Sunday, November 29, 2009

Frantic Work Emails: How I Love Thee

I work for a fancy TV station... or at least the only one we really have here in cowtown. It has its ups and its downs, its crappy camera shots and "Shit!" moments with the tape decks, and of course its fair share of beautiful people to gawk at. (Okay, not really. They hired me... come on.) It also has some great email moments. I had a camera shift during the 10 o'clock news tonight and I had nothing better to do, so I copied and pasted some great email moments and sent them to myself. It was the first personal email I've received in about two years. Being anti-social: It's my verb.


Example 1:

"We are missing 6 blocks of cheese and 2 packages of bacon from the downstairs refrigerator. Please return it immediately.

This will be considered a theft if not returned."

I don't know about you guys, but I don't want cheese theft on my permanent record. I have important things to do with my life. As for the bacon, there are a few people who work there who would probably enjoy playing with pig carcass. You know who you are.


Example 2:

"There will be a RV and trailer parked out back by the sat yard fence which will be there till Friday. Please don’t call the police or a tow truck or freak out because it’s there, because the owner has been given approval to park there till Friday."

I always freak out and call the police when I see RV's. You know who usually drives them? Old people. I'm watching you, old people. Can you imagine the 911 call?

"911. What is your emergency?"
"There's an RV in our parking lot. I wouldn't have called, but anyone who would voluntarily RV to Twin Falls is obviously mentally imbalanced. Send someone soon before they kill us... or feed us green jello."

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Facebook Games: The Anti-Having to Go Outside in Idaho

This was a fun facebook game, and it helped me delve even further into my current Beatles obsession. My neighbors thought I had calmed down and realized other music existed back in July. Little did they know, it was only a ruse...




Here's the game:
Using only song names from ONE ARTIST, answer these questions.
Pass it on to a few people you like and include me.
You can't use the band I used.
Try not to repeat a song title

Pick your artist:
The Beatles

Are you a male or a female:
Another Girl

Describe yourself.
Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey

How do you feel?
Money (That's What I Want)

Describe where you currently live.
Yellow Submarine

If you could go anywhere, where would you go?
Across the Universe

Your favorite form of transportation:
Blackbird

Your best friend is?
Mean Mr. Mustard

You and your best friends are:
Piggies

What's the weather like?
Here Comes the Sun

What's your favorite time?
Any Time at All

If your life was a T.V. show, what would it be called?
Happiness is a Warm Gun

What is life to you?
You Won't See Me

Your last relationship:
Don't Bother Me

Your current relationship:
For No One

Your fear:
I Am the Walrus

What is the best advice you have to give?
All You Need is Love

Thought for the day:
Think for Yourself

How would you like to die:
Run for Your Life

Your soul's present condition:
I'm Looking Through You

Your motto:
I Me Mine

Saturday, September 5, 2009

Fun Ways to Get Canned

So, as I was standing around at work today, flashing my trademark "I'm so happy I will kill you" smile, I got to thinking about when I will finally have enough money saved to quit and get the hell out of here. Oh, that blessed day. It can't come soon enough. Anyway, I've never been fired before. I've never burned any bridges. It's time for a change. This job may have to get the Looney Toon TNT treatment. Here are various methods of getting canned that I have devised. I will tell you in one to five months if I decide to utilize one of them.

1) Pulling a Jim Halpert and putting a table saw in jello. It would require dedication and actually learning to make something in the kitchen without burning it down, but I'm ready for it.

2) Leaving an anonymous parcel in a particular manager's box. It will include a contact card for a surgeon, along with a note saying, "If you ever decide to seek surgical consult for that telephone pole shoved up your butt." Actually, I'd need one for each manager's box.

3) Suddenly wearing a Home Depot shirt to work, acting disoriented, and telling my managers to stop joking around. "Come on, where'd you get these Lowe's vests? Who the hell would shop there?"

4) Going across the street to WinCo and systematically switching all of our carts with theirs, leaving sales flyers for each store in said carts.

5) Removing all the loss prevention tags from tools and putting them on sodas and seed packets.

6) Paging "clean up on aisle six" every five minutes until there actually is a clean up needed on aisle six; then telling the customer that we don't do that.

7) Removing all the toilet paper from all of the bathroom stalls and then scolding customers for complaining about it. "We care about the environment here. Use the Xlerator hand dryer, you tree killer!"

8) Paging the manager on duty to random aisles from different phones and with different voices until he gives up. Then telling the regional manager that said manager blatantly ignored calls for help. Advocate a sit down with him about his priorities.

9) Calling in with as many ridiculous reasons as you can imagine. "My dog took a bite of my ice cream. I had to buy some more. They were out of my favorite flavor at the grocery store, so I had to go to Nevada." "My cat sneezed on me, so I tried to disinfect my face. I sprayed too much, and now I'm dead." "My goldfish died yesterday and we're having a service for it tonight at the McDonald's bathroom. I'm too distraught to come in."

10) Pushing big blue lumber carts into displays repeatedly, blaming "equilibrium issues."

Thursday, September 3, 2009

You know you're from Idaho when...

Come on, we all do these about our home states. I'll post Idaho's as a means of representing the dozen people who live here... and the cows. Oh, the cows.



You know you're from Idaho when...

1) You complain about the traffic jam because there's one biker and two pick-ups ahead of you.

2) All the locals who have never lived outside of Idaho are shocked by your life choice as a spinster when you're 21 and not married.

3) If you don't have kids by 23, you are reminded by the town's old ladies that your biological clock is ticking.

4) Ninety per cent of the job openings are at Mexican, Italian, Japanese, or Chinese restaurants that are all run by German/Irish-Americans named Jim Bob.

5) The town is 100% aware of all of your actions the previous night, even before you wake up with a nasty hangover and enveloped in a faint smell of cow.

6) You're pretty excited when you go to a town with a Taco Bell.

7) The only winter month pastime is doing figure 8's in an icy parking lot.

8) Wal-Marts are open 24 hours. It's the go to hot spot.

9) You try to count the cows you see during a drive, but then realize that driving with your head turned back for two minutes isn't a good idea. You turn your head back in a rush, and readjust yourself to the straight road... with no one on it.

10) Only four people understand you when you make a list like this.

Monday, August 31, 2009

How to Survive Retail and Still Maintain a Clean Criminal Record

So as is generally the case in my life, when something has me down, I make as much fun of it as possible. This includes my crappy post-college grad job at Lowe's. I decided to write a book about it. It will likely never be published, but that will lead to my next book: Why Will Publishers Print Twilight and Not My Ingenious Literary Endeavors? Anyway, here are the prologue and the first chapter. They're short. Enjoy them. Commiserate with me. Continue to not read Twilight.



Prologue - So You’ve Landed a Retail Job

Maybe you’re a high school student landing your very first job. Maybe you’re a college student just trying to afford those books you’re never going to read. Maybe you’ve just graduated college and your philosophy degree is not appealing to employers. Maybe you’re just trying to make ends meet. Either way, you’ve found yourself in a retail job.

As you don your brightly colored smock, you sit down in the training room ready to embark on your new, exciting, slightly above minimum wage job. You’re not sure what to expect. I’m here to help ease you into this jarring experience, and tell you just what you need to do to stay alive.



Chapter One - Staying Awake During Training

In your first few hours, days, or weeks, depending on how much your employer enjoys wasting the time of new employees, you will be training. You’ll probably be with a group of other unfortunates who find themselves in the same break room, getting ready to fill out W-2’s and drown their sorrows in a jar of peanut butter later. You’ll awkwardly play “My Life Story in 20 Seconds,” where one person will inevitably share way too much, and those nearest that person will subtly move their chairs away and pretend to be very interested in the clicky pen they were just given.

As soon as this session of TMI 101 and filling out paperwork that no one actually reads is finished, it’s time for the intro video. This video will undoubtedly be hosted by someone who took 25 anti-depression pills or just drank 35 quarts of Kool-Aid. It depends on whether or not their random employee drug tests are going to be administered any time soon.

The video will cover the amazing benefits of the health insurance they offer. A deductible of only $150,000! After working there for a period of only 57 years, you’ll be able to cover that! If you’re part-time, you won’t be eligible. You will, however, get an exciting partial-benefit. You’ll get more information on this later.

It will also cover the best way to approach customer service. Armed with the smile of a homicidal clown, the host will ask each customer will the enthusiasm of a coked up Mr. Rogers if they need any help. The customer will ask them something, and the host will immediately know every single detail of all the products available. He will spew out more information than an encyclopedia article on the topic will produce. Finally, he will thank the customer and tell them to come again. The tone of his voice is reassuring. It carries with it an air of, “Come again, so we can harvest your organs.”

He will then introduce the exact same scenario 37 times. Three days later, it will finish and you will be given a quiz. This will consist of everyone exchanging answers after the training manager leaves the room. Everyone will miraculously get 100%. The hiring manager will be extremely impressed. This is one of the best training sessions they’ve ever administered!

Not too long after this, you’ll be shown the loss prevention video. You are told that you are never, under any circumstances, to follow someone who set off the EAS alarm to their car. You are also definitely not supposed to get into your car and follow them home. This is unacceptable behavior. You’re also not supposed to tackle them. I mean, geeze, people, where do you get these ideas? It’s clear that these training sessions are designed for fiends such as yourselves.

The loss prevention video will also show you that it’s never a good idea to steal from your company. The manager administering the video will then mean to subtly scan the room for signs of fear or defiance, but they will be the only person to actually think no one notices. They’re trying to weed out the bad ones. The ones who will have the audacity to put a dresser in their pocket when no one’s looking. Those are the ones they want to watch out for.

After instilling the fear of the gods of retail management in you, it’s time for the store tour. You really won’t pay attention because you’ll either still be quaking in your boots from the loss prevention video or you’ll be too busy wondering what went wrong in your life that led you to this point in your life: A tour showcasing all the customers with telephone poles up their butts who you’ll be serving, the crappy products you have to pretend to believe in, and that creepy guy hanging out in the bathing suit section.

Congratulations, though. You’ve finished the basics. Now it’s time to learn the intricacies of operating a cash register. It’s a drawn out procedure, complete with a variety of curve balls thrown your way. Five minutes later, you’re a master. You can now embark on your exciting new career.

Sunday, August 23, 2009

I miss BS University

You know, I always thought that once I graduated college, I'd just be stoked. No more all nighters, no more eating popcorn with crackers and trying to justify that as a real meal, and no more taking a mortgage out on my life to pay for books. You know, when I was a stupid freshman and actually BOUGHT books. Alas, there are many things I've been missing about it since graduating. Here are a few examples.

1. Trying to find topical youtube videos to watch in order to say that it really was studying. "What? I was studying for a media law and ethics class and watching an special on the civilization living within Geraldo Rivera's mustache!"

2. Finding various ways to steal cups from the dorm cafeteria. Mostly this just consisted of taking a crapload of cups filled with Gatorade and sitting right next to the jocks like I was one of them. The only thing that didn't look right was a five foot three white girl sitting with the men's basketball team. They were so drunk they didn't notice anyway.

3. Finding appropriate side dishes for Ramen. Mostly this consisted of more Ramen... and sometimes a stolen ketchup packet. And they say college kids don't get their daily recommended intake of fruits and vegetables. Pff!

4. Finding ways to get around never buying my textbooks. This was usually accomplished by using my sexuality to my advantage. Or at least that's what I said. Usually I just promised to do half of a group project just so I could copy all the pages of the book... and then never read them. I just included Bob Saget in all of my essay questions and the power of Danny Tanner got me a passing grade.

5. Buying 4 pints of Ben & Jerry's a week and then complaining that I didn't have enough money for food.

6. Compensating for number five by trying each kind of food in the cafeteria and then promptly getting food poisoning.

7. Stealing forks to get even for number 6. Note to future cafeteria thieves: It's not a good idea to put them in your pants pocket. I mean, unless you need to practice for your upcoming roommate assignment with Hannibal Lector.

8. Going to bed at four AM for no discernable reason. All I'd remember was some youtube video with a trumpet-playing dog and an infomercial on pipe-cutting knives.

9. Asking myself the question, "What would Conan do?" before every major decision. Then I'd just end up putting on a wolf puppet and insulting everyone.

10. Packing up at the end of a school year and wondering where the hell all of my socks went. Then blaming my roommates because I knew deep down, they were sock fiends.

Friday, August 7, 2009

Home Sweet Home

So being forced to move back in with one's parents in the year or so following graduation to save up may severely bite, particularly if one is returning to the town where cows and chickens could form an uprising and have a revolution at any point. However, I have found a few things about this recent development to wholeheartedly enjoy.

First of all, there's are the wonderful tips that my dad gives me.

"Michelle, there's a red light. You have to stop up there."

"Michelle, it's steak. You need a knife."

"Michelle, the dishes in the dishwasher are dirty. Don't get any out of there."
"Yeah, Dad, there are, like, three dishes in there. And I put them in there about two minutes ago..."
"Just making sure you didn't think Mom had washed them."
"No, Dad."

"Michelle, the trunk of your car is locked. What you need to do is pop the trunk hatch."

In case you haven't noticed, I think my dad failed to attend my kindergarten graduation. As a result, I'm fairly certain he believes I have the intellectual capacity of five year old Michelle. This is debatable. I'm not sure which side I stand on.

Secondly, I quite enjoy the fact that I get to be around Stinky once again. Stinky is the crankiest middle-aged cat this side of Garfield, except she doesn't have a dog to beat up on, so she uses me. She's an odd cat. She stands at the back screen door wanting someone to come out and pet her. As soon as we come out, she runs away. We go back inside the close the door. She returns. We open the door; she runs away. Repeat until one of us gets bored. It's usually Stinky. She's found a grasshopper to dismember.

The other thing she loves to do is go eat grass as soon as I pour her food. I'm not sure if she has body image issues and feels unsatisfied with her aging, saggy physique, or if she's just a snobby vegan. I'm fairly convinced of the latter. She frequently tips her food over and glares at it. For someone who eats grasshoppers and moths more than she takes a nap throughout the day, she sure is picky. I can't blame her. I can't imagine what cat menopause is like, especially without a male cat to slap across the face and blame for everything.

Finally, I enjoy that my monthly costs only add up to $500: $200 for rent, $50 for cable, $150 for my student loan repayment, and $100 for food, toiletries, and when I don't feel like siphoning gas from cop cars. This helps me save $400/$500 a month from my impressive minimum wage cashier job. I'm the envy of high school students everywhere. College has totally paid off. It will help me save up to plague whichever country I decide is my next stop, though. I'll be sure to tell you where I decide to go so you can make sure to be as far away as possible. I might make a few stops the next few years, though. I'll give you more than enough heads up... if I feel like it. Consider yourself warned, foreign friends.

I have to go. Sharks are doing stuff on TV. It demands my utmost attention!