Saturday, November 1, 2008

Trick or Treat

We had one trick-or-treater, but I didn't have any candy to give her. She was a little cutie, about 7 years old, dressed like a witch. I have the door wide open because it's nice outside, so they walked up and the mom raps on the door frame and says "your door's open, does that mean you're inviting trick-or-treaters?"

Dammit, and we didn't have a single one last year, so I didn't buy any candy. So I apologize profusely to the kid and her mother and scrounge around for something, but I can't find anything. The little kid see's my arcade cabinet in the other room and says "wow, you've got a real arcade cabinet back there!" I thought about offering to let her play it, then decided that her mom probably wouldn't want her 7 year old daughter coming into a strangers house to play his arcade cab, so I didn't. I wanted to give her something though, but I didn't have anything, so I just told her I was really sorry and that she was very cute. She smiled and said "Well, you probably need this more than I do, and I gave all the rest of it to other kids anyway. Here, have some candy." And she handed me a piece of candy, her ONLY piece. It was a little miniature bag of Whoppers with about 4 inside. Well, that just about made my night.

Working for a retard

My boss, Terry, is pretty much retarded. He signs me up for classes that I'm not ready for and then doesn't train me on the material that I'm supposed to know before I take the class. I went to Financial Management II the other day. I was supposed to know all kinds of stuff before I took that class, and he calls me on my day off, the day before the class and says 'Ash, where are you? We need to go over some stuff before the class'. No shit. I've been on him for the past two weeks to train me on that stuff. And he waits till the day before the class, on my day off, at 8:00 pm to arrange to get together. Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself.

So, I just finished working 7 days straight, and of course, he doesn't train me on the stuff I've been telling him I need to know. 'We'll go over that stuff tomorrow', he says. And we don't. So I finally get two days off. On the second day off, the day before the class, he calls me, like I said, and wants to get together. I ignore the call until that evening, and he's like 'Ash, where have you been? I thought you had quit!' Terry, I've had the last two days off. 'Oh. Well, I wondered where you were, you weren't at work...' Yeah. I had the past two days off, Terry. 'Ah. Well you haven't been around in a while, and I was wondering what had happened to you.' Terry, I've been off for the past two days. 'Oh. Yeah... I must have forgotten. Are you sure?' Yes. I just worked 7 days straight and had two days off. 'Oh. Ok, well I was worried about you. We need to go over this stuff before your class!' Yeah, I know. I have been trying to get you to go over it with me for the past two weeks. 'Yeah, well... we need to go over it.' Yeah, I know Terry. But tomorrow is the class and it's like, 7:00 right now. 'Well, can you be at the store at 8:15?' Yeah, I guess, but I don't see what we'll be able to accomplish tonight. This is a lot of stuff I'm supposed to know. 'Yeah, well I don't remember having to do all of this when I was training.' Well, I have to do it. I told you two weeks ago. 'Ok, I'll see you at 8:15'.

I swear that's how the conversation went. So, I go up to the store at 8:15 and he tries to start teaching me a hundred different things about all kinds of complicated stuff. He makes no sense. This guy can NOT communicate. I'd go into it but it'd give me a headache trying to think like him so I could describe what it's like trying to get information that comes out of his mouth to make a damn bit of sense. So anyway, I cut him off halfway through his ramblings and tell him that I just need a few printouts of reports that I was supposed to do, and that I'll just forge them and tell the class instructor that I did them. He readily agrees to this. So, I'm going to have to bullshit my way through the class. I thought so.

He prints up the reports and I bundle them up and go home and go to sleep. The next day I get to class. The instructor asks us if we brought the reports we were all supposed to do. He got to me and I just blurted out 'I didn't do any of these, my boss just told me to forge them because he didn't train me, and he printed them up and gave them to me to take to work, and to tell you that I did them.' The instructor just stood there with his mouth half open for a few minutes and said 'Huh. Well, I like that you're honest.' And he came over and looked at the reports and went over them with me and explained a lot of it to me and that was that. This is how the entire class went... when he got to me, he would just explain the report to me and show me why it was done the way it was done. Apparently he wasn't going to kick me out of the class, which was his threat a couple of weeks before at the Financial Management I class if we didn't bring all of this stuff to this class, and done by US, not the manager.

So, I take the test at the end of the class. I still have only half a clue what's going on because Terry hasn't taken the time to train me on anything. The rest of the class seems pretty with it, and I resign myself to failing the test. And it was a bitch of a test, HARD, not easy, frikin confusing as hell and fucked up because I was just trying to wing it. I managed to slog through the entire thing and pass though, I guess because I'm not retarded and actually have half a brain. The instructor showed me my test after he had graded it and said I had gotten 38 out of 48 right, 38 being the lower limit to pass. I exhaled in relief. He said that he was really glad that I passed, and surprised that I did and congratulated me on having a brain.

So I get to work today, the day after the test, and Ryan (a guy I work with) said that Terry had actually thought that I had quit work because I was off for two days and didn't show up for work on those days. WTF?