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This sucks. I had one day off last week. This week I had only yesterday and I had to go in for a couple of hours. I did not want to get out of bed today and damn sure don't want to drive to work. It's certainly going to be a busy day...

We had a power outage on Tuesday night at the store I will be at today. There is apparently no surge protector in the store so when the power came back on it fried the PSU for the computer. Wednesday is our weekly close-out day for payroll and everything else so our corporate office overnighted a computer. Just as soon as it comes in this morning I have to restore a backup from the old one and close out all of my numbers. They have to have the payroll information by 11AM so it cuts it kind of close on time.

Depending on how long my meetings last me today, I may try to get back online and post for a while.

So back in May the powers that be 're-aligned' our organization. I probably wrote about it a bit. I dropped two of my stores and picked up two more. No big deal. It put me working closer to home and was a bit of a raise. The only bad part is I have psycho woman working for me, but even that wasn't too bad.

A couple of us are getting moved around again and while I'm not particularly happy about it I will be a good boy and do what I am told without too much bitching. I am losing my store in Villa Rica, GA and picking up the one in Tallapoosa, which is almost to the state line. It means probably one more tank of gas a week and considering gas prices, that's a big deal. I guess it's a good thing they reimburse me for all of it but it also means a pay cut for probably a month, maybe two. After that I will be OK. In addition to the new store I am also getting a new manager in one of my other ones, so it's basically another new district. I'm interested in seeing how this progresses over the next few weeks.

I have almost finished the application for promotion. It's not really an application as much as it is a self-assessment among other things. I will most likely have it ready to mail in by Tuesday. Once they receive it my vice president will have to sit down with me and give me an interview, at which point either he will say I am ready for promotion and put me on the list, or he'll give me a development plan to work on and I have to go through the whole dog and pony show once again.

So I am still in non-blogging mode. Although I profess to working on templates for the site I haven't even done much of that the last 48 hours either although I am certainly plan to this evening. Good intentions rarely got anything done.

I mentioned a few weeks ago that I had sent in my initial application for advancement at work. They sent me back a questionnaire to fill out, which is the next step in the process. I have as yet to fill it out but I have pulled it back out of my desk drawer to fill out. It includes a work history recap (just positions held within my company) and explanations of any breaks in service, some questions such as "what are the most important things you look for when hiring managers/associates", "which management skills do you need to develop and how can we help", lists of goals, whether I can relocate, etc. a 38 question self-assessment and another page to list my performance recap for the last six months. Nothing particularly difficult but it will take me a couple of days to get everything together that I need to fill it out. I am certainly not adverse to relocating but depending on where the division is I would be taking it might be a bit tight. With the wife signing a contract each year to finish the school year we might be stuck in two different places for several months. Another roadblock is the fact that we sort of own our house and selling right now would be a bitch.

Over the next few months a new division is going to be created just west of me, between here and Birmingham and I also hear the the current division manager that has some of those stores might also be leaving, which would mean an opening much sooner than I thought. That's one of the reasons I dug the paperwork back out again. It would mean having anywhere from six to ten stores and probably another $20k per year, putting me in the six digits. Can't complain about that. It would also put me that much closer to being an officer of the company (bwahaha). Not too shabby for someone that started out washing fucking dishes 21 years ago.

That's what's been on what passes for my mind lately, other than the usual bullshit. I know I have pretty much quit bitching about my managers and some of the more colorful employees but I just felt that it was in my best interests to do so.

I think I will work on the site for awhile...

I know I haven't posted much lately, other than a few memes and some of the new pictures. I've been pretty busy at work since I got back from vacation.

I am also working on a new set of templates for the blog and since I really am pretty much clueless it takes me awhile. Shadowscope V4 will be rolled out at some point in the next few months. I am going to try and streamline some things. Really I just enjoy tweaking the place and changing it every once in a while. I have kept this theme longer than any other but I feel like it's time for a change. Once I have the site up and running with the plugins I want and everything working properly I will copy the templates over here.

I have three days left of work until my vacation. I live for my vacation the last few years it seems, whether we are actually going somewhere or just hanging out at the house for a week.

Friday was the girl's last day of school, all except the wife who has teacher work days until Wednesday. I managed to make it to my youngest girl's Pre-K graduation ceremony on Wednesday but I ended up getting stuck at work at the end of year ceremony for my ten-year-old. She was pretty upset. I told her several times Thursday and then on Friday morning that I most likely wouldn't make it but that darn sure didn't make her feel any better.

Overall today was a pretty uneventful day but I have had a pretty shitty attitude at work. I don't let it show but my thoughts aren't about what I am going to do next at work, they are only on that drive to Florida in five days. I managed to get out of work (the first time) around one this afternoon and go get my oil changed in preparation for the trip. Damn, there was the finest babe getting her car washed at the same time...but I digress...

Work pays for my oil changes as well as all of my normal maintenance costs and gasoline which works out pretty well. They don't pay when I'm on vacation everything up to and after that point is cool.

.....

Took a bit of a break to hang with the girls. I wrote the stuff above a couple of hours ago but by train of thought seems to have derailed...if it was ever on track to begin with.

So happy Memorial Day weekend everyone, and just remember the reason WHY we celebrate memorial day. It's to honor all of those brave heroes that have died to keep us free. Although in theory they serve(d) to protect the Constitution of the United States of America and preserve our life, liberty and property in all actuality they did it for US. Their wives and children,mothers and fathers. Our heroes serve to better themselves and to protect us from our enemies both in peace time and at war. Remember that when you fire up the barbecue on Monday and take a minute or two to reflect on our fallen sons and daughters and respect those who are currently serving.

I will, as usual, be working on Monday but will be thinking about everyone nevertheless.

....

So as I mentioned earlier my vacation starts Tuesday night. Actually Wednesday morning because it's entirely feasible that I might end up working Tuesday third shift. That would suck as I have to take the dog to the kennel on Wednesday morning and then go see my doctor about my cholesterol levels from my last blood test. Apparently they have improved but not as much as she wants. Crap. I was hoping they would have gotten better. I am hardly smoking, working out (which helps your cholesterol believe it or not) and trying to eat better than I was. I'm damn sure drinking about 10% of the amount of coffee that I was just back in December. I have always put away three or four pots a day and not I am down to less than three cups. Even if I make it in the evening like I have today, I hardly ever finish it anymore. It's just not the same not being able to have a smoke and a cup of joe at the same time for some fucking reason.

...

Yet another break for awhile. I don't remember what the original time was on this post but it's a few minutes after nine and I had to get on the phone with my stores. My boss and his boss are required to work one third shift every four weeks and that would be tonight so they have been in one of my stores for the last hour or so.

Speaking of work, I gave out my URL to someone today. That's not something I do very often, simply because the content of the site isn't particularly acceptable some days...I think I've only given the address out to one person the last couple of years but I slipped up today. I did ask her not to give it out so we'll see. I also gave out my myspace url which is what most people really want anyway. They aren't actually interested in reading or having a conversation, just blithe comments with stupid fucking flashy pictures in them. Whatever.

I mentioned a few days ago this plugin for Movabletype I have been using called Zemanta. It's the one that inserts that 'zemified' pic in some of the posts. Anyway, as I type it checks what I have written every few hours and suggests pertinent links and photos that might be related. Here are a couple it has suggested thus far into this long wind-bagged entry this evening.

1. The Injured Marine Semper Fi Fund over at Hug Hewitt's site. It has fuck all to do with my post but damn I'm glad to have found it. Here's the link to the fund itself. Why don't you take a minute or two on this Memorial Day weekend and go help out a Marine.

2. Celebrity Swimsuits over at Huffington Post. Huffington Post? WTF? That and the fact that they diss Jessica Alba. Oh hell no. She could drap a frigging toga over her shoulder in it at the beach and would still look hot.

I suppose that's about it for the day. Want to know what I'm listening to today?

Even back in 1975 Judas Priest was kicking ass.

One more thing before I go. I am going to be out of town for seven or eight days and I am looking for a couple of reprobates who might want to guest post over her. Nothing major but it would be cool to have some other view points. Shoot me an email if you are want the keys to the place.

'm in somewhat of a hurry this morning. The last few days I have been sleeping as late as possible, no matter what time it is that I went to bed. I guess it's a combination of almost being time for my vacation, drinking a little bit Saturday evening and working out in the hot sun a couple of days this week. I know the day after I painted my parking lots all I wanted to do was sleep. That was a week ago and I am just now peeling. I've got that nasty leper look going on with my forehead and my shoulders. Yummy. Come on in and I'll fix you some breakfast...

Yesterday was a working/non-working day. We had our annual 'care & share'. What a misnomer. They are actually pretty cool. Last year's was at the lake where my AVP lives. We cooked out and rode watercraft all day. This year was actually pretty fun. We had a scavenger hunt. You either had to bring stuff back or take pictures of the team doing stuff. There were three teams.

Among some of the items we had to bring back were a hurdle, real police badge, fire hose nozzle and the key to the city. We actually managed all of those items believe it or not. I'll try to post more on that this afternoon when I have a bit more time.

One of the nice benefits of my job is that they reimburse me for 100% of my gas, excepting of course when I am off or on vacation. Since I rarely do anything on my off days this ends up being everything I spend on it, which is around $60-70 a week.

So I stop at the Racetrac after my meeting this afternoon and I was only putting in about $13, figuring that I would fill up after I get paid tomorrow. Since I was paying in cash, which is something I rarely do, I had to prepay for the gas. When I went in to get the receipt all they gave me was this damned slip that said "Prepay Gars $13". I asked for the gas receipt that showed how mu gas I actually pumped, since that's what is required to turn in on my expense report.

"Oh, we can't do that, the only way you can get that kind of receipt from prepay gas is if you sign up for our prepay card"

Thanks but no fucking thanks, I'll just make sure NOT to stop at Racetrac anymore and take my $300 a month elsewhere.

Assholes.

Sorry about no Thursday posts. I completely missed the thirteen and the thongs :( I wonder how pissed they would be if I combined Thursday Thirteen and Thursday Thongs? You know, Thirteen Thursday Thongs...

Sounds good to me anyway.

I mentioned the other day that I was going back through my music library and culling out the duplicate tracks and the ones that are corrupt. I ended up with something like 8100 songs. Of course some of them are still duplicated. It's amazing how many times a song can show up on 'greatest hits' albums for bands like Aerosmith among others. I ended up deleting about 20 gigs worth though, I had somewhere around 30k songs at one point. That means that 22 thousand songs were duplicates, corrupt, cut short, or just crap I wanted to get rid of. Most of the CDs are in my basement, if I ever want them back I can dig them up and listen to them that way I suppose. I am still tempted to go back through and delete even more, although some of the stuff that the wife enjoys I might not, and vice versa.

Except for messing with the music I spent the entire day yesterday sleeping. The last three weeks have kicked my ass. Having two days off hasn't fixed the problem but it certainly went a long way toward helping it out. I napped for a couple of hours this afternoon as well (exciting life ain't it?) but I tried not to overdo things today.

I'll be back online a bit later. I have to go pick the girls up from school. I had blood drawn earlier and once again they had to stick me several times so I need to vent about that later.

So. Have you ever done you just knew was wrong, even as you were doing it. That ugly feeling you get in the pit of your stomach is just awful. Not like stealing or anything. I don't mean wrong in that way.

I am pretty sure that my third shift grill operator had a few budweisers too many prior to coming to work tonight and I just ignored it and went on about my business. This is my fifteenth day straight and today, like several lately have been 15+ hours. Not that it's any excuse but I am just tired and really didn't give a shit.

Hopefully in the process of cooking tonight he won't chop his hand off or burn the place down.

All of my manager are finished with their vacations now. The last one comes back tomorrow and I have to cover the next two days off so that one of them can be off. Thursday and Friday I will actually get a couple of days off in a row. That will be the first ones since the weekend I went to the Ren Fest. It'll be three weeks by then. No wonder I am so brain dead.

Luckily I won't be doing much in the way of cooking the next couple of days. I have to stripe a couple of parking lots and put down cool seal on a couple of roofs so at least it will be something a bit different.

That's about it tonight. I am pretty well beat and just don't have anything else in this weary brain to write about.

So it's been a couple of days since I've had the opportunity to post anything. Nothing particularly exciting has been going on in my world. Same old, same old. Work, go to the gym, tan a couple of days a week, sleep. I have one more day until I get a couple of much-needed days off though. Sunday I'll have to call and get my staffing and go in if I can't get the stores staffed but other than that I'm off. It should be interesting calling Sunday morning. The manager that's off today and tomorrow has messed some stuff up and knowingly hid changed her figures so that she wouldn't look as bad on the weekly reports. Can you say Enron?

The thing is, we don't let it go as long. As soon as something like that is noticed we dig through the books and fix the problem. Oh, and then any money that's missing after we fix it? The person fucking with the numbers gets it taken out of their paycheck. If those bastards from Enron and Worldcom were made to pay back everything out of their personal fortunes it never would have happened.

In this manager's case it was only a couple of hundred dollars but it's not the first time. I will most likely write her up, that's of course if she doesn't give her notice first. As long as I get my days off this week I don't care anyway. After Monday I have two managers going on vacation back-to-back which means a long stretch for me.

Oh by the way, the Georgia Renaissance Festival is going on right now. I had originally planned on going last weekend but as I couldn't find a babysitter at the time we elected to stay home. We ARE going this Sunday, so any of you reprobates that want to meet up out there, come on down and look for my bald head which may or may not be sporting the hat I picked up last year. Hell, I may even wear my purple ren fest shirt. Probably not though, I figure it'll be T-shirt weather. It looks to be pretty cool. The Royal Lipizzan Stallions are there this year. I'm interested in seeing the show. Also if you buy tickets off their web site (the link above) you save a couple of bucks.

If you're afraid to hoist one with me and just want to check it out later or something I think it runs until the first weekend of June. That's when we normally go, the last weekend, but we will be in Disney World at that point.

Hopefully I can get some more good tramp stamp pictures this year. Should have seen my ass chasing down some of the women last year trying to get a good shot.

So the mobile blogging works. I don't see using it all of the time but it is pretty cool. I like being able to post from the iPod Touch but I think that some of the image paths in my configuration for the iphone plugin are screwed up. The Utterz stuff seems OK as well but I wish that it was more configurable. It'll do for what I want though.

Today was pretty uneventful, so I really don't have a hell of a lot to bitch about. I managed to get out of work by 2:25, worked out, tanned, ran on the elliptical for 35 minutes, washed the car and picked up the girls. WHEW! It was actually a pretty busy afternoon.

It's been twelve days since I quit smoking now. I've probably had a total of three smokes since then. Although I've quit I have had a few hits of smokes now and then. I am starting to breathe much better and since I've been working out I have a heck of a lot more energy as well.

There are a few things I got via email that I'll most likely post about tonight, other than that life is pretty good right now.

Twice in one day is just too much. Damn, I experience the blood curdling stench of feces rotting in someone's mouth not once, but twice today. This dude just insists on talking to me in close quarters. This evening I was able to beat a hasty retreat out the back door as I told him to have a nice evening but this morning I was in the little 3x5 office paying people and he was standing in the doorway. Every time he would expound on whatever the fuck he was talking about I would flinch as the wave of nastiness blew through the office.

Today was a pretty uneventful day overall. I had a guy that's been giving me lots of problems in one of the stores. He's been written up several times and verbally warned even more. I suspended him for a week at one point but the dude just won't behave. I had to fire his sorry ass today. I hate firing people but after having received several complaints from customers and his co-workers, I had to let him go.

Rather than working out today I came on home to work in the yard for awhile. I've planted a ton of bulbs over the last few weeks as well as strawberries but not many vegetables. The only thing I've put in thus far is broccoli and some tomato plants.

I also cleaned out a large portion of the leaves and stuff that has found a home in my goldfish pond over the winter. At least one of the goldfish lived through the winter :) I know because he went flying with a handful of leaves but I noticed before the thing had been out too long.

Working in the yard is always good stress relief for me. I think that as long as I get to go work out tomorrow afternoon I may come home and finish cutting the grass. I started using one of the lawn services and they sprayed some fertilizer last week. After this past rain it's just been shooting up.

You know what I've noticed about not smoking. Today is day number six oh by the way. That's not what I've noticed though. My house smells like shit!

I don't know if it's eight years of smoking in it or if my dog is just making it smell but damn! I'm starting to smell all kinds of stuff that I couldn't a week ago and you know what? I may just have to get some nose plugs because most of what I have smelled so far sucks. It's enough to make me want to smoke again, although right now ANYTHING is enough to make me want to smoke.

Know what else? I'm blogging nekked right now. Probably more than you needed to know but that's why you really come here anyway, I know it is. You guys are just waiting for a webcam shot of my ballsack hanging over my computer chair while I merrily type away. I can do that. The wife and girls are in Hilton Head right now. Actually they are in Bluffton but unless you are from the lowlands or visit there often most people don't have a fucking clue as to where Bluffton is, which is due west of Hilton Head Island, on the mainland. The only thing separating the two towns now is the water. If they could build shopping centers on the bridge you'd never notice the difference anymore except that Bluffton doesn't restrict builders quite as much in what they are tearing down. I don't know when they are coming home but since my paycheck won't be in the bank until Friday morning it's a pretty safe bet they will be there until at least Friday.

Hey! Only $1054 left to pay on my Disney trip. I'm taking care of that on Friday and there went a quick five big ones. That pays for just about everything though, except for my gas to get down there. Six nights and seven days. Sweet. I'm looking forward to the trip and judging from the way things have been at work lately I'll damn sure need the vacation. I have two of my managers going on back-to-back vacations in three week, which pretty much means me working 20 days straight. I may manage to get a day off during that time, it just depends on if I am staffed.

So the manager called me this afternoon from the store I was at the last two days. Apparently the waitress I sent home yesterday was upset and the manager wanted an explanation. I told her that when her employees call me five minutes after they should have already been there to tell me they are going to be late, chances are I will send them the fuck home if I can get it covered before they get there. If I can't get it covered, then they get to work. Kind of like the lottery for stupid fucking people that are consistently late.

I went and worked out this afternoon. I ended up skipping yesterday. I got out of work two hours later than I had planned, so I came home and wrote for awhile, planning on going back after I did shift change last night. I got to the gym and there were three or four buff dudes and their girlfriends there all working out and showing off. I didn't even get out of the fucking car. Fat old man syndrome kicked in and I beat a hasty retreat home. I like going early in the day when all of the old fat people are there. Makes me feel much better about myself :) I am much less self-conscious when nobody else is around, so when I can manage to shoot out of work by 2:15 that's the best time, although on my days off last week I went in the morning. That was cool because it's just the owner or his father-in-law working and all the milfs coming in to use the tanning beds. Speaking of tanning, I did that as well today. I sort of varied it though. I worked out on the weights, tanned and then used the elliptical for half an hour. I have been using it for shorter periods of time the couple of occasions that I have tried it and it hasn't really been a big deal but damn I got a workout on it today. I was sweating my ass off. That's a good thing because I need to burn this tire off the middle. I was fine until it told me to go backwards. Backwards? I can barely get on the fucking thing and move in a semi-forward direction and you want me to move backwards? Damn.

So here I sit. Nekked. Munching on microwave Burritos. Can it get any better than this? I suppose if I moved my chair to the front porch that would be better, but most likely short lived.

bwahaha. I think I need to hire this teacher who resigned from Delta High School to handle some of the attendance problems in my three stores.

Check out the video.

So this teacher makes his students do pushups and situps if they are tardy. Good deal. Apparently this one student could not do them so the teacher told his students to BEAT HIM. Holy shit! What a reTARD!

If it were my kids I guess I would have gone up and kicked the motherfucker's ass, but then again, I expect my children to be on time. Actually I insist upon them, and my employees being on time.

That of course fits right in to my afternoon at work. Shift change is at ten minutes until the hour, regardless of the shift. That way you have ten to fifteen minutes of overlap and any remaining work can be completed, waitresses can let the oncoming servers know what's going on, etc...

I get a phone call at 1:30 from my cook. She's waiting for her ride and babysitter and will be late. OK, kind of irritating but at least she called as soon as she found out. I did try to cover her shift anyway but was unsuccesful. Five minutes till two (five minutes AFTER she should have been there) the waitress calls and says "I'm up here at the red light, I'll be right there". I stood at the window and watched the light change several times over the nect five minutes before calling another waitress in. At fifteen minutes AFTER two (25 minutes late) the waitress shows up and she's pissed off because I replaced her after she called. Fuck you, how was I to know you meant the red light two towns north you stupid bitch? I sent her ass home. She called me back in tears a few minutes later wanting to know if she was still working tomorrow. I told her yes, as long as she's there by ten 'til. Actually I could give a rat's ass because I will be at one of my other stores making them happy tomorrow :) Thus far nobody has jammed a cigarette in my mouth but I see that shit coming soon. Two more days and I get a day off...

Getting ready to hit the sack but I wanted to make sure and post before I go to bed. Nothing particularly exciting happened today and I am in a foul mood which is one of the reasons I haven't posted since this morning.

Fortunately the audits came out OK at the one store I mentioned might have some issues today. That's a freaking miracle considering that the waitresses ran the store for 24 hours. Not that I think they are dishonest but too many hands in the pie tend to skew things.

I still haven't smoked and I want one more today than I have all week. I'm just ready to beat someone's ass. I didn't stop and buy a pack although I damn sure wanted to today. When the heck does it start getting easier. 100 hours now. Just over four days since my last cigarette. It's probably a good thing the girls are in another state right now. That worked out pretty well (for them anyway) since I don't have anyone here to pick a fight with.

I'll tell you one thing though, quitting smoking gives you some serious gas. Of course since I severely curtailed the smoking starting about eight weeks ago I have noticed it before but since Friday it's been getting worse. It's fucking rancid too. Smells like something crawled up my ass and died there. Even the dog is staying away from me. I have to keep moving at work so as to not be noticed. That's fine as long as it's silent but once you start getting those noisy walking farts there's just no hiding.

I skipped the gym yesterday so made sure that I went back today. I tried to take it a bit easy on myself today and worked out for a little over half an hour. I am increasing the weights I am lifting with my legs and thighs but haven't been able to do a lot with my upper body yet. It pisses me off because I used to have a lot of upper body strength. Guess that's what I get for 41 sedentary years. I may start doing pushups in the morning as well to help get a bit of strength back in my shoulders and arms.

Did the tanning bed thing again today too. I've only noticed a tiny difference thus far, maybe I need to get them to keep it on longer.

There are some nice benefits to going to the gym. There are quite a few hotties that go as well. Something to look at while I exercise. Just have to make sure to wear the pants with the tent attachment I guess :) Most of them are too damn young but they are nice to look at.

I don't have anything more to bitch about tonight. Now that I napped for two hours this afternoon I'm going to try and get a bit of shut-eye if I can.

I didn't sleep any better last night than the couple before. I guess it's my body craving the nicotine or something. That or I'm just not used to sleeping by myself any more in combination with the other. I tossed and turned and finally managed to get to sleep after midnight. I woke up two or three times and looked at the clock.

I had intended to mention a couple of more things in that post about work but my browser crashed and I ended up publishing just what I had auto-saved at that point.

It's pretty cool. Her (the manager I was writing about last night) is graduating from boot camp the last weekend in April. Good for her. He's in the Navy and although he's a squid I can't disparage him too much for doing what he believes in. We need more young people like him to participate. Anyhow, the weekend he graduates is also Talladega Race weekend. Nothing to be done for it, I have moved her vacation so she can go to graduation. It will be a rough weekend because I have another manager off the very same weekend as well and it will be pretty busy that week. I will also have two of my managers taking back-to-back vacations and that's going to be hard.

The only reason I really don't like it is because I was going to make her take her vacation the week of the Rodeo. She is the owner and one of the organizers for the Waco (Georgia) redoe and always misses several days of work during the rodeo and even when she is at work is even less involved than normal. I know she'll miss at least three days during the weekend of the rodeo in May, so I will just have to make sure she only gets one the week prior and count those days she misses as her days off. I don't know why they just haven't scheduled it that way before anyway. I need to find out the date so I can go ahead and get my itinerary finished and turned in pretty quickly.

It's about time to go to work. Hopefully even with the bullshit today won't be too long of a day. I want to try and work out this afternoon and have a bunch of stuff here at the house that needs to be done as well.

So I ended up doing nothing but lying on the couch attempting to nap and then went back to work this evening. I figured the nap would take my mind off of why I am having trouble sleeping in the first place, which is wanting a cigarette. I would kill for a smoke tonight but I didn't go buy any. I didn't even bum any. Normally one of the first shift waitresses keeps an extra pack in the filing cabinet but it wasn't there tonight. Fucking foiled again!

I skipped the workout today, which is probably not such a great idea but I had originally planned on being productive and getting some work done here. I am behind the eight ball on some stuff. I've got taxes to file, not only for myself but for the Marine as well. He finally sent his W-2s and it struck me as funny for some reason. His Marine Corps W2 comes from Defense Finance and Accounting (listed as the company). I already knew that but for some reason it had slipped my mind and caught me in a minute or something. Rambling...fuck

Anyhow, if I didn't have at least one incompetent under me I don't suppose I would know what to do. One of my managers does whatever the fuck she wants. Literally. She doesn't do her job and the last district manager she had couldn't get her to do it either. MY last district manager before I got promoted, and she is good, so it's not her fault. She has been in the store where she is at four weeks shy of five years. Holy cow, she got it right before I left the corporate office because they were talking about putting me in that store. Doesn't seem like it's been that long.

Anyway, she refuses to cook (part of the manager's job description in a 24-hour diner), she refuses to come back and do shift changes when she is supposed to, she treats people unfairly and is generally pretty much high-maintenance, and needs to be replace. If she would take ownership of her problems and not just the successes and at least show she wants to fix things then the other stuff wouldn't be a big deal but as it is she needs to be replaced. So eventually she will quit or they will get tired of her and offer her a position as a trainee again. Which means I will take her as a loss and lose $500 in retention money. It's not yet worth it, but a couple more months of bullshit and then it will be. She left at 10:30 this morning because she was having an anxiety attack. This is apparently quite common with her. Now before anyone who really seriously suffers from anxiety attacks me, I just don't give a fuck. If she can't because of her physical/psychological makeup handle the job of running a 24 hour restaurant then she needs to find a new fucking career.

Anyhow, like I said, she just up and left at 10:30 this morning. The busiest shift of the week, she just up and leaves. She pulled her hostess off the door and put him in her place on the grill. I'm sure that went over like a lead balloon. No cash or commissary audits. No bank deposits. The waitresses have had the keys all day doing the drawer changes and pulling food to the floor when they needed it. No paperwork done this morning. They even paid themselves. No truck order, which should have gone in this morning. I had to run a $173 shortage on the woman last week as it is, which I really don't like doing and it looks like chances are she's going to eat another one this week. I was going to cook the next two days but I went ahead and called in one of the guys that helps me out now and then to cook tomorrow because I'm not touching any money or food tomorrow until I have had the chance to do a thorough audit of it, along with all of her paperwork.

I was there at 8:30 this morning and she was fine, so at least the paperwork (which should have been done at 7am) could have been done. My visit was probably the reason for her anxiety attack, because I expect her to do her job and have very quickly started being a dick about it. At least I consider it being a dick, I don't yell at folks (often), I just don't give her any alternative to what I want her to do. Her costs are way out of control and we have given her several ways to fix it. She refuses to implement any of them. I told her on Thursday after the meeting that I had to attend on my day off because of her food cost that if she couldn't get it fixed this week that she would have to let someone go and that if she couldn't figure out who was stealing, I would just start firing people randomly. Her biggest thieves are working 1st shift with her anyway, so that should be easy. I'll start by letting the newest folks go and when the food cost drops I know I've gotten the right one. Every single one of them has had more than enough cash register shortages over the last three months to where I have reason to fire them anyway.

There she is, calling me on my cell phone, finally. 9:35pm. That's what fucking voice mail is for.

Did I tell you I needed a cigarette. Just damn. Three days, four hours.

So I think I mentioned yesterday the Temple PD was out raising money at one of my stores this weekend. Either they must have hit the $5k mark or they just decided to throw in the towel early because they cleared out around 3pm today. If they just decided to shut down I don't blame them. The weather this weekend has been pretty crappy and it's been pretty darned slow this weekend as well.

The girls have left for South Carolina. I spoke with the wife shortly after I left work this afternoon and they had just gotten to Bluffton. I guess they will be back later in the week. I have Friday off so I think they are planning on being back by then.

I unfortunately have to go back to work tonight. I was supposed to be working a double shift today but with the wife and kids leaving town I decided to come home for a while to let the dog out. They are fine anyway and don't need my non-smoking stressed out personage up their butts all evening.

I think I will spend some time surfing a couple of blogs I haven't had the chance to visit in a few days. Speaking of blogs I like to visit, if you go to Parkway Rest Stop on occasion tell the guy with the big hair my fucking IP address is banned and neither myself or my wife can get to his site from here. I need to just get Jim's email from someone else I guess and send him a not but I just haven't had the time.

So the girls are leaving in the morning for Hilton Head. Kind of sucks that I won't get to go because it means that I will never get to see our friends again as they are moving overseas. Some days my job sucks.

I've been pretty busy this weekend as my store in Temple has been hosting the local police department. They are raising money for Special Olympics (in case some of my employees need a second career as a retard) and they sit on the roof until tomorrow night or until they raise $5,000. It's a pretty cool thing to do and they all seem to be having a good time, at least when it's not raining.

I don't know how much fun I am having though. Two of my three stores have gotten a bit out of hand with some of their costs and employees just flat out stealing and in the case of the one in Bremen, the manager just doesn't seem to care less, at least not enough to change anything and fix the problem so I, along with one of the other district managers, have to go in for every single shift change now. That means being out of the house until 10pm every night but still getting back up by 5am, AND I have to work three doubles over the next seven days. I am not all that excited about it, as a matter of fact, combined with the fact that I'm not smoking I have pretty much been a bastard to several people that work for me and unless they fix the shit I don't plan on changing that anytime soon.

Speaking of the smoking it's been 48 hours since my last one. Actually it's more like 53 now. 3,180 minutes. 190,800 seconds. I started writing this post prior to going in for drawer change earlier this evening but I didn't get it finished in time. Even if I had, we had no Internet until a short while ago. Anytime it thunders within 150 miles Charter High Speed goes down and tonight was no exception.

I haven't slept since Wednesday night, even tried to nap today and was unsuccessful until about 15 minutes before the wife came in to wake me up. I guess it's because of the lack of nicotine. This sucks and I really want a smoke, even with the Chantix. It would be much worse without it though. The next few days are going to be the toughest though. With the wife and kids not being at home I won't have any reason to feel guilty if I smoke. Now that I've managed to go two days though I really don't want to screw that up.

I've been trying to keep busy so that I don't think about it but that only works for so long. The working out is part of that. I did make myself go to the gym this afternoon after I went ans spent a hundred bucks on a freaking new tire. I had apparently gotten a nail in it but it was so close to the inside edge that they wouldn't plug it. I made sure that they showed it to me first. The Wal-Mart folks are usually pretty cool about it anyway. They are more than happy to patch or plug a tire if that's all it needs.

I suppose that's about it for today. I am rambling, even more than normal and I thing maybe a hit of nyquil might just do the trick and let me sleep for a while. I have even been dreaming about smoking when I do manage to catch some sleep and I would like to avoid those if at all possible. Anyone have a couple of ludes available? That might just do the trick :) Maybe I just need a new hobby to take my mind off of it. Working out at the gym is only good for an hour a day or so. Perhaps I can take a couple of hours and go down to Fulton Industrial and sodomize winos or something. Any takers?

So the girls are officially on spring break for the next nine days, including the wife. Unfortunately I will only have one of those days off :(

I think they are planning on going to the Atlanta Zoo tomorrow and then Sunday they are driving back down to Hilton Head to spend a few days with our friend Niqui before she moves. I wish that I could go down but I am unfortunately going to be stuck at work all week. As a matter of fact I am going to have to work doubles on Sunday and Thursday. I'm not particularly looking forward to that. I hate working doubles but unfortunately sometimes this business calls for it. My profits haven't been all they could be and I need to make sure I have plenty of money when it comes time to go to Disney, and that's the money I am making now.

...I was looking at the local wally world when I was picking up some supplies for work on Wednesday and I came across a pair of skate shoes. Pete was dying for a pair of these toward the end of the school year last year and I almost got them but I don't know if she wants them anymore. I think I will wait. Don't really want to spend any money right now as it is.

I think I will surf the web for a while and then shower. I want to hit the sack at a decent time tonight. We are doing a benefit