutes before it's anywhere near cool enough to eat it, and even then, we're blowing on it and sucking air into our mouths while we chew. That's with it not under the heat rack, mind you, which is the second thing. Then we have the heat bags, which were designed and patented for Domini's to keep the suckers warm. So I was a little curious about her complaint. If a pizza was delivered cold, I want to know why. The phone number she was calling from didn't have any orders placed from it, so I asked her for the number the order was placed from. She said it was from a friend's cell phone, and I asked for that number. She gave me that number. There was one order placed from it... a month and a half ago.

I think she was starting to get worried or something, because she told me she had the boxes here if we wanted them. I then asked her for the address the order went to, and she told me that and about what time it went there. I pulled up the daily order register from the night before, and sure enough, no orders had gone to that address around that time. Or at all the entire day. Or anywhere on that street the entire day. I told her I couldn't find her order, and we would need the boxes from the order that she told us she had. She then launched off on something about how they were in the trash can, and she sure as hell wasn't going to go digging through the trash for them, but our driver was welcome to. I was ready to terminate it right there, since she had initially offered them as proof, but then reneged when I asked for them. When there's that many suspicious factors all piled on top of each other, yeah. It was Shelly's shift, though, so I ended up sending out the pizza.

Then, this... (censored) has the unmitigated gall to call back EIGHT MINUTES later, yelling at Shelly, where the fuck her order was and why it wasn't there, claiming she had called forty-five minutes ago. She then called again at the half hour mark.

Had a similar incident the next day, when a lady said she had ordered a pizza the day before, and that it was undercooked. Same scenario - our oven has a tendency to overcook, if anything. She said she didn't call back 'cause it was too late. During the course of the conversation, she changed what it was she ordered, couldn't tell me where she ordered from, etc. That, and when I explained I couldn't help her at all, she just accepted it very meekly, instead of getting infuriated, as a real mistake would.

Now, should I feel proud about catching these? Nope. In the grand scheme of things, do they matter? Nope. I know that. While I'm on the subject... on Sunday, when things got pretty bad, we were warning people up front that the delivery time was an hour to an hour and a half. So of course, people called at an hour about their order. Now, I'll agree, an hour is certainly a long time to have to wait for your order. But when you were warned up front and had every chance to decline to order, I find it a little unreasonable to complain.

Not that all of my experiences lately have been negative. On Wednesday, when all hell was breaking loose, the carryout times started to get a little long. I'm talking 30 - 45 minutes. And people were fine with it. I suspect part of that was that they were right there, could see how incredibly busy we were, and that we were doing everything we could to get stuff out as fast as possible. We also ran out of wings; we only had to tell one person that had already ordered that we were out; he was pretty cool with it, and we gave him some chicken kickers instead (and took them off the ticket).

And that's enough of that.

Anastacia -- Sick and Tired