See!?

days, DAYS since my last update. this job business... too time consuming.

but oh, it does result in fun blog fodder... so long as i manage to have absolutely no tact or scruples.

who's your guy!? c'mon... who's, your, GUY!!!

i would like to report that i may have reached a defining extreme in my obsessive attitude towards life. i had to open the shop this last tuesday, which meant reporting for work at five in the morning. suckage, right? so, flawless, i'm up at three thirty after five hours of sleep, have the dogs fed and out (cuz i'm watching dad's dogs and house while he's at his mom's funeral. bizarro-world has definitely arrived...) and am sitting in my car in the parking lot at a quarter to five, rocking out to M.I.A. and waiting for the manager to get there to let me in.

cuz that's just how i roll.

and on the subject of managers...

R is really an okay girl. i think i can manage. its cool.

Anne is nineteen. NINETEEN!!! WTF!!! its amazing how the way you perceive a person can ENTIRELY change in an INSTANT! just because you get your hands on the right information.

Anne is nineteen.

i don't even feel comfortable being alone in a room with her anymore; it totally makes me feel like a dirty, skeezy old man. and sure, she's perceptive, and discerning, and very real, but she's also a CHILD. i'm sorry, but nineteen... and mostly, its just that i'm finally starting to really feel my age. i feel like enough of an adult for hanging out and playing head games with a nineteen year old to seem creepy and wrong.

shit, yo... damn.

another manager is nice, and has the same name as sister. along with the older woman who has the same name as my mother, the shop can feel downright homey at times...

and then, there's B.

B was recently promoted to a managerial position. she's also in school, and hence in the midst of finals. she is extremely compulsive. she is also obsessive. she is curt. she takes things really, really, ridiculously seriously. she is not fun. in fact, she is the black hole of fun; all fun within a certain radius of B is drawn to her and absorbed, never again to be released. the sight of her makes small children cry. all ice-cream within her sphere immediately turns to rum-raisin flavored fat-free frozen yogurt.

and she does not, like, me.

i am an unwanted burden to her. i'm a n00b. i fuck things up. i ask lots of "stupid" questions. i send out a signal that seems to let her know that what i need, right now, is a ten minute lecture on how i need to standardize everything i do so that if i were to go to a starbucks in guam and work, i would get everything exactly right, "because they're all the same. we're all the same."

charming.

granted, we don't have to like each other. and i understand the whole corporate "thing." and while it's not my favorite aspect of life on this earth, i understand that its useful and has its place. look, chick just really grates on me, all right? she imparts essential information, she works hard to make sure that i'm learning what i need to know, but every interaction is a jarring neon squiggle in my brain. i even discussed with E & M how i wanted to start hiding things she would need, just to drive her insane. she's clearly already at the brink. i would just start "strategically misplacing" some essential items, and then watch the worry lines around her eyes develop. fun!

but then, after a monday of the josh and B show, i realized something both sad, and gratifying.

all the normal shit i do will drive her insane anyway. all the random new-guy mistakes i would make regardless, all the register oopsies and beverage code violations, will chip away at her just as much as any little plan i could come up with. the B model we have does not come equipped with the ability to deal with that "shit" which we've been told, just "happens". and in this instance, i am like a diarrhetic cow. not a flattering image, but hey. i am a walking "mistake" with gravy on it. and its sad that B will never really like me (i guess) but its also funny that she's immune to all the things i do that make people like me, and in fact angered by them.

but really, i just have to remember that in the end, i'm bigger than B. not physically, morons, but just, BIGGER. i'm not going to let her bad attitude ruin my days. i'ma smile, and nod, and do it right, and otherwise ignore. because my time at work is too precious to spend sulking. i'm gonna enjoy the hell outta my days, and B ain't gonna do nothin' to change that.

in other news, i am exhausted. oh! and remind me to tell you about the funeral! or, relay to you what certain sources have told me about the funeral. there hasn't been a full "debriefing" yet, but i do hope there is one!

i had other things to talk about, but i've forgotten what they are.

which i'll assume is a message from "god."

goodnight!