Open Letter to my Dear Coworkers

Dear coworkers,

I appreciate your dedication to not doing your job. You are truly talented, creative people. In particular, I admire the morning crew (a whopping five or six people!) for managing to do absolutely nothing in the way of cleaning for a whole eight hours! Even when Iris is there, or when you're working in the evening with myself, I admire the way that you avoid doing any sort of cleaning at all; whether it means sitting and 'doing homework,' or hiding in the back, or just filling up the front of the ice shuttle so it's still empty, you have created an art out of laziness.

Also, I would like to thank you for the way that you don't collapse boxes before throwing them in the garbage. By refusing to take the five minutes to collapse them, you manage to fill the dumpster within seconds, leaving an enormous pile of garbage which won't fit in the dumpster unless I climb in and remove everything you've done so far. On a related note, I appreciate how dedicated you are to not throwing away your own garbage... Saturday and Sunday morning crews, I'm looking DIRECTLY at you. Thank you for pulling all of my garbage cans in the back into the center of the room and piling them high with garbage... and then leaving. It means I have a full 20 minutes of work to do before I can even begin to start the baking (or cleaning the dishes you leave in the sink!)

In addition, I would also like to say that I admire your skill in avoiding work completely. As in not coming in. I'm not stupid; I know you aren't sick when you call in. I also know that when you call and ask me every week to take the same shift because you don't feel good, it's because you have a thing with your friends and you just can't be bothered to work. I also admire your courage in simply not showing up to work, especially when you do so repeatedly. That's something that I would never have the guts (or motivation) to do. You take slacking to a whole new level of lazy.

Thank you for all you (don't) do to help.

- Angela

The Worst Negative Reviews

Hey there folks.
As you all know, I work at Dunkin Donuts as barista/cashier/maid/cook/etc.
Sadly, we have, at the bottom of our receipts, something called a survey code.
Which means that customers, who are usually poorly informed, can provide their poorly informed opinions on the operations of our restaurant.
This is so that they can get a free donut.
I digress.

Today, while I was slaving away for minimum wage, I saw that my bosses had printed out our most recent survey comments. I flipped through the five or so pages of them, most of them either vague or positive, and a certain number of them stood out to me.
Most of the noticeable ones were negative.
My personal theory is that 99% of negative reviews come from customers who are very, extremely, exceptionally, unintelligent.
I'll let you make up your mind after I list several of the reviews that stood out to me, along with my personal interpretation of said reviews.


"You need to have an English speaking taking orders at the drive through! I could to understand your employee and she she didn't understand me because my order was wrong!!!"
This is an actual and direct quote, including the double "she" in it.

Really?
I mean.
Really?
I still can't wrap my brain around this complaint.
Did the person understand how dumb they sounded when they typed this?
I mean, even if you accept that they may have had a typo (which would explain the "she she" and even the "could to" part), are you kidding when you say "an English speaking" as a noun?
I can't.
My interpretation of this?
"I'm racist and I don't like Hispanic people. Also I order in a manner that's so confusing that someone who makes their living by taking orders can't understand what I want."


There was not only a line at the drive thru to order, but also a line to receive your order! Even when you go inside there is a wait, even if there isn't a line.

...
We're a fast food restaurant.
Being busy is the only way we're still in business.
We're not even that busy most of the time.
And also we make your food as you order it so I apologize if your sandwich isn't immediate, but I think you probably want fresh food.
Also please stop complaining to us about having a line. It literally isn't our fault that other people also decided to get their coffee this morning.
My interpretation:
"I am an impatient person who probably didn't like standing in line in elementary school and also probably my parents gave me whatever I wanted when I was a little kid."


Make the coupon expiration dates longer.

IT ISN'T ACTUALLY UP TO US WHEN YOUR COUPONS EXPIRE. IF YOU HAVE A PROBLEM WITH THAT, TALK TO COROPORATE. if YOU ACTUALLY GET TO TALK TO THEM, LET ME KNOW BECAUSE I HAVE SOME ISSUES WITH THEM TOO, THANKS.

"I'm a decent person but I don't actually understand how franchises work."


Take the customers order, take coupons at point of payment, and don't tell the customer they are the reason for any mistakes.

Maybe if you actually ordered properly and gave us your coupons when you pay, it wouldn't be that big of a deal. However, it isn't our job to ask you if you have a coupon. We aren't actually mind readers. Also, I'm glad you know how to do my job better than I do. It's clearly always my fault when something goes wrong; it's never the customer's fault.
Admittedly, no. We shouldn't actually patronize our customers and tell them they're the problem.
(Truth be told though, they usually are the problem.)
So try this, customer: How about you actually show some consideration for the fact that this employee has to talk to a hundred other people just like you and take orders that start sounding the same, and actually treat them like a person? How about you don't freak out if we make a mistake, because it's just as likely as you made a mistake with ordering?

Interpretation:
"I've never had a minimum wage job, I think I know better than you, also I'm way more important than anyone else in this entire building. Your job is clearly to be my servant."


To be honest, there were a couple more, but I can't remember them off the top of my head. I'll get some more of them later though, so never fear!

Selling Cookies to Hippies

It's no secret that some of the most interesting adventures I have occur while I'm selling Girl Scout cookies door to door.
One of said adventures occurred the other day when my friend Nina and I went to sell cookies in her neighborhood.
It started out normal enough: Nina and I wandering down the street singing the Doctor Who theme song and talking about how excited she was to sell cookies.*

*Nina isn't actually a Girl Scout, but since very few Scouts live in her neighborhood I convinced her to go around and bother people with me. She was actually really thrilld to sell them, which I personally find bizarre, but it was good too! :D (love you, Nina.)

The first few houses we went to had a more or less normal reaction
("No thanks", "I already have some", "Sure", "My granddaughter sells them"), but then we came to a small grey house.

Now, let me tell you that there is nothing about this house to suggest that it may be out of the ordinary, or that it may be inhabited by anyone other than the people who generally seem to live in this neighborhood:
Normal families or older folks.

Yeah.
No.

Nina and I walked up to the door, undoubtedly singing I Am The Doctor and laughing about all the random responses we had gotten so far.
We rang the doorbell, and out came...
A man with a beard, a yellow shirt, green pants, and red suspenders hanging from his sides.
I'm not kidding.

We were trying to be polite, so out came ther regular greeting from Girl Scouts:
"Hi! Would you like to buy some Girl Scout cookies?!"

Now, just as a side note, most people either say "yes" or "no". They don't usually dilly-dally between yes and no, and they're usually very enthusiastic about either answer.
(Yes, we know you're saying "sorry, but I already bought some", but we all know what you really mean is "WOOT I HAVE AN EXCUSE TO GET RID OF THESE RANDOM STRANGE GIRLS RINGING MY DOORBELL AND BOTHERING ME FOR MONEY".)

This was the second sign that maybe this wasn't the normal sale.
Instead of a "yes" or "no". we got...

"Yeah, probably. Uh. Come on in."

Again as a side note, it isn't smart to go into a stranger's house. But he had grabbed my order sheet, and I felt duty bound to protect it.
So we went in.
And were immediately hit by the smell of either (or both) incense and marijuana.
It was a very strong smell.
Overpowering, you might say.

So while we stood there trying to breathe, the oddly dressed guy turned to the rest of the room and asked,
"Do we want to buy Girl Scout cookies?"
The four or so people sitting in a circle on couches eating scones had a mix of reactions that ranged from "Yes!" to "Absolutely!".
That is, they all answered in the affirmative.

Please note that he still was holding my order form.

So while Nina and I stood there trying to breathe and not really believing what was going on, he motioned us farther into the house, saying that there was a table to write on.
So we followed him.
Into the house.
Of hippies.
That may have been filled with pot.
It was interesting.

So we ended up in the kitchen of this house. The dining area was filled with another circle of brightly colored couches, and the table in the kitchen contained a guitar, at least three books with men with beards on the front, and a bunch of boxes of obscure looking tea.
There were also a bunch of brightly colored banners hanging from the stairs, and the entire house was painted yellow.

While we stood there, and the hippie looked at the order form, he asked what is probably the most baffling question I've gotten all cookie season this year,
"Do you have that new cookie? Like a fruity mango one?"
Uh.
What.
I don't understand.
Fruity... mango... cookie?
Because this doesn't actually exist (and never has), I told him that no, we didn't have a fruity mango cookie.
"That's okay. I didn't really want it anyway."
O-kay then. And you were just asing for... fun then?
Nina and I were by this time trying not to look at each other because it may have ended with both of us cracking up, or one or both of us bolting for the front door.

The hippie asked how much it was per box, and I told him that it was four dollars. He then looked at me and said he better buy twenyt dollars worth. Because he didn't seem to be able to do math at that moment, I told him that that would be five boxes.
"I better do two and three then!" he looked awestruck by his brilliance.
Yes.
Yes, three and two would make five, I suppose.

So he ordered his cookies, and got out the money to pay us. Just at the moment where Nina and i were like "WE MIGHT ESCAPE FROM HERE ALIVE", one of the hippies (a very short, barefoot woman) wandered into the kitchen.
She also seemed a lot brighter than the first hippie.
"So do you live around here?"

Author's note: I've already covered how much I hate that question. I hate answering it. It's creepy and stalkerish, and what if I DON'T live around there? What? Are you not going to order cookies? Well, will ya?
This time the question was even creepier because we were standing in a buttercup yellow kitchen surrounded by tea and hippie books and.. well... hippies.

Thankfully Nina doesn't mind telling a few white lies, so she answered that yes, we did live around there and yes we were part of the same troop, and I added that we were both seniors and that yes we were still Scouting and it really was quite wonderful and that I hoped they had a good day.

Another Author's note: It was disturbing too because the second hippie actually reminded me a lot of my teen group leader who I do love very much, but who also sort of frightens me. So the entire time I was standing there going "No, it isn't your teen group leader." Which made the stalkerish question even more scary.

This is when the hippies let us leave their house.
And yes, as soon as we were outside, Nina looked at each other and I started laughing and she gave me a look and said
"That was seriously pretty scary in there. I would not have gone in there alone."
And then we walked away as fast as we could, laughing the entire time, partially because it was so surreal and partially because we had just survived a close encounter with hippies.



So yeah. That was the most interesting thing to happen to me this time.
Also, I think I'll kidnap Nina and make her go to a site sale with me.
:D

Girl Scout Cookies: What They Mean to You

It's that time of the year again, where we put on two sweaters, a coat, gloves, scarves, two hats, socks, boots, and venture out into the realm of grumpy non-sugar eating grandparents-with-Girl-Scout-granddaughters strangers to sell them cookies.

Now, let's face it. Everyone loves Girl Scout cookies. There's always a type that you're going to love, even if you're a weirdo and don't like Thin Mints.
...You think I'm joking, but a few of my closest friends can't stand 'em.
Weirdos.

We also all know the mission behind the Campain of Ruthlessly Harassing People to Buy Cookies. That is, we're trying to fundraise to go do a special trip, to go somewhere, or just to fund our troop for another year so we can go ask people to buy stuff from us next year.
It's a vicious cycle.


But what the actual person doesn't know is what Girl Scout cookies mean to them. Yes, we all know that you're "supporting your local Girl Scout troop!" when you buy a box of Savannah Smiles, but do you really know where your money is going?

Let me break it down for you.
The majority of the money goes to the Girl Scouts to take care of our camps, to pay the bakers, and to otherwise run the organization.
The meager .80 cents we get?
It goes to fund our vacation.

HECK YES.

So while you're enjoying your delicious boxes of Tagalongs at your kitchen, you're also allowing my troop to go out and enjoy our Tagalongs (yes we buy them from ourselves, silly) while sitting on a beach in Georgia.

Wait, what?

Oh, yes. Did "fund our trips" sound more noble than "throw money at me so I can go on a vacation this year"?
Why do you think we're not as brutally honest as we could be?

I'll tell you why.
Because
"Would you please buy some Girl Scout cookies" translates to "BUY THE FREAKING COOKIES MY FEET ARE GOING TO FALL OFF FROM THE COLD."
"Thank you for supporting my troop" translates to "WOOT. I'M ALMOST A DOLLAR CLOSER TO MY $850 GOAL TO GO TO GEORGIA!!!!!"
"Thank you anyway" translates to "You miserable jerk."
"Good morning!" translates to "I'm about to harass you to buy some stuff at me"
and
"I'm selling cookies!" translates to "Throw money at my face! Fund my vacation, lowly minions and strangers! I'll bribe you with cookies!"

But seriously, that's what's going on here.
We're using the art of manipulation to force strangers to pay for our vacations.

But hey.
It works.
:D

Blogger... Fifteen reasons it stinks.

1. It deleted the comments I got from Sandy and from Cat two and three days ago, without me telling it to.
2. Half the time it tells me it can't post my posts because of some tag error, when all I've done is type.
3. It makes tag errors when all I do is type.
4. Sometimes, when I put on pictures, what Blogger does is make them go invisible when I'm on the "compose" tag, so I upload them twice, and only realize it when I post.
5. It's really tricky for me to figure out where my followers' blogs are located when I click on their pictures.
6. Most times when I try to post, I have to try twice because it says that it saved it at the same time I was posting it, and I should just try again.
7. When I go to sign in, it sometimes makes me type my email address and password about fifteen times before it will register that I have signed in.
8. It's tricky to find my dashboard.
9. It's stupid when I try to put up a new background.
10. It goes all wonky on me when I put up a custom header.
11. It's so fussy about what your domain name is.
12. It won't let me use different font sizes within one post.
13. It makes changing the color of my letters really hard.
14. It never tells me what my original font is, so I have to go through all of them if I want to change a copy paste section into the same font as the rest of the post.
15. It has a really, REALLY bad search engine. (I search "Rachel Carson" and it'll pull up something about Girl Scout Camp. *headdesk*)

That's all for now. :)