I had excitement last night even before I got into work. My
father (who drives me to work every night, bless him) spotted that
there was a fire engine in the industrial estate with blue lights
flashing. Now, as I always have a few cigarettes before I start
work and I wear a dark overcoat and dark trousers into work, I decided
to hide in the shadows and take a closer look. Not that it
helped. I am still none the wiser as to what needed 2 fire
engines, except the firemen seemed to keep doing something on the
ground. And if it was an injured person, the ambulence would have
come around from the hospital on the estate, but they didn't. I'm
sure it will be in the local paper at the weekend, and if it is, I'll
keep you posted!
So, last night was....great! One of the most enjoyable shifts I
have had recently. Miss C was a joy to work with, and although I
got stuck on the tills, I didn't really care because she rocked.
She had the chilled finished in about half an hour, worked the sweets
and crisps and cakes, whilst I worked the soft drinks, tinned foods and
cereals as well as the teas and coffees. Plus we had all that and
the store faced up by 3am. We were on fire last night and
dayshift...well...I will get onto them a little later!
Saturdays are actually brilliant for us now because Teeny Tiny is great
at handing over shifts. When I got in she was facing up the
store, which is always a huge help to us, but not just that, she had
worked the alcohol, and the cages out the back as well as condensing
them for us, and she had worked the milk, meat and produce for us,
which left us just the warehouse to work. Now, despite management
and no-one at work reading this blog anymore, I have to say that Teeny
does do a stunning job. Ok, so, no-one at work will know I said
it, but hey, at least it's out there and known to some people.
Plus she is also a fantasticly nice person and I have a great laugh
with her whenever we meet up. For example tonight we were joking
about the fraudsters of old. For those who don't know the story -
long story short: Several people in management (some senior, some not)
were thieving Nectar points from the system. They stole 10,000 a
day and oddly, Nectar investigated this and the idiots lied to Nectar
and got caught. One in particular quit, and still comes to the
store looking miserable as sin. Guess the place holds bad
memories for her...
The only real downside about last night was that we had an absolute ton
of customers. Seriously, I think everyone in Lymington must have
decided to come down and buy their various bits of junk food.
This said, apparently it was heaving in the town too, so perhaps there
was something good on. Plus Chip And Pin decided to die on us on
our main till whilst it was busy, and the cashpoint also died.
Oddly, Chip And Pin only died on one till, which makes me think either
something terminal happened in the software or in the hardware.
Windows based machines so I am guessing software. This said, have
to give a shout out to Shaun fron The Fazers who came in
last night. Little guy, big ambitions. And a nice guy to
boot. Always says hi and asks how I am and we discuss him and his
band. I am going to say something controversial about The Fazers
though...great studio band, not so great live. They have a really
annoying habbit of making the guitar volume louder than Shaun's mic,
which means you can't hear the lyrics so well, which is actually the
point of a song. If they fixed this, they would be going way
further way faster. Not that they are doing so badly right now...
I found something odd at work last night too. As this blog is
shrouded in secrecy, I feel I can get away with this. Namely
because nothing can be concretely proved that this is about any place
or any one in particular. Nice huh? So, someone left a copy
of the weekly financial breakdown. Normally boring stuff, but I
am into stats so I read it. And found something really quite
strange. Almost from a thriller of some sort. Our
photocopying and fax service is taking £5,000 a week.
Phenomenal. I mean, can you imagine how mny photocopies and faxes
we must be processing a week to generate that much income? But
wait! We don't have a photocopying and fax service. So
£5,000 is beig shoved in the accounts every week under something
we don't actually have. Now, if you want to go further down the
rabbit hole, our weekly breakdowns are posted on the wall every week,
albeit in a far smaller and simpler way for our simpler members of
staff. No-one except me realised that "Dummy Department 1" took
£249 last week. Strange things are afoot in the financials
people...
Now, one of the perks of my job is serving customers. You might
not see why this is a perk immediately, but it is. I get to hear
arguments, and arguments in shops are not normal arguments.
No. Arguments in shops are a howto on humilating your significant
other. Add alcohol into the mix and you have something which
rivals our comedy greats. First up, we had a guy and girl come
in. The guy was plastered, but the girl was sober as a
judge.
Girl:"Have a drink if you're thirsty"
Guy:"What do they have? Oooohhh...Coke!"
Girl:"Not at that price. Have a Frijj"
Guy:"Frijj isn't a drink, it's a pudding"
Girl reads label: "...and for those too hungry to think straight"
Guy:"Yes, I was right. Yes, I went to Cambridge, and yes you owe
me an apology!"
Girl pays for the stuff: "Ok, this way moron"
Then we had a couple who were both sober but had just the most stunning
argument. I can't do this kind of argument, when me and Ale
argue, it is all out war, but this was just a masterclass in control -
self and mind.
Girl:"What is it?"
Guy is silent
Girl:"Was it those girls in the club?"
Guy stays silent
Girl:"What have I done?"
Guy says nothing
Girl, now growling: "Why aren't you talking to me?"
Guy pays for his stuff
Girl grabs his stuff and leaves with it
Now, I do the silent treatment really well. I can keep it up for
days. Have done it for a week and a half once. The only
person who gets me so angry I have to argue back is Ale. No-one
else can get to me like she does. And I love her for it.
But that was just a beautiful example of how to mess with someone's
head. They annoy you, you don't tell them why or how, you just
stay silent. Poetry in motion.
So anyway, last night was pretty boring workwise. Like I said, we
had everything finished by 3am, by which time I went for my break, then
Miss C went for her break, then we spent an hour and a quarter
gossiping. Well...it was more than that because when we faced up
the store we did it as a pair and gossiped all the way around the
store. Mostly about Big Brother and kids TV from the 80s.
I should also mention that Rickaaaay is playing a really dangerous
game. He was supposed to turn up at 7am for his shift. He
didn't. I left at 7:30am and he still wasn't there. Now, he
has no protection from Mummy because Mummy is off on a romantic weekend
with her husband (shudders) which means tomorrow he will have to face
the wrath of Pedro all on his lonesome. Although the odd thing
was the The Vetran wasn't in either. He was due to come in, but
just didn't. Very odd because The Vetran is almost always 20
minutes early for his shift, and very often starts work 10 minutes
before he is supposed to. This said, he is on holiday for the
rest of the week and it wouldn't surprise me one iota if Queen Chav had
screwed up the rota. When I told Shoe that Queen Chav had messed
up my hours she gasped and said "She messed up your hours? I'm
shocked. She never does that!" in a hugely sarcastic tone.
And tonight should be a lot of fun too. Last shift before I have
2 days off, and I am working with The Blonde Bombshell and Miss C, who
I found out tonight still hates The Bombshell. And for those
worried that I might not blog for most of this week because I have most
of this week off - never fear, I have plans for stuff to blog about! Permalink |