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Store Manager | 30.07.08: Lack Of Blogging, Cute Customers,
Accusations, New Drivers, and Congratulations To Kathryn Streaming Song Of The Day: Join Me In Death by HIM Free MP3 Of The Day: Tide Of Trepidation by E.S.T. Dedicated to Esbjorn Svensson. Svensson died on June 14, 2008 at the age of 44. OK, so, sorry for the lack of blogging in the last few days. It's been a hectic last few days (booking holidays, organising holidays, sorting out work matters which I will go into later) but now I think I am finally a little more settled and calm. Right now I am sitting in the garden, writing this blog in the sun, with the computer telling me it's 21 degrees out here, listening to my beloved Placebo on the laptop. And not particularly giving a damn that the neighbours are making not so silent protests about my choice in music... Last night I was working with Miss C and Slaphead, which meant I had to endure the usual cliquiness from them, but that was more enjoyable than what I thought I was going to have to endure (I'll get into that later). Actually, Slaphead was in a general bad mood, and refused to acknowledge it when Miss C and I confronted him over it. He just gave an exaggerated smile and said "No, I'm fine". On the up side, there were many, many cute girls who came in and were all flirty with me. Always a plus. Despite the fact that I love the summer because you get the cute girls wearing very little, it's not so fun when you get the big, fat, hairy guys who also think they can wear little. I'm actually tempted to put a little sign on the door saying "In the interests of decency and the checkout staff not gagging, men must wear tops at all times. No, it doesn't matter how buff you are. Yes, girls are exempt." I should also explain my taste in women a little. I'm not one to go for the blonde, model types. I prefer redheads and brunettes who are over a size 16, shy, and glasses have always been a turn on. Same with height. Never been a particularly big fan of tall women either. And yes, I know my taste runs directly opposite to the normal straight male tastes. But then I guess that it's all a part of my individual nature. I don't dress mainstream and god knows I have never dated mainstream! Well...ok...there was one... So, the reason I got a better class of co-worker than I was expecting? Well...I thought I was going to be working with The Bombshell. And it's not that I am afraid of him, despite all his kung fu posturing, more that I didn't really want to have to confront him again. You see, during my last shift with him, he told me to "shut the f**k up and do some f**king work", that despite the fact that I had actually worked 200 chilled cases in an hour and a half, and he had barely made a dent on the ambient. So, I decided not to talk to anyone for the rest of the hour and to work like a demon. I got a cage and a half finished which completely trashed his mood further. Then he came up to me, and said "We must talk", so I told him I was going, so he grabbed my arm and said "No, we must talk", so I pulled my arm from him and told me not to touch me and I'd see him when I worked with him next. Then he followed me out of the store and told me that I had put some stock in his bag. I vehemently told him I hadn't, and he said he couldn't think of who else it would have been, therefore it must have been me. I told him if he was accusing me of setting him up for theft, he was walking a very dangerous path. He told me he didn't care and he was going to make it my problem. So I told him that if he wanted to make it my problem, I would make it entirely his problem. Then stormed to the cigarette kiosk only to find that the store had sold out of my brand. Perfect end to a bad night. Not that I let it lie. At the end of this morning's shift I went to Shoe, who I am friends with and who this week is the store manager and told her what The Bombshell had said, she agreed it wasn't acceptable, and now he's getting a disciplinary tomorrow morning. Messing with me is never a good idea. At last, we have a new newspaper delivery driver! The one before was useless and had been coming to our store for about 2 years. Bless him, he's a lovely guy, but he's also an idiot. Their depot is in Bournemouth (about 20 miles from here) and most drivers drive the route in a logical order, dropping papers off to the stores as they come to them. Not Robbie. At 5am, when every other driver drops our papers off, Robbie drives straight past us. And then at 6am, he drives past us again. And sometime between 6am and 7am, he gets around to dropping the papers off to us. The thing is, we get customers asking about papers from about 3am. Sometimes midnight. Depends where they are from. The London crowd annoy me the most, because they believe that everything that happens in London happens everywhere. Depsite the fact that they come to the country to get away from London life. Lastly, I just wanted to mention something that very few people in my life know. I on and off work on an AI (artificial intelligence) program. At the moment I am teaching it how to play Poker. It already plays Blackjack fairly well. The thing is, unlike most AI programs which chat, it doesn't play Blackjack or Poker against the person chatting with it. It plays Poker and Blackjack for itself, on gaming sites. Since it has perfected Blackjack, I've decided to set it loose against human players, since it's more or less wiped the floor with almost all the computer opponents I gave it. And as luck had it, a friend of mine sent me a link on Facebook for a site which allows you to play Poker for money without having to spend a dime. So, now my AI program plays there in their sit and go tournaments. So far it's played one tournament and came third, which is more or less where it comes when it plays computer players. I'm just mentioning it because I'm proud of it. Permalink 27.07.08: Staff Are Bad Customers, Drunks, Crack Baby, Cross Store Promotions, Return Of The Goth, and Queen Chav Is Late! Streaming Comedy Of The Day: Part 1 of 3 from The Best Of Mock The Week's Scenes We'd Like To See Free MP3 Of The Day: Girl Talk - Too Deep Tonight has been a worse than average night. So far I've had to deal with Teeny Tiny as a customer, and she was far from great. First she told me that she only wanted to pay for her stuff, but then paid for her daughter's stuff. And then wandered off to buy other things, which I told her she should know better than doing, which left both her and her daughter rather red faced as they admitted that it was annoying. And because they wouldn't stop yapping, they distracted me and I ended up scanning something twice. So I had to give a refund, and all the time the customers behind her were getting angrier and angrier. Fun for me when I had to serve them. And speaking of customers, we have had loads. It feels like the whole of Lymington have been in tonight. Most of them have been pretty good, but as always, the odd one or two have been annoying the hell out of me and being generally annoying. Mostly people asking if they can have things for free, or changing their mind on products. Or just being blind drunk. That one in itself is annoying. Probably the funniest customer was the one who was swaying the entire time she stood at the checkout, and when she put her card in the machine, she misjudged it so badly that it bent and bounced off the card slot and onto the counter. One of those times where you can't help but laugh. Then we had my least favourite member of staff phone up. Crack Baby. For those new to this blog, the guy is a kid who quite openly takes cocaine, and apparently isn't even 18 yet. And still very much in with manangement. I digress. So, he phones up at about midnight, right as I am in the middle of serving a ton of customers. I get the phone and hear: Crack Baby: "Yeaaaaaahhhh...can you tell me the numbers under the box that make the receipts?" Me: "You mean the printer" Crack Baby:"Yeaaaaaaahhhh" Me: "Ok, which numbers? Where?" Crack Baby: "Under the printer, on the piece of paper" Me: "Which piece of paper?" Crack Baby: "The one under the printer" Me: "*calls him by name*, there are loads of receipts and I am really busy right now" Crack Baby: "Yeah, alright mate, keep your beard on. Hahahaha. Lift up the machine and tell me what the numbers on the piece of paper are" I then lift up the machine and find a list of numbers which look like odds but they're different and with the same name beside each one. Very strange. I tell him these numbers and he puts the phone down. Now, this is where I get annoyed, because The Hero left these numbers for Crack Baby and I don't know or care what they are for, but I do know that me passing on secret messages to him made me look bad in front of customers. And I can't wait until I see The Hero next time... At the moment we have a cross store promotion on at the moment. People who shop at our store can get £2 off their shopping at any of our Isle Of Wight stores. Anyone who shops at our Isle Of Wight stores can get 10% off their fuel up to £50. Not bad when fuel is so high right now and food bills are rising. So, to get the vouchers for the Isle Of Wight store, you need to spend £20 on fuel in our store. Now, as with any promotion there are exceptions. The worst one, at least for the customer, is that the vouchers are given at the discrection of the checkout operator. So, if you're a rude customer, the chances of you getting a voucher become far slimmer than if you're a very nice customer. Hell, if you're a very nice customer, you've got a decent chance of getting one of these vouchers anyway, whether you spend £20 on fuel or not. Now, I did call a few customers back when they were nice to me to give them their vouchers. But then there were nasty customers who were not nice to me, and you know, I forgot that they spent the required amount and let them skip out the store without their little vouchers. Shame. Then we had The Goth come in. He is a good friend of mine who I am not going to name by name here because he used to work for the store. All I will say is that he is fairly tall, fairly intimidating if you don't know him, and speaks with the most ridiculously posh accent you have ever heard. And yet he is one of the nicest guys you will ever meet. He actually came in just for fuel, but ended up spending about half an hour in the store chatting to me, and for other reasons I will get into later. Plus being the nice guy that I am I decided I'd cook him the burger he bought in our microwave. Not that we're supposed to, because if we give someone food poisoning (possible considering our microwave) then we can be sued by them. Anyway, he apologised for not calling me before, and told me that he hadn't called me because he got into his house and lost my phone number. So he's coming in again tonight to give me his phone number. Good times. But one of the reasons The Goth was in there for so long was because of a customer we had. Actually, a very cute customer. She came in and asked Slaphead if he would sell her alcohol, and he said no. So she asked if I would, and he said no. Then she said "well, what if I flirt with him?" and Slaphead, really annoyingly said "Maybe, go ask". He had no idea what he'd let me in for. She was standing at the checkout for easily 20 minutes, asking if she could have alcohol, and when I said no she asked if anywhere else sold it. And then had a small tantrum when I told her the nearest place was Boscombe. Then The Goth told her that there was Longs, which she then asked him if he could take her to. He said no, and then she began alternately asking me to sell her alcohol and The Goth to drive her to Longs. And when she asked me, she offered me many things in return for selling her alcohol. Like getting her breasts out. And then coming in naked. And when both of those failed (due to me saying "stick to the script" over and over in my head) she offered to pay my wages if I got in trouble. At that point I laughed and told her she couldn't afford me. She had another tantrum and asked how much I could possibly be paid, and was left open mouthed when I told her it was almost a grand a month. In the end she left empty handed, and without The Goth driving her. And I logged her in the refusal of sale book as a redhead, mid 20s, very cute. I kind of forgot to add the chatty bit. I figured I'd let the rest of the staff find that one out for themselves... Lastly, Queen Chav's Number One Son came in last night with Number Two son. My god. They are like a double act. Actually, for those who remember the Police Academy films, it's like the Captain who always gets upstaged by the cadets and his little assistant. With Number One Son being the Captain and Number Two Son being the assistant. He came in and told me that he was going to apply to come back to SF, and to a garage at that. Not the worst plan in the world. But then I had to really stop myself from laughing when he told me that he was applying to be a store manager. The kid is 18 years old and things that he can run a store without going on the Store Managers Development course. But he's going to apply. And then he said "How much trouble with that cause eh?" and I said "Probably not any actually. Here maybe, but not anywhere else." And he smirked and said "Oh yes, there would be trouble. They'd all be so jealous of me..." at which point his brother said "Jealous!" And then Number One Son resumed and said "because I'd be so young..." At which point his brother pointed at him and said "He's 18". I was tempted to leap over the counter and grab him and say "And you're an idiot" It carried on like this as well. Although possibly the best part, apart from Number One Son thinking he has any chance whatsoever of becoming store manager (unless more corruption kicks in since Pedro currently runs the store that he wants to run) was that because Number Two Son was so hungover this morning, Queen Chav was 16 minutes late for work. The 16 is significant, because it means that they both got docked half an hours wages. Unless of course she accesses the system and changes their clocking in times. Wouldn't surprise me in the least... Permalink 23.07.08: Dull Shifts, Cleaners, Churchill Swears, and Rocking Last night was actually a really dull shift. The Blonde Bombshell was in a foul mood therefore didn't speak to us, I'm still not talking to him because he's arrogant and thinks he's THE alpha male and can say what he likes to who he wants, and myself and Miss C are getting along (the enemy of my enemy is my friend et al) and are spatting occasionally because of the witchunt which is going on over the cleaner. Allegedly he is stealing little bottles of alcohol. Funny, because if he was doing that, why does he buy a big bottle of alcohol every few days? The ironic thing is, the company he works for (he's a contract cleaner) allocate him 2 hours to clean our store. By rights he should leave at 5am. But he doesn't. He leaves at 7am, and does 2 hours unpaid overtime every day. But management are too shortsighted to see that. It actually makes me angry because he's a 78 year old guy trying to top up his not inconsiderable pension by doing work he enjoys. As I said to Miss C who was busily trying to spread her poison about him, I hope when she's 78 she ends up in a terrible care home with people who beat the tar out of her on a daily basis. She gasped and said "That's a terrible thing to wish on someone!" and I shrugged and said "No, it's karma, you try to get an old man fired, I just hope you get yours when you're his age". However, there is one thing I want to mention which has been in some of the papers yesterday (ok, The Daily Sport, so not really a paper). The latest Churchill Advert. Apparently Churchill (not Winston), who is a national treasure along with the other Churchill (Winston) swears in the latest advert. Now, I have listened to this advert over and over again. And my conclusion? There are fakes. I've heard the fakes. And I know they're fakes because not one of them is a rip from the TV, they're recorded on some camera. But the genuine one, well...I don't know. He definetly says something, but then again it might be "ufffff!" as it's a clear parody of Wayne's World. Anyway, I have added the video below: "" Apart from that, not a great deal happened. Queen Chav couldn't find anything hugely wrong with the store apart from the fact that the chiller needed facing up, which Miss C or The Bombshell really should have done whilst I was on my lunch. And I again rocked the chilled stock. To the point where The Bombshell stormed off in a tantrum because he didn't believe I could do it all on my own. But by the time he got to the chilled stock, there was half a cage left out of the three cages which had arrived. Permalink | 22.07.08: Drive Offs, Stoners, Getting Stuff For Free, Gigglers and Rocking Streaming Song Of The Day: Burn In My Light by Mercy Drive Free MP3 Of The Day: 7,8,9 by Barenaked Ladies So, I think it's a pretty much global thing that fuel prices are going up and up. Although, oddly, I have heard that all the major supermarkets (read as not SF) are putting their prices down, and are getting into a price war over petrol prices. Anyway, because of rising fuel costs, more and more people are doing what we call in retail a "drive off". This is when you fill up with fuel, get back into the car and drive off with the fuel without paying. And last night we got hit by masters in the art of the drive off. The driver stood with his back to the camera, and the passenger hid. Guessing the number plates were either fake or stolen too. Thing is, I actually respect these guys last night. They hit us for £68, which is probably a tank of fuel. Most people who do drive offs take £10 or £20, nothing worth writing home about. I've always said that if you're going to do a drive off deliberately, then you might as well hit us hard, rather than take a few quid. I mean, once we had a drive off for 82p. Now, I think I've said before that I actually like stoners. They come in, get crisps, get papers, and leave. Last night was different. Last night I could have cheerfully choked the stoner I had to deal with. First of all he comes up with a huge basket of stuff and hands it to me telling me what it is. I've worked in the store 5 years and I am almost 30, I think I know what Doritos are. Then his card gets declined, which I always hate because they either run out the store, or act like I've told them I've personally emptied their bank account. So, he went to his car to get the money, and in the process held up not only me doing the newspaper returns, but also three customers behind him. So, then he comes back with a tatty ten pound note and buys his stuff. But instead of leaving he just stands there. I hate it when this happens. I swear some customers believe we are psychic, and we know why they are standing there. So I ask if he wants the receipt and he mumbles "no". So I ask what he wants and he mumbles "dunno...oh...wait...Rizla". So I sell him his Rizla and he shuffles out the store. I think I might be the only one who has noticed this trend, but it's a really up and coming trend. And it seems to only come from Eastern Europeans, and a few chavtastic Englishmen. Basically it goes like this - I'll scan their stuff and they'll tell me they have fuel on such and such pump, so I put it in, then they laugh and say "Or is for free?" or the Chavtastic "So, it's free, yeah?" I don't get it. I mean, why would you go in to a petrol station and think the petrol was free? It's our reason for being, to sell petrol. And we sell about £100,000 a week of it. I mean, I think these are people who think the phrase "It's free?" magically means you don't have to pay for things anymore. I've never mentioned this before, and I am still pondering if it's my anti social side, or a pavlovian response. I hate people who giggle. One or two giggles I don't mind, but when they walk around the store giggling the entire time, and at stupid or nonsensical things, then they annoy me. One of the worst offenders was last night. This stupid girl who was actually sober came in giggling with her drunk boyfriend, and they were in the store for 20 minutes, giggling at what seemed like every item in the store. And what did they buy? A packet of pink and white wafers. And petrol which they had put into their car earlier, and which the girl told me between giggles, hilariously, she thought maybe I would have forgotten about. I smiled sweetly and said that if customers didn't pay for their petrol, we just sent the police after them. Funnily, she stopped laughing. Lastly, I was awesome last night. OK, slight bragging, but I think it's deserved. The chilled delivery came to 185 cases. I had it finished in an hour and a half. Even Slaphead had to admit that I was good, and that I had done the bulk of the work, namely because I did. There were 185 cases of chilled, and 89 cases of dry stock. And I helped Slaphead with the dry stock after I had finished the chilled stock. The funniest part was when he came up to me, literally patted me on the back and said "You can go for a cigarette when you've tidied up the aisle". I grinned and told him that I was going to anyway, whether he had given me permission or not. He said "I'm your supervisor, I tell you when you can go for cigarettes!" and I grinned and said "I just did 185 cases in an hour and a half, finished your 89 yet?" Permalink | 20.07.08: Lack Of Blogging, Fallouts and Games Ok, so, sorry for the lack of blogging for the last couple of days. Absolutely nothing happened at work on Thursday, and I mean literally nothing. We had not much to do before the delivery arrived, and then when the delivery did arrive, we were catagorically told by Pedro not to touch the bulk of it. Fun. Which left us with 3 hours of doing absolutely nothing. At one point I even took The Blonde Bombshell out to the canteen, showed him my eee PC and taught him how to play Blackjack on it. Then told the manager who shrugged and laughed it off. Things were that dire. I was playing cards in the canteen on a laptop, and it was sanctioned by the manager. The only highlight was that Keverly came in to pick up The Tall Pole for training, and The Tall Pole was late. Which meant that me and Keverly got to do some catching up. I could explain who Keverly is, but honestly, that is an entire post of it's own. In short, he's the best supervisor we ever had on nights, one of my favourite people in the world, and generally a great guy who we miss a lot. Then there was the mess that was last night. Me and my best friend have been planning on going to the States for a week in November. Last night we priced it out. It was more than we expected. As was a trip to our beloved Gran Canaria. The US trip would have been £708, Gran Canaria would have been £650. And we fell out a little over it because my friend expected me to be able to make it happen for £700 or less, which in the current climate of high oil prices and high food prices isn't going to happen. Not for the kind of places we like to stay. So when I told him the prices there was a very awkward silence, then we began discussing it. Or rather, I discussed it and he ignored everything. The only upshot of Gran Canaria is that it does include all our food and drinks. The downside is that my friend is a miserable so and so when he is on holiday and none of us can ever figure out why. It's not even that he isn't enjoying it, he always maintains he's having a great time. Plus I am on the wagon. Seriously! I've stopped drinking. Not sure whether or not it will be a permanent thing, but to be honest, I woke up feeling great this morning. Long time since that has happened on a night off when I have seen my best friend. Not that I didn't get intoxicated. We have a thing over here called Ame. It's a non alcoholic wine alternative which has herbs in it. Very popular with non drinkers. But what few people have worked out is that if you combine Ame with a herbal tablet called Kalms, which is supposed to make you feel calmer, the effects turn out not a million miles away from alcohol drinking. Without the headache. And with WAY better sleep quality because you're drinking what is essentially water with fruit juice, and taking herbal tablets which make you feel great. This said, a lot of the non drinking people claim they drink vast quantities of the stuff then drive. Not sure that is such a good idea, but, it IS legal. The only other thing that happened tonight was that I won 50 pretend pounds at Virgin Games and 35 pretend pounds at Ladbrokes Casino. I found a "new system" for Roulette, which isn't really a new system, it's basically Martingale with a twist. In theory I think it can work in the long run, but I still need to run some numbers on the thing first. And keep playing it to destruction just to test it. And I have been playing a LOT of Adventure Quest. I know it's not a serious RPG, but I like the storylines, I really like the artwork (always been a fan of Manga) and I love the freedom and ease of play of it. Plus there are a ton of quests for people of all levels. Right now I am tearing a swathe through the forces of light as a level 5 Necromancer, with the hope of eventually becoming a lich. Always had a thing for the undead... Permalink |
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