It was one by one, baby, two by two

So, the internet is acting all crappy. More specifically, our connection. It's not totally crapped out, just mostly. Sporadic, even. IM'ing isn't really affected, browsing is tedious and frustrating, but tolerable. Gaming? Not gonna happen. Even with this, though, I have to say I very much prefer Time Warner over Grande. We'll test how much of the terrible service from Grande was due to our location after I move in with Ambra - she has Grande high-speed as part of their rent, so yeah. So no WoW or anything right now, but it does give me a good chance to deal with some backlogged posting I'd been planning on.

So, I'm going to tackle my to-do list, see how far I get on that.

Let's do dreams first. I've two recently. The first one involved Carrie and a space shuttle. We were on the space shuttle, a group of like maybe twelve-fifteen of us, sitting around this big table. There was a problem, and apparently, none of us could move. Something to do with not being able to take our shoes off the floor, and not having any way to remove our shoes. I wasn't affected by it, since I wasn't wearing any shoes. There really isn't anything more to that part than just that image, that explanation. The second part of the dream, I'm with Carrie. I think we were still in the space shuttle, or a train. Some sort of enclosed compartment with a window. I go to hold her hand, and she says that it's okay, but that her boyfriend might not approve, and I was just heartbroken. Very weird.

The second dream starts out with Roland and I walking down the halls of our high school. Now, something I didn't really notice when I was there, mainly because I was in all AP level courses which were predominantly white, but our high school has a strong hispanic majority. Not too startling in hindsight. So Roland and I are walking down the hallway, and there's a *ton* of hispanic guys as well - almost to the point of congestion. He starts getting elbowed a little, bodily pushed, and eventually ends up getting pushed out this door. He was killed, though there was nothing to support it; I knew it, the way you randomly know things in dreams. So a little later, they come to take me out; there's a group of them about to attack me in the middle of a hallway; everyone else is in class. I basically beat the crap out of them, I distinctly remember throwing one guy into the wall. It was pretty cool. One of them eventually pulled out a baseball bat, but he didn't use it until some sort of authority figure was confronting me about the incident. He swung it at me, but I caught it, which was pretty cool, then I went on a rampage with it. Later, they came after me at my house; I was hiding under a blanket or something. They poked me with a baseball bat, and chaos ensued again. The final part had me facing the mafia leader in my house, but he was caught with police on the way, and trying desperately to get me to free him, which I wasn't going to do. He lights a lighter and drops it, indicating that he's going to burn the house down if we don't free him. We don't, and just walk away. I'm trying to remember where Lilie made a cameo in the dream - I wrote that she did when I was making my post list, but I don't rememeber anymore. Ah, well...

Most of the rest of the stuff I plan to post has to do with work - even hanging out with Ashley, moving in with Ambra, it all ties in to work in one way or another. Except... WoW. Blech, but out of a mindless sense of duty, might as well.

So, 1.10 finally hit. I respecc'ed Ihatebrooms to Disc/Holy, as I planned to, got her to 50. Haven't been playing very much lately, just haven't been in the mood. I've considered cancelling once or twice, but I don't think I will, not just yet. That'll probably take a day off or two where I have absolutely no inclination whatsoever to play. We'll see. Only done the first step of the Dungeon 2 set with Gnometastic, probably working on the next step.

So yeah, on to work.

Let's start with all the new hiring going on. We have a *ton* of new people right now - a *ton*. It's frustrating, but there are a few nice aspects to it. Some of the new people are panning out nicely, but they're not quite enough just yet to replace everyone we've lost. I mean, in the driver section, the *only* people we've retained are Mal, Travis, Ray, and Ross. We haven't lost any of the managers, though, which has really helped pull us through the worst bits. I'm hesitant to start naming names and really going in depth on who I don't like and why, but there are a few. I won't shed any tears over the two we just lost, though - they were the top two on my list of people I really, really didn't like to work with. I'm still toying with the idea of leaving and going to work at the Wal-Mart or HEB Distribution warehouse. Interesting random fact - I *hate* working in food, and I *hate* being a manager. At least, I hate the part of being a manager that involves dealing with whining. I HATE whining. I should probably clarify that. I don't hate *all* whining - I think some whining is constructive, even necessary. People have a need to vent, to blow off steam about things, and that's close to whining, but perfectly fine. People are going to complain about things that happened, they're going to talk to their friends about it, sure, yeah. I'm talking about whining about doing your DAMN job, ESPECIALLY if you get paid more than me.

But anyway...

So yeah, people are really immature when they call after close and get all upset. I mean, I can understand not being sure of our hours, or the whole open later on Friday and Saturday thing, and I don't mind answering a question or three. But seriously, GROW THE FUCK UP people. I mean, I'll hear people in the background going "Man, fuck Domino's! I'm never buying stuff from there again!" , or asking if I can just make *them* an exception and send them out a pizza, or - my personal favorite - getting upset that I had the nerve to answer the phone, even though we're not open. That one *really* pisses me off, and as such, I've created a list of reasons why we do it.

1. First and foremost, it's company policy. They tell us to do it, we do it.
   
2. That phone is really annoying, especially since I've been listening to it ring for the past eight to ten hours. If I don't pick it up, I'm going to have to listen to it ring until you hang up.
   
3. Along those lines, if I don't pick it up, you're going to be sitting there, listening to the automated message saying "Your call is being transferred to a team member", wondering if we're open and just taking a while to answer the phone, closed, or what, until you decide to hang up. It's a courtesy to you, bitches.
   
4. It's entirely likely it could be one of the other stores in our franchise calling with a question about paperwork, procedure, or inventory.
   
5. Most of our employees know the best time to call with a question about their schedule is after close, when, while we're still busy, we're able to pause for a minute or three and let them know when they come in the next day or whatever.
   
6. Along the same line, family members and significant others often call after close, since it's the best time to catch someone who's closing, for the same reasons noted above.

Not a terribly long list, but one that I feel presents sufficient explanation for answering the phone after close.

So yeah, Ambra. She's doing okay. Well, better than she was. She just wants out. And I don't blame her - none of us wanted the job, certainly, which is why she got stuck with it. Things are still on track for me to move in with her after Jessie moves out, and I'm still looking foward to it. We've been hanging out a lot lately - Eileen and Gina have banned her from coming to the store to hang out after close, which is weird - but she's been over here a lot, I'm taking her to Mom's birthday party tomorrow. In fact, she's sleeping in my bed right now... good times. Definitely nothing there, though, which is what she said she wanted, so that's all good. I still like her, probably more after hanging out with her so much, which makes me more confident that it's for the right reasons, which I was worried about. Or maybe I'm just being stubborn... I don't know.

So it's been a real blast working with Ashley (Emily too, but she hasn't introduced me to any cute friends, which is why I bring up Ashley, but not Emily) - great personality, driven, quick learner, etc. That, and she has three really cute friends - Aliare, Beth, and Ashley. Way back when, she was talking about trying to hook me up with Aliare, since she thought our personalities would go well together, but I kind of negated that one, since Alaira does pot, smokes, and drinks, which are my three main things I look for to not exist in a girl. The second and third are negotiable to some degree, but the first is definitely not. In fact, I even asked Ashley out - I'm picking her up later today, I think we're doing dinner and a movie? Nothing terribly creative, but hey, it's the first date. Of course, that's your only chance to make a good first impression, but I've always really sucked at first impressions. It's going to be a fun day, regardless, with Mom's birthday party, a date with Ashley, and then, most likely, heading up to Austin for some DDR. That'll be fun, yeah...

Rihanna -- Pon De Replay