Sorry my wandering mind hasn't passed this way lately. Things are happening both good and bad. First, the lovely economic downturn is having it's effects on the state. They are looking to lay off 2000 people which will really help with the unemployment rate. Naturally everyone is nervous. Considering the public safety issue of my job, I don't forsee getting canned, but it could happen. Won't know much until August.
Second job is killing me. I have no free time except for weekends, which I am too tired to really enjoy. I can't afford to let it go, at least not for another 2 or 3 months.
Wifey finally got it in gear and went back to school. In less than three months she passed her GED. Now she is a graduate. We went to her graduation last Thursday. For a present, I scraped together the cash for her to get her carry permit. She took the class Monday and aced it. Half-way there. Yesterday we talked and she is interested in going to technical school, possibly as a massage therapist. It will cost, but maybe we can get some family help and or financial aid. I have been considerring going to law school, but I want wifey to have her chance to shine. She deserves to get the tools to land a good job, instead of the crap she's been having. I am really proud of her. Too top it all off, she has not smoked in over 3 months. What a woman I have, smart, sexy, and determined once she makes up her mind.
My father isn't doing well. He had a stroke about 12 years ago and scared hell out of us. He recovered and putters around pretty well now. I would say he got back to 95 %. He never recovered all his stamina, but otherwise was good. Now we found out he has 2 blockages. One is in his heart and 1 in his leg. He also has a hernia in front of his heart, making it hard to see the problem. He goes in today for a dye test afterwhich we will know more. We are all terrified, and he isn't taking it well. My father and I are a lot alike in some ways, unfortunately a general hatred and terror of hospitals is one of them. The whole family is kind of in shock, I am not ready to not have Dad around, so I pray an awful lot.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Random Traces of Sanity in a Insane World
Today I blog out of frustration and boredom. Life has been weird and weirdness reins. As money grows tighter and things become more expensive, I appreciate my second job more, despite being about $0.50 and hour below abject poverty pay. It is rather, simply poverty level pay. I was the beneficiary of 2 raises. I was given a quarter on the hour a month ago after my 60 day slave period when I was making about $0.18 over minimum wage. Then last week I received another $.25 per hour. Of course, it's just me and the boss now as the other guy quit and I can pick up a little extra time on Fridays doing part of that job. Usually about an hour. It's hard to do it on any other day due to main job and needing to actually sleep.
Concerning the main job. They are still renovating the building. Since I work for the government, nothing about this is simple, and everything is done in a weird and slightly goofy fashion. Rather than move us to a temporary site, despite there being a recently renovated, yet still vacant former state building owned by the same leasing company up the hill from us with the necessary data and phone lines, it is decided to squish us into half the building while the other half is renovated. There is a special department of the state government that makes all decisions regarding locations, layouts, furnishings, ect. on all state government property whether owned or leased. They have no concept of our duties or functions, or what is necessary for us to do our jobs, yet they are in charge of this.
Anyway, the first group of local bozo's that came over to do the sidewalk and make a few structural changes were slower that Paris Hilton's mental process. They must have been taking hour long porn and masterbation breaks every 15 minutes or something. It took them months to do 2 days worth or actual work.
Then the fun part. We were told on a Thurdsay that we had until the next Wednesday to have all our personal and all unnecessary items out of our offices. We were told we would be getting boxes to pack stuff in and temporary chairs or desks. People kept touring our offices. We sent some of our less crappy furniture to branch offices. That Thursday, I packed about 90% of my personal stuff into my car as I was taking Friday off. I stopped in that Saturday to get some more stuff and found my desk had been cleaned out. That kind of pissed me off as I was told I had until Wednesday to have everything ready to go. I went in Monday and had no desk. Apparently a district manager decided he or she wanted 5 desks before they were shipped to central warehouse and just came and took them. I had court that morning and everything I had been working on was scattered around the room. My laptop was unplugged and the battery about dead sitting in the floor. I plugged it in and scrounged until I found my two files and went to court. I got out of court after lunch and came back to find I didn't have a chair. Someone from another office had come in and taken 20 chairs. We didn't have enough chairs left for staff meeting or training. When the boss called to find out when our temp furniture was coming, we found we were only getting temp tables, no chairs. Great. I am now working off my temp table in a very uncomfortable chair I scrounged out of the trash pile. My in and out boxes are setting on the floor. My files are stored in cardboard boxes.
The interior guys are as fast as the first crew were slow. These guys must be getting paid by the job rather than the hour. They even decided to lay the carpet tiles when those guys didn't show. The other day, they had the main room floor covered in adhesive. I was having to do out the back door and all the way around the building and into the lobby to get my clients. It was pretty weather fortunately because you had to circle the building on the outside to send a fax, pick up any printed paperwork, drop off a supervision fee, mail a letter, pick up mail, ect. I joked that it was the new state fitness program.
In the midst of this mess, I had a client due a drug screen. After all the jogging to get her in and do her thing, then find a female officer, then get to the drug room, of course she tested positive for almost half of the 10 things our tests pick up, so I got even more exercise.
Concerning the main job. They are still renovating the building. Since I work for the government, nothing about this is simple, and everything is done in a weird and slightly goofy fashion. Rather than move us to a temporary site, despite there being a recently renovated, yet still vacant former state building owned by the same leasing company up the hill from us with the necessary data and phone lines, it is decided to squish us into half the building while the other half is renovated. There is a special department of the state government that makes all decisions regarding locations, layouts, furnishings, ect. on all state government property whether owned or leased. They have no concept of our duties or functions, or what is necessary for us to do our jobs, yet they are in charge of this.
Anyway, the first group of local bozo's that came over to do the sidewalk and make a few structural changes were slower that Paris Hilton's mental process. They must have been taking hour long porn and masterbation breaks every 15 minutes or something. It took them months to do 2 days worth or actual work.
Then the fun part. We were told on a Thurdsay that we had until the next Wednesday to have all our personal and all unnecessary items out of our offices. We were told we would be getting boxes to pack stuff in and temporary chairs or desks. People kept touring our offices. We sent some of our less crappy furniture to branch offices. That Thursday, I packed about 90% of my personal stuff into my car as I was taking Friday off. I stopped in that Saturday to get some more stuff and found my desk had been cleaned out. That kind of pissed me off as I was told I had until Wednesday to have everything ready to go. I went in Monday and had no desk. Apparently a district manager decided he or she wanted 5 desks before they were shipped to central warehouse and just came and took them. I had court that morning and everything I had been working on was scattered around the room. My laptop was unplugged and the battery about dead sitting in the floor. I plugged it in and scrounged until I found my two files and went to court. I got out of court after lunch and came back to find I didn't have a chair. Someone from another office had come in and taken 20 chairs. We didn't have enough chairs left for staff meeting or training. When the boss called to find out when our temp furniture was coming, we found we were only getting temp tables, no chairs. Great. I am now working off my temp table in a very uncomfortable chair I scrounged out of the trash pile. My in and out boxes are setting on the floor. My files are stored in cardboard boxes.
The interior guys are as fast as the first crew were slow. These guys must be getting paid by the job rather than the hour. They even decided to lay the carpet tiles when those guys didn't show. The other day, they had the main room floor covered in adhesive. I was having to do out the back door and all the way around the building and into the lobby to get my clients. It was pretty weather fortunately because you had to circle the building on the outside to send a fax, pick up any printed paperwork, drop off a supervision fee, mail a letter, pick up mail, ect. I joked that it was the new state fitness program.
In the midst of this mess, I had a client due a drug screen. After all the jogging to get her in and do her thing, then find a female officer, then get to the drug room, of course she tested positive for almost half of the 10 things our tests pick up, so I got even more exercise.
Tuesday, April 08, 2008
Update on the Family Crisis of the Week
Well, I haven't bitched about any family stuff for around 6 minutes so I guess it is time to start.
First with the holstein-in-law. My wife's oldest sister, who picks her men up as they are released from the looney bin, let her boy toy move into her new house right after he flattened his probation violation sentence. At which point he proved he was not only nuts, but fertile by knocking her up. Everything was roses for about 30 seconds then they started fighting like Columbian drug dealers. The cops wouldn't remove him from the house, because she had let him live there long enough to establish residence, she also couldn't get a restraining order against him due to having taken out about 6 thousand of them over the last 3 years and then ignoring them and letting him move back in. She went back to her old house which was vacant, although she had tenants in the little house on the same lot and he showed up there. She was afraid he would run off her tenants, so she went back. They fought and he chucked a piece of wood at her. The police came and she got her restraining order. The police relocated her, but would not remove him. He started calling DCS and reporting her for being a bad parent. DCS came out and took an order of protection to keep HIM away from the kids. Then they started making her take parenting classes and told her that if she let him move back in they were taking the kids. Apparently they have collected over 60 complaints on her. How many are from him and how many are from other people I don't know. Now while she isn't allowed to go to her own house without police escort, he proceeds to destroy and haul off a bunch of her junk. He breaks mirrors off her truck and car. She has her van. He trashes her computer, takes the card out of the satellite box WE loaned her so the kids could have some TV, and as she found last night, ripped up her clothes. He also calls and accuses her of sleeping around on him, which I wouldn't doubt. My wife is the family peacemaker, mother confessor, and the world's most naturally born social worker. So she gets it all.
Meanwhile, per a previous post, my wife's parents have moved in on my wife's younger brother. Now his life is hell. His little sister goes in his room while he is at work and takes his ipod and laptop. She and my father-in-law hog the computer and he can't use it. He is now having to lock his room and carry his computer and ipod to work with him. Now he hasn't been selfish, he has been letting them use the stuff, but they don't have any concept of politeness or restraint. While at my house at Christmas/Easter he would get on my wife's computer when he woke and not get off until dawn. If she managed to catch him on a bathroom break he would want to use mine. He wouldn't use mine without asking though because everyone is scared of me. I am quiet and they don't know how to deal with that. Also I learned long ago in my jujitsu studies how to excude a quiet, homicidal menace. If you don't know me well, you might well assume I am only one tiny word away from a mass killing spree of immence violence, and you might well be very right. However, my bro-in-law is about to the point of packing it in and coming back here. Given our dismal economic situation, if he can't land a government job he will be shit-out-of luck. The only factory jobs around here are temp, and the only other jobs lately are commissioned sales.
First with the holstein-in-law. My wife's oldest sister, who picks her men up as they are released from the looney bin, let her boy toy move into her new house right after he flattened his probation violation sentence. At which point he proved he was not only nuts, but fertile by knocking her up. Everything was roses for about 30 seconds then they started fighting like Columbian drug dealers. The cops wouldn't remove him from the house, because she had let him live there long enough to establish residence, she also couldn't get a restraining order against him due to having taken out about 6 thousand of them over the last 3 years and then ignoring them and letting him move back in. She went back to her old house which was vacant, although she had tenants in the little house on the same lot and he showed up there. She was afraid he would run off her tenants, so she went back. They fought and he chucked a piece of wood at her. The police came and she got her restraining order. The police relocated her, but would not remove him. He started calling DCS and reporting her for being a bad parent. DCS came out and took an order of protection to keep HIM away from the kids. Then they started making her take parenting classes and told her that if she let him move back in they were taking the kids. Apparently they have collected over 60 complaints on her. How many are from him and how many are from other people I don't know. Now while she isn't allowed to go to her own house without police escort, he proceeds to destroy and haul off a bunch of her junk. He breaks mirrors off her truck and car. She has her van. He trashes her computer, takes the card out of the satellite box WE loaned her so the kids could have some TV, and as she found last night, ripped up her clothes. He also calls and accuses her of sleeping around on him, which I wouldn't doubt. My wife is the family peacemaker, mother confessor, and the world's most naturally born social worker. So she gets it all.
Meanwhile, per a previous post, my wife's parents have moved in on my wife's younger brother. Now his life is hell. His little sister goes in his room while he is at work and takes his ipod and laptop. She and my father-in-law hog the computer and he can't use it. He is now having to lock his room and carry his computer and ipod to work with him. Now he hasn't been selfish, he has been letting them use the stuff, but they don't have any concept of politeness or restraint. While at my house at Christmas/Easter he would get on my wife's computer when he woke and not get off until dawn. If she managed to catch him on a bathroom break he would want to use mine. He wouldn't use mine without asking though because everyone is scared of me. I am quiet and they don't know how to deal with that. Also I learned long ago in my jujitsu studies how to excude a quiet, homicidal menace. If you don't know me well, you might well assume I am only one tiny word away from a mass killing spree of immence violence, and you might well be very right. However, my bro-in-law is about to the point of packing it in and coming back here. Given our dismal economic situation, if he can't land a government job he will be shit-out-of luck. The only factory jobs around here are temp, and the only other jobs lately are commissioned sales.
My Day Yesterday
Okay, a recap of my day yesterday:
1) Got to work, my desk was gone, the contents were in a cardboard box sitting on my chair.
2) Went to Criminal Court. I had 2 clients up on violation warrants. Client 1 was first on the docket and dealt with promptly. Client 2 somehow came up with an attorney, so the public defender was relieved of the case and new lawyer entered into the court record. A May 6 court date was announced and then he was moved into holding where he beat the crap out of another inmate.
3) I got out of court before noon. Went home and ate and changed clothes. (Who wants to wear and tie and jacket on a gorgeous 70+ degree Spring-like day?) On the way back to work, one of those yell0w and black wasps that look like a honey bee on steroids flew in the window and stung me twice on the neck.
4) Couldn't find my paycheck from job number 2. Looked all over the place for it and can't find it. Called boss. He will reissue it tomorrow and stop payment but said if it happened again they would take the stop payment charge out of my check. Considering they pay just .40 over minimum wage and I work only 15 hours per week there, if it were simple I would have already quit, I hope to quit by next fall anyway.
5) Got back to work and found my computer chair gone. Had to drag extra crappy furniture out of storage just to enter my notes from court.
6) Had to go straight to second job due to late reporting offenders.
7) Got home from second job, had now spent 12.5 hours at work. Watched most of Medium with sick wife who laid out of school for sore throat. Fed wife.
8) Fed dogs.
9) Received phone call from insane sister-in-law. She had a court date on maintaining custody on her children. She had nothing to wear. Will explain in next post.
10) Received call from brother-in-law in Florida. He is not happy either. His parents and youngest sister have moved in with him, and if he doesn't lock his room, they go in and use his stuff (ipod and laptop mostly).
11) Went to bed.
1) Got to work, my desk was gone, the contents were in a cardboard box sitting on my chair.
2) Went to Criminal Court. I had 2 clients up on violation warrants. Client 1 was first on the docket and dealt with promptly. Client 2 somehow came up with an attorney, so the public defender was relieved of the case and new lawyer entered into the court record. A May 6 court date was announced and then he was moved into holding where he beat the crap out of another inmate.
3) I got out of court before noon. Went home and ate and changed clothes. (Who wants to wear and tie and jacket on a gorgeous 70+ degree Spring-like day?) On the way back to work, one of those yell0w and black wasps that look like a honey bee on steroids flew in the window and stung me twice on the neck.
4) Couldn't find my paycheck from job number 2. Looked all over the place for it and can't find it. Called boss. He will reissue it tomorrow and stop payment but said if it happened again they would take the stop payment charge out of my check. Considering they pay just .40 over minimum wage and I work only 15 hours per week there, if it were simple I would have already quit, I hope to quit by next fall anyway.
5) Got back to work and found my computer chair gone. Had to drag extra crappy furniture out of storage just to enter my notes from court.
6) Had to go straight to second job due to late reporting offenders.
7) Got home from second job, had now spent 12.5 hours at work. Watched most of Medium with sick wife who laid out of school for sore throat. Fed wife.
8) Fed dogs.
9) Received phone call from insane sister-in-law. She had a court date on maintaining custody on her children. She had nothing to wear. Will explain in next post.
10) Received call from brother-in-law in Florida. He is not happy either. His parents and youngest sister have moved in with him, and if he doesn't lock his room, they go in and use his stuff (ipod and laptop mostly).
11) Went to bed.
Monday, April 07, 2008
Work is Hell
Well, the old stress meter at work is pegging out. Not that my work could ever be considerred relaxing, but with the renovations, everyone is pretty much dancing on the razor's edge. Now it is worse. The workers basically made a big mess, then left. We haven't seen them in over a month. They wander in on the odd weekend and pile drywall scraps in the new water coolers. They unhooked and removed out old water fountain. Then about 2 weeks later, they came and mounted the new ones on the wall of the new bathroom and left. There is no plumbing running to them, so basically they are acting as containers for the drywall scraps. Of course, they don't look so nice or so new now. Since one of the main projects was to make a larger ladies rest room, they moved the old one to a temporary location. About the time the water fountains were hung, they did something to the toilet. It wasn't level anymore. The women now refer to it as the "rollercoaster". Apparently a trip to the restroom is now a trip to a really weird theme park.
Anyway, we are all to get new office furniture, carpet, paint, the works. So the old stuff has to go. We were notified Wednesday about the 4 phase renovation plan. Basically we are were told to have all our personal stuff out of our offices by Monday (today) close of business. Then by Wednesday we were to have all our files and work stuff boxed up. A moving company was to come in and move all the old stuff out to a secure storage location and move all our old furniture to central stores. We were to receive temporary tables and chairs to work with and were to double up on offices. That way the empty offices would be renovated, we would relocate to renovated offices and the other offices would be done. This was to be done in 3 stages. I don't really know how we could double up, you would need two phone and two computer outlets that we don't have, and it is hard to have two thugs, I mean clients, in the same office. My office isn't very large anyway. More than two people is stretching things as is.
Well, we were told, it has all been figured out, they will run extra plugs for phone and computer. Well I took Friday off for personal reasons. I took some personal stuff out Thursday. I came in Saturday for some bulkier items and my desk was gone. I was told that someone from a Nashville location came and took 5 desks for a new unit they were setting up. I came in Monday and went to court. I finished by lunch and went back to the office. My chair was gone. Someone from either McMinnville or Chattanooga got it. One group took 2 desks and 2 chairs. Another 20 chairs. We can't have our staff meeting Wednesday, because we now don't have enough chairs for everyone to sit down. We may also miss training, so maybe it all isn't bad. I scavaged a rickety old computer desk and a chair that makes me lean forward at a 30 degree angle to work from. Now we are supposed to have our cabinets and desks cleaned out by Wednesday. The moving companies haven't even put in bids yet. Our boxes won't be here until Friday, our temporary furniture won't be here until a week from Friday. But the vultures are circling picking us clean. We have three officers sitting on the floor with no chairs or desks. My visitor chairs are so crappy noone wants them yet. Man is this stupid.
Anyway, we are all to get new office furniture, carpet, paint, the works. So the old stuff has to go. We were notified Wednesday about the 4 phase renovation plan. Basically we are were told to have all our personal stuff out of our offices by Monday (today) close of business. Then by Wednesday we were to have all our files and work stuff boxed up. A moving company was to come in and move all the old stuff out to a secure storage location and move all our old furniture to central stores. We were to receive temporary tables and chairs to work with and were to double up on offices. That way the empty offices would be renovated, we would relocate to renovated offices and the other offices would be done. This was to be done in 3 stages. I don't really know how we could double up, you would need two phone and two computer outlets that we don't have, and it is hard to have two thugs, I mean clients, in the same office. My office isn't very large anyway. More than two people is stretching things as is.
Well, we were told, it has all been figured out, they will run extra plugs for phone and computer. Well I took Friday off for personal reasons. I took some personal stuff out Thursday. I came in Saturday for some bulkier items and my desk was gone. I was told that someone from a Nashville location came and took 5 desks for a new unit they were setting up. I came in Monday and went to court. I finished by lunch and went back to the office. My chair was gone. Someone from either McMinnville or Chattanooga got it. One group took 2 desks and 2 chairs. Another 20 chairs. We can't have our staff meeting Wednesday, because we now don't have enough chairs for everyone to sit down. We may also miss training, so maybe it all isn't bad. I scavaged a rickety old computer desk and a chair that makes me lean forward at a 30 degree angle to work from. Now we are supposed to have our cabinets and desks cleaned out by Wednesday. The moving companies haven't even put in bids yet. Our boxes won't be here until Friday, our temporary furniture won't be here until a week from Friday. But the vultures are circling picking us clean. We have three officers sitting on the floor with no chairs or desks. My visitor chairs are so crappy noone wants them yet. Man is this stupid.
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
Stupid Crap
I've had an issue for quite a while. In a recent checkup blood was found in my stool. I was diagnosed long ago with a bleeding hemroid. Lovely huh. Anyway, I can usually control it by watching my diet and it hadn't bothered me for quite some time until recently. Anyway my doc sent me to a specialist who sent me to the hospital, who knocked me out and gave me an anal and throat probe. I am hoping they either used to seperate probes or did the throat first. Although that might explain the strange tast in my mouth. Just kidding.
Anyway it turns out my colon is the nicest cleanest thing east of the Grand Canyon, but I have bad acid reflux; no kidding, knew that. Anyway aparantly I have damaged my throat enough that it is bleeding into my digestive tract. Great. Fortunately the answer is apparently called Prilosec in 40 mg doses. I started it two months ago and haven't had a single lava eruption. I also only occasionally see any blood on the old tp. Now for the stupid part. I have medical insurance and it pays for meds. It is great insurance. It even paid most of my wife's anti-smoking stuff. I take 2 other medications. One is a fairly new one with no generic equivalent and it costs me $40 for a 90 day supply, the other is older and costs me $5 for 90 days. The Prilosec costs me $40 for a 30 day supply. Now Prilosec recently with over the counter. They sell a 14 pill pack for around $10, a 28 pill pack for $15 and a 42 pill pack for $25, but these are 20 mg tablets. The pharmacist says they are identical but I would have to take 2 pills. If I bought the 42 and the 14 this would last 28 days and cost $35 roughly. Actually closer to $36. This would be versus $40. I would save $4 but get 2 doses less. Also, Walmart now produces a generic equivalent that is roughly $5 cheaper in the 28 and 42 pill packs. I don't remember seeing a 14 pill pack in generic. Usually generics work well for me, but I have run into one or two situations where they did not. I can usually tell when I forget to take my Prilosec with a couple of days. I picked up the 42 pill generic pack yesterday and took the first 2 pills today. I'll let you know in a couple of days whether they are the same effectiveness or not.
Anyway it turns out my colon is the nicest cleanest thing east of the Grand Canyon, but I have bad acid reflux; no kidding, knew that. Anyway aparantly I have damaged my throat enough that it is bleeding into my digestive tract. Great. Fortunately the answer is apparently called Prilosec in 40 mg doses. I started it two months ago and haven't had a single lava eruption. I also only occasionally see any blood on the old tp. Now for the stupid part. I have medical insurance and it pays for meds. It is great insurance. It even paid most of my wife's anti-smoking stuff. I take 2 other medications. One is a fairly new one with no generic equivalent and it costs me $40 for a 90 day supply, the other is older and costs me $5 for 90 days. The Prilosec costs me $40 for a 30 day supply. Now Prilosec recently with over the counter. They sell a 14 pill pack for around $10, a 28 pill pack for $15 and a 42 pill pack for $25, but these are 20 mg tablets. The pharmacist says they are identical but I would have to take 2 pills. If I bought the 42 and the 14 this would last 28 days and cost $35 roughly. Actually closer to $36. This would be versus $40. I would save $4 but get 2 doses less. Also, Walmart now produces a generic equivalent that is roughly $5 cheaper in the 28 and 42 pill packs. I don't remember seeing a 14 pill pack in generic. Usually generics work well for me, but I have run into one or two situations where they did not. I can usually tell when I forget to take my Prilosec with a couple of days. I picked up the 42 pill generic pack yesterday and took the first 2 pills today. I'll let you know in a couple of days whether they are the same effectiveness or not.
Monday, March 31, 2008
My Take on the Illegal Alien Issue
A long time ago when I was but a lad, the only sources of employment for young people were grocery stores as baggers and stock clerks and fast food. We only had 2 fast food restaurants until my junior year in high school, a Sonic and a Hardees, and only 2 grocery stores a Kroger and an IGA. This made teenage employment iffy and they wouldn't even think of hiring anyone until they were 16, so what did an unemployed teenager do for cash? Well, if you were like me and lived out in the boonies, you hired out to local farmers as a slave. I mowed yards and cleaned ditches and fence lines, all for well under minimum wage, but mainly I worked in the two money making mediums of the South, I "hauled hay" and worked in tobacco. These were the two most labor-intensive parts of the private farm in the day. The large round bales popular now were unheard of in the 1980's. Everyone used the much smaller square bales and while the actual cutting and bailing was done by machine, it required manual labor to get the bastards into a storage area, commonly called a hay loft and usually located in a dilapidated wooden structure called a "barn".
The first stage of this process took place in the field and required 3 major pieces of equipment. First you needed a trailer. This was generally a flat wooden-bedded trailer with open back and sides, but a tall front wall. It was usually in one of three conditions: OSHA's worst nightmare, unbelievably, mind numbingly, freaking dangerous, and containing blackholes large enough to suck in small to medium size galaxies. If you were one of the people riding on the trailer, you usually spent much of your time watching for holes, gaps, nails sticking up, weak spots, and miscellaneous things to cause you to break, cut, puncture, or otherwise damage your anatomy. The second piece of equipment was something to pull the trailer. Usually this was a farm truck that was held together by bailing wire and duct tape or a tractor that was kept together and running by a mixture of rust, dirt, and shear will-power. The farmer paying the cash drove this item. The last piece of equipment was the manual labor. This generally consisted of teenage boys who couldn't find any other work, alcoholics who couldn't find any other work and usually took part of their pay in beer, potheads who couldn't get any other work, and any other farmers that owed the farmer a favor or wanted him to owe them one.
How this worked, first you started the tractor or truck. This involved at the minimum another vehicle and set of jumper cables. The tractors were usually worse, because the tractor was usually one that had been in the family for generations. This valuable heirloom had invariably been stored under the drip of the equipment shed roof for years. Quite often the rust was the most attractive feature of the machine. Most of these things were so old they didn't have electric start, so you had to manually crank them. This involved a metal rod that looked a lot like a tire iron, which had usually been lost or broken 57 years ago, but something had been found that worked just as well and only made the process about 29 percent more dangerous. Turning an internal combustion engine over enough to start by hand might only be a light workout for The Rock, but when you have a group of 15 year old boys, 60 year old men, and 90 pound alcoholics, it generally involved five or six people jumping up and down on the crank, while the farmer adjusted chokes and throttles, pushed in clutches, and flipped switches all while squinting his left eye, holding his breath, and hoping he'd sacrificed the right animals to the right pagan gods the night before. The rest of the crowd would be chanting every curse word and bit of profanity known to them, and probably learning some new ones, then the motor would catch. The trick to crank starting a tractor is knowing when to let go of the crank. If you don't let go exactly right, the metal bar is going to jerk and whack you in some part of the anatomy you might need later. Then you are going to have to lie in the barn until the hay is in before they take you home or to the hospital.
Now farmers can be divided into categories based on three criteria. How they pay, how they bale, and how they drive in the field.
Basically the first stage of hay hauling involves driving the rig around the field while one group of people place the bales of hay on the trailer and another group stack the hay neatly on the trailer. You want the more experienced people stacking, because there is a trick to it and if it is done badly, you either don't get the maximum amount of hay per load, or it falls off. Both waste time. Also, the higher they can stack the hay the better, to a point. Anyone can set the hay up on the trailer, so the less experienced people do that.
Now, some farmers paid by the hour, which was cool for the worker. Most farmers wanted to pay per bale. If they figured the total bales and divided by total workers, this was okay, unless you have a lot of time wasting problems like badly stacked hay or a barn from hell. Most farmers though, felt the best thing was for the individual to track the number of bales they handled and paid that way. This would seem fair, because the harder workers would make more, and everyone would be encouraged to work more. Except for a few things.
Hay bales come in many forms. Bales of hay are held together by two or three cheap strings. They can be baled tight or loose. You want tight, but not too tight. Tight is good. Loose bales weigh less, but if too loose can fall apart before you get them loaded. They also don't stack very well. If the bale comes apart on you, you loose time trying to put it back together, or grabbing another bale. Not good if you are on the per bale pay system. If the bales are too tight, then the strings can break which is just as bad or worse than falling apart. You also hope the farmer didn't bale them too heavy. Some farmers like to pack them heavy. This makes fewer bales so he has less to pay if on the per bale system. It also tires the workers out quicker though. These idiots were usually the ones that wanted the stuff stacked really high too.
Then you have driving. Some farmers drop it into extra low granny gear and creep through the field making it easy to get the bales to the trailer. Then you have the guys that bounce through the field at 30 miles per hour making you chase the trailer. These are usually the same guys that have the 150 pound, tight baled, exploding hay bales they want stacked 8 runs high.
Once loaded the hay is hauled to the barn. If you are lucky, the barn is in decent shape. If not everything you had to watch for on the trailer goes triple in the barn, plus add spiders, snakes, hornets, wasps, angry rats, dogs, cats, barn swallows, pigs, etc. Some farmers had these conveyors belt set ups they could hook to the trailer. A couple of guys would stay on the trailer and drop bales on the conveyor and it would carry the bales up in the loft. Other people would carry these over to where the rest would stack it. The number stacking versus carrying increased the higher you went. If there was no conveyor belt, the poor suckers on the trailer had to "throw" the bales up, which increased the stain on bale and string. It also wore out the guys on the trailer and increase injury risk for the targets, I mean bale catchers.
Now a quick description of hay for those that have never encountered it. It is basically dried out weeds. It is scratchy and makes you itch. It usually has a dry, dusty smell that makes you sneeze. It is almost always 90+ degrees when you haul the crap in. It is a miserable job, hot and boring. Hay lofts are always shadowy, this is to hide the holes you can fall through. The top of a barn in summer is hot, usually about 110 degrees and dusty. Once you half fill it with hay, then the air is 90 parts dust to every 10 parts air. The temperature goes up to about 630 degrees and the dust coats your sweaty skin. Did I mention hay scratches the heck out of you?
Tobacco is different. Tobacco is an interesting plant. There is absolutely nothing pleasant about it. It is ugly and disgusting in every way, yet people pay money for it. This is how it works.
One or two people can handle a lot of tobacco until it needs to be harvested. You plant it, you how it, spray it with insecticide, keep it cleaned out, top and sucker it (don't ask, you basically break of the bloom on top and pull off little leaves called suckers, that are bad, I don't really know why, but it has to be done by hand.) When it is time, you cut it, spike it. Let it sit a couple of days, then haul it and hang it.
One man can cut and spike, but it is faster to have a cutter and a spiker. One man takes a small hatchet and bends the tobacco stalk enough to expose the upper part of the root, then he whacks to the base of the stalk with the hatchet. The stalk is tough here so it takes some force. This man is bent over a little, so he stands, twists around and hands the plant to the guy behind him. This man has a square wooden stick with a sharp steel cone, called a spike, over one end. He pulls the tobacco stalk down hard, driving the spike through the stalk a little above the base of the root. You want some of the tough root, to hold the stalk together on the pole. If the cutter, cuts too high on the stalk, the stalk splits when spiked, creating extra work later. The spiker puts 5 to 6 stalks per stick. He fans the stalks out, so the pole hold them up like a tepee. This is left out in the field about 3 days to dry, then they are picked up and hauled in similar to hay. The sticks are threaded over poles in the barn called tobacco tiers. This lets the stalks hang straight down. They dry for several months in the barn. When ready, the sticks are taken down, the stalks removed, the leaves removed from the stalks and sorted and baled.
Now tobacco is not nice, the sap is black and sticky, you get it on you and dust and dirt stick to you like crazy. If you get it in your eyes or an open wound, it burns worse than alcohol. It tastes like I imagine horse urine and dirt would taste mixed together. Normal soap won't take it off, you need to sandblast it off. You smell the stuff for a week afterward. It is just nasty. I still liked it better than hay. It has worms that like to eat it and they are icky feeling. It also attracts stinging bugs like crazy. Cutting tobacco works the arms and back out, and I sliced up a few pairs of jeans and my leg once. I know a few people who spiked their hands. Then you have to watch for splinters from the sticks. You also usually end up hanging by your toes on tobacco tier poles 30 feet off the ground in a barn hanging the stuff up.
Neither job was fun, but I did have some fun doing it. Sometimes I miss it while sitting at a desk. I don't miss blowing dirt out my nose for three days though. Now most people use round bales and hay is strictly done from the back of a tractor. We still use square bales for the goats and have trouble finding them to buy. My father raised tobacco until last year. I helped with it some, but come September and cutting, he hired people to cut and haul it. My father has nothing against the Hispanics and respects them as workers, but he doesn't like using illegals, so he tries to hire locally. He could only find two non-Hispanics willing to do the work, despite an unbelievable unemployment rate. I find this true of most of the local farmers. They don't want to employ illegals, but our locally grown unemployed don't want to do the hard labor. In my main job, I can't find anyone under 35 who has any idea what farm labor is. I think this might be part of our problems. A few summers of farm work, and most any other type of job seems sweet.
The first stage of this process took place in the field and required 3 major pieces of equipment. First you needed a trailer. This was generally a flat wooden-bedded trailer with open back and sides, but a tall front wall. It was usually in one of three conditions: OSHA's worst nightmare, unbelievably, mind numbingly, freaking dangerous, and containing blackholes large enough to suck in small to medium size galaxies. If you were one of the people riding on the trailer, you usually spent much of your time watching for holes, gaps, nails sticking up, weak spots, and miscellaneous things to cause you to break, cut, puncture, or otherwise damage your anatomy. The second piece of equipment was something to pull the trailer. Usually this was a farm truck that was held together by bailing wire and duct tape or a tractor that was kept together and running by a mixture of rust, dirt, and shear will-power. The farmer paying the cash drove this item. The last piece of equipment was the manual labor. This generally consisted of teenage boys who couldn't find any other work, alcoholics who couldn't find any other work and usually took part of their pay in beer, potheads who couldn't get any other work, and any other farmers that owed the farmer a favor or wanted him to owe them one.
How this worked, first you started the tractor or truck. This involved at the minimum another vehicle and set of jumper cables. The tractors were usually worse, because the tractor was usually one that had been in the family for generations. This valuable heirloom had invariably been stored under the drip of the equipment shed roof for years. Quite often the rust was the most attractive feature of the machine. Most of these things were so old they didn't have electric start, so you had to manually crank them. This involved a metal rod that looked a lot like a tire iron, which had usually been lost or broken 57 years ago, but something had been found that worked just as well and only made the process about 29 percent more dangerous. Turning an internal combustion engine over enough to start by hand might only be a light workout for The Rock, but when you have a group of 15 year old boys, 60 year old men, and 90 pound alcoholics, it generally involved five or six people jumping up and down on the crank, while the farmer adjusted chokes and throttles, pushed in clutches, and flipped switches all while squinting his left eye, holding his breath, and hoping he'd sacrificed the right animals to the right pagan gods the night before. The rest of the crowd would be chanting every curse word and bit of profanity known to them, and probably learning some new ones, then the motor would catch. The trick to crank starting a tractor is knowing when to let go of the crank. If you don't let go exactly right, the metal bar is going to jerk and whack you in some part of the anatomy you might need later. Then you are going to have to lie in the barn until the hay is in before they take you home or to the hospital.
Now farmers can be divided into categories based on three criteria. How they pay, how they bale, and how they drive in the field.
Basically the first stage of hay hauling involves driving the rig around the field while one group of people place the bales of hay on the trailer and another group stack the hay neatly on the trailer. You want the more experienced people stacking, because there is a trick to it and if it is done badly, you either don't get the maximum amount of hay per load, or it falls off. Both waste time. Also, the higher they can stack the hay the better, to a point. Anyone can set the hay up on the trailer, so the less experienced people do that.
Now, some farmers paid by the hour, which was cool for the worker. Most farmers wanted to pay per bale. If they figured the total bales and divided by total workers, this was okay, unless you have a lot of time wasting problems like badly stacked hay or a barn from hell. Most farmers though, felt the best thing was for the individual to track the number of bales they handled and paid that way. This would seem fair, because the harder workers would make more, and everyone would be encouraged to work more. Except for a few things.
Hay bales come in many forms. Bales of hay are held together by two or three cheap strings. They can be baled tight or loose. You want tight, but not too tight. Tight is good. Loose bales weigh less, but if too loose can fall apart before you get them loaded. They also don't stack very well. If the bale comes apart on you, you loose time trying to put it back together, or grabbing another bale. Not good if you are on the per bale pay system. If the bales are too tight, then the strings can break which is just as bad or worse than falling apart. You also hope the farmer didn't bale them too heavy. Some farmers like to pack them heavy. This makes fewer bales so he has less to pay if on the per bale system. It also tires the workers out quicker though. These idiots were usually the ones that wanted the stuff stacked really high too.
Then you have driving. Some farmers drop it into extra low granny gear and creep through the field making it easy to get the bales to the trailer. Then you have the guys that bounce through the field at 30 miles per hour making you chase the trailer. These are usually the same guys that have the 150 pound, tight baled, exploding hay bales they want stacked 8 runs high.
Once loaded the hay is hauled to the barn. If you are lucky, the barn is in decent shape. If not everything you had to watch for on the trailer goes triple in the barn, plus add spiders, snakes, hornets, wasps, angry rats, dogs, cats, barn swallows, pigs, etc. Some farmers had these conveyors belt set ups they could hook to the trailer. A couple of guys would stay on the trailer and drop bales on the conveyor and it would carry the bales up in the loft. Other people would carry these over to where the rest would stack it. The number stacking versus carrying increased the higher you went. If there was no conveyor belt, the poor suckers on the trailer had to "throw" the bales up, which increased the stain on bale and string. It also wore out the guys on the trailer and increase injury risk for the targets, I mean bale catchers.
Now a quick description of hay for those that have never encountered it. It is basically dried out weeds. It is scratchy and makes you itch. It usually has a dry, dusty smell that makes you sneeze. It is almost always 90+ degrees when you haul the crap in. It is a miserable job, hot and boring. Hay lofts are always shadowy, this is to hide the holes you can fall through. The top of a barn in summer is hot, usually about 110 degrees and dusty. Once you half fill it with hay, then the air is 90 parts dust to every 10 parts air. The temperature goes up to about 630 degrees and the dust coats your sweaty skin. Did I mention hay scratches the heck out of you?
Tobacco is different. Tobacco is an interesting plant. There is absolutely nothing pleasant about it. It is ugly and disgusting in every way, yet people pay money for it. This is how it works.
One or two people can handle a lot of tobacco until it needs to be harvested. You plant it, you how it, spray it with insecticide, keep it cleaned out, top and sucker it (don't ask, you basically break of the bloom on top and pull off little leaves called suckers, that are bad, I don't really know why, but it has to be done by hand.) When it is time, you cut it, spike it. Let it sit a couple of days, then haul it and hang it.
One man can cut and spike, but it is faster to have a cutter and a spiker. One man takes a small hatchet and bends the tobacco stalk enough to expose the upper part of the root, then he whacks to the base of the stalk with the hatchet. The stalk is tough here so it takes some force. This man is bent over a little, so he stands, twists around and hands the plant to the guy behind him. This man has a square wooden stick with a sharp steel cone, called a spike, over one end. He pulls the tobacco stalk down hard, driving the spike through the stalk a little above the base of the root. You want some of the tough root, to hold the stalk together on the pole. If the cutter, cuts too high on the stalk, the stalk splits when spiked, creating extra work later. The spiker puts 5 to 6 stalks per stick. He fans the stalks out, so the pole hold them up like a tepee. This is left out in the field about 3 days to dry, then they are picked up and hauled in similar to hay. The sticks are threaded over poles in the barn called tobacco tiers. This lets the stalks hang straight down. They dry for several months in the barn. When ready, the sticks are taken down, the stalks removed, the leaves removed from the stalks and sorted and baled.
Now tobacco is not nice, the sap is black and sticky, you get it on you and dust and dirt stick to you like crazy. If you get it in your eyes or an open wound, it burns worse than alcohol. It tastes like I imagine horse urine and dirt would taste mixed together. Normal soap won't take it off, you need to sandblast it off. You smell the stuff for a week afterward. It is just nasty. I still liked it better than hay. It has worms that like to eat it and they are icky feeling. It also attracts stinging bugs like crazy. Cutting tobacco works the arms and back out, and I sliced up a few pairs of jeans and my leg once. I know a few people who spiked their hands. Then you have to watch for splinters from the sticks. You also usually end up hanging by your toes on tobacco tier poles 30 feet off the ground in a barn hanging the stuff up.
Neither job was fun, but I did have some fun doing it. Sometimes I miss it while sitting at a desk. I don't miss blowing dirt out my nose for three days though. Now most people use round bales and hay is strictly done from the back of a tractor. We still use square bales for the goats and have trouble finding them to buy. My father raised tobacco until last year. I helped with it some, but come September and cutting, he hired people to cut and haul it. My father has nothing against the Hispanics and respects them as workers, but he doesn't like using illegals, so he tries to hire locally. He could only find two non-Hispanics willing to do the work, despite an unbelievable unemployment rate. I find this true of most of the local farmers. They don't want to employ illegals, but our locally grown unemployed don't want to do the hard labor. In my main job, I can't find anyone under 35 who has any idea what farm labor is. I think this might be part of our problems. A few summers of farm work, and most any other type of job seems sweet.
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
An Open Letter to the Politicians in the Federal Government
First off guys, I appreciate the money you are giving me and my wife come May. If I understand your intentions, you wish us to go out and mindlessly spend it rather than trying to save it. If we all do this, according to your reason, it will "stimulate" the economy. Now, I'm not an economic expert. Hell, I didn't really even like my economics classes in school. But don't you guys think this is kind of like sticking a band aid on a gaping stomach wound without even applying some neosporine or poking the intestines back in? I mean $600 a person sounds nice, but really, how long do you thing that's going to last. People will spend that quick. You will be dumping money in the economy for a couple of weeks, a month at the most and things will go back to normal. Look, we've all seen the medical shows. The guy who has the heart attack, his heart never starts back on the first shock. You have to electrocute the hell out of his ass to get the all ticker pumping strong again. If the economy's heart isn't pumping, one shock is not going to cut it.
I mean giving everyone who pays taxes $600 bucks sounds good, but isn't it really flash? Aren't you trying to look like you're doing something so you don't get voted out of office, all the while hoping the economy fairy waves her magic money stick and makes everything better. I mean if you really wanted to do something, wouldn't you be trying to figure out why the economy sucks and plug the hole. I'll help.
There are things in life that you have to have: Shelter--rent or house payment, food--groceries, health --medication, other necessary items like electricity and or propane or natural gas, water, pornography, liquor and condoms, ect. To get those things you have to get to work, which often means driving, so you need gasoline. Then you have the things you like, but can live without, the luxury items like movies, nightclubs, eating out, vacations, travel, new furniture, ect. If the necessary items cost more, say because fossil fuels go sky high and suddenly it costs 90 bucks to fill your gas tank, and shipping costs go way up so the cost of food, medication, heating fuel, ect. suddenly goes way up, you just don't have to cash to buy the non-necessary stuff. So now people who's livelihood might be in industries dependant on the spare money may find themselves out of work because people aren't buying pool tables, 4 wheel drive vehicles, new couches, or going on vacation, because they can't afford it. It costs them too much to just get back and forth to work and feed and house their families.
If you really want to stimulate the economy, do something to drop the gas prices. This will make it not cost so much just to go to and from work. I used to spend about $15 a week on gas. Now I spend about $50. I went from a 6 cylinder Ford to a Suzuki lawnmower engine in a box, but still spend over 3 times as much. If it don't cost so much to transport stuff, business will slowly lower the price of stuff back down. This will encourage the average Joe to go back to buying crap he don't need, since he now has some spare cash again. With sales up, businesses will go to hiring back the convenient but non-essential people they laid off when sales dropped off.
My wife and I used to go to the bar or club once or twice a month, eat out at a decent restaurant a couple of times a week, go to the movies or bowling a couple of times a month, and blow hell out of the shooting range on a regular basis. Now, about all we can afford to do is sit at home and watch TV or play on the Internet. Hitting the gym a couple of times a week is now our high point. This really sucks. The $600 you give me will go to paying a few bills a little ahead to give me breathing room. That's all. On the other hand, if you can encourage gas prices to drop, you could save my $30 to $40 per week, that would make $120 to $200 per month I can spend on other shit. If the other shit drops a little in price, I can buy more off it. Plus I am more likely to make that 800 mile trip to visit the old in-laws or the 200 mile one to see the nephews. See, you can stimulate the economy and make my wife happy. That's a win-win situation.
I mean giving everyone who pays taxes $600 bucks sounds good, but isn't it really flash? Aren't you trying to look like you're doing something so you don't get voted out of office, all the while hoping the economy fairy waves her magic money stick and makes everything better. I mean if you really wanted to do something, wouldn't you be trying to figure out why the economy sucks and plug the hole. I'll help.
There are things in life that you have to have: Shelter--rent or house payment, food--groceries, health --medication, other necessary items like electricity and or propane or natural gas, water, pornography, liquor and condoms, ect. To get those things you have to get to work, which often means driving, so you need gasoline. Then you have the things you like, but can live without, the luxury items like movies, nightclubs, eating out, vacations, travel, new furniture, ect. If the necessary items cost more, say because fossil fuels go sky high and suddenly it costs 90 bucks to fill your gas tank, and shipping costs go way up so the cost of food, medication, heating fuel, ect. suddenly goes way up, you just don't have to cash to buy the non-necessary stuff. So now people who's livelihood might be in industries dependant on the spare money may find themselves out of work because people aren't buying pool tables, 4 wheel drive vehicles, new couches, or going on vacation, because they can't afford it. It costs them too much to just get back and forth to work and feed and house their families.
If you really want to stimulate the economy, do something to drop the gas prices. This will make it not cost so much just to go to and from work. I used to spend about $15 a week on gas. Now I spend about $50. I went from a 6 cylinder Ford to a Suzuki lawnmower engine in a box, but still spend over 3 times as much. If it don't cost so much to transport stuff, business will slowly lower the price of stuff back down. This will encourage the average Joe to go back to buying crap he don't need, since he now has some spare cash again. With sales up, businesses will go to hiring back the convenient but non-essential people they laid off when sales dropped off.
My wife and I used to go to the bar or club once or twice a month, eat out at a decent restaurant a couple of times a week, go to the movies or bowling a couple of times a month, and blow hell out of the shooting range on a regular basis. Now, about all we can afford to do is sit at home and watch TV or play on the Internet. Hitting the gym a couple of times a week is now our high point. This really sucks. The $600 you give me will go to paying a few bills a little ahead to give me breathing room. That's all. On the other hand, if you can encourage gas prices to drop, you could save my $30 to $40 per week, that would make $120 to $200 per month I can spend on other shit. If the other shit drops a little in price, I can buy more off it. Plus I am more likely to make that 800 mile trip to visit the old in-laws or the 200 mile one to see the nephews. See, you can stimulate the economy and make my wife happy. That's a win-win situation.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Family Update
Well, if you read my hellidays post, you know my in-laws can be a little less than pleasant to live with. Well, they are now in Florida. Good. Anyway, I have three brother-in-laws. Two of them are my wife's brothers and they both live in Florida. The oldest is planning on getting married soon. He was working for this rich-bitch type helping take care of her pet horses. Apparently if you have enough money you have pet horses instead of goldfish. Anyway, basically he was getting paid a shit load of money, had free board, and was fed a lot of meals along with bonuses and stuff, all for working about three hours a day and spending the rest of the time standing around playing with himself and looking busy. He got his younger brother-in-law on also. The job was easy, but the boss was a bitch. Anyway, they spent the winters on the West Coast of Florida and the summers in New York. This is where the older one met his wife-to-be, although that is another story involving emotions, betrayal, and other complicated shit.
Well, older bil knocks up his girl and they have a little baby girl. Right as the process to move back to Florida is at its peak, younger bil is told to do something by rich bitch. He does it. She leaves, supervisor shows up and wants thing done another way, younger bil bitches enough to show he can't be pushed around, then does it. Older bil jumps down supervisor's throat, they both get fired. Now for the sucky part. Old bil was wanting to get fired. He had been thinking about quitting for a couple of months, then decided he wanted to be fired. Since he is something of a professional asshole, this wasn't really hard, but he took lil brother with him and since younger bil isn't an asshole, but a decent guy I am fond of, this sucks. Anyway they move back to Florida and girlfriend, who was also a horse worker only out of work from having a bun baking, gets a job with horsey type people to support the lot of them. Younger bil moves into the apartment she found for them with them and the two men go through their severence pay.
Girlfriend, who actually seems nice enough, doesn't realize what she's getting into and helps my father and mother-in-law get set up in Florida. Now they've step in it as the creeping in-laws seep into their lives to take over forever. Younger bil goes to school and becomes a licenced security guard at a hospital. Older bil does day labor. Girlfriend takes time off when baby gets sick and gets fired. Older bil and girlfriend decide to move to keys.
Anyway, I told you all that to tell you this. With two-thirds of the group moving, girlfriend apparently after checking with younger bil offered to let my in-laws move into the apartment after they left and, although he claims to have been either insane or drunk or insanely drunk, younger bil agreed and it was a done deal. My mother-in-law took a trip to Canada to visit her mother and brother. While she was gone, my father-in-law broke her car. It's a Ford escort. Younger bil got caught helping him get it someplace to work on. My younger bil also has a ford escort and my father-in-law wanted to take the necessary parts off HIS car to fix my mother-in-law's car before she gets back and finds he broke it. This would have left my younger bil with nothing but his motorcycle to get back and forth to work. And the car belongs to my bil, he BOUGHT it off his father. My younger sil is already proving to be a major little bitch, hoping on girlfriend's computer claiming she needs to do homework, then spending three hours on myspace and slapping her homework together in the last ten minutes before she leaves. Hopefully girlfriend will take pc with her. Younger BIL is in for it. They are already driving him nuts. It took him 19 years to get away and now they are sucking him back in, poor guy. My father-in-law has a way of taking everything over and making it about him. I suggested my younger bil stage a major drunken orgy every weekend and leave satan worshiping and withcraft literature scattered about the apartment. Either that or move in the dumpster out back. I think it is only a two bedroom and with him working third shift, I think that they are planning on putting the little bitch in his room. That won't work, she don't take care of anything and prowls through everything. He would have no privacy. I pity him. I think I would move into the dumpster or fake my death, change my name and move somewhere they don't have horses, like Detroit.
Well, older bil knocks up his girl and they have a little baby girl. Right as the process to move back to Florida is at its peak, younger bil is told to do something by rich bitch. He does it. She leaves, supervisor shows up and wants thing done another way, younger bil bitches enough to show he can't be pushed around, then does it. Older bil jumps down supervisor's throat, they both get fired. Now for the sucky part. Old bil was wanting to get fired. He had been thinking about quitting for a couple of months, then decided he wanted to be fired. Since he is something of a professional asshole, this wasn't really hard, but he took lil brother with him and since younger bil isn't an asshole, but a decent guy I am fond of, this sucks. Anyway they move back to Florida and girlfriend, who was also a horse worker only out of work from having a bun baking, gets a job with horsey type people to support the lot of them. Younger bil moves into the apartment she found for them with them and the two men go through their severence pay.
Girlfriend, who actually seems nice enough, doesn't realize what she's getting into and helps my father and mother-in-law get set up in Florida. Now they've step in it as the creeping in-laws seep into their lives to take over forever. Younger bil goes to school and becomes a licenced security guard at a hospital. Older bil does day labor. Girlfriend takes time off when baby gets sick and gets fired. Older bil and girlfriend decide to move to keys.
Anyway, I told you all that to tell you this. With two-thirds of the group moving, girlfriend apparently after checking with younger bil offered to let my in-laws move into the apartment after they left and, although he claims to have been either insane or drunk or insanely drunk, younger bil agreed and it was a done deal. My mother-in-law took a trip to Canada to visit her mother and brother. While she was gone, my father-in-law broke her car. It's a Ford escort. Younger bil got caught helping him get it someplace to work on. My younger bil also has a ford escort and my father-in-law wanted to take the necessary parts off HIS car to fix my mother-in-law's car before she gets back and finds he broke it. This would have left my younger bil with nothing but his motorcycle to get back and forth to work. And the car belongs to my bil, he BOUGHT it off his father. My younger sil is already proving to be a major little bitch, hoping on girlfriend's computer claiming she needs to do homework, then spending three hours on myspace and slapping her homework together in the last ten minutes before she leaves. Hopefully girlfriend will take pc with her. Younger BIL is in for it. They are already driving him nuts. It took him 19 years to get away and now they are sucking him back in, poor guy. My father-in-law has a way of taking everything over and making it about him. I suggested my younger bil stage a major drunken orgy every weekend and leave satan worshiping and withcraft literature scattered about the apartment. Either that or move in the dumpster out back. I think it is only a two bedroom and with him working third shift, I think that they are planning on putting the little bitch in his room. That won't work, she don't take care of anything and prowls through everything. He would have no privacy. I pity him. I think I would move into the dumpster or fake my death, change my name and move somewhere they don't have horses, like Detroit.
Wednesday, March 05, 2008
I Finally Figured It Out
Well, I think I finally got it. You see, in my second job, my first chore is to clean two bathrooms at the end of a 5 mile, cross-factory hike. The men's room is usually not a lot of fun to clean. I think it was expanded, because the first half the room is narrower and seems a little newer. The first half the bathroom is only about 1/2 the width of the last half. When you enter the door, you have a trash can, then a large stainless steel sink, then another trash can. Next you have two urinals, then three stalls. When you get to the stalls, my cleaning cart takes up the entire aisle between the stalls and the wall. You then enter another doorway and the second half of the restroom. This area is much wider. The open area has a trash can and another stainless sink, but you have a lot of room. The two urinals are next, then three more stalls. You could park two cleaning carts there and still have plenty of room between the stalls and the wall.
The mystery though is the last stall. Every day, when I sweep, I find a pile of stuff between the toilet and the concrete block wall. It is always there. It generally consists of pieces of toilet paper, newspaper, shop towels, and balled up papertowels. This has always puzzled me, because, although the size varies day-t0-day, it is usually a big pile.
The shop towels could fall out of the guys' pockets when they drop trou, and they could bring the newspaper to read. Toilet paper in a bathroom stall isn't that unusual, but why not just flush it? Plus, it doesn't appear used to the casual glance. But what the hell with the paper towels? Why are they carrying paper towels to the stall with them? The dispenser is clear on the other end of the room.
Well, I got it. They have a man-bird working there. Or maybe a bird-man. You know, a mutant half-man, half-bird. He's nesting, it's the only thing that fits all the facts. The idiot is trying to build a nest to attract a mate and the idiot is doing it in the damn men's room. You'd think the smell alone would make him realize it's a bad idea.
Anyway, I am planning to call the show, Monster-Quest. I think if they come up and set up the motion detection cameras they can probably get some footage of the nest building in action. Maybe even some infra-red stuff. Cool!!!
The mystery though is the last stall. Every day, when I sweep, I find a pile of stuff between the toilet and the concrete block wall. It is always there. It generally consists of pieces of toilet paper, newspaper, shop towels, and balled up papertowels. This has always puzzled me, because, although the size varies day-t0-day, it is usually a big pile.
The shop towels could fall out of the guys' pockets when they drop trou, and they could bring the newspaper to read. Toilet paper in a bathroom stall isn't that unusual, but why not just flush it? Plus, it doesn't appear used to the casual glance. But what the hell with the paper towels? Why are they carrying paper towels to the stall with them? The dispenser is clear on the other end of the room.
Well, I got it. They have a man-bird working there. Or maybe a bird-man. You know, a mutant half-man, half-bird. He's nesting, it's the only thing that fits all the facts. The idiot is trying to build a nest to attract a mate and the idiot is doing it in the damn men's room. You'd think the smell alone would make him realize it's a bad idea.
Anyway, I am planning to call the show, Monster-Quest. I think if they come up and set up the motion detection cameras they can probably get some footage of the nest building in action. Maybe even some infra-red stuff. Cool!!!
Friday, February 29, 2008
Now That's Weird!!!!!
We have a local on-line site for classified type adds. I just found the following ad:
Hello,I'm a representivtive for the jerry springer show. Would you like a free trip to chicago all expenses paid? All you have to have is an unuasal storie to tell on national tv.I offer free airfair limo service from the airport reumbersment for gas to the airport and time taken off work.Free food we will take you out on the town on us and give you all the cigarettes you can smoke.The only thing we dont take care of is alchohol. This an offer you wont get by directly calling the show. So come on live allittle get wild with us. Thank you
This strikes me as being suspicious. For one thing they are claiming to represent a nationally syndicated television show, yet they can't write or spell. Being on the internet might excuse not capitalizing Jerry Springer Show and Chicago, but the spacing is bad, there are run on sentences and look at the spelling. They misspell representative, unusual, story, reimbursement, alcohol, won't, don't, a little. How professional does that look? Oh and commas, God gave us commas for a reason, learn to use them. Of course, we are talking about the Springer show. Perhaps professionalism, good grammar, and the Springer show are all mutually exclusive.
Hello,I'm a representivtive for the jerry springer show. Would you like a free trip to chicago all expenses paid? All you have to have is an unuasal storie to tell on national tv.I offer free airfair limo service from the airport reumbersment for gas to the airport and time taken off work.Free food we will take you out on the town on us and give you all the cigarettes you can smoke.The only thing we dont take care of is alchohol. This an offer you wont get by directly calling the show. So come on live allittle get wild with us. Thank you
This strikes me as being suspicious. For one thing they are claiming to represent a nationally syndicated television show, yet they can't write or spell. Being on the internet might excuse not capitalizing Jerry Springer Show and Chicago, but the spacing is bad, there are run on sentences and look at the spelling. They misspell representative, unusual, story, reimbursement, alcohol, won't, don't, a little. How professional does that look? Oh and commas, God gave us commas for a reason, learn to use them. Of course, we are talking about the Springer show. Perhaps professionalism, good grammar, and the Springer show are all mutually exclusive.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
A Quick Word
In case anyone wonders, things are nuts here. The clients on my case load seemed to have lost what little sense they may have had. There brains fried and they are now running in extra stupid mode. This means MORE work for me. Example. I can't go into too many details yet as we haven't gone to court, but one of my beloved micreants called and rescheduled do to work issues, then he missed the meeting. I called and set a new appointment up. His wife called the night before the appointment and said he was in Nashville at Vanderbilt Hospital with his father who had had a heart attack. Now let me give you a bit of history. This man had worked at the same factory for about 3 years. He had just a month ago changed to a construction job. He claimed he was passed over for a promotion and quit. I was later told, after the missed appointment, by another client that he had been fired for a dirty urine test. He was also supposed to be being evicted for failing to pay rent and lying about his new job. Now someone was verifying the job over the telephone, but it was a cell phone number. I had not seen an actual paystub. Anyway, I would not reschedule his appointment. Not ten minutes later he called and begged me to reschedule claiming he did not want his wife to have to drive to Nashville that night to get him. I stuck to my guns. From the conversation, it was implied that he was in Nashville at Vanderbilt and she was here. When I hung up, I checked my cell phone. They had both called from the same number. He was supposed to be 100 miles from here. Either she was already in Nashville with him, or, more likely, he was here. There was no way they could both call from the same number and not be together. He was here at 8:30 the next morning and his urine was VERY clear, it was also very positive for amphetamines. The lab confirmed amphetamines at a high level and a low specific gravity. In other words, he had taken the speed recently and had spent the night drinking water, or using detox kits, or drinking some of the nasty crap that are supposed to defeat drug screens.
Latest trends in attempting to defeat the drug screens. Drink surejell. That's right, the clear gelatine stuff used to make jams and jellies. Drink it. If you don't like that drink bleach. Yep, if the phosphates and detergents don't kill you, you might not fail the test. Another traditional trick is to scape the white crust off the top of the bottle and wedge it under the fingernails. Then they try to pee across there fingers.
My experience with the bleach is that you usually get a chlorine odor off the urine and the test kit usually doesn't register positive or negative. On surejell, water, or detox kits the urine is usually very clear. If it isn't the middle of the summer and/or the client isn't a farm or construction worker, this is suspicious. Some of the detox kits are smart enough to add a "b" vitamin to color the urine, but the yellow color of this tends to be a very bright yellow that is different than the normal urine color.
Probation officer tricks: examine fingers before test looking for stuff under the fingernails. Calling them in for a drug screen a week earlier than there appointment. Don't let them wash there hands until after the screen is complete. Don't give them the lid for the sample, put it on yourself to notice any chlorine odor (you don't have to sniff it, it is usually strong enough to notice in a small room if you leave the lid off for 3o seconds or so.)
This isn't even counting the sneaking someone else's urine in. So far I have seen pill bottles, balloons, condoms, syringes, baggies full of piss. They usually screw up trying to get it into the cup. They also can rarely keep it warm enough, so the thermometer on the cup should show low.
Latest trends in attempting to defeat the drug screens. Drink surejell. That's right, the clear gelatine stuff used to make jams and jellies. Drink it. If you don't like that drink bleach. Yep, if the phosphates and detergents don't kill you, you might not fail the test. Another traditional trick is to scape the white crust off the top of the bottle and wedge it under the fingernails. Then they try to pee across there fingers.
My experience with the bleach is that you usually get a chlorine odor off the urine and the test kit usually doesn't register positive or negative. On surejell, water, or detox kits the urine is usually very clear. If it isn't the middle of the summer and/or the client isn't a farm or construction worker, this is suspicious. Some of the detox kits are smart enough to add a "b" vitamin to color the urine, but the yellow color of this tends to be a very bright yellow that is different than the normal urine color.
Probation officer tricks: examine fingers before test looking for stuff under the fingernails. Calling them in for a drug screen a week earlier than there appointment. Don't let them wash there hands until after the screen is complete. Don't give them the lid for the sample, put it on yourself to notice any chlorine odor (you don't have to sniff it, it is usually strong enough to notice in a small room if you leave the lid off for 3o seconds or so.)
This isn't even counting the sneaking someone else's urine in. So far I have seen pill bottles, balloons, condoms, syringes, baggies full of piss. They usually screw up trying to get it into the cup. They also can rarely keep it warm enough, so the thermometer on the cup should show low.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
My New Job
Well the bills got to deep to wade through and the money spread to thin to see, so I broke down and took a new part-time job to try to balance things out. I now spend 15 to 20 hours a week on my feet moving constantly. I get money and an exercise program in one.
So I am now not only the sexiest, bald-headed probation officer in Tennessee, I am the sexiest bald-headed, part-time janitor in Tennessee.
I work for a company that contracts out to another company that builds custom dohickey thingees that other companies need real bad. Simple, isn't it. Hear is a basic rundown of my job.
After I finish my main job, I drive across town and through a security check point manned by a retired dude armed with a walkie talkie and a cardboard cup of coffee. I am not sure what would happen if I didn't stop, but I'm sure it would involve cleaning up coffee somewhere. Anywho I have to park and walk up a side walk and into a side door. I have a white plastic card I wave in front of a box with a red light on it. (The light is on the box, not my card.) The light turns green and the door makes a sound like an electronic orgasm and I can go in. I sign a sheet of paper saying I came in a whatever time, the I go into the janitor closet and punch a timeclock. Then the games begin.
First a get my cart and look it over to see what my coworker's have taken off my cart as opposed to taking it off the shelf. I don't have any idea why they do this, as they could take it off the shelf just as easy as off my cart, but it happens. I replace these items, then take the dirty safety glasses off the cart. I left clean ones the night before, but it is easier for them to take mine and leave their dirty ones than to clean them. I take some cleaner and papertowels off my cart and clean the glasses. I put on the glasses and roll the cart out the room and then go back into the room because I forgot my keyring. I always forget my key ring. I also pickup my door wedge and pocket it. Now I close the closet and head across the plant. My first job is to clean two bathrooms. They are in the very back of the largest section of the plant. This involves about a 5 mile walk. If there is anything I need than isn't on my cart, it is a 10 mile round trip hike to get it, so I try to keep the cart stocked. I know that I always need 6 large trash bags. I usually use 3 rolls of paper towels, except on Mondays and Fridays when I need more. I also usually need 4 rolls of toilet paper. This is all stuff I replace. I also use about half a bottle of disinfectant and a third bottle of glass cleaner and about a quarter roll of paper towels. This I actually apply. I also keep 2 containers of pink hand cleaner, 1 container of white hand cleaner with grit, 1 container of lotion, a small selection of feminine supplies, toilet cakes, urinal cakes, small waxed brown trash bags for the stalls in the ladies room. I also have a push broom, regular broom, dust mop, toilet brush, non-acid toilet bowl cleaner, bleach, hydrachloric acid toilet bowl cleaner, a few partial rolls of paper towels, a rocket launcher, a small thermo-nuclear device, a dustpan, and a small scrub brush.
As I traverse the length of the building, I have to dodge forklifts being driven at breakneck speed by total morons. When I reach the end of the building, I turn left and go another half mile or so. There is a 5 foot wide section of floor in front of the two restrooms that is a different color than the rest. It is actually clean and mopped every night. I stop my cart next to the clean strip, take off my push broom and sweep it. I use the dustpan and broom to deposit the trash swept up into the little trash bag on the front of my cart. I then roll the cart onto the strip. I use the disinfectant cleaner on both doors, the water fountain, both trash can tops and the hand sanitizer dispensor. I change the bags in both trash cans, then wedge the men's room door open. I take the broom and pull any trash out into the aisleway. I then take the push broom and sweep it all to the back. Then I replace my brooms and roll the cart into the bathroom. Now I start to really work. I check the lotion dispenser. I've yet to replace this in the men's room, but the woman's room it usually is replaced about once every two weeks.
I divide the men's room into 4 sections. The first contains a large "sink", a stainless tub with a foot petal to turn on the water and a fountain that gives 180 water coverage. It has one pink hand cleaner dispensor the men call supervisor soap, and a pumice containing green soap in a white container that they call goop and all use. It has 3 paper towel dispensors, a lotion dispensor, two trash cans and two mirrors. The order may change a little, but this is the routine. I glove up. I keep 5 pairs of rubber gloves on the cart, size large. I then check the pink soap dispensors, usually having to refill this once weekly. I then check the White dispensor, thumping it as you can't see through it. Usually changed everyother day. It is messy stuff. The pink stuff comes in a little bag that looks like it should be hanging on an IV rack. This stuff comes in a plastic tube. You take off the top and upend it on the pump. I replace what needs it, then clean the drips from the white dispensor off the sink with papertowels. I then check the towel dispensors, usually trying to keep to full rolls. The partial rolls are what I use to clean with, although I usually add the smallest rolls as a second roll in the dispensor, and leave the largest sitting on top a dispenser as an "emergency" roll. The rest go on the cart. I then clean the mirrors, sink and stainless still splash guard with glass cleaner. Our glass cleaner has a neat minty smell. I use the disinfectant on the trash can tops, soap dispensors, and paper towel dispensors wiping everything down. I then replace the trash bags.
The next section contains two urinals that hold a small amount of water in the bottoms. I look to make sure the cakes haven't completely dissolved, then wipe the urinal down with disinfectant. I then spay the stainless splashguards on each side of each stall with glass cleaner and wipe them down. On Fridays I remove the urinal cakes and clean the insides with non-acid toilet bowl cleaner and replace the cleaner. If there are piss stains down the front, I use the chlorine on them. The next section contains three stalls with toilets. I check to make sure each paper dispensor has at least 1 full and 1 half roll. If it drops below a half-roll I replace it. I wipe each toilet seat and top down with disinfectant spray and check the cake. I replace it if it is below half size of a new one. This takes longer than it sounds. If the inside of the toilet is dirty I use either the non-acid or scale removing acid toilet bowl cleaner to clean it. I clean every one on Fridays.
Then back half of the bathroom is an older section. The first section contains another older "sink", a pink soap dispensor, a papertowl dispenser, two urinals in stalls, and a trash can. I usually check the towel dispensor first and wipe it and the top of the trash can down with disinfectant. I change out the trash bag. Next I check and clean the pink soap dispensor. Then I disinfect and clean the urinals. These don't hold water in the bottom. I then have 6 more stalls with toilets that I have to follow the above routine for. I finish by sweeping up the trash and putting it in my bag. Men are pigs. There is usually a two foot tall pile of papertowels, toilet paper, newspaper and god-knows-what to sweep up. Most of the toilets have sensors to automatically flush when they get up. They hang toilet paper over these and walk off leaving there mess in the toilets. I have to sometimes manually flush these things four of five times and sometimes even plunge them, Nasty!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I have even found the cakes laying in the middle of the floor. What the f..........?
Next I move to the ladies room. It is simpler and often seems rarely used. I knock on the door, open it, and call out loudly. I then wedge the door open. I don't bring my cart in. I divide this into two sections. Section one has a garbage can, a pink soap dispensor, a lotion dispensor, two paper towel dispensors, a feminine product dispensor two regular sinks, and two mirrors. The second section has 6 stalls with toilets. I check the towel dispensors first. I usually only have to restock 1 once per week. Next I check the feminine supplies. Then I check the lotion and soap, maybe replace these once ever 14 days. I then clean the mirror with glass cleaner and use disinfectant on the sinks, trash can tops, and dispensors. I change the trash bags. I sweep all the trash out to the aisle, but there is rarely much, not like the mens. Since this floor is tile rather than concrete, I use the dustmop instead of pushbroom to sweep the aisle. Then I do the toilets, which is the same as the men's room except that there is not where near the mess and there are these little boxes in the stalls which I have to check. The boxes contain these little brown waxed bags where women can deposit eeerrr, trash. If there is anything deposited, I exchange the bag for a fresh one. Then I close up the restroom and gather my filled trash bags and carry them out. I have to walk about 2 miles to the dumpster outside. I also have to be careful or I get locked out and have to circle the building to get back in.
Once I return, I complete my journey with another forklift endangered 5 mile hike. I restock my cart so my coworkers can rob it, and continue to the last 2/3's of my job. I leave the closet and go back to the plant. I make a left and then another left. I enter a door and follow a hallway maknig a right when I have no other choice. I come out in a room about the size of an indoor arena football field. It also looks like an arena football field providing the field is covered with grey commercial low-pile indoor/outdoor carpet and black felt rubber backed mats. Also providing the field has cubicals with 5 foot tall partions and is ringed by offices. I follow one perimeter path straight ahead and open a closet on the right. I remove a 100 foot extension cord, a Orek Commercial XL vacuum and proceed to VACUUM THE FOOTBALL FIELD. I also have to vacuum three hallways, all the perimeter offices, two alcoves and a smaller building. I have a question. In the high traffic areas, they have laid down black mats which have a heavy rubber backing, but the pile is black and felt like. It shows everything and is very hard to vacuum. Why black? Why not dirt brown or medium green or something? Why black? I have a smaller there is a small conference room to vacuum. The next building has four hallways, two alcoves, five offices and a stairway landing to vacuum as well as a conference room downstairs. Then there is a small landing with a black mat. Upstairs is a small room with cubicles and two black mats, and three more offices. It takes about an hour to do the bathrooms on an average day. Add 30 minutes to that on a bad day. The main room and peripreals take about 90 minutes unless it is bad then add 14-20 minutes. The little building takes from 20 to 40 minutes depending. It's not that bad. I am beginning to adjust to it. I just miss playing on the internet and watching some nighttime TV.
So I am now not only the sexiest, bald-headed probation officer in Tennessee, I am the sexiest bald-headed, part-time janitor in Tennessee.
I work for a company that contracts out to another company that builds custom dohickey thingees that other companies need real bad. Simple, isn't it. Hear is a basic rundown of my job.
After I finish my main job, I drive across town and through a security check point manned by a retired dude armed with a walkie talkie and a cardboard cup of coffee. I am not sure what would happen if I didn't stop, but I'm sure it would involve cleaning up coffee somewhere. Anywho I have to park and walk up a side walk and into a side door. I have a white plastic card I wave in front of a box with a red light on it. (The light is on the box, not my card.) The light turns green and the door makes a sound like an electronic orgasm and I can go in. I sign a sheet of paper saying I came in a whatever time, the I go into the janitor closet and punch a timeclock. Then the games begin.
First a get my cart and look it over to see what my coworker's have taken off my cart as opposed to taking it off the shelf. I don't have any idea why they do this, as they could take it off the shelf just as easy as off my cart, but it happens. I replace these items, then take the dirty safety glasses off the cart. I left clean ones the night before, but it is easier for them to take mine and leave their dirty ones than to clean them. I take some cleaner and papertowels off my cart and clean the glasses. I put on the glasses and roll the cart out the room and then go back into the room because I forgot my keyring. I always forget my key ring. I also pickup my door wedge and pocket it. Now I close the closet and head across the plant. My first job is to clean two bathrooms. They are in the very back of the largest section of the plant. This involves about a 5 mile walk. If there is anything I need than isn't on my cart, it is a 10 mile round trip hike to get it, so I try to keep the cart stocked. I know that I always need 6 large trash bags. I usually use 3 rolls of paper towels, except on Mondays and Fridays when I need more. I also usually need 4 rolls of toilet paper. This is all stuff I replace. I also use about half a bottle of disinfectant and a third bottle of glass cleaner and about a quarter roll of paper towels. This I actually apply. I also keep 2 containers of pink hand cleaner, 1 container of white hand cleaner with grit, 1 container of lotion, a small selection of feminine supplies, toilet cakes, urinal cakes, small waxed brown trash bags for the stalls in the ladies room. I also have a push broom, regular broom, dust mop, toilet brush, non-acid toilet bowl cleaner, bleach, hydrachloric acid toilet bowl cleaner, a few partial rolls of paper towels, a rocket launcher, a small thermo-nuclear device, a dustpan, and a small scrub brush.
As I traverse the length of the building, I have to dodge forklifts being driven at breakneck speed by total morons. When I reach the end of the building, I turn left and go another half mile or so. There is a 5 foot wide section of floor in front of the two restrooms that is a different color than the rest. It is actually clean and mopped every night. I stop my cart next to the clean strip, take off my push broom and sweep it. I use the dustpan and broom to deposit the trash swept up into the little trash bag on the front of my cart. I then roll the cart onto the strip. I use the disinfectant cleaner on both doors, the water fountain, both trash can tops and the hand sanitizer dispensor. I change the bags in both trash cans, then wedge the men's room door open. I take the broom and pull any trash out into the aisleway. I then take the push broom and sweep it all to the back. Then I replace my brooms and roll the cart into the bathroom. Now I start to really work. I check the lotion dispenser. I've yet to replace this in the men's room, but the woman's room it usually is replaced about once every two weeks.
I divide the men's room into 4 sections. The first contains a large "sink", a stainless tub with a foot petal to turn on the water and a fountain that gives 180 water coverage. It has one pink hand cleaner dispensor the men call supervisor soap, and a pumice containing green soap in a white container that they call goop and all use. It has 3 paper towel dispensors, a lotion dispensor, two trash cans and two mirrors. The order may change a little, but this is the routine. I glove up. I keep 5 pairs of rubber gloves on the cart, size large. I then check the pink soap dispensors, usually having to refill this once weekly. I then check the White dispensor, thumping it as you can't see through it. Usually changed everyother day. It is messy stuff. The pink stuff comes in a little bag that looks like it should be hanging on an IV rack. This stuff comes in a plastic tube. You take off the top and upend it on the pump. I replace what needs it, then clean the drips from the white dispensor off the sink with papertowels. I then check the towel dispensors, usually trying to keep to full rolls. The partial rolls are what I use to clean with, although I usually add the smallest rolls as a second roll in the dispensor, and leave the largest sitting on top a dispenser as an "emergency" roll. The rest go on the cart. I then clean the mirrors, sink and stainless still splash guard with glass cleaner. Our glass cleaner has a neat minty smell. I use the disinfectant on the trash can tops, soap dispensors, and paper towel dispensors wiping everything down. I then replace the trash bags.
The next section contains two urinals that hold a small amount of water in the bottoms. I look to make sure the cakes haven't completely dissolved, then wipe the urinal down with disinfectant. I then spay the stainless splashguards on each side of each stall with glass cleaner and wipe them down. On Fridays I remove the urinal cakes and clean the insides with non-acid toilet bowl cleaner and replace the cleaner. If there are piss stains down the front, I use the chlorine on them. The next section contains three stalls with toilets. I check to make sure each paper dispensor has at least 1 full and 1 half roll. If it drops below a half-roll I replace it. I wipe each toilet seat and top down with disinfectant spray and check the cake. I replace it if it is below half size of a new one. This takes longer than it sounds. If the inside of the toilet is dirty I use either the non-acid or scale removing acid toilet bowl cleaner to clean it. I clean every one on Fridays.
Then back half of the bathroom is an older section. The first section contains another older "sink", a pink soap dispensor, a papertowl dispenser, two urinals in stalls, and a trash can. I usually check the towel dispensor first and wipe it and the top of the trash can down with disinfectant. I change out the trash bag. Next I check and clean the pink soap dispensor. Then I disinfect and clean the urinals. These don't hold water in the bottom. I then have 6 more stalls with toilets that I have to follow the above routine for. I finish by sweeping up the trash and putting it in my bag. Men are pigs. There is usually a two foot tall pile of papertowels, toilet paper, newspaper and god-knows-what to sweep up. Most of the toilets have sensors to automatically flush when they get up. They hang toilet paper over these and walk off leaving there mess in the toilets. I have to sometimes manually flush these things four of five times and sometimes even plunge them, Nasty!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I have even found the cakes laying in the middle of the floor. What the f..........?
Next I move to the ladies room. It is simpler and often seems rarely used. I knock on the door, open it, and call out loudly. I then wedge the door open. I don't bring my cart in. I divide this into two sections. Section one has a garbage can, a pink soap dispensor, a lotion dispensor, two paper towel dispensors, a feminine product dispensor two regular sinks, and two mirrors. The second section has 6 stalls with toilets. I check the towel dispensors first. I usually only have to restock 1 once per week. Next I check the feminine supplies. Then I check the lotion and soap, maybe replace these once ever 14 days. I then clean the mirror with glass cleaner and use disinfectant on the sinks, trash can tops, and dispensors. I change the trash bags. I sweep all the trash out to the aisle, but there is rarely much, not like the mens. Since this floor is tile rather than concrete, I use the dustmop instead of pushbroom to sweep the aisle. Then I do the toilets, which is the same as the men's room except that there is not where near the mess and there are these little boxes in the stalls which I have to check. The boxes contain these little brown waxed bags where women can deposit eeerrr, trash. If there is anything deposited, I exchange the bag for a fresh one. Then I close up the restroom and gather my filled trash bags and carry them out. I have to walk about 2 miles to the dumpster outside. I also have to be careful or I get locked out and have to circle the building to get back in.
Once I return, I complete my journey with another forklift endangered 5 mile hike. I restock my cart so my coworkers can rob it, and continue to the last 2/3's of my job. I leave the closet and go back to the plant. I make a left and then another left. I enter a door and follow a hallway maknig a right when I have no other choice. I come out in a room about the size of an indoor arena football field. It also looks like an arena football field providing the field is covered with grey commercial low-pile indoor/outdoor carpet and black felt rubber backed mats. Also providing the field has cubicals with 5 foot tall partions and is ringed by offices. I follow one perimeter path straight ahead and open a closet on the right. I remove a 100 foot extension cord, a Orek Commercial XL vacuum and proceed to VACUUM THE FOOTBALL FIELD. I also have to vacuum three hallways, all the perimeter offices, two alcoves and a smaller building. I have a question. In the high traffic areas, they have laid down black mats which have a heavy rubber backing, but the pile is black and felt like. It shows everything and is very hard to vacuum. Why black? Why not dirt brown or medium green or something? Why black? I have a smaller there is a small conference room to vacuum. The next building has four hallways, two alcoves, five offices and a stairway landing to vacuum as well as a conference room downstairs. Then there is a small landing with a black mat. Upstairs is a small room with cubicles and two black mats, and three more offices. It takes about an hour to do the bathrooms on an average day. Add 30 minutes to that on a bad day. The main room and peripreals take about 90 minutes unless it is bad then add 14-20 minutes. The little building takes from 20 to 40 minutes depending. It's not that bad. I am beginning to adjust to it. I just miss playing on the internet and watching some nighttime TV.
Friday, February 01, 2008
Stupid Jobs I Have Held
I recently started a second job to bring in a bit of extra money. I want to get some bills paid off so I can sleep better at night and slow the advance of my ulcer. This will also hopefully let my wife get back into school and maybe she can get a better job and I can quit this part-time thing. Actually, other than missing night time tv and time with my wife, the job isn't that bad. It keeps me moving for 3 to 4 hours constantly, so it helps with the diet, and it doesn't require a huge amount of my brain, so I can think up crap to blog about. Like this entry.
Before and shortly after getting my license, I supplied underage illegal child labor to the local farmers, hauling hay, cutting, spiking, hauling and hanging tobacco, cleaning fence rows and ditches, all the stuff now done by illegal immigrant labor.
Now there are three jobs I think everyone should be required to have in life, and I think it should be a law. First everyone should have to do at least 6 months in a newly opened fast food chain restaurant. Second, everyone should have to do at least 1 year working as a retail clerk, not in one of the big box stores, but in a little store where you have to keep the customers happy, or the whole place goes under. Third, they should have to spend at least 4 months in customer service, preferably over the phone for at least 50% of the time.
My first real job was at a brand new McDonald's. I was in high school. This job taught me many valuable work lessons. First, orientation tapes are boring. Second, never believe the training programs or company propaganda. Third, store managers are not born, made, or trained, but are instead spawned in hell and shit out by demons of low intelligence. Third, promotions go to the best at kissing ass, not at actually working. You see, if you are good at your job and work hard, you get left at the job, because they can't replace you. If you suck at your job and screw stuff up, you get to be crew or shift leader, because it kind of keeps you out of the way and there is less you can fuck up. If you brown-nose enough, they might even make you manager. Of course, if you piss off the people actually working enough and enough of them quit, you might even get sent to the management training school.
Now this was a long time ago, and McDonald's had a much smaller menu. Basically, McNuggets were new. Micky D's had hamburgers, cheeseburgers, quarterpounders, Big Macs, McNuggets, Fillet O'Fish, and apple pies. The kitchen was divided into areas. There were 2 grills, one for regular patties and 1 for the larger quarter pounder patties. You had 4 deep friers, one for fries, which the register people ran, one for nuggets, one for fish, and one for apple pies. The friers were on the opposite wall from the grills. The middle was taken up with a dressing table and bun warmers. The idea was that one person would run the quarter grill, and toast and dress his own buns. No, damn it!!! You know what I mean, get your mind out of the gutter you perv. Another guy would run the grill for the regular patties. Another person would toast the buns for the burgers and big macs. He and the grill guy would dress them. A separate individual would run the friers. Now what actually happened was the guy running the bun toaster would also run the friers. There was also a steamer to steam the buns for the fish sandwiches that he also got to run. Both grills were run by the one guy too, so this operation designed for 4 people would be staffed by two. That wasn't how you were trained, though, you were trained with 4 people. You were shown films on all four stations, but trained on only one. Then you had to run stuff you were never actually trained to do. Anyway, the first week our store actually opened, two of us were run ragged when a bus stopped and let 5 thousand kids loose to trash the place. We were slinging burgers, dropping nuggets, burning buns, and generally going insane. The assistant manager was barking out orders left and right, but not actually helping with anything. Then, while dressing buns for burgers I got dressed down for committing a most heinous offense against the Great Ronald. I put the ketchup on the buns BEFORE I put the mustard. Never mind that the other guy had the mustard gun doing the quarter buns, I did the unforgivable. Now, why in the hell the idiot supposedly running the show would stop everything to bitch me out for doing something that didn't make a bit of difference, I don't know. I was young and new to the work place, I learned to work on the farm. There all that mattered was that the job was done and what the end result was. No one cared whether I cut the tobacco stalk from the left or the right, or whether I hung the stick of tobacco from the left first or the right. I don't know of a single customer returning a hamburger or cheeseburger that day because the ketchup went on before the mustard, but you would have thought I gang raped the govenor's daughter or something from the bitch cussing I got. Having mellowed as I have aged I know now 27 different ways to have choked the chicken-necked bastard unconsious, so it probably is as well that this happened before I met Foster Sensei and learned jujitsu, or I wouldn't have my present job due to the assault charges.
Anyway, I quit that job a few months later. My next formal job was as a bus boy at Shoneys. I didn't do well there. I lasted 2 weeks before a dishwasher who didn't think I was bussing fast enough came out of the kitchen, caught me bussing a booth and shoved me into the booth and gave me a little kick in the rear. I announced my displeasure by dropping a full tub of dishes in the middle of the kitchen, telling them what tender part of my anatomy they could press their lips against, and leaving. I never even clocked out. They mailed me that last check.
I worked at a couple of gas stations, was a third shift convienence store clerk, did a swing shift assistant managers gig, before settling down as an office manager. All while going to college. I ended up as the office manager for a swimming pool builder. I was also the sales clerk and customer service department for the swimming pool and spa supply store. I did everything from sweep and mop the floor to ordering inventory and driving the delivery van. Hell, if the construction crew was short handed, I rolled a wheel barrel or used a shovel. I also went on runs with the service trucks to do repairs. In a pinch, I could install a pump, filter, replace a light and do light plumbing and electric. One of the high points of my job was explaining to new pool owners how to operate the pool equipment over the phone. I walked people through vacuuming the pools, backwashing the filters, empting pump and skimmer baskets, ect. all from miles away. This taught me patience. I was also the sales clerk and chief pool water analyzer. So I dealt with the public. I met the rich and the famous. I met the guy who was sure I was over charging him. I met the woman who was sure I should throw in something free since she was such a good customer. I met the people who wanted to return stuff after they had used it for a season and broke it. I met guys who wanted me to tell them exactly what they needed so they could buy it somewhere else cheaper. I especially met the people who wanted me to test their water and tell them how to clear up their nasty pool using the chemicals they had bought somewhere else, and not charge for my information. Yes the world is full of charming people, and you have to be nice to them if you make your money selling them stuff. You have to be nice to the stuck up lady whose 9 year-old brat just whipped his little weiner out and pissed on your freshly mopped floor. You have to be nice to the person who just chewed you out because you can't sell him a part for a 10-year-old pool pump that was discontinued 6 years ago. I think if everyone got to meet these people, then they would behave differently in a store. I know I try to be polite to sales clerks and treat them like real people. This taught me that I could survive not choking the living shit out of rude people and to be nice to people who work for a living. I was here for over 11 years.
I worked my way up to the general manager over 3 retail stores. I then quit and started selling life insurance where I learned that I am not really very good at scaring the hell out of old people by convincing them they are going to die soon leaving their kids and grandkids orphaned and homeless unless they buy more life insurance. I quit after learned a couple of lessons about myself and what I am and am not willing to do.
I then went to work for a rent-to-own company. This company was mob owned. I base this on a few facts. The company was based in New York. The owner was a former police officer who had left the force under mysterious circumstances. Everyone in a position of authority in the company had an Italian last name. The ones that come to visit the store all looked and dressed like extra's from the Sopranos. This was a class act, too. They had a computerized billing and rental system. The program was written by one of the owner's friends. It was written in basic on a trs 80 computer in 1984 and never updated. The damn computer in the store didn't even have windows 98 installed. When it screwed up, we contacted IT and they UPS'ed us a 5 1/4 inch floppy boot disk. And they were proud of this. They also bragged about being mentioned in Fortune 500 magazine. They mentioned this several times in the interview. I never found out what Fortune 500 said about them. I should have. I bet instead of saying something like "this is an up-and-coming company, invest in them, they are going places" it actually said something on the lines of, "avoid this load of shit like the plague. They are going to crash and burn. They are sinking faster than a lawn gnome wearing Jimmy Hoffa brand concrete sneakers in a swimming pool." Anyway, the job was depressing and the company sucked.
Rent-to-own tends to appeal to people with no other options. There are no government regulations governing this part of the retail industry and rent-to-own exists for everything from jewelry up to houses. You see, if you buy a bedroom set on credit, there is a limit to how much interest the lender can charge you. Buy the same set at a rent-to-own establishment and there is no limit to what you pay, because it isn't interest, it is rent.
The place I worked offered weekly and monthly payment options. The way it worked was like this. Let's say you can go down to Big Box Inc. and buy a 20 inch television for $200. The rent to own store might carry the same or similar television. Their cash price for straight out purchase was $300. They would then double that. This would be the final price if the person carried it to full term. So that 20 inch television would end up costing $600 if the people rented it for the full rental term. Say the longest term was 1 year. The people would pay $50 per month or $11.54 per week in rental fees to use the television while paying for it. So basically, the company charged too much for the television to begin with, then charged what would amount to 100% interest on it. If you kept the television for 6 months then decided to buy it, you would get some credit. You had paid $300 already to there was $300 left on it. Half that would be $150 so the $200 television would just cost you $450. If the television was returned, then it would be restocked as used. We would knock 10% off the price. It would now be listed as used and a cash price of $270. The final payout was $540. Weekly rental was $10.38 and monthly $45. We lost our shirts for several reasons. First, the merchandise, at least the furniture, was low quality. Second, we had a very non-southern corporate atmosphere and it didn't mesh with the poor southern people who were our customers. Third, we were ordered to encourage customers to over extend. If Joe came in for a fridge, we were encouraged to sell him on an entertainment center. Third, if you knew Jack made $150 a week, and was already paying $50 per week on a stove and $20 a week on a dvd player, it was nuts to incourage him to buy a television, you were already getting almost half his paycheck weekly, what was he going to live on. We would just end up going out to repo the stuff and make him mad. It would have made better long term sense to let him pay off what he had now before trying to sell him up. Fourth, they picked a sorry location. The parking lot was tiny. It was on a hill in the middle of the old part of town where everything was dying. It was very hard to get in and out of. Fifth, another new rent-to-own company had just popped up in the Wal-mart shopping center. It was bigger, flashier, paid better, and had better prices. It also opened two months before we did. Both companies are now gone so I don't guess it matters much. I worked my ass off for them, though. I ended up running my store for a month when the manager defected, before his replacement showed up. I also opened up three other stores for them and trained their store people. They never offered to make me a manager though. It never occured to them, of course they wanted their managers straight out of college and starving. They also liked to relocate them at least 500 miles from home. They thought this gave them a reason to make to stores succeed. I worked for them for about 9 months under 4 different managers.
I went IT and went to work for a bank information processing company. I did a swing shift between second and third shifts. I enjoyed this job and stayed with it 6 years. If the job hadn't changed and the company hadn't changed, I might still be there. This was my first ever job with actual benefits. This was my latest bout with clueless management though.
My worst experience would still have to be the medical technical school I taught basic education courses and computer courses for. I worked there a little over a year. They hired me to teach from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM with an hour lunch. I was promised many things. Then the managment changed and they started demanding I teach night classes. They also insisted I be on campus the 8 to 5 then teach from 6 to 10 PM if they needed me. For no extra money. I also had to help recruit students. This usually meant open houses and special events at night and on weekends, for no extra money. And heaven forbid if you actually gave a student a bad grade and they complained!!! We were training these people to work in Doctors' offices and hospitals, but some of them couldn't read a complete sentence in English, much less write one. And no, they weren't hispanic. Just Southern people who got government assistance to go to school, so they wouldn't have to live off welfare. Yet, if you demanded they actually learn something, they would complain and management would come down on YOU. Now there were some good students that I really liked, but there were a lot that were just in school because it was paid for and they got free babysitting.
I quit and went to work for a company that made custom bathtubs. That lasted about a month and I was hired by the state. The company had no benefits and I was working 10 hour shifts in an unairconditioned fiberglass plant. I was too old for that shit.
Here I am now. I am rather happy. I now have a second job. I will blog about the new job next round and give you a thrilling, detailed, graphic description of the new job. Sex, violence, and rock and roll up next episode.
Before and shortly after getting my license, I supplied underage illegal child labor to the local farmers, hauling hay, cutting, spiking, hauling and hanging tobacco, cleaning fence rows and ditches, all the stuff now done by illegal immigrant labor.
Now there are three jobs I think everyone should be required to have in life, and I think it should be a law. First everyone should have to do at least 6 months in a newly opened fast food chain restaurant. Second, everyone should have to do at least 1 year working as a retail clerk, not in one of the big box stores, but in a little store where you have to keep the customers happy, or the whole place goes under. Third, they should have to spend at least 4 months in customer service, preferably over the phone for at least 50% of the time.
My first real job was at a brand new McDonald's. I was in high school. This job taught me many valuable work lessons. First, orientation tapes are boring. Second, never believe the training programs or company propaganda. Third, store managers are not born, made, or trained, but are instead spawned in hell and shit out by demons of low intelligence. Third, promotions go to the best at kissing ass, not at actually working. You see, if you are good at your job and work hard, you get left at the job, because they can't replace you. If you suck at your job and screw stuff up, you get to be crew or shift leader, because it kind of keeps you out of the way and there is less you can fuck up. If you brown-nose enough, they might even make you manager. Of course, if you piss off the people actually working enough and enough of them quit, you might even get sent to the management training school.
Now this was a long time ago, and McDonald's had a much smaller menu. Basically, McNuggets were new. Micky D's had hamburgers, cheeseburgers, quarterpounders, Big Macs, McNuggets, Fillet O'Fish, and apple pies. The kitchen was divided into areas. There were 2 grills, one for regular patties and 1 for the larger quarter pounder patties. You had 4 deep friers, one for fries, which the register people ran, one for nuggets, one for fish, and one for apple pies. The friers were on the opposite wall from the grills. The middle was taken up with a dressing table and bun warmers. The idea was that one person would run the quarter grill, and toast and dress his own buns. No, damn it!!! You know what I mean, get your mind out of the gutter you perv. Another guy would run the grill for the regular patties. Another person would toast the buns for the burgers and big macs. He and the grill guy would dress them. A separate individual would run the friers. Now what actually happened was the guy running the bun toaster would also run the friers. There was also a steamer to steam the buns for the fish sandwiches that he also got to run. Both grills were run by the one guy too, so this operation designed for 4 people would be staffed by two. That wasn't how you were trained, though, you were trained with 4 people. You were shown films on all four stations, but trained on only one. Then you had to run stuff you were never actually trained to do. Anyway, the first week our store actually opened, two of us were run ragged when a bus stopped and let 5 thousand kids loose to trash the place. We were slinging burgers, dropping nuggets, burning buns, and generally going insane. The assistant manager was barking out orders left and right, but not actually helping with anything. Then, while dressing buns for burgers I got dressed down for committing a most heinous offense against the Great Ronald. I put the ketchup on the buns BEFORE I put the mustard. Never mind that the other guy had the mustard gun doing the quarter buns, I did the unforgivable. Now, why in the hell the idiot supposedly running the show would stop everything to bitch me out for doing something that didn't make a bit of difference, I don't know. I was young and new to the work place, I learned to work on the farm. There all that mattered was that the job was done and what the end result was. No one cared whether I cut the tobacco stalk from the left or the right, or whether I hung the stick of tobacco from the left first or the right. I don't know of a single customer returning a hamburger or cheeseburger that day because the ketchup went on before the mustard, but you would have thought I gang raped the govenor's daughter or something from the bitch cussing I got. Having mellowed as I have aged I know now 27 different ways to have choked the chicken-necked bastard unconsious, so it probably is as well that this happened before I met Foster Sensei and learned jujitsu, or I wouldn't have my present job due to the assault charges.
Anyway, I quit that job a few months later. My next formal job was as a bus boy at Shoneys. I didn't do well there. I lasted 2 weeks before a dishwasher who didn't think I was bussing fast enough came out of the kitchen, caught me bussing a booth and shoved me into the booth and gave me a little kick in the rear. I announced my displeasure by dropping a full tub of dishes in the middle of the kitchen, telling them what tender part of my anatomy they could press their lips against, and leaving. I never even clocked out. They mailed me that last check.
I worked at a couple of gas stations, was a third shift convienence store clerk, did a swing shift assistant managers gig, before settling down as an office manager. All while going to college. I ended up as the office manager for a swimming pool builder. I was also the sales clerk and customer service department for the swimming pool and spa supply store. I did everything from sweep and mop the floor to ordering inventory and driving the delivery van. Hell, if the construction crew was short handed, I rolled a wheel barrel or used a shovel. I also went on runs with the service trucks to do repairs. In a pinch, I could install a pump, filter, replace a light and do light plumbing and electric. One of the high points of my job was explaining to new pool owners how to operate the pool equipment over the phone. I walked people through vacuuming the pools, backwashing the filters, empting pump and skimmer baskets, ect. all from miles away. This taught me patience. I was also the sales clerk and chief pool water analyzer. So I dealt with the public. I met the rich and the famous. I met the guy who was sure I was over charging him. I met the woman who was sure I should throw in something free since she was such a good customer. I met the people who wanted to return stuff after they had used it for a season and broke it. I met guys who wanted me to tell them exactly what they needed so they could buy it somewhere else cheaper. I especially met the people who wanted me to test their water and tell them how to clear up their nasty pool using the chemicals they had bought somewhere else, and not charge for my information. Yes the world is full of charming people, and you have to be nice to them if you make your money selling them stuff. You have to be nice to the stuck up lady whose 9 year-old brat just whipped his little weiner out and pissed on your freshly mopped floor. You have to be nice to the person who just chewed you out because you can't sell him a part for a 10-year-old pool pump that was discontinued 6 years ago. I think if everyone got to meet these people, then they would behave differently in a store. I know I try to be polite to sales clerks and treat them like real people. This taught me that I could survive not choking the living shit out of rude people and to be nice to people who work for a living. I was here for over 11 years.
I worked my way up to the general manager over 3 retail stores. I then quit and started selling life insurance where I learned that I am not really very good at scaring the hell out of old people by convincing them they are going to die soon leaving their kids and grandkids orphaned and homeless unless they buy more life insurance. I quit after learned a couple of lessons about myself and what I am and am not willing to do.
I then went to work for a rent-to-own company. This company was mob owned. I base this on a few facts. The company was based in New York. The owner was a former police officer who had left the force under mysterious circumstances. Everyone in a position of authority in the company had an Italian last name. The ones that come to visit the store all looked and dressed like extra's from the Sopranos. This was a class act, too. They had a computerized billing and rental system. The program was written by one of the owner's friends. It was written in basic on a trs 80 computer in 1984 and never updated. The damn computer in the store didn't even have windows 98 installed. When it screwed up, we contacted IT and they UPS'ed us a 5 1/4 inch floppy boot disk. And they were proud of this. They also bragged about being mentioned in Fortune 500 magazine. They mentioned this several times in the interview. I never found out what Fortune 500 said about them. I should have. I bet instead of saying something like "this is an up-and-coming company, invest in them, they are going places" it actually said something on the lines of, "avoid this load of shit like the plague. They are going to crash and burn. They are sinking faster than a lawn gnome wearing Jimmy Hoffa brand concrete sneakers in a swimming pool." Anyway, the job was depressing and the company sucked.
Rent-to-own tends to appeal to people with no other options. There are no government regulations governing this part of the retail industry and rent-to-own exists for everything from jewelry up to houses. You see, if you buy a bedroom set on credit, there is a limit to how much interest the lender can charge you. Buy the same set at a rent-to-own establishment and there is no limit to what you pay, because it isn't interest, it is rent.
The place I worked offered weekly and monthly payment options. The way it worked was like this. Let's say you can go down to Big Box Inc. and buy a 20 inch television for $200. The rent to own store might carry the same or similar television. Their cash price for straight out purchase was $300. They would then double that. This would be the final price if the person carried it to full term. So that 20 inch television would end up costing $600 if the people rented it for the full rental term. Say the longest term was 1 year. The people would pay $50 per month or $11.54 per week in rental fees to use the television while paying for it. So basically, the company charged too much for the television to begin with, then charged what would amount to 100% interest on it. If you kept the television for 6 months then decided to buy it, you would get some credit. You had paid $300 already to there was $300 left on it. Half that would be $150 so the $200 television would just cost you $450. If the television was returned, then it would be restocked as used. We would knock 10% off the price. It would now be listed as used and a cash price of $270. The final payout was $540. Weekly rental was $10.38 and monthly $45. We lost our shirts for several reasons. First, the merchandise, at least the furniture, was low quality. Second, we had a very non-southern corporate atmosphere and it didn't mesh with the poor southern people who were our customers. Third, we were ordered to encourage customers to over extend. If Joe came in for a fridge, we were encouraged to sell him on an entertainment center. Third, if you knew Jack made $150 a week, and was already paying $50 per week on a stove and $20 a week on a dvd player, it was nuts to incourage him to buy a television, you were already getting almost half his paycheck weekly, what was he going to live on. We would just end up going out to repo the stuff and make him mad. It would have made better long term sense to let him pay off what he had now before trying to sell him up. Fourth, they picked a sorry location. The parking lot was tiny. It was on a hill in the middle of the old part of town where everything was dying. It was very hard to get in and out of. Fifth, another new rent-to-own company had just popped up in the Wal-mart shopping center. It was bigger, flashier, paid better, and had better prices. It also opened two months before we did. Both companies are now gone so I don't guess it matters much. I worked my ass off for them, though. I ended up running my store for a month when the manager defected, before his replacement showed up. I also opened up three other stores for them and trained their store people. They never offered to make me a manager though. It never occured to them, of course they wanted their managers straight out of college and starving. They also liked to relocate them at least 500 miles from home. They thought this gave them a reason to make to stores succeed. I worked for them for about 9 months under 4 different managers.
I went IT and went to work for a bank information processing company. I did a swing shift between second and third shifts. I enjoyed this job and stayed with it 6 years. If the job hadn't changed and the company hadn't changed, I might still be there. This was my first ever job with actual benefits. This was my latest bout with clueless management though.
My worst experience would still have to be the medical technical school I taught basic education courses and computer courses for. I worked there a little over a year. They hired me to teach from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM with an hour lunch. I was promised many things. Then the managment changed and they started demanding I teach night classes. They also insisted I be on campus the 8 to 5 then teach from 6 to 10 PM if they needed me. For no extra money. I also had to help recruit students. This usually meant open houses and special events at night and on weekends, for no extra money. And heaven forbid if you actually gave a student a bad grade and they complained!!! We were training these people to work in Doctors' offices and hospitals, but some of them couldn't read a complete sentence in English, much less write one. And no, they weren't hispanic. Just Southern people who got government assistance to go to school, so they wouldn't have to live off welfare. Yet, if you demanded they actually learn something, they would complain and management would come down on YOU. Now there were some good students that I really liked, but there were a lot that were just in school because it was paid for and they got free babysitting.
I quit and went to work for a company that made custom bathtubs. That lasted about a month and I was hired by the state. The company had no benefits and I was working 10 hour shifts in an unairconditioned fiberglass plant. I was too old for that shit.
Here I am now. I am rather happy. I now have a second job. I will blog about the new job next round and give you a thrilling, detailed, graphic description of the new job. Sex, violence, and rock and roll up next episode.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Damn I'm Getting Old
I know I'm getting old, how do I know, I'll tell you.
First, things hurt. Why do they hurt? Damn if I know, but things hurt when I get up, things hurt when I lay or sit down. Things hurt when I move, things hurt when I'm still. Now, mind you, they aren't necessarily the sames things, but they hurt. They don't hurt a lot, mostly just a little, but I don't remember them hurting before.
I break easier. And I don't repair near as quick or as cheaply as I did.
I'm grouchy and grumpy. Actually this isn't a symptom. I've always been grouchy, grumpy and generally in a bad mood, so fuck you. But it ought to be a symptom so I'm listing it dammit.
I don't drive fast anymore. I drive like my father used to before he started driving even slower. I also yell at other drivers, which is normal, but now I sometimes forget to use swear words, which is bound to be a sign of getting older.
My temper is shorter and more things irritate me. Of course so many things irritated me before that most people wouldn't know the difference, but I do dammit.
I need more sleep. I can remember working 11 hours, hoping into the shower, eating a quarterpounder, blasting my eardrums at a Metalchurch/Metallica concert, sleeping 2 and 1 half hours and going to work for another 11 hours. I also remember working 10 hours, driving 3, watching ZZ Topp, driving 3 more, sleeping 3 hours, working a 12 hour shift. If I tried that now I would be in jail for what I did to the first person that got on the one nerve I would have had left at work. I used to run smooth on 4 hours sleep and 6 was average for me. Now, six is minimum, and 7 is normal. I will probably need 8 hours of sleep on average in the next 5 years. That depresses me. I feel like I need to be awake for life.
Modern comedians don't seem funny. That has to be a sign of getting old. I never thought Sandler was funny. Dane Cook doesn't make me laugh either. I do still laugh, a little, every now and then, but not at those guys. I don't like rap music either, but I didn't used to either and I don't really like country music, I don't think that is getting old, but maybe wanting to shoot people for wearing there baggy assed pants down around their knees is a sign of getting old. Why do they want to look like a plumber? Stupid assed kids and their stupid assed pants. Also, if you're a young woman and you can see your stomach when you look down at your toes, don't wear really tight low rider pants with a top that is too small for you. We don't want to see your muffin top. Fat rolls aren't attractive. I have them and I cover them, you should too. Don't wear belly shirts, buy clothes that fit you now, not that fit you three years ago, or that fit your younger cheerleader sister. You aren't turning anyone on, we're just gagging. This isn't me being old, it is just a public service announcement.
I think torture porn movies are stupid. Horror movies need to be more scary than gross. If you can't do more than gross someone out, make different kinds of movies. Other people feel different, because they are still watching Saw 500,000, and Hostel 67. So I am old.
I need more than one reason to drive to town. When I was a young whippersnapper, I used any excuse to leave the house. Oh, I used the last piece of dental floss, better go to Walmart and buy some. As long as I'm in town I'll burn up a lot of gas running up and down the main strip. Now it's damn, ran out of food, should I go buy groceries? I have to go to town to work day after tomorrow. I can probably beat that bull over in the field to death and cut enough meat off him to survive until then. Plus I have some dog treats I can chew on.
The history channel is entertaining to me. Enough said.
I robbed the cradle. My wife is more than 10 years younger than me. I gots me a young, sexy chick. I must be a dirty old man.
First, things hurt. Why do they hurt? Damn if I know, but things hurt when I get up, things hurt when I lay or sit down. Things hurt when I move, things hurt when I'm still. Now, mind you, they aren't necessarily the sames things, but they hurt. They don't hurt a lot, mostly just a little, but I don't remember them hurting before.
I break easier. And I don't repair near as quick or as cheaply as I did.
I'm grouchy and grumpy. Actually this isn't a symptom. I've always been grouchy, grumpy and generally in a bad mood, so fuck you. But it ought to be a symptom so I'm listing it dammit.
I don't drive fast anymore. I drive like my father used to before he started driving even slower. I also yell at other drivers, which is normal, but now I sometimes forget to use swear words, which is bound to be a sign of getting older.
My temper is shorter and more things irritate me. Of course so many things irritated me before that most people wouldn't know the difference, but I do dammit.
I need more sleep. I can remember working 11 hours, hoping into the shower, eating a quarterpounder, blasting my eardrums at a Metalchurch/Metallica concert, sleeping 2 and 1 half hours and going to work for another 11 hours. I also remember working 10 hours, driving 3, watching ZZ Topp, driving 3 more, sleeping 3 hours, working a 12 hour shift. If I tried that now I would be in jail for what I did to the first person that got on the one nerve I would have had left at work. I used to run smooth on 4 hours sleep and 6 was average for me. Now, six is minimum, and 7 is normal. I will probably need 8 hours of sleep on average in the next 5 years. That depresses me. I feel like I need to be awake for life.
Modern comedians don't seem funny. That has to be a sign of getting old. I never thought Sandler was funny. Dane Cook doesn't make me laugh either. I do still laugh, a little, every now and then, but not at those guys. I don't like rap music either, but I didn't used to either and I don't really like country music, I don't think that is getting old, but maybe wanting to shoot people for wearing there baggy assed pants down around their knees is a sign of getting old. Why do they want to look like a plumber? Stupid assed kids and their stupid assed pants. Also, if you're a young woman and you can see your stomach when you look down at your toes, don't wear really tight low rider pants with a top that is too small for you. We don't want to see your muffin top. Fat rolls aren't attractive. I have them and I cover them, you should too. Don't wear belly shirts, buy clothes that fit you now, not that fit you three years ago, or that fit your younger cheerleader sister. You aren't turning anyone on, we're just gagging. This isn't me being old, it is just a public service announcement.
I think torture porn movies are stupid. Horror movies need to be more scary than gross. If you can't do more than gross someone out, make different kinds of movies. Other people feel different, because they are still watching Saw 500,000, and Hostel 67. So I am old.
I need more than one reason to drive to town. When I was a young whippersnapper, I used any excuse to leave the house. Oh, I used the last piece of dental floss, better go to Walmart and buy some. As long as I'm in town I'll burn up a lot of gas running up and down the main strip. Now it's damn, ran out of food, should I go buy groceries? I have to go to town to work day after tomorrow. I can probably beat that bull over in the field to death and cut enough meat off him to survive until then. Plus I have some dog treats I can chew on.
The history channel is entertaining to me. Enough said.
I robbed the cradle. My wife is more than 10 years younger than me. I gots me a young, sexy chick. I must be a dirty old man.
To Diet or Not to Diet
Okay, I have recently had to face the fact that I am a fat ass. It only took about two years of everyone from my doctor to the annoying little aches in my knees when I get up or sit down telling me I needed to drop some weight for me to finally really accept it. I am heavier than I have ever been in my life. I have almost tipped the 300 pound mark. I always told myself I would die before I weighed that much, but I only missed it by 4 pounds. To quote the wife, "Holy fucking shit, Batman!!!"
First, I was a tiny kid. I was a short scrawny little thing until I was about 10 or so when I gained a little height and became chunky. I stayed heavy, but not obese until high school, when around the 11th grade I started excercising regularly and lost a bunch of weight. I spent about an hour every night running, using a rowing machine, lifting free weights, and shadow boxing. It worked. Then I started college. I kept the routine for the first year, then the work load hit me and I got lazy. If I hadn't started into the martial arts and had a job that kept me somewhat active, I probably would have been a whale. As it was I was carried about 40 to 50 pounds extra. This was a liablility in the Kenpo classes, but actually helped in Judo and Juijitsu as it made my center lower and I was much harder to throw.
When college was over, I stayed pretty consistant in my weight for several years. I switched jobs and went through a downward spiral for a couple of years. The only thing that saved me then was that I had a scare with my blood sugar one summer when I was packing in the softdrinks and had switched to Diet drinks and sugar free deserts. During this period, I tried a diet drug combo called phen-phen. I lost about 30 pounds while on it, but it messed with my body chemistry I think, because I react differently now to certain food situations. It could just be another sign of getting older though. My dojo closed also, so there went the only regular exercise I had. I also discovered the internet and became a net potatoe.
My mother is fat, and she is convinced that one day, she will discover the perfect diet or pill that will magically slim her down. She tries every diet that comes along. She never seems to stick to one more than three days, and if she does and you question her, you will find she has modified it to suit her tastes, which usually means eating the exact things she is not supposed to have. Anyway, I have tried most of the diets out there and I don't have faith an any of them, or in any of the magic products. Diet pills rate right up there with penis enlargement pills in my book.
You see, diets don't work. You might loose weight, but you'll put it right back on when you stop dieting. To loose weight and keep the weight off, you need to change your life style. You either need to eat less, change what you eat, or increase your physical activity. For best results, you need to do all three, and it needs to be a permanent change.
I have lost weight 4 times in my life. The first time was as a teen and I did it with regular exercise and nothing else. The second time was on a diet drug that later proved to be medically dangerous. The third and fourth times I did the Atkins diet. The third time I dropped off the Atkins during the holidays intending the enjoy the good food and start back after the first of the year. I didn't and gained back the 60 pounds I had lost. I started back for the fourth time two weeks and 1 day ago. I weighed yesterday and I had lost about 18 pounds. I know that sounds like alot, but on the low carb diet, your first two weeks are called induction. You don't loose any for the first 10 or so days, then you drop a lot suddenly, then the loss is gradual after that, usually 1 to 2 pounds per week.
I am doing some different things this time while I low carb. First, I am walking on a treadmill at least 3 times weekly. I also am doing some other exercises. I think that will make a difference. But let's look at dieting a little.
I divide diets into 4 classes.
The first is the calorie diet. This is stuff like Weight Watchers, NutraSystems, Jenny Craig, ect. They make you set a daily calorie intake level and you eat only that number of calories per day. This works sort of, but I have 3 problems with it. First is the cave man effect. You see in the moldy olden days, if your chief hunter dude tripped over a tree root and missed hitting the buffalo with the spear, you might not eat, so the body interprets any sudden drop in calorie intake over a period of time as a famine and it drops the body metabolism. Now you are temporarily burning less calories. Also, your body burns muscle more effeciently than fat, so unless you consumed calories are protein, and most dieters are eating veggies, you are losing lean muscle mass more than body fat. Second issue, this diet doesn't really distinguish between calories. If you have work with a dietician they will teach you how to make appropriate food choices for your limited choices, but this is a hard diet to do own your own. I watch the women at work manuevering their calories so they can eat that chocolate bar. They kill a major portion of their calories for the day on a piece of food that is going to trigger an insolin release which will make them feel hungry for hours. Third, this diet makes me feel weak and puny. I don't want to do anything. I spend most of the day hungry. Also, I am not going to spend my life counting calories, so when I tire of it, I go back to eating what I want and gaining weight.
The second type is the low fat type. Sometimes this is combined with a calorie counter diet also. The best diet of this type is the American Heart Association Diet, which is what most diabetics are put on. I don't like this diet personally. There are parts I do like, such as eating more whole grains and less processed foods, but the meat restrictions are a pain. One of the issues with this diet are that people start thinking anything labelled low fat is good for you. There are low fat twinkies for Heaven's sake. There are good things about low-fat diets. Trim fat off of meat and buy leaner cuts, that's good. Cook with olive oil instead of lard, corn oil, or margarine. Use olive oil on salads and breads instead of fatty dressings. That is all good, but buying a bunch of stuff labeled low-fat in the store is just going to make you fatter. Why you say. Well, when they take the fat out, something has to go back in and it is usually carborohydrate filler, which turns to sugar in the body, which triggers insulin release in the blood stream, which makes the body think it's hungry which makes you eat more, which makes you fat.
Type 3 diet is the fad diet. These diets don't work, but always seem to come with testimonials and warranties. The grapefruit diet, where you drink a glass of grapefruit juice, eat half a grapefuit, or take grapefuit pills with every meal to increase your metabolism. The latest seems to be green tea. You take green tea extract pills twice a day or something to boost your metabolism and burn fat more effeciently. Now I like green tea, I started drinking it back in the Martial Arts days. It is just chocked full of antioxidents which do good things for you body on getting rid of free radicals and using vitamins more effectively, but I don't remember ever seeing anything about it burning fat cells. Most of these diets are just effective ways to seperate you from your money. There are pills that will surpress the appetite and increase your metabolism, but they tend to have nasty side effects and aren't very healthy.
The fourth class, and I held it for last is the low carb diets. There are a lot of these, but the big three are the Atkins, the South Beach, and the Sugar Busters. I don't know much about the Sugar Busters, but I've done the other two and I think the South Beach is an improved version of the Atkins that might be a little healthier. Low carb works this way: The first two weeks are induction phase designed to put you body into ketosis. This is a fancy word for peeing sugar. Normally ketosis is not something that is desired, but if you are wanting to burn fat, you have to stoke the engines to run hotter. This is done by eating mainly protein with a very limited carbohydrate intake and the carbs you do take in should not be sugar. They need to be complex carbohydrates you body has to work to break down, like green vegetables. So basically, you eat meat, some cheese for calcium, and a cup of green vegetables, per meal. The Atkins made no recommendations on meat, the South Beach suggested fish, poultry and lean pork and beef periodically. After two weeks, you start adding a few carbs back into the diet, roughly 5 grams per day each week. When you stop peeing purple on the keto sticks, if you want to keep loosing weight, you take 5 grams of carbs back out of the diet, because you hit your personal limit. That number of carbs would be your maximum to consume daily without gaining weight. The South Beach breaks the weekly increase down and suggests a piece of whole grain bread twice a week, a cup of berries once, ect. Incidently, my doctor recommends the South Beach. There are only two diets that have ever been tested using scientific principle and those are the South Beach and the American Heart Association diet. I usually run into people who tell me the low carb diets aren't healthy. First, the books tell you to take multi vitamin supplements. Second, I've done the diet and had blood work done. I have excellent blood work when I am low-carbing. I never have bad sugar or cholesteral while doing the diet. I don't get hungry bad on the low carb and after the first 3 days, I feel really good on it. I have lots of energy. I do tend to crave bread, rice and pasta on the diet, but that's because I know I can't have it. I do miss my fruit, but fruit, especially citrus is out on the diet.
Theory. The theory behind low carb, is that man was initially designed to eat protein and complex carbohydrates. Main learned to process grains and by doing so made them easier to digest. Unfortunately this makes the body turn them straight to sugar. If you are someone who's body doesn't process sugar well, it gets stored as fat.
My theory is that different diets work for different people because we are all different. My body does not deal well with carbs, but can handle fat. Others may be the opposite. I do know that Low carb works for me, I just have to learn to eat that way all the time, so I don't gain back what I lose. I have to do it one day at a time, and so does everyone else. Wish me luck.
First, I was a tiny kid. I was a short scrawny little thing until I was about 10 or so when I gained a little height and became chunky. I stayed heavy, but not obese until high school, when around the 11th grade I started excercising regularly and lost a bunch of weight. I spent about an hour every night running, using a rowing machine, lifting free weights, and shadow boxing. It worked. Then I started college. I kept the routine for the first year, then the work load hit me and I got lazy. If I hadn't started into the martial arts and had a job that kept me somewhat active, I probably would have been a whale. As it was I was carried about 40 to 50 pounds extra. This was a liablility in the Kenpo classes, but actually helped in Judo and Juijitsu as it made my center lower and I was much harder to throw.
When college was over, I stayed pretty consistant in my weight for several years. I switched jobs and went through a downward spiral for a couple of years. The only thing that saved me then was that I had a scare with my blood sugar one summer when I was packing in the softdrinks and had switched to Diet drinks and sugar free deserts. During this period, I tried a diet drug combo called phen-phen. I lost about 30 pounds while on it, but it messed with my body chemistry I think, because I react differently now to certain food situations. It could just be another sign of getting older though. My dojo closed also, so there went the only regular exercise I had. I also discovered the internet and became a net potatoe.
My mother is fat, and she is convinced that one day, she will discover the perfect diet or pill that will magically slim her down. She tries every diet that comes along. She never seems to stick to one more than three days, and if she does and you question her, you will find she has modified it to suit her tastes, which usually means eating the exact things she is not supposed to have. Anyway, I have tried most of the diets out there and I don't have faith an any of them, or in any of the magic products. Diet pills rate right up there with penis enlargement pills in my book.
You see, diets don't work. You might loose weight, but you'll put it right back on when you stop dieting. To loose weight and keep the weight off, you need to change your life style. You either need to eat less, change what you eat, or increase your physical activity. For best results, you need to do all three, and it needs to be a permanent change.
I have lost weight 4 times in my life. The first time was as a teen and I did it with regular exercise and nothing else. The second time was on a diet drug that later proved to be medically dangerous. The third and fourth times I did the Atkins diet. The third time I dropped off the Atkins during the holidays intending the enjoy the good food and start back after the first of the year. I didn't and gained back the 60 pounds I had lost. I started back for the fourth time two weeks and 1 day ago. I weighed yesterday and I had lost about 18 pounds. I know that sounds like alot, but on the low carb diet, your first two weeks are called induction. You don't loose any for the first 10 or so days, then you drop a lot suddenly, then the loss is gradual after that, usually 1 to 2 pounds per week.
I am doing some different things this time while I low carb. First, I am walking on a treadmill at least 3 times weekly. I also am doing some other exercises. I think that will make a difference. But let's look at dieting a little.
I divide diets into 4 classes.
The first is the calorie diet. This is stuff like Weight Watchers, NutraSystems, Jenny Craig, ect. They make you set a daily calorie intake level and you eat only that number of calories per day. This works sort of, but I have 3 problems with it. First is the cave man effect. You see in the moldy olden days, if your chief hunter dude tripped over a tree root and missed hitting the buffalo with the spear, you might not eat, so the body interprets any sudden drop in calorie intake over a period of time as a famine and it drops the body metabolism. Now you are temporarily burning less calories. Also, your body burns muscle more effeciently than fat, so unless you consumed calories are protein, and most dieters are eating veggies, you are losing lean muscle mass more than body fat. Second issue, this diet doesn't really distinguish between calories. If you have work with a dietician they will teach you how to make appropriate food choices for your limited choices, but this is a hard diet to do own your own. I watch the women at work manuevering their calories so they can eat that chocolate bar. They kill a major portion of their calories for the day on a piece of food that is going to trigger an insolin release which will make them feel hungry for hours. Third, this diet makes me feel weak and puny. I don't want to do anything. I spend most of the day hungry. Also, I am not going to spend my life counting calories, so when I tire of it, I go back to eating what I want and gaining weight.
The second type is the low fat type. Sometimes this is combined with a calorie counter diet also. The best diet of this type is the American Heart Association Diet, which is what most diabetics are put on. I don't like this diet personally. There are parts I do like, such as eating more whole grains and less processed foods, but the meat restrictions are a pain. One of the issues with this diet are that people start thinking anything labelled low fat is good for you. There are low fat twinkies for Heaven's sake. There are good things about low-fat diets. Trim fat off of meat and buy leaner cuts, that's good. Cook with olive oil instead of lard, corn oil, or margarine. Use olive oil on salads and breads instead of fatty dressings. That is all good, but buying a bunch of stuff labeled low-fat in the store is just going to make you fatter. Why you say. Well, when they take the fat out, something has to go back in and it is usually carborohydrate filler, which turns to sugar in the body, which triggers insulin release in the blood stream, which makes the body think it's hungry which makes you eat more, which makes you fat.
Type 3 diet is the fad diet. These diets don't work, but always seem to come with testimonials and warranties. The grapefruit diet, where you drink a glass of grapefruit juice, eat half a grapefuit, or take grapefuit pills with every meal to increase your metabolism. The latest seems to be green tea. You take green tea extract pills twice a day or something to boost your metabolism and burn fat more effeciently. Now I like green tea, I started drinking it back in the Martial Arts days. It is just chocked full of antioxidents which do good things for you body on getting rid of free radicals and using vitamins more effectively, but I don't remember ever seeing anything about it burning fat cells. Most of these diets are just effective ways to seperate you from your money. There are pills that will surpress the appetite and increase your metabolism, but they tend to have nasty side effects and aren't very healthy.
The fourth class, and I held it for last is the low carb diets. There are a lot of these, but the big three are the Atkins, the South Beach, and the Sugar Busters. I don't know much about the Sugar Busters, but I've done the other two and I think the South Beach is an improved version of the Atkins that might be a little healthier. Low carb works this way: The first two weeks are induction phase designed to put you body into ketosis. This is a fancy word for peeing sugar. Normally ketosis is not something that is desired, but if you are wanting to burn fat, you have to stoke the engines to run hotter. This is done by eating mainly protein with a very limited carbohydrate intake and the carbs you do take in should not be sugar. They need to be complex carbohydrates you body has to work to break down, like green vegetables. So basically, you eat meat, some cheese for calcium, and a cup of green vegetables, per meal. The Atkins made no recommendations on meat, the South Beach suggested fish, poultry and lean pork and beef periodically. After two weeks, you start adding a few carbs back into the diet, roughly 5 grams per day each week. When you stop peeing purple on the keto sticks, if you want to keep loosing weight, you take 5 grams of carbs back out of the diet, because you hit your personal limit. That number of carbs would be your maximum to consume daily without gaining weight. The South Beach breaks the weekly increase down and suggests a piece of whole grain bread twice a week, a cup of berries once, ect. Incidently, my doctor recommends the South Beach. There are only two diets that have ever been tested using scientific principle and those are the South Beach and the American Heart Association diet. I usually run into people who tell me the low carb diets aren't healthy. First, the books tell you to take multi vitamin supplements. Second, I've done the diet and had blood work done. I have excellent blood work when I am low-carbing. I never have bad sugar or cholesteral while doing the diet. I don't get hungry bad on the low carb and after the first 3 days, I feel really good on it. I have lots of energy. I do tend to crave bread, rice and pasta on the diet, but that's because I know I can't have it. I do miss my fruit, but fruit, especially citrus is out on the diet.
Theory. The theory behind low carb, is that man was initially designed to eat protein and complex carbohydrates. Main learned to process grains and by doing so made them easier to digest. Unfortunately this makes the body turn them straight to sugar. If you are someone who's body doesn't process sugar well, it gets stored as fat.
My theory is that different diets work for different people because we are all different. My body does not deal well with carbs, but can handle fat. Others may be the opposite. I do know that Low carb works for me, I just have to learn to eat that way all the time, so I don't gain back what I lose. I have to do it one day at a time, and so does everyone else. Wish me luck.
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Why Did I Get Out of Bed?
Yesterday sucked. That was my day in a nutshell. I stayed up too late the night before chasing my wife around the house with whipped cream and an egg beater (don't ask). Anyway I was about 1:00 AM getting to bed, so at 6:30 the next morning when the alarmed beeped me awake, I wasn't too perky. I don't drink coffee, so I got up and absorbed a glass of caffine, Diet Pepsi brand. I let the Saint Bernard out to do her morning thing. I didn't eat anything, which was probably a mistake since I am back on the Atkins and nothing in the break room qualifies as high protein, low carb, or food. I checked my email then shaved, which takes some time for me since most of the surface area of my head is scraped daily. I dressed, went outside and started the car for the de-icing process. I fed the goats, came back into the house for the Pekinese, walked her for her morning thing, put her back in the kennel and the Bernard back in the utility room. Then I locked up and went to the car. Then I went back, unlocked the door and got my cell phone. I locked up again, went to the car, turned around and went back for my watch. I repeated this little scenario for my work cell, a letter I was supposed to drop in the mail, paperwork I brought home, photon torpedos, a chain firing 20 millimeter vulcan cannon, world peace, my shoes and Jimmy Hoffa. This should have been a clue.
Anyway, there was a wreck right before work and I ended up being about 15 minutes late for work. They are renovating our building. Basically, the landlord has to make certain changes if he wants his 5 year lease renewed. We are getting new carpet, new paint, they are knocking some walls out, putting come new walls up, pouring a new sidewalk around the building so I can sneak in the back door when I'm late, and expanding both employee bathrooms. In effect they are making lots of noise, dust, and confusion. Essential work items are being piled where they can't be reached, and other things are being left to be tripped over. Afterward, we are all to receive new office furnishings. Hopefully to include a filing cabinet with four working drawers and a lock, instead of the unlockable 3 1/2 drawer model I currently possess. I only had two clients to see that morning, but I had to prepare for a new case intake the next day, plus there is alway a billion things that need to be done paperwork wise, so the morning passed quickly and lunch arrived. I should have bought some McMeat from McDonalds.
I went home for lunch. Well first I went and paid a bill, then I went home. The wife was awake apparently suffering no ill effects from the late night whipped cream and egg beating (don't ask). So I nuked a can of meat, put some cheese on it, and we sat and discussed matters of great importance until I finished lunch, then I went to feed the chickens before returning to my place of labor. Of course, two of the sneaky little bastards staged a coup and revolted, breaking their shackles of oppression and running free, with me chasing the little buggers through, around and about the barn and into the yard, the damn goats cheering them on. I finally netted both little demons and stuffed them back in their pen. I was about 5 minutes late back from lunch.
My afternoon was reasonably busy, I don't usually stuff a Wednesday full, because that's when meetings, training, ect are done to us. I needed to drug test my first victim, I mean client. I brought him back for the meeting, gathered the required information and documentation, then escorted him to the drug room. There were no drug test kits. I checked where we stored the extras, there were none there either. I asked one of the managers, who told me we weren't out, but I needed to ask the woman in charge of ordering supplies where they were. I was informed that they were in the file room. The file room was a wide but shallow room in the rear of our building that housed the phone and networking equipment and massive rows of file cabinets where we keep our closed case files. It is going to be relocated to a more central area of the building, as it's present location is being turned into two rooms of unknown purpose and a broom closet. The filing cabinets have been shoved to both sides and walls erected. The test kits were in large boxes sitting on top of the filing cabinets and pushed as far back as the workmen could get them. There was no easy access.
The following feat should not be tried by anyone, ever, I am an untrained moron and only partially subject to the laws of physics.
I aquired a broom, white in color and not from the broom closet. I pushed a ladder against the newly erected, ha-ha erect, wall which has yet to meet with sheetrock, I climbed up the ladder and squeezed my upper body between two of the two-by-fours which make up the frame of the wall. Fortunately they were pine and flexible, I wouldn't have been able to do this with oak. I used the broom to hook and manuver the big box a little closer to me. The box was large and kind of heavy and the broom wasn't really intended for this sort of thing. When I got it close enough, I dropped the broom, took out my pocket knife and stabbed the box. I drug it up and pulled out of the wall. The box wouldn't fit. I squeezed back in and shoved the box to the left I banged it around and finally manuevered it into the space that would eventually be a door. I climbed off the ladder and retrieved my box. I carried it to the drug room where my client was waiting.
Our drug room is next to the lobby. The two rooms are connected by a bathroom, which serves as our whiz collection room as well as our public restroom. There are two doors. The interior door allows access from the drug test room. The exterior door allows access from the lobby. A bolt on the interior door allows us to prevent access to the drug room from the lobby. The interior door was locked from the inside. I banged on it a couple of times but got no answer. I had to go out through the main door, locking and unlocking it, into the lobby full of thugs, I mean clients, go through that door, after knocking, lock it, unlock the interior door, get my test kit pack, get my client, go in, close the interior door, and collect my sample. The I went to leave and found someone had closed the bolt on the interior door. I had to exit through the lobby again, unlock the main door, go through it, close and lock it. And I had to do this while keeping an eye on my client and balancing a test kit jar full of urine. This escape took so long that I was behind for the rest of my afternoon appointments. At least he didn't test positive for anything.
Anyway, there was a wreck right before work and I ended up being about 15 minutes late for work. They are renovating our building. Basically, the landlord has to make certain changes if he wants his 5 year lease renewed. We are getting new carpet, new paint, they are knocking some walls out, putting come new walls up, pouring a new sidewalk around the building so I can sneak in the back door when I'm late, and expanding both employee bathrooms. In effect they are making lots of noise, dust, and confusion. Essential work items are being piled where they can't be reached, and other things are being left to be tripped over. Afterward, we are all to receive new office furnishings. Hopefully to include a filing cabinet with four working drawers and a lock, instead of the unlockable 3 1/2 drawer model I currently possess. I only had two clients to see that morning, but I had to prepare for a new case intake the next day, plus there is alway a billion things that need to be done paperwork wise, so the morning passed quickly and lunch arrived. I should have bought some McMeat from McDonalds.
I went home for lunch. Well first I went and paid a bill, then I went home. The wife was awake apparently suffering no ill effects from the late night whipped cream and egg beating (don't ask). So I nuked a can of meat, put some cheese on it, and we sat and discussed matters of great importance until I finished lunch, then I went to feed the chickens before returning to my place of labor. Of course, two of the sneaky little bastards staged a coup and revolted, breaking their shackles of oppression and running free, with me chasing the little buggers through, around and about the barn and into the yard, the damn goats cheering them on. I finally netted both little demons and stuffed them back in their pen. I was about 5 minutes late back from lunch.
My afternoon was reasonably busy, I don't usually stuff a Wednesday full, because that's when meetings, training, ect are done to us. I needed to drug test my first victim, I mean client. I brought him back for the meeting, gathered the required information and documentation, then escorted him to the drug room. There were no drug test kits. I checked where we stored the extras, there were none there either. I asked one of the managers, who told me we weren't out, but I needed to ask the woman in charge of ordering supplies where they were. I was informed that they were in the file room. The file room was a wide but shallow room in the rear of our building that housed the phone and networking equipment and massive rows of file cabinets where we keep our closed case files. It is going to be relocated to a more central area of the building, as it's present location is being turned into two rooms of unknown purpose and a broom closet. The filing cabinets have been shoved to both sides and walls erected. The test kits were in large boxes sitting on top of the filing cabinets and pushed as far back as the workmen could get them. There was no easy access.
The following feat should not be tried by anyone, ever, I am an untrained moron and only partially subject to the laws of physics.
I aquired a broom, white in color and not from the broom closet. I pushed a ladder against the newly erected, ha-ha erect, wall which has yet to meet with sheetrock, I climbed up the ladder and squeezed my upper body between two of the two-by-fours which make up the frame of the wall. Fortunately they were pine and flexible, I wouldn't have been able to do this with oak. I used the broom to hook and manuver the big box a little closer to me. The box was large and kind of heavy and the broom wasn't really intended for this sort of thing. When I got it close enough, I dropped the broom, took out my pocket knife and stabbed the box. I drug it up and pulled out of the wall. The box wouldn't fit. I squeezed back in and shoved the box to the left I banged it around and finally manuevered it into the space that would eventually be a door. I climbed off the ladder and retrieved my box. I carried it to the drug room where my client was waiting.
Our drug room is next to the lobby. The two rooms are connected by a bathroom, which serves as our whiz collection room as well as our public restroom. There are two doors. The interior door allows access from the drug test room. The exterior door allows access from the lobby. A bolt on the interior door allows us to prevent access to the drug room from the lobby. The interior door was locked from the inside. I banged on it a couple of times but got no answer. I had to go out through the main door, locking and unlocking it, into the lobby full of thugs, I mean clients, go through that door, after knocking, lock it, unlock the interior door, get my test kit pack, get my client, go in, close the interior door, and collect my sample. The I went to leave and found someone had closed the bolt on the interior door. I had to exit through the lobby again, unlock the main door, go through it, close and lock it. And I had to do this while keeping an eye on my client and balancing a test kit jar full of urine. This escape took so long that I was behind for the rest of my afternoon appointments. At least he didn't test positive for anything.
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