Saturday, Feb. 26, 2005 - 11:40 p.m.

You're never really free at all are you?

The past two days have been extremely busy and I've been tired beyond words... literally... hence, no entries in two days... bleh.
The Owner's daughter should have come back from "vacation" today. I will probably get a slew of e-mails on the morrow. I say "vacation" because she goes on one every month or so. I, on the other hand, have had only two in the past four years. No, I'm not bitter...
Nothing really even funny or illuminating happened these past two days, it was just work. Typical, slave-ish work. (I know I just made up a word, humor me, spell check wants me to spell it right: slavish, but I don't want to)
I finally got an answer from the employee that quit on me last week. He said he quit because he didn't want to change his image. I laugh because all I'd asked him to do was wear stud earrings instead of big huge hoops with balls on the ends. I even took the hoops out of my tregus and put in barbells. Didn't change my "image," in fact, I kinda like it better. Then I realized he'd gotten his lip pierced (after he quit last week). We aren't allowed to wear facial piercings, its against TB's uniform policy. They think it deters customers from buying food from an employee with metal in his face. And I agree. I am all for piercings... I have quite a few, but if you can't talk to me because some big metal thing is impeding your ability to speak... take that shit out. And by the way, he looked absolutely ridiculous with that ring in his lip. Some people, in my opinion, look incredibly sexy... he did not. He's this gaunt, skinny, way too pale to be Hispanic, poster child for world hunger, and he looked so silly with that lip ring... And his already existing accent made him difficult to understand and now with this ring, its impossible. Now he lisps and mispronounces words all at once. Nobody looks cool with drool on their chin, hehehe. (And DO NOT go and judge me and think I am prejudice, or any of that stupid shit...Because I'm not, I have a bit of Puerto Rican in me... every other night or so.*)

Besides being exhausted from work, I've also found myself feeling bored. I have no reason to feel this way, I really have been very busy with work. But I've been feeling very blas� about every thing. Like I just don't care. I know its because I'm so frustrated with work. I can only do so much. I am overworked and I do not have the help I need to get everything in order before our follow up inspection. If it weren't for the fact that I've watched Joe look for a job for the past week and half, with absolutely no luck, I would just quit. I'm not ready for a card board box down at the bus station, just yet. And today did nothing to help alleviate my frustrations about work. When all was said and done, I had to write up three employee. Two of which are on the management staff and should have known better. But this is the shit I have to deal with everyday now. They fired the one manager that the employees actually respected and listened to, and left me with two semi-trained managers, that the employees have started walking all over. What happened today was this: the manager in charge lost control over the employees. They wouldn't listen to her and she said she was "too tired" to even bother with them anymore. So, instead of having things prepped and ready and everyone in their positions helping to serve customers, I walk into absolute chaos. Everything, for the most part, was out, meaning we couldn't serve certain food items. Which is a HUGE no-no in TB's eyes. The store was a mess, half the employees that were supposed to be clocked in already weren't and the ones that should have already clocked out were standing around bullshitting on the clock. I was PISSED! I took the manager in charge aside to quietly ream her ass. I told her, point blank, this is exactly why people loose their jobs and get fired. I wanted to know exactly when she lost control of her shift and why she had allowed it to happen. I was scheduled in at 4pm. She said things started getting crazy at noon. Four fucking hours this shit had been going on! If the Owner knew, she'd be fired, no question. What am I supposed to do, work open to close? 55 hours a week is already slowly killing me. It almost doesn't even seem worth it. To make matters worse, one of the employees I wrote up came back later in the evening. I gave him his write up to read and he got extremely mad. He didn't even sign it, he just walked away. So, now I get to wonder if he is going to just up and quit on me, too. The Owner's daughter really needs to find that uber special manager, I'd even forego the laptop, if I could just get some good help. But hey, you get what you pay for, right. what do I expect for minimum wage...




*For those of you that need an explanation... Joe's part Puerto Rican. hehehe