I laff evrytiem

Full disclaimer: This woman actually said all of these things. I took some creative license on our words because I don't remember them as clearly, but everything here attributed to this customer is true of her, so help me God.

...

I walk through my realm of the dining room, dropping off three drinks here, handing a check to a table there, and mentally noting needs that another two tables have.  I hear a raised voice and realize my co-worker is talking to a lady at the register and this lady is not happy. I walk over to see if I can be of assistance.

"I called four times and nobody answered!" the woman is saying. "I called for fourty-five minutes!"

"Oh, no!" Erin and I respond together. "I'm sorry, when was this?" Erin continues. "The phone hasn't rung recently."

"Don't give me that. I called four times and you didn't pick up. When was the last time you had a physical to check your hearing? I drove into your PARKINGLOT and called and watched you all running around in here through the window and not ONE of you picked up the phone."

"Wait, just now?" Erin asks. "The phone didn't ring..." Before she can continue the manager, Abii walks up and apologizes to the woman.

"Maybe our phoneline is down," she said. "I'm so sorry--I'll check it and see."

"There's nothing wrong with your phoneline. While I was sitting in the lot somebody else pulled up to the window and got an order."

Now, I was actually the one that had handled that to-go, so I stepped in again.

"Oh!" I said. "That lady didn't call ahead--she just pulled up and asked for an apple pie."

The woman does not appear to believe me. 

"I wonder if there was an accident or something on McKnight and it knocked our phone out," Abii says. "That happened last night--somebody ran into a pole down the road and we lost the phone for a while."

"There is no accident," the woman says. She has long, badly-dyed blonde hair, and wears a crochet top I would normally compliment her on and a face that clearly says she is sure we're making up excuses.
"I was down McKnight. There are no accidents," she repeats, as if she is talking to a child caught in the middle of stealing a piece of cake who claims it is for his sister.

We highly doubt she has been all the way up and down the entirety of McKnight road, but we do not say this.

"Why are you running around doing everything anyways?" the woman asks of Erin. "You've got tables out here, are supposed to take to-gos, and you're cashing people out?"

"Oh, we're just a little short-staffed today," Erin says. "So we're all helping out take care of everything."

"What. I can't believe this. That is terrible business practice! You do not EVER tell a customer that you are shortstaffed. EVER."

"What?" says Erin. "Our manager tells us to say that."

"No. You do not ever say that. I cannot believe you just told me that. This is ridiculous. What kind of a place is this?"

I'm tired of Erin dealing with the brunt of this, so I step in again. "Actually," I said. "It's really good that corporate lets us tell our customers that--because then the ones out in the dining room know that we're not just in the back not doing anything--we have other jobs, too, and that's why we don't get to them immediately sometimes. It helps us out."

"No. That doesn't matter. You do not EVER tell a customer you are shortstaffed. I can't believe this."

"Well," I said, shrugging philosophically as I turn away, and pretending I'm at the mercy of my betters. "That's just what corporate tells us to do."

"Did you just roll your eyes at me?" the woman demands. I blink and just stare at her for an instant, confused. I had not rolled my eyes at her, but at this point, I have to attend to needs my tables have, and I leave the conversation with her and do not answer.

A moment later I meet Abii in the kitchen. Abii is calling our phone, which rings. I pick it up.

"Hello," I say.

"Hello," says Abii. "Well, it's definitely working." She hangs up.

"I bet she just has the wrong number," I say.

"Well, I'm not going to fix that," Abii says, grinning. 

Erin curses, interrupting us. All the woman had wanted was a quart of potato soup. Erin has just arrived in the back, frantic to fill the order and get rid of this person when she realizes it is Monday, and on Mondays we do not have potato soup. This woman clearly had not looked at a menu prior to ordering, and now Erin, who hadn't remembered in the heat of a very desperate moment that we do not actually have potato soup on Mondays, must now return and tell this woman she can't have potato soup.

I was not there for that revelation, but I was there for the aftermath. Erin comes back into the kitchen, looking for Abii.

"She wants our names, store number, and corporate's number," she says wearily.

"Are you effing kidding me?" Abii responds. "Fine. She can have it. Pft. Whatever."

She gets out a piece of paper, and very neatly writes her full name, Erin's full name, and the demanded numbers. She hands me the paper and tells me to deliver it. At this stage we are all filled with the humour that only incredulity can bring, and I walk out, laughing a little. I smilingly hand the paper to the woman. "Here you go!" I say.

The woman inspects the paper. "There are only two names on here," she says. "Erin... that was the girl who was taking my order... who are you?"

"I'm Abigail," I said, knowing Abii had written her full name (also Abigail) on the paper.

"Then who was the manager?" the woman asks.

"Oh, that's Abigail," I said.

The woman now has the evidence she needs to prove that we are trying to pull a fast one on her; that it is in fact our goal; that we are intent on ruining her life and getting away with atrocities. She can't believe any three people could be like this.

"I'm also Abigail," I say. "We're both Abigail. But I'm Abigail Kimball." I repeat my name a second time, so she can be sure of it. "Have a nice day!" I say, as I turn away to run some food to one of my tables.

Erin comes out to deal with the last of this woman, who is dialing corporate as she walks out of the restaurant.

"I'll have your jobs," she says. "All three of you. Come Monday, you will no longer have jobs."

She leaves.

Abii calls the general manager and leaves a message. She then calls the second manager, Suspenders (his name is Nick, but he always wears suspenders, and thusly earned his moniker), and tells him the story and that this woman is promising we've lost our jobs. Nick just laughs and laughs.

"What: you, Abigail, and Erin? Sure. Whatever."

The head manager calls us back after getting Abii's message. He hears the story and tells Abii not to worry. We are definitely not getting fired.

"Just go back to whatever you're doing." he soothes. "Don't even worry about it. You're all fine. She can't get you fired."

A woman at a table near the register tells Erin she only realized late what was happening, and almost got up to go talk to the woman.

A woman at my table near the door makes a point to tell me thank-you very much, and that I was very pleasant to her and her friend.

We breathe a collective sigh of relief, and continue our jobs.

...

I'm having a hard time imagining this woman in the real world, though. What hobbies, relationships, jobs does she have? It was as if she was just spawned in the parking-lot and existed only for those moments of interaction with us, then as soon as she left she disappeared into the ether. It was very odd.

All for a quart of potato soup.

I'm bad at being a calvinist.

The past couple weeks have been pretty crazy over here for us. Job interviews, presentations, beginning new jobs, taking an emergency roadtrip two weekends ago with Garrett and my brother,  David, down to visit David's and my grandfather in the hospital, Game Developer's Conference in San Francisco for Garrett, a trip back down to South Carolina with my brother for our grandfather's funeral (and having to ask off for the very first three days I was scheduled to work!), and a variety of other matters.

Saturday, though, I encountered the first person in Pittsburgh who was genuinely unpleasant in a way that was surprising to me. Friday night David and I had flown back in late in the evening, luckily missing out on any more plane maintenance issues or gate-and-concourse switching in Atlanta that we got to experience on the way down...

"So," I said. "They switched gates on us as we should have been boarding. Then we got down to that gate and they were like 'jk!' and switched us to an entirely different concourse. Then we finally boarded (an hour late), got out on the runway, and were ready to take off and the pilot's all 'hm. We're seeing an indicator light here...' and we had to wait another 10 minutes and then the captain's all like 'well, I think we might just have an indicator light malfunctioning, because another plane went by and said they didn't see any smoke or blown tires...' and we're all O_o and then they said they could fix it out on the runway and of course then they were all 'lol nope! , so after another half hour they took us back to the gate and then they had to get a mechanic out to look at the indicated brake and he had to go find a part and then install it and then fill out paperwork and then we had to find a new groundcrew and finally we got to head out again and actually take off."

"Sounds like they gave you a trip tease," observed my sister. 

So anyhow, Saturday late morning David decided to go ahead and drive up to our friends' to hang out while I chilled and waited for Garrett's plane to get in that evening. As my brother was leaving, it occurred to me that we should probably check to be sure my car would start. My car is an '02 Saturn, and the dashboard clock never turns off. Consequently, if the car sits for too long without being driven, the battery says "pfftt," and gets sulky, drinks some wine, and spits out the rest of its power juice into the ether. Said car hadn't been driven since Tuesday night, and my niggling instincts usually turn out to be correct, but my inertia and laziness were too great, so I let my brother leave without mentioning the car. 

 Common conversational fare for us in the home of a physicist.

A few hours later I toddled down to head to the grocery store for some Easter breakfast supplies, and sure enough, my car wouldn't start. 

Let me assure you now, I did finally have a working car--a sweet, blue-eyed student with a manly build and very small proportions tried to help me jump my car, but was mechanically incapable, and I must've had the connections slightly off, because it didn't work. He stuck with it for almost 20 minutes, though; I called multiple people and got advice from one and ultimate help from two that just dropped whatever they were doing and drove over to rescue me--but the first person I encountered was a middle-aged woman in jeans and a sweater that stuck to all the wrong places who was walking stiffly on strappy heels through our parkinglot to chuck a tiny grocery bag in the trashbin.

"Excuse me!" I said. "I'm sorry, but could you possibly give me a jump?"

"What?" she said, looking at me through half-shut eyes that probably found the world too wearisome to bother seeing at full-view. 

"My car battery died," I said. "Could you possibly give me a jump?" 

She regarded me for a moment, and let out a sigh with her words. "Uhm. No. I don't know how to do that."

"Oh, that's no problem!" I said. "I do, and I have cables."

A part of her face twitched with displeasure. "I... well, I don't really want to use my car."

"You don't rea..." I began repeating what she'd said, wondering if it would make more sense that way.

 "Uh," I said. "Okay?"

There was a pause.

"I don't actually live here," she offered, to explain why she was reasonable in not helping me jump my car. "I'm just picking up mail for someone."

"Oh," I said, since I couldn't honestly think of anything more to say to her.

"I would be willing to call AAA for you," she said.

"Uhm, no thanks," I said. "I'll just see if I can get hold of Joe." (our building manager, and a fun character)

"I'm just parked all the way over there on that street," she said, gesticulating languidly to the street that is literally a 30 second walk from our parkinglot. "I don't really want to bring my car all the way over here," she said.

"Okay. I'll just try to find Joe or somebody, then," I said, and watched her walk off without a word to me.

I'm still flummoxed.

I wondered briefly (since I try to give everyone the benefit of a doubt) if she'd thought I was dangerous and would knock her skull in and stuff her in my trunk for kicks and giggles, but quickly dismissed that idea because I am not a dangerous-looking person, it was 4:30 on a bright afternoon, my car was parked in an open lot, 15 feet from a road that gets a fair amount of car and foot traffic, and her exhibited discomfort was entirely that of someone who is being asked to do something distasteful and not someone who is afraid. 

"So basically," said Brittney, when I related this story to her later that night, "she was just a bitch."

"I guess so," I admitted. 

But then I called Aarika who said only "what can we do?", rounded up her husband, and brought me help and some shortbread within 30 minutes.

Theoretically I believe everybody is naturally screwed up, but I guess I put a lot of trust in common grace to people (the idea that people, whether or not they're saved, still don't generally act as terribly as they're capable of). Usually that doesn't fail me. But sometimes you encounter people who just didn't end up with much.

Oh, well. 

Here is a cute bully puppy. Garrett and I will have one as soon as we possibly can.

In other news, in Greenville, SC I had the absolute best TSA and airport security experience ever. A lot of that is probably due to the fact it's THE SOUTH and your average person there is three times politer than your average western Pennsylvanian, but the TSA agents and this one helpful old man who printed out our tickets while we were still hugging family goodbye still shocked me with their pleasantness. Guess I've by and large gotten used to yankees.

The joys of computers. Otherwise known as mac vs. P.C. FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT.

I have too many computer nerds in my life.

Computer nerds hate macs (because they won't let them meddle in the inner workings of their computers), and I've been taught to have a bias against macs, too. Not that I could do any worthwhile meddling in my computer even if I had the inclination--I don't have the skills for that--but I am married to somebody, and know many others who do have the skills for it. And they have definitely meddled helpfully on my behalf in the past. If I had a mac, and it broke, I'd have to ship it off to have somebody else meddle with it, and if there is one thing I am terrible at, it is getting up the gumption to box something up to mail and then go mail it. So. Much. Work.

If packages still looked like this, I might find it easier to give a bother. 

As far as aesthetics go, macs are pretty lovely. I get that. I myself like running my grubby paws along the perfectly designed curves of a mac when I get the chance. The moment I try to use it, though, it turns into this techno-farce where I can't find the browser, minimizer, or "new tab" buttons, and people are alternating yelling at me, or laughing. I can't find these buttons because they are either too obvious, in a place on the screen I'm not used to, or they don't instinctively look to me like the things they're supposed to be.

What is happening. 

I am trying to learn, though, because I feel there are enough macs floating around, I'll probably have to use one for some reason at some point in time, so I should know how.

But anyway, while I can appreciate the physical beauty of a mac, my computer-oriented friends can't see it over the glaring ugliness of its uselessness to them and incredible mark'd-up price.

Seriously? I could buy my little '02, 31mpg Saturn over again with the money I'd save getting the pc instead.

Something that really frustrates me about this is that in my observations of mac users, they seem like computer illiterates. They're going for the flash and prettiness rather than usefulness. I mean, maybe not having to worry about simple repairs and updates is worth $5900 to them (given the previous computer comparison). But yow. Should it be? Maybe learning to do those things should be on par with learning to change your own oil or a tire.

Now, maybe some mac users just aren't interested in computers enough to want to have the ability to mess with the inner workings of theirs. In that case, a mac is great for them, and that makes sense to me.

But for somebody who has some programming knowledge, or any inclination awhatsoever of learning anything about computers, having a mac is taking that ability away from them. To compare to my life, it would be as if somebody put me on top of a horse, but kept the reins themselves and would only let my horse walk and trot while I sat there, doing nothing. It's called ponying, and it sucks if you're over 5 years old and can actually control a horse yourself.

Pictured: a mac user being ponied by Steve Jobs in a tank-top. 

Or perhaps they have gotten used to the ease of having any problems be somebody else's problem, so they just give off a devil-may-care attitude. Considering that both kinds of computers are prevalent in our society, though, I think people should be able (for the sake of being well-rounded and useful) to know their way around both macs and pcs. Even the people I know who hate macs can generally still figure one out if they have to. It does not seem to work both ways, though.

Case in point? A story from my life (which also proves that, in general, not enough people are computer-savvy as should be, given society):

I applied to be an independent contractor with a petcare company here in Pittsburgh. To make this official and everything I had to go to an orientation for the company at the owner's house and sign paperwork and things like that. While there the owner took us through a powerpoint on her pc about the duties and legal/tax ramifications of being an independent contractor. This woman herself was obviously not any sort of a computer person, but we plugged away at that powerpoint. At some point she accidentally closed the program and couldn't find it again. She hadn't minimized it (I could see the desktop), but she was at a complete loss about what to do.

"My daughter made this and got it set up," she apologized. And then went single-clicking merrily on her recycle bin, browser, and anything else within reach of her pointer. Nobody said anything. There were about 15 people of various ages and educational backgrounds sitting around that table, and nobody said a word. This woman continued clicking on useless things (ignoring her start menu button) for a moment more as we stirred uncomfortably. Finally one kind, skinny young man, attempting to be helpful and break the awkward silence offered "yeah, sorry, I dunno: I just have a mac."

Some others nodded agreement with this statement, and I waited another moment, not believing that it was possible that I was meant to be the saviour of these people. Surely there was another, better qualified? But no. It was up to me. Me. The girl who gets panicky when Avast! says anything to me other than "Welcome to Avast! Your virus database has been updated."
The unexpected hero.

"Try searching for it?" I offered, tentatively.

"Huh. Where?" she asked.

"In your start menu."

"Where?"

"On the bottom left, there."

She attempts to open Word, and I begin to feel more confident in myself.

"No, sorry--far left. The little window icon." I got up and walked over to my new boss to point out the icon for her to click.

"How do I search?"

"Uhm, just start typing," I said.

"What do I type?" she asked.

"Oh. What was the file name?" I said.

"I don't know. My daughter made it."

There was a pause while I gathered my wits.

"Ah," I said. "Well, she probably put the company name in it, right? Try typing that."

We eventually found it, and I was hailed a computer genius and sat down to accolades I did not feel I had earned.

All this to say, if in this day and age of ubiquitous computer-use, I am the most computer literate person at a table of 15 other people (who definitely use computers of some sort), then something is wrong.

Pictured: me on a computer 

(also, if you don't already know Hyperbole and a Half, go remedy that right now).

Disclaimer: I have heard rumours that macs are great for artsy people and have some wonderful programs for them, but I have a suspicion that there are plenty of those programs (or their equivalents) for pcs to be found online and downloaded without having to spend thousands more on a mac. I might very well be mistaken on this point, though.

ADDENDUM: A friend (whose brother used to work for Twitter) just pointed out to me that lots of computery people do use macs. That is true. If I understand correctly, though, while they are able to make some great things with the programs mac provides, they are still more limited because they can't improve upon those programs or write their own to use on the mac.
So yes, lots of computer people put macs to good use. But their creativity is still somewhat limited.
Also, Twitter is in California, so of course they use macs.

XKCD speaks about Mac programming tools here.

Work Experiences, Vol 2

Aaannnd we're back with this episode of "Jobs I Have Had".
I realized I'd forgotten in my other post an important job I worked BEFORE retail, so I'll do that one today, and retail next time.

Milkmaid

This was a fun one. I worked for about two years, off and on, for our neighbours in PA at their dairy farm. We got to know them because my parents actually bought our house from them. They have a small dynasty starting with Dick and Blanche (who are close to 90 and probably healthier and more limber than a lot of 20 year olds), going down through Dwight, Dean, and their wives, all the way to Dean's two sons, and a couple babies and a wife that belong to the youngest of Dean's sons. Also a lot of cows.
They hired me as a milker. If I got the evening shift I ended the day covered in basically every fluid a cow can secrete. If I got the 4am shift, I started the day with all those fluids, plus the 6 top country songs Froggy plays at 4am when there are only farmers to hear them.

Actually, one of my favourite work experiences was a 4am milking on a Christmas morning. I finished up around 9:30am and Dad drove me home to an excellent breakfast and presents over snow-covered fields as the sun was rising in a blue sky and everything was glistening and new.

 

It looked kind of like this. Only bigger and brighter. 

Usually if I worked the 4am shift I would end up milking beside a silent and crusty neighbour we used to have. He was also the one responsible for Froggy on repeat.

If I worked later in the day I either got to work with Blanche (who was a delight), or a couple hispanic guys. Sometimes I'd hit the jackpot and it would be both. On those days Blanche and I would sing showtunes and piano-pounding hymns and laugh at everything and the hispanic guys, understanding only every 15th word we'd say, would have quiet, whispering conversations about us, shrug, and go back to the milking.

Sometimes there would be doughnuts, which we would happily consume with one rubber-gloved hand while the other was busy wiping manure off of a cow's teats.

Here is a cow with clean teats and a milking machine attached.

We'd drive the cows in (when I was there, there was space and machines for 6 at a time on each side of the milking parlour--I think they've since moved up to 12 on each side in their new parlour), clean them off with towels and "dip" (I forget the chemical make-up of this dip)--and sometimes powerful jets of water for particularly tenacious clods of poop--and then hook up the milking machine. Then you run back and forth while that set was being milked, keeping the tubes all un-twisted, and sometimes rescuing a milker and redoing it if a cow kicked it off and soiled her udder.
Towards the end of the milking we'd get troublesome cows that needed injections of oxytocin to let down their milk, and cows with mastitis (that milk got collected in separate containers and didn't end up with the stuff you drink). Some of these needed to be milked by hand (my favourite part!). 

 

Do you SEE the delight in this woman's face?

 

Sometimes Dean would rush through, always yelling and cheerful, with one sinewy arm clad in a vet's shoulder-length plastic glove, and proclaim that he had to go "breed a cow."

That meant this.

Sometimes I got put in charge of feeding all the baby calves. This meant mixing formula into some of the milk and either pouring it into buckets for the bigger calves, or actually bottlefeeding the very young ones. I was good at teaching the newborns to accept bottles. 

 

I would also clean out these little huts.

Funny story from my time spent milking:

So in Tennessee I had made a friend in an Irish dance group who was engaged to a guy in an Irish music group (they were good). She'd given me a t-shirt from her dude's group. The group was called "Kula" which means "brotherhood" in Gaelic or something. So I had this t-shirt with a big celtic knot, and then "KULA: Explosive Irish Music" on the back. One day I'm wearing this t-shirt in the barn and milking away happily with a couple of the hispanic guys. I notice they are looking at me and giggling. Finally one points to my shirt and says, "Kula. What that?"
I explain my t-shirt-acquiring story to him, and what it means in Gaelic. The two guys exchange looks and grin some more, showing bright and happy teeth through dark skin and some cow poop and dip.
"Kula not mean brotherhood," he says.
"What?" I said.
"In Spanish," he said. "In Spanish, kula mean this," and he turns around and points vaguely to his rear end.
I never could get the internets to tell me exactly what the definition was, but I never wore the shirt again if I knew there would Spanish-speaking people around. 

 

 

 

Growing Old (Or: Our tea cup / Is getting filled up / So we'll never have to dread / Getting old)

We interrupt this work-related series of posts to bring you a contemplation on aging.

I know it's obnoxious for a 24 year old to even mention this since she's only two years out of college, seven weeks and three days into marriage, and has only one white hair to her name, but I don't care.

Garrett and I have some good friends. We all realized just how old we're beginning to feel when over the course of several months we caught ourselves making old people choices and talking about old people things.

Scene One

The set-up: 

After spending an entire week working, five of us gather together to rejuvenate before the next week.

We have all gone to church and listened with interest during a New-Comer's class that consisted of theology, history, and grace, then moved upstairs for the actual service and communion. Afterwards we socialized briefly, and at the opening of this scene have returned to our friends' home for the night.

Brittney and I have decided to make a wild evening of it and have each downed a shot of Triple Sec. We are now sipping on berry-flavoured hard lemonades and cooking a low-carb, paleo-approved dinner, and discussing many aspects of life, including (but not limited to) making church home decisions, and what is the best way to pay off debt quickly. We also imbibe large glasses of water to ensure hydration.

The three men are all outside, grouped around the grille on the front porch smoking cigars and grilling a hunk of lean and seasoned venison to perfection. They are keeping the noise down for the sake of the neighbours.

The men enter the kitchen, stage right.

"Looks like you've been having fun in here," Garrett observes to Brittney and I while Dan plates up the meat and Trevor sets the table."What did you two talk about?"

"Sex," say Brittney and I, attempting to look young and frisky.

"Is that all you ever talk about?" Dan says. We hear a guffaw, and then a cough from the dining room.

"No! Well, what'd you all talk about, then?" I ask.

"Mortages," Garrett says.

Scene Two

We decide we're going to have a rip-roaring, irresponsible weekend together. 

Scene Three

Two people give up the Minecrafting party around midnight, citing a usual bedtime of 10pm. The rest give up shortly thereafter, citing responsibilities beginning again in the morning.

Scene Four

 We wake up, shuffle downstairs, and among five of us we are able to complain about somebody's arthritis acting up, two chronic headaches, three sore backs, and four-to-five different levels of tiredness. Somebody (me) has incredibly sore calves because she forgot she wasn't in as good shape as she used to be, and ran up and down too many flights of stairs two days before. We all exchange commiseration and remedy recommendations over a breakfast of eggs, pancakes, and orange juice. By this time the coffee has finally begun to kick in and somebody asks if this is what being old feels like. 

So you see, we are not old yet, but we are beginning to show signs. But I'm okay with that, because I've got some great people to grow old with.

Here are two songs to cheer you up if you're old already, to encourage you if you're starting to feel age creeping up, or to give you more pleasure at the thought of aging if you are so young you haven't noticed aging's effects yet. 

 From still-young whippersnappers like us.

From guys who know what's up. 

Happy birthday to Trevor S. (today), Garrett (Valentine's day), Brittney S. (January), me (December), and Dan S.* . . . whenever his birthday is. It's not on Facebook. Thanks for making that so easy, Dan.

*Trevor, Dan, and Brittney all happen to have last names that begin with S; Dan and Brittney are married to each other, Trevor is not married to either of them. Sorry for the confusion.

My experiences are many and varied

I've been thinking about work and dreaming about work and just generally obsessing about work. I need a job both for the money, and for my psychological well-being. I'm finally getting some headway, which is relieving.
I thought, though, it might be fun to share with you some brief summaries of the jobs I have had. Perhaps some will resonate with you.

Enjoy.

Babysitting

What else can a young teen girl do to earn some money? Homeschoolers have a great advantage in this market by already knowing families with children of all ages and parents so frazzled they somehow forget how irresponsible they were at age 13 and consent to let a young teen girl care for their infants. 

 

They did sometimes ask me amusing questions. 

I did not particularly care for babysitting as a job because I do not particularly care for children. Also you are put in the terrible position of being unable to discipline the kids, which leaves you essentially helpless if the devil takes one. One particularly memorable experience I had began with a child refusing to pick up his toys before dinner, climaxed when I found him pantsless and peeing on a mattress out of spite, and ended with his heaving a heavy metal piggy bank at his year-old sister. When called, the parents wearily said they'd take care of it when they got home. 

In retrospect, either they actually did, or God chucked a bucketful of grace on that hellion, because I met him again a few years ago and liked him enormously.

Fast food

This is pretty much the job most people rag on if they're going to rag on jobs: neither the job nor the workers are respected.

 

Probably defaced by pimply-faced adolescent boys 

with iphone5s and no jobs themselves.

In actuality, my fast food experience (I didn't work at Wendy's) was pleasant. I worked there for about two years (until second semester of college) and had good co-workers and good managers. The customers were mostly laid-back, everyday people who just wanted a burger. Sometimes they wanted chicken nuggets. 

Sometimes they asked questions like this about said chicken nuggets.

But there really is something to say about a job that doesn't take itself too seriously. Nobody walked in expecting blue plate specials or their mussels to taste not-too-fishy but still fishy enough. Our customers were mostly construction workers on breaks, retired people, and Amish workers (the latter all extremely slim and packing away the most calorie-laden of our offerings). People were polite in a friendly, though not differential, way, I got hit on a lot (thanks to the retirees), my managers trusted me, and I had money to put in the bank.

In addition, I now know the inner workings of fast-food restaurants and can try to prevent anger in customers. For instance, I often hear people complaining that their food is taking forever to make, yet none of the cashiers are going back to help--rather, they just stand up front, doe-eyed, waiting to ring up another customer. 

Do you know why they aren't back there helping? Because do you KNOW how many germs are on money? No, you do not. And if you did, you would never want to touch money ever again.You absolutely do not want that cashier taking your money, and the money of the guy in front of you who just picked his nose, and the money of the teen girl behind you with all the piercings and strange rash on her arm, and then going and handling your sandwich. 

 

These are the bacterial colonies that sprang up after 4 days 

when your run-of-the-mill dollar bill had some ager gel (a nutrient-filled goo)  

smeared on it to feed what was already on the bank note.

Rules in fast food restaurants are very strict that cashiers stay up front and don't touch the food. To go back and help would require them to go back, wash their hands for a minute, put on gloves, get in the way of people already making your food, then abandon that post immediately when someone else walks into the store, wash their hands again, and make it back up front before the new person gets pissed at not being waited on sooner.

So please be patient with them.

Anyways, with my next job I still had the money (and was making more), but not the laid-back friendliness inherent in my stint with fast-food. I worked...

Retail 

(coming soon to a blog near you).

Koi have feelings and hungry tummies, too

I'm currently sitting in a lovely San Francisco hotel room feeling super excited about Life.
Why? you may ask. Well, I will reply. Stop asking so many questions and let me finish.

Firstly, I am sitting in that hotel room in San Francisco alone because it turned out that CMU sends its Entertainment Technology students to the west coast every year to meet with game companies and possible future employers (on the docket yesterday for Garrett and his cohorts were Google and Lucasfilms and Sony, and something else I don't remember because I didn't recognize it), and the fates conspired against us and had the trip this year exactly coincide with what would have been Garrett's and my honeymoon.
This is only somewhat annoying, and it's included a lot of perks I wasn't expecting.

Some major perks have been getting better acquainted with some of Garrett's fellow students, and meeting even more and some CMU staff members, as well. If one must bring along 90 other human beings on one's honeymoon, this group includes some that actually make it kind of fun. This was especially obvious during the 13.5 hour day we spent at Disneyland. I don't think Garrett and I could have provided each other with the energy to make it through without our extra companions.

The major perk I'm thinking about now, though, is just a general encouragement in several aspects of life--mostly related to work and purpose. I shall post my commentary on those as I finish them. We'll see how many I can get done before I tire of it and take a break to traipse downstairs and feed my bagel to the koi in the atrium pond when hotel security isn't looking.