I just spent the last six hours making pizzas.
And it was, at a conservative estimate, about a hundred times better than working at Sonic, with the exception of the three people I truly miss.
I mean, the attitude was totally different. Everyone was joking around, having a good time. It reminded me of the good days at Sonic, when I had a great crew. Of course, with 10-14 people on a shift, the possibility of a few bad apples ruining it for me was a lot greater. I think at our peak yesterday, there were four people inside, which was too many. They immediately accepted me as on of their own, possibly because I already knew how to do everything - I didn't start slapping dough until everyone but Juan was gone, but I can still do that really well, as well. The night went fine, even when it was just Sergio and me; I handled just about all of the closing duties myself, and I think I'll be closing by myself next week.
Of course, there were a *few* low points of the evening. I had a bad headache most of the night, but of course, I don't really blame Domino's for that. Oh, being back in the store also brings back a lot of memories. Most of them are really good, but a few, well, are ones I don't really dwell on anymore - most notably Lilie. I mean, I'm over her. Well, as over anyone as I ever get, which is mostly.
Gwen Stefani -- Hollaback Girl
2007-08-17
Now, that this love has overcome me
So, it's been quite a while since I've done an in-depth post about what's going on in my life, so I'm going to try to provide a brief history of what I've been up to.
So, I was working at Wal-Mart, doing overnight stocking on the grocery side of the store. I really liked it, for a few reasons. First, I didn't really have to deal with any customers at all. Well, I did occasionally, but it was stuff like "Hey dude, where's the Gatorade?" "Aisle six, right side, halfway down the aisle after the Kool-Aid." Usually, two to three of those a night, more on Fridays and Saturdays. The time period was great - 10 pm to 7 (8/9/10) am, which was fantastic. Work all night, sleep all day. I loved it. Had two days off, which didn't change from week to week. I was working with Matt, which meant we never had scheduling conflicts (at least, not work-based) for playing racquetball, and it made transportation fairly simple. There was even a cute girl, Robyn, to look at from time to time.
However, there were some definite downsides. First, we were constantly understaffed. I mean, systemically and intentionally. (In a related side-note, they've recently laid off even more people, causing massive understaffing throughout the entire store. Productivity has suffered as a result.) We were often running behind due to our lack of sufficient people. Of course, management didn't see it that way - we were "slackers" and "needed to pick up our pace." Juan constantly threatened us, saying that when the remodel was over, we were going to all be replaced by the remodel workers that they hired. That kind of frustrated me. At some point, Javi called me on my cell, asking if I still wanted to work there (in desperation, while searching for a job before Wal-Mart called, I stopped by there to see if they would hire me back. Dave waffled on it, but eventually left the option up to Javi, who called me, though by the time he did, Wal-Mart had called, so I declined.). He told me that Bubba, the former GM of Buda, was now our GM, and that things were totally different. Also, Ashley (of Domino's fame) was also an assistant there now, which was really neat. I really like working with her. We talked about it briefly, and I told him I'd call him back.
As luck would have it, a few days later, we had a ton of freight come in, a few people call in, and Juan was in particularly rare form. Ambra had started working there at this point, and Mindy was gone. Well, at that point, I decided I'd had enough. I went to the bathroom, called Ashley, confirmed that they still had a place for me, and walked out. It was fun. I clocked out, went up to Juan, and handed him my discount card that had my clock in bar code on the opposite side. He was kind of caught off-guard, as a good walk-out will always catch management. It was awesome. He told me that he'd always confirmed (excused) my absences - I had like four or so - and that he certainly wasn't referring to me when he talked about how much we suck. I wasn't going to be dissuaded, though, and I left. I kind of apologized to Ambra on the way out, because she was still there with all this terrible freight to have to deal with. On the way out, I stopped to talk to Robyn, let her know I enjoyed working with her but that I was leaving, and that I thought she was fantastically cute.
The personnel lady called me a few days later about why I left. I told her about Juan, she said something like "Well, that's certainly not true." Not the point. "Well, he shouldn't have done that." Yeah, I believe I indicated I already thought as much by leaving. She asked me if I wanted to talk to Terry (our GM), I half-heartedly accepted, but never showed up.
The next day, I was talking to Javi and Bubba at Sonic. One week after that, I walked into my first day of Sonic. That was interesting, because only Javi, Ashley, Bubba, and a few people who were still there - Larry, Cruz, Pedro - knew who I was. Everyone else just saw this new guy - goofy looking - in a shirt and tie, walking around like he knew the store like the back of his hand. Which I do. Anyway. I knew it was going to suck going in to it, but I figured, hey, Javi and Ashley are there, so how bad could it really be?
I quickly became acquainted with the new crew, which was in some ways better, some ways worse than the old crew I dealt with. Well, the old crew was probably better in most respects. I won't go too much into specifics, but there were some very constant things that really defined the new crew. Whining, for one thing. Attitude problems, for another. There were a few people I really despised, and a few people I really liked (Emily, Ashley S, Katie). Things started off pretty good. I started getting around 70 hours a week, which was nice, since it amounted to a FUCKTON of overtime, and very nice paychecks.
Then Ashley left.
That really, really, really sucked. I was really sad that she left, but I totally understand her decision to leave. She was really frustrated, since she had only wanted to be part time, and she hadn't worked less than 50 hours on any week since she started. She felt that either Bubba or upper management, whoever was responsible for it, just wasn't doing enough to get us more assistants, and Bubba kept scheduling her a ton (more on this later). That, and how frustrating and stressful of a job it is to begin with, made her leave. We didn't get another manager or anything for a quite a while, and we had a bit of a staffing crisis for a while. We got through that.
Then Javi left. That was really the beginning of the end for me, as well. Javi's last week, I worked 90 hours without a day off. Now, I was used to 70 hours a week with one day off, and that was okay. However, 90/0 wasn't really okay. Well, it would have been okay, but Bubba didn't see fit to warn me or anything. I mean, he knew about it as early as Sunday morning, possibly earlier. I wish he would have warned me or something, since he wasn't releasing the schedule for the week until Monday afternoon, which was also really frustrating. So I had to take this annoying Serv-Safe class (8 hours, 90 multiple-choice question test, test took about six and a half minutes), then go in and close afterwards. That was alright, since the early draft of the schedule had me off on Tuesday. However, I walk in around 6:30, look at the schedule, and find out I don't have a day off that week. Yeah, I was kind of upset. I mean, I know a lot of people work seven days a week, at jobs much harder than mine. I just wish Bubba would have warned me or something.
So Javi left, and it was just me, Angie, and Bubba. Dumb, dumb, dumb. Bubba took over doing the order and the schedule. We'd run out of stuff a lot more - tater tots, ranch, barbecue sauce, M&M's, spoons, bananas, sugar, you name it. That, and people would get scheduled when they weren't available, which, to be fair, stopped for the most part eventually. There were several weeks, though, where a lot of people couldn't come in when they were scheduled and it was our fault. Good times. The other fun thing about having Bubba in charge of scheduling... well, it really had nothing to do with him being in charge of scheduling, but something systemic about him managing, was that he expected every employee to be 100% devoted to the Drive-In. I'm not talking about just while they're on the clock, which I agree with, but ALL THE TIME. Every time someone called in, he'd ask people to stay late, and come in early, and come in on their only day off, and would get annoyed when they couldn't. I mean, I'm talking about people who'd already worked eight, ten hours, or had worked six days and it was their only day off. We didn't seem to be pursuing the long term solution, hiring more people so we didn't have to keep asking people to work stupid amounts of hours.
So yeah, I have a few grievances with Bubba as a GM. I think part of it might be the difference between Buda and San Marcos. Most of our crew members, at least non-cook, are college kids, who aren't looking for 40 hours a week, and will work that much if you need them to, but didn't apply for that. They're going to highly value their time outside of work, and place a greater premium on social time and interaction then on being at work, hence the frustration with always, ALWAYS being called in. Now, most of them are more than happy to help out occasionally. However, it starts to get annoying, when every other day, you're asked to stay late or come in early, when every day you "have off", you're asked to come in for a bit. There's a line between "helping out" and "being expected to be overly devoted to your job". That's one of the reasons Ashley left, as well.
So yeah, I put in my two weeks notice almost two weeks ago, on Saturday the fourth. I walked out on Friday the tenth. Almost made it. I didn't really tell anyone that I was leaving, except for Aaron, the assistant we were borrowing from Montopolis (who was a friend of Bubba's) a few days a week. That week, we finally had a new assistant start; he was an ex-GM from Round Rock or something.
Yeah, I feel pretty bad about walking out. Sort of. I mean, not really. I was really pissed off. Oh, yeah, forgot to mention, Sergio got the store, and called to offer me an MIT position. So I took that; I'll be starting there in a week. That's fun.
So that's where I am in terms of work. On to other matters.
I moved out of Les Chateaux a month or so after starting at Sonic. Moved back home instead of getting a 3-bedroom place with Ambra and David, decided to go back to school and the cheap rent offered at home would be a huge help towards that goal. I'm just now, three months later, that I'm finally starting to move in and get everything unpacked. I'm almost done there. Janelle moved out the other day, that was interesting. Not just into a dorm for the semester, but into a four bedroom apartment at University Springs with three dudes. That's cool. Spent Monday picking her up from the airport, then helping her move out. Got a decent entertainment center out of the deal, so I came out ahead.
Haven't talked to Lilie in, oh, probably two months now. I was going up to Austin every day off to play DDR and/or ITG2, and I'd usually call her before or during to see if she was around to see if she'd like to meet up, say hi, that kind of thing. The first time, I actually got a hold of her, and she didn't really seem very enthusiastic or anything. Every subsequent time, no answer whatsoever. A few weeks of that, and no reply whatsoever to any IMs/phone calls/emails, and I got the hint.
So yeah, I've already put in my application at SWT. I got re-accepted as well, so that's neat. I just have to go in for an academic advising appointment, then I'll be good to go. I'm starting in the Spring, and I'm pretty sure of what classes I'd like to take - Discrete I, Data Structures, Chem I, whatever CS course is next in my progression, and possibly Probability, depending on scheduling.
Oh, I sold my WoW account to David. Just didn't have the time working 70 hours a week, usually in 12-14 hour days. That, and the internet connection here SUCKED. It's getting better; we've upgraded our connection, and are on our third modem. So, we'll see. I'm contemplating buying it back, but I want to see how things go at Domino's first. Oh, Gina marked me down as non-rehireable, so that's fun. Eileen let Sergio rehire me anyway, so that's cool.
I think that's a sufficient return to blogging. More to come as updates warrant.
DJ Smooth -- DUI 091406
So, I was working at Wal-Mart, doing overnight stocking on the grocery side of the store. I really liked it, for a few reasons. First, I didn't really have to deal with any customers at all. Well, I did occasionally, but it was stuff like "Hey dude, where's the Gatorade?" "Aisle six, right side, halfway down the aisle after the Kool-Aid." Usually, two to three of those a night, more on Fridays and Saturdays. The time period was great - 10 pm to 7 (8/9/10) am, which was fantastic. Work all night, sleep all day. I loved it. Had two days off, which didn't change from week to week. I was working with Matt, which meant we never had scheduling conflicts (at least, not work-based) for playing racquetball, and it made transportation fairly simple. There was even a cute girl, Robyn, to look at from time to time.
However, there were some definite downsides. First, we were constantly understaffed. I mean, systemically and intentionally. (In a related side-note, they've recently laid off even more people, causing massive understaffing throughout the entire store. Productivity has suffered as a result.) We were often running behind due to our lack of sufficient people. Of course, management didn't see it that way - we were "slackers" and "needed to pick up our pace." Juan constantly threatened us, saying that when the remodel was over, we were going to all be replaced by the remodel workers that they hired. That kind of frustrated me. At some point, Javi called me on my cell, asking if I still wanted to work there (in desperation, while searching for a job before Wal-Mart called, I stopped by there to see if they would hire me back. Dave waffled on it, but eventually left the option up to Javi, who called me, though by the time he did, Wal-Mart had called, so I declined.). He told me that Bubba, the former GM of Buda, was now our GM, and that things were totally different. Also, Ashley (of Domino's fame) was also an assistant there now, which was really neat. I really like working with her. We talked about it briefly, and I told him I'd call him back.
As luck would have it, a few days later, we had a ton of freight come in, a few people call in, and Juan was in particularly rare form. Ambra had started working there at this point, and Mindy was gone. Well, at that point, I decided I'd had enough. I went to the bathroom, called Ashley, confirmed that they still had a place for me, and walked out. It was fun. I clocked out, went up to Juan, and handed him my discount card that had my clock in bar code on the opposite side. He was kind of caught off-guard, as a good walk-out will always catch management. It was awesome. He told me that he'd always confirmed (excused) my absences - I had like four or so - and that he certainly wasn't referring to me when he talked about how much we suck. I wasn't going to be dissuaded, though, and I left. I kind of apologized to Ambra on the way out, because she was still there with all this terrible freight to have to deal with. On the way out, I stopped to talk to Robyn, let her know I enjoyed working with her but that I was leaving, and that I thought she was fantastically cute.
The personnel lady called me a few days later about why I left. I told her about Juan, she said something like "Well, that's certainly not true." Not the point. "Well, he shouldn't have done that." Yeah, I believe I indicated I already thought as much by leaving. She asked me if I wanted to talk to Terry (our GM), I half-heartedly accepted, but never showed up.
The next day, I was talking to Javi and Bubba at Sonic. One week after that, I walked into my first day of Sonic. That was interesting, because only Javi, Ashley, Bubba, and a few people who were still there - Larry, Cruz, Pedro - knew who I was. Everyone else just saw this new guy - goofy looking - in a shirt and tie, walking around like he knew the store like the back of his hand. Which I do. Anyway. I knew it was going to suck going in to it, but I figured, hey, Javi and Ashley are there, so how bad could it really be?
I quickly became acquainted with the new crew, which was in some ways better, some ways worse than the old crew I dealt with. Well, the old crew was probably better in most respects. I won't go too much into specifics, but there were some very constant things that really defined the new crew. Whining, for one thing. Attitude problems, for another. There were a few people I really despised, and a few people I really liked (Emily, Ashley S, Katie). Things started off pretty good. I started getting around 70 hours a week, which was nice, since it amounted to a FUCKTON of overtime, and very nice paychecks.
Then Ashley left.
That really, really, really sucked. I was really sad that she left, but I totally understand her decision to leave. She was really frustrated, since she had only wanted to be part time, and she hadn't worked less than 50 hours on any week since she started. She felt that either Bubba or upper management, whoever was responsible for it, just wasn't doing enough to get us more assistants, and Bubba kept scheduling her a ton (more on this later). That, and how frustrating and stressful of a job it is to begin with, made her leave. We didn't get another manager or anything for a quite a while, and we had a bit of a staffing crisis for a while. We got through that.
Then Javi left. That was really the beginning of the end for me, as well. Javi's last week, I worked 90 hours without a day off. Now, I was used to 70 hours a week with one day off, and that was okay. However, 90/0 wasn't really okay. Well, it would have been okay, but Bubba didn't see fit to warn me or anything. I mean, he knew about it as early as Sunday morning, possibly earlier. I wish he would have warned me or something, since he wasn't releasing the schedule for the week until Monday afternoon, which was also really frustrating. So I had to take this annoying Serv-Safe class (8 hours, 90 multiple-choice question test, test took about six and a half minutes), then go in and close afterwards. That was alright, since the early draft of the schedule had me off on Tuesday. However, I walk in around 6:30, look at the schedule, and find out I don't have a day off that week. Yeah, I was kind of upset. I mean, I know a lot of people work seven days a week, at jobs much harder than mine. I just wish Bubba would have warned me or something.
So Javi left, and it was just me, Angie, and Bubba. Dumb, dumb, dumb. Bubba took over doing the order and the schedule. We'd run out of stuff a lot more - tater tots, ranch, barbecue sauce, M&M's, spoons, bananas, sugar, you name it. That, and people would get scheduled when they weren't available, which, to be fair, stopped for the most part eventually. There were several weeks, though, where a lot of people couldn't come in when they were scheduled and it was our fault. Good times. The other fun thing about having Bubba in charge of scheduling... well, it really had nothing to do with him being in charge of scheduling, but something systemic about him managing, was that he expected every employee to be 100% devoted to the Drive-In. I'm not talking about just while they're on the clock, which I agree with, but ALL THE TIME. Every time someone called in, he'd ask people to stay late, and come in early, and come in on their only day off, and would get annoyed when they couldn't. I mean, I'm talking about people who'd already worked eight, ten hours, or had worked six days and it was their only day off. We didn't seem to be pursuing the long term solution, hiring more people so we didn't have to keep asking people to work stupid amounts of hours.
So yeah, I have a few grievances with Bubba as a GM. I think part of it might be the difference between Buda and San Marcos. Most of our crew members, at least non-cook, are college kids, who aren't looking for 40 hours a week, and will work that much if you need them to, but didn't apply for that. They're going to highly value their time outside of work, and place a greater premium on social time and interaction then on being at work, hence the frustration with always, ALWAYS being called in. Now, most of them are more than happy to help out occasionally. However, it starts to get annoying, when every other day, you're asked to stay late or come in early, when every day you "have off", you're asked to come in for a bit. There's a line between "helping out" and "being expected to be overly devoted to your job". That's one of the reasons Ashley left, as well.
So yeah, I put in my two weeks notice almost two weeks ago, on Saturday the fourth. I walked out on Friday the tenth. Almost made it. I didn't really tell anyone that I was leaving, except for Aaron, the assistant we were borrowing from Montopolis (who was a friend of Bubba's) a few days a week. That week, we finally had a new assistant start; he was an ex-GM from Round Rock or something.
Yeah, I feel pretty bad about walking out. Sort of. I mean, not really. I was really pissed off. Oh, yeah, forgot to mention, Sergio got the store, and called to offer me an MIT position. So I took that; I'll be starting there in a week. That's fun.
So that's where I am in terms of work. On to other matters.
I moved out of Les Chateaux a month or so after starting at Sonic. Moved back home instead of getting a 3-bedroom place with Ambra and David, decided to go back to school and the cheap rent offered at home would be a huge help towards that goal. I'm just now, three months later, that I'm finally starting to move in and get everything unpacked. I'm almost done there. Janelle moved out the other day, that was interesting. Not just into a dorm for the semester, but into a four bedroom apartment at University Springs with three dudes. That's cool. Spent Monday picking her up from the airport, then helping her move out. Got a decent entertainment center out of the deal, so I came out ahead.
Haven't talked to Lilie in, oh, probably two months now. I was going up to Austin every day off to play DDR and/or ITG2, and I'd usually call her before or during to see if she was around to see if she'd like to meet up, say hi, that kind of thing. The first time, I actually got a hold of her, and she didn't really seem very enthusiastic or anything. Every subsequent time, no answer whatsoever. A few weeks of that, and no reply whatsoever to any IMs/phone calls/emails, and I got the hint.
So yeah, I've already put in my application at SWT. I got re-accepted as well, so that's neat. I just have to go in for an academic advising appointment, then I'll be good to go. I'm starting in the Spring, and I'm pretty sure of what classes I'd like to take - Discrete I, Data Structures, Chem I, whatever CS course is next in my progression, and possibly Probability, depending on scheduling.
Oh, I sold my WoW account to David. Just didn't have the time working 70 hours a week, usually in 12-14 hour days. That, and the internet connection here SUCKED. It's getting better; we've upgraded our connection, and are on our third modem. So, we'll see. I'm contemplating buying it back, but I want to see how things go at Domino's first. Oh, Gina marked me down as non-rehireable, so that's fun. Eileen let Sergio rehire me anyway, so that's cool.
I think that's a sufficient return to blogging. More to come as updates warrant.
DJ Smooth -- DUI 091406
