And so this is X-mas, and what have you done? no. really. ???

I take it all back. I hate winter. with a raging passion. I hate driving in the winter time, I hate the icy roads, but most of all, I hate the people. Well, to be specific, I hate those little punk kids who think it's oh so funny to unplug my car, especially funny when they know it's going to be around the -30 mark for a while. Although I admit that I forgot to post a big sign to my car that said,

"ATTENTION! THIS CAR'S BATTERY HAS JUST BEEN REPLACED, PLEASE DO NOT UNPLUG!!! thanks"

and that they couldn't have possibly known the mechanics of my car, in the fact that it's a peice of shite, so it takes twice as long as any other car on the entire earth, to accept and befriend any new part I choose to put into him. stuck-up little bugger. So I was without car for a few days, while my trusty trickle-charger did it's job, and I sucked major ass to get rides to work and back.

So I guess the moral of this story is that if you see a kid with shifty eye, baggy clothes, or even just a smile, Smack him as hard as you can. Cuz you know that they'll deserve it at some point.

My sleep calculator is broken!!!

So starts the daily ritual of being too tired to do anything more than sit drinking coffee and hoping against hope that the caffeine kicks in soon, even though I've noticed I've become immune to caffeine as of late, except for that annoying eye twitch that I figured out was just from too much caffeine. It's gone now, thanks to some muscle relaxants,well mostly anyway. I just feel too apathetic to really be annoyed at my eyeball right now.

I read in a magazine that during the x-mas season, men should be getting an extra hour of sleep a night for a total of 8-9 hours of sleep, and women should be getting an extra hour and a half to 2 hours for a total of 9-10 hours of sleep. This is supposed to help prevent against winter colds and other maladies.
I, however, fail to see the logic in the statement. Sure, extra sleep gives your body time to rejuvenate, slows everything down, and lets you work through the weird stuff that happened during the day. It lets your body fix it self, and gives your brain and sensory thingies a break.

BUT-how can one get an extra hour or two of sleep when there's so much to do during x-mas?

Lets tally the hours here:
1. the roads suck so bad that you have to get up an hour early to drive to a workplace that only takes 20 minutes to get to in the other seasons
-1 hour

2. you have to set the alarm for at least 20 minutes earlier anyways, cuz when it's still pitch black outside, it's harder for you to wake up.
-20 minutes, +35 minutes

3. The Tim Horton's/Starbucks/other local coffee drive-thrus are extra packed, cuz no one wants to actually spend the 5.2 seconds it would take to get out of the car, to the freezing cold, and run inside to get yummy warm coffee only to have to go back outside in the freezing cold for another 7.9 seconds(remember you're holding sweet caffeinated nectar you don't want to spill) just to get back to a semi-cold car, cuz you turned off the engine not realizing it's -26 before you went in. Hey, I get it, not all of us think before a certain percentage of coffee has been injected into our systems. I'm not even sure I'm there yet...
-10-12 minutes


4. The Malls are open later and later everyday, and you realize that the one gift you couldn't find has just been shipped in but won't be out on the shelf until 9:30 in the pm. Due to work shortages and picky pre-teens, This leaves you scrambling with a whole bunch of pissy people and their half-asleep kids still waiting for the same thing at around 10:30 pm, because the kid who was supposed to be unpacking the shipment quit to go work at a McDonald's so he could get the free meals.
-39.6 minutes, plus two bruises on your elbow that will hurt like a bitch in the morning.

5. You stay up baking cookies for x-mas prezzies for coworkers, only to realize that you've sampled the equal of two dozen cookies, and it's already 11 pm, and that new magazine you read, you know the one that had twenty fabulous ways to stuff a turkey cold, says that you shouldn't sleep on a stomach full of sugar for at least two-three hours because your body won't metabolize the sugars and fats while you're sleeping, and you know those two(or was it three?) dozen cookies are at least worth 12.6 pounds on the hip/thigh/ass/second chin scale, but you're so tired, so you try to compromise by doing lunges around your house for twenty minutes, then reward yourself with two more cookies, give up and pass out exhausted around 11:45 pm.
-20 minutes exhaustive exercise, -17minutes guilt trip and sugar rush, + 15 minutes past your last snooze alarm

So taking into account that I usually have a bedtime of 10:30-12 pm, depending on if I'm working double shift or not, and that with taking my kiddo to daycare every morning before I have to be at work by 8am, I'm usually up by 6, 6:30 if I'm lazy, that's a daily sleep intake of 5.5-7.5 hours of sleep a night.

So we add... hmm... no subtract .....*mumble, sigh, carry the four*.....

and we have a total of 118.6 minutes of lost sleep to add on to that already depleted amount of zzzz's. anymore lost sleep, and I swear I'm going to start having spirit visions, complete with my own spirit guide in shape of a platypus. either that or I'm going to sleep 19 hours straight whether I like it or not.
fun

damn depressing, if I do say so myself

here I sit. At my desk. In the dark. and it's already 9:30 in the morning. Why am I in the dark? because the sun refuses to shine upon us until close to 10am. Then it takes an early leave around 4:15. So that means that I go to work before the Sun comes up, and Leave after it's set. All work and no sunshine to play around in, or even drive in, makes me a bitter person. If only I could have some snow. Snow is helpful in illuminating a dark night, or morning and afternoon with. plus it gives me a damn good reason to get outside. Without snow, it's just dark and cold out. With snow, it's a night-time winter wonderland in which to whisk my kiddo out to play, make forts, have snow-ball fights, go sledding, make snow angels, eat (be careful about this one), and pile on slides only to knock it down. Childish fun!!! where's my Childish fun?!? I demand that it snow. RIGHT NOW!!!
thanks for tuning in to my hissy fit. better stuff next time. I promise(hope)

The giantest pity party that can be made in less than 5 minutes.

little broken here. Lopsided really, but on the upside, it only took me 7 days of on -and-off icky sharp pain, horrible sleep, and people pestering me to go to a doctor or something and stop fu**ing complaining to them for me to-
- go to a doctor.
And stop complaining. Sort of.


And it's not exactly a doctor, more like a Massage Therapist, but still licensed, and I've also been complaining to random people about needing a really good massage, so really I'm killing two birds with one stone here. Yay for time management!!!

I'm not here for anyone else's pity but my own, but it's not so bad. Here. I found a picture that could describe the discomfort to you! yay again!

I may or may not look like this.

the following is not an accurate representation of what happened to me, but it deserves an aww, and some pity for the poar creature!

But I have to say, I learned something from searching for my perfect look-a-like via google images. This shoulder thing has been a recurring problem for years and years now, and as I was searching, I found an article on 'frozen shoulder and thyroid problems.' Hmmm. Does it matter that my family has a history of thyroid problems? dunno. Do I really want to get rid of these icky shoulder pains? most likely. Do these things have anything in common with what I found on the net? also dunno.

Really should get that physical sometime soon.

Anyways, pity me, and mourn for me. Then, after Saturday, you can rejoice for me, and then we can get back about our business.

four! in a row! craziness!

Customer Service.
It's a difficult biz to get into. most people can't handle the stress of it. However, that doesn't mean that not every Sally, Dick and Jane can do it.
I personally think Customer Service is the easiest bloody job to take on, not really hard at all, requires about three brain cells, even my son could do it and he's only four.
I think that most retail/customer service/lackeys should at least have the common sense to know three important rules when working.
1. the customer is always right(until out of earshot)
2. Listen to the customer, don't try to guess(they'll usually tell you what they want)
3. do what you get paid to do, nothing more, nothing less.

These three rules will not only keep you in your job, but probably make life easier to handle in the long run. really.
example. This morning, I inadvertantly tested an employee of a certain bagel shop in above rules. I thought, gee wouldn't it be nice if I could make my own mocha? I could just use Coffee, chocolate milk, and a little cocoa and voila! impromptu yumminess!
So I asked for four things.
My lunch, a tasty lox and capers on a cream-cheesed bagel, which was made slowly, incorrectly(she made me egg salad) and with many interruptions, since the girl was talking to the thingy in her ear, which I can only assume was either an earbud to a radio, or one of those phone plug-in-thingys.
Some soup, which was forgotten about until we got to the cash register.
The coffee, extra large (which you pour yourself, they just give you a cup)
The Chocolate Milk (which was in the cooler behind the counter, not in front with the rest of the pop and cream cheese that you just grab yourself. guess it's more valuable or something.)(this was also forgotten completely.)
Now, I happened to be only carrying debit and not any cash, so when I got my reciept and noticed no chocolate milk and realized my morning caffiene/sugar rush was postponed due to lack of listening to the customer, needless to say I got a little upset. I pointed my ice blue daggers her way and spoke in just above a whisper( don't really have a voice first thing in the morning), 'umm, where's the milk?' to which I got one of those pointy up fingers that one does to show they want the other to hold on, they're busy. So I said, a little louder,'where's your manager?' to which she replied, 'I am the manager, just hold on a sec, I'm a little busy.' and continued her conversation with her ear. At this point in time, Her manager came out( aha!!! LIAR!) and asked if I had been helped, and I proceeded to rip the little ignorant bugger a new one, using such words as:
'girl can't take out her earbuds long enough to do her job',
'a little confused with my order since she made me egg salad when I obviously asked for lox and cream cheese',
'is she actually a manager, because in that case I'm not sure why I even bother to come in here in the first place if that's the kind of person you like to hire',
-and-
'forgot my chocolate milk, and I only have debit, and I can't make my perfect mocha',
all in a surprisingly whiny voice( I guess I'm not very witty first thing in the morning either, mostly just a big puss). In any case, the girl got a swift talking to, I got a free egg salad sandwich, got my coffee refunded, and subsequently went to Starbucks and got a big americano.
So in conclusion, this is my fourth post in a row, and already I have nothing to write except how much people piss me off first thing in the morning. shitty..




p.s. oh, yeah, forgot to mention I'm trying to do this everyday for a month, care of napomlobo? namoplobo? nope... just a sec... NaBloPoMo. That's it. That stands for National Blog Posting Month. so that's what I'm doing. cuz I have no life. that's all...

Work Woes

OHh, woe of all woes! The Store is being cut down on hours, prices, and space!
The Magazine store in which I work is coming upon financial hardships. Therefore, brain matter was used, and though many ideas came up, Here are the few that are going to be put in motion.
-Starting November 3/2007, New Store hours are now as follows:
-Monday-Saturday:10-8
-Sundays and Holidays-CLOSED
Now this is a Big change, seeing as how we're losing 2 hours per weekday, and 8 hours on sundays and holidays. also, comes the rescheduling, as I'm now myself down to 37 hours a week(not factoring in the second job) and all the part-times will be at the minimum 3 hours a night, and, hopefully, this will give the part-timers more inclination to fight over the shifts that are not being taken regularly, and not just quit.
Also,
-Starting in the New Year, we will be cutting down on 300 sq ft of space.
Now this one isn't so bad, seeing as how we don't really need the corner space we're giving up, as all it's there for is newspapers and puzzle books, both of which could be easily moved to another area of the store. Also, it's the coldest corner in the place, as there's no heating vents over there, so our heating system is constantly on, cuz there's still sensors there, I believe. The only bill that won't be bitten back is the electricity, cuz there's only two lights in that section, and then a giant skylight. There's so much space in the store that's not being utilized, giving us a kind of under-decorated feel, and so I think a few landlord-paid renovations will be coming out of the woodwork in the near future as well.

Now you may be wondering what exactly these hardships are that have us doing a couple of drastic changes...
The first being the canadian dollar. yup. Since the loonie went up, and the us daller went down, our one and only question coming in has been 'when are You going to be lowering the magazine prices?'
I've come to loath this question, I really have, only for the reason that there's so many answers out there, and all of them are the truth.
-Magazine covers are pre-paid at the current price for up to six months in advance
-Each and every publisher has to set a commitee meeting for cover price changes, some which might take a while
-Some Magazines like to wait for a certain amount of time, to see if the dollar will settle, or go back down,(why should I change the price when the price is going to go back to normal within three months?)
and other such excuses that were made readily available to me when the dollar first went up.
Now the customers have all heard these a little too often, and so aren't happy with the answers anymore, because they haven't changed. So they've stopped coming. boycotted the mags, if you will. Sure, there are still those who can't do without their monthly fix, but that's usually a collected magazine, sure to be worth something in the future.
So our lines have petered out and our returns have gotten bigger...

The second would be the raising of the minimum wage. Now I've learned a great little deal about this quite recently, mostly being that no matter what they raise the minimum wage to, anyone who's making minimum will still be below the poverty line. Now they consider anyone making 18-20000 a year below the poverty line. Now 7.95 to 9.25 in two years is not going to change a damn thing. And just recently, very recently, as recently as yesterday in fact, there was a poll sent out to all business owners about how this raising of minimum wages would or would not benifit them. And there was an interesting question in and among the list. It said:
"Basic Personal Exemption(BPE): Currently Saskatchewan's BPE is $8,778 compared to Alberta's $15,435 (this is the amount of income not subject to tax). Increasing the BPE allows workers to earn more before having to pay income taxes."
Then below was a question asking if the BPE should be raised in Saskatchewan.
First? duh...
Second? Hold on, hold on... we're only at 8,778? so even if a minimum wage worker is making 18000 a yr, after the first 8778 he/she's taxed? No wonder so many people are below the poverty line! Hell I've got two jobs, making over 25000 a year, and I'm still below the poverty line! WTH?
so... the independant business owners are forced to take a little more money from their own wallets to give to their employees, who then can give it back to the government and no one really benefits from this? well then. I don't want a wage increase. I'll be paying for it.
and really, being a business owner, when you're down this far with no one wanting to buy your product, and then you have to fork out a few hundred extra dollars to your employees, probably out of your own pocket,(whether they deserve it or not), you'd probably do all you can to keep Some money in your pocket...
And thus, the reasons all add up.
Blegh.
And so ends another adventure(Rant) from the Tiny Pianist.
Tune in Next time, when it Snows!