Crappy Customer Service

Hey, Wait A Minute....

Let me try to be as obscure about this as possible.

One of the owners of The Sporting Company won a business award on Friday.  He won a Business Guy Of The Year type thingy from a professional association.

First of all, he couldn't be bothered to show up to accept the award, so one of the other owners went.  The other guy not only accepted the award, he walked through the building thanking all the employees & telling them the award is really for them because they're worked so hard.  He also e-mailed this sentiment to make certain everyone heard it.  Now THAT's appropriate behaviour - and this guy wasn't even the guy who won.

The guy who won?  Had a major injury last November and was recuperating in Hawaii for three months.  He was in the rehab hospital for three months and at home learning to move again until this past September *coughkarmacough*, went on a two week cruise and is currently in BC.  So he was gone from the business for more than nine months of 2009.

We employees were initially pleased with the award, then we thought about it for the amount of time it took you to read this post.

Carolyn's Late Addendum to the Magna Carta

Let every pair of pants, for whatever purpose, for whichever gender or for non-gendered persons, have at least one (1) pocket sized to contain a small piece of paper or a coin.

I figure this is at least as important as the right of habeas corpus!

A Request

My spirits are low in the middle of the day.  When I look at the clock at noon, and think about spending five more hours at work with a fist-shaped lump in my gut, I am not happy.

This is how I know it's time to move on to another job. My heart is no longer in it.  My boss took it with her when she left.  I am just marking time for forty hours a week and it seems like a waste of my life.

Which is why, even though I dread the job search/interview process with the mother of all dreads, I am going through with it and I've sent out a few resumes, thus actually doing something I said I was going to do (just this once).

Soooo...if you have something funny or nice to say I'd appreciate hearing it.  Even something completely random or a link that'll make me laugh.  Cute Overload served up this cute little bugger today.

Trying Not to Tell Everyone @ Work to Fuck Off...And Succeeding (So Far)

My boss, who is a wonderful lady and the nicest, best person I've ever worked for, was forced into retirement this Friday, partly because of her health issues and partly because they're cutting back.  She was still working full-time and doing a great job but they decided they needed someone who was not telecommuting.  Fortunately she got a nice big golden parachute so she's OK.

They are not filling her job so it looks like my department is going to be left with more responsibilities without more pay.  They just laid off a number of people because we were down in sales - just like every other company in North America.  People were cutting their promotional budgets and it hurt us.  But...the business is coming back quickly.  From now until Christmas is our peak season.

Now, here's the rub:  I can't stand the owners.  Seriously, they are malicious dickbags who shouldn't be running a company.  They have no management training.  And now, with my boss's retirement, they have removed the entire management level of the company.  It's just us peons and the owners.  Have you ever tried to ask the owner of a large company for something?  I don't know about you guys but around here the answer is invariably NO.  They are cheap and stupid and if I have to face them 8 hours a day I will go so crazy that my husband will have me committed.

So I'm looking for a new job.  I hate even saying that.

I want my job back with my great boss.  Sure, I was grossly underpaid but at least I wasn't responsible for much.  I felt free to exceed expectations and look like a hero.  Now I have to go and start all over again...just like I have to do every five years.  I despise the job hunt but I've come home spitting with frustration every night for the past two weeks and I can feel my job draining my life force away.  I'm not sleeping well and my stomach is in a giant knot.

I may sound like a whiner here.  But if you saw my career path you would definitely shout WTF??  And the shit part is, it's always forces beyond my control pushing me down the road.  I never get to leave on my own terms.

I'm Not Like All The Other Girls - A Play In One Act

Scene:  A garment warehouse.  My Boss, A. and myself standing between shelves of hockey jerseys discussing potential names for A.'s future baby.

A:  (blah blah blah...) And Ethan's a great name but everyone in Alberta is calling their child Ethan right now.

Me:  OK then - what's your fiance's last name?

A:  MacLeod.

Me:  You could go with a nice Scottish name, just not Connor.

A:  My fiance hates the name Connor - but why should we not use it?

Me:  Because then your baby would be...The Highlander!! 

A. and My Boss stop and give me a puzzled look.

Me:  "There can be only one!"

My Boss:  Only you would think of that.

Ai!

What's something you would splurge on this year to improve your future?
Presented by Intel, Sponsors of Tomorrow.

 I actually splurged on something today to improve my future.  I pulled out my AmEx and paid for a couple of courses at the local university.  I'm taking some open registration courses to begin getting my Supply Chain Management Professional diploma.  For those of you who don't know, I am already a junior buyer at a sportswear company.  Until a few years ago this was a school-of-hard-knocks type of profession where you started at the bottom in shipping or merchandising and learned your way up.  Now there are actual professional designations and courses and all that jazz.  If I want to be able to transfer my purchasing experience to another job and maybe sort of like have a career - and I do, I do - I have to go back to school during my evenings and weekends.  I've been boring Mr. W about it for two years now, and I finally kicked myself in the ass and joined the revolution.

Those who know me in real life are going to be shocked by my decision.  I am known for dissing higher education left, right and centre.  I have wasted thousands of dollars and hours of my life getting two post-secondary diplomas I can no longer use.  Well, it wasn't really wasted, you know.  It's just that after I quit machining I swore I wasn't going to go back to school ever ever ever, even though machining school was quite fun.  Circumstances aligned against me to put my education to waste in ways that were outside of my control.

And now here I am, back at it for a third go 'round, older but no wiser and certainly poorer since tuition has tripled since I last left.

Can I Roll Around In The Fur Vault?

We do monogramming at The Sporting Company.  One of our semi-regular customers is a furrier.  It's a common practice, when buying a fur coat, to have one's monogram, or even one's full name, embroidered into the lining.  I guess it's done to prevent theft or swappage.

This got me thinking about furs.  Let me start with: No, I never have owned a garment made of real fur, not even rabbit, and I never will.  So now we can all relax.

I do think fondly of the days when fur was common.  It's really fucking cold here sometimes and the 70's were a grand time for a lady to get herself a nice full-length fox fur coat.  Hell, even the men wore them.  Fur was everywhere, common enough that it wasn't remarked on much unless one was wearing a mink or something extremely expensive.  I remember standing with my mom's friends in their furs, surrounding me in warmth and comfort.  My eighth-grade teacher, a big hulk of a man, had a full-length bear coat and we used to huddle around him for warmth on the playground (in the days before this was seen as assault or something weird).

My mom had a bitchin' faux fur, sheared black knee-length with grey and white speckled shawl collar and cuffs.  It had a thick leather belt that could be cinched tight at the waist.  If you went out in that fur today you'd look awesome.  It was soft and lined in satin and I used to steal it and wear it at every opportunity once I was tall enough.  I am now five inches taller than she is, so I guess that day's gone by.

My mom wanted a real fur but we couldn't afford such a luxury.  I think if you offered her one today, she'd give it a good long think before turning it down.  I miss fur - even though it's best that it's gone out of common use.  I guess I miss its decadence and sensual quality.  And it looks like I'm not the only one, judging by the rack of mink and beaver rolling past my office today.

Wherein I Make A Controversial Statement

I hate jeans.  Hate 'em.  I know that every other person on the planet will disagree with me and I'm down with that.  You go on wearing your jeans however you like - I don't hate your jeans.  I hate mine!

I wore jeans today for the first time in a couple of months and all I could think of all day was how long it would be until I could get home and take those suckers off.  I feel like I'm being squeezed in a vise.  The best pair of jeans will never fit me as well as a lousy pair of pants.

And it's not that my jeans are too tight.  It's my various Fit Issues.  I am 4" taller than the average woman, yet I have a normal inseam length.  This means that all my height is in my torso - yes that's right, the LEAST attractive way to be tall, I managed it.  So I have a long rise as well as an actual ass.  Jean waistbands never even get within shouting distance of my waist.  And let's not even talk about low-rise jeans, which I can actually walk out of.

I'm too old to be uncomfortable in my clothes.  So no more jeans!

Let Me Just Wave My Magic Fairy Wand!

There's this woman at The Sporting Company - she doesn't work in my department.  Every once in a while she comes into the office I share with my cow-orker and asks for stuff.  It's really odd.

She doesn't start a conversation and slide her request in, or anything like that.  She will walk in, interrupting whatever conversations we might be having (unless it looks like someone important in a business suit).  She'll ask, "Do you have a loonie?"  Uhhh, no, and if I did, you wouldn't get it because there is never any reciprocation.  "Got any gum?"  She bums cigs off my smoking office mate.  She'll clean out any communal candy/doughnuts/cookies by our coffee machine, despite having their own in her department.  We suffered from ridiculous levels of toilet paper theft until recently and I think I know where to point the finger.

The requests get weirder.  The other day I'm working away on my computer, my cow-orker is listening to her voice mail and this lady walks into our office and says, "Do either of you have a hockey puck?"  My cow-orker is so astonished she hangs up the phone to hear the rest of this conversation.  I look around my office.

"No, we don't have a hockey puck.  Why do you ask?"  I say.

"I need one for my gas tank," she says.  Cow-orker and I look at each other.

Before either one of us could think of a reply, she went down the hall after the shipper who'd just passed by.  "Got a hockey puck?"

I'm thinking she must have lost her gas cap?  That's the only reasonable explanation I could formulate.  But why would she come and ask a couple of women working in an office if they had a hockey puck?  I mean, yeah, I'm a buyer for a sporting company but my desk isn't stuffed with hockey pucks, lacrosse sticks and swimming caps.

Fun House

The building I work in is a big shambolic crazy house.  It was originally some sort of educational admin building that The Sporting Company bought and converted for their purposes.  It's been annexed and added on to several times.  I work in the heart of the original old building. 

There's half-staircases connecting bits.  The fresh air intake is right next to the sewer gas outlet.  The A/C breaker had to be flipped every 20 minutes last summer or we all would've fried; someone with sufficient arm strength (AKA me) had to go out and flip an 18 inch breaker switch.  It's heated with steam and there's two positions:  Off and Full Blast.  Tiny bits of foil insulation occasionally drift down onto my desk. The toilets flushed full bore, 24/7 for about a month once.  Another time we sat in the dark and watched the nearest transformer set a telephone pole on fire. All in all it's a bit like working in the Poltergeist house.

But as annoying as our old building can be, we aren't ready to give it up.  A management-type passed by today with rough sketches for the new building.  They will build it on an adjacent section of land and then demolish our old building.  I think we will probably have to drag my boss out of there when it's time to go.  The new plans have our offices much closer to management, instead of on the opposite side of the building.  We like it the way it is now, though.  We want them to have to think good and hard before deciding to come and see us. 

We laugh a lot more on our end of the building.  A LOT more.  Sometimes I go to the other end and it's like someone just died.  I expect to hear quiet sobbing behind me.