Leelanau Whippersnapper

The Northwoods Is No Place For A Pink Flamingo

Well you all know that I hate Sundays.  Today was another one of those.  Add to this that I’ve been working non-stop now for 8 days in a row without a day off but I’ve also been working 10 to 12 hour days.  Do the math, by tomorrow at noon when I will finally be set free from work for a day, I will have worked 96 hours over a span of 9 days give or take a little.  To say the least, I am exhausted and all I want to do is sleep.  Of course here I am writing in my blog.  Oh well.  I think Gavin is a little pissed at me right now…I need to get him out to the cottage on Tuesday so he can run around for a while.  Poor guy has been stuck in this house doing nothing all day but sleeping.  While he seems to enjoy that, I need to get his blood moving so he at least stays healthy.

Today really felt like fall up here.  Partly cloudy, low 60′s and tonight it rained.  It smelled like fall.  We are now into September and in reality, this is my favorite time of year, especially up here.  The colors, the smells, they are all things that make me happy and I need some of that for a whole variety of reasons.  It’s not terribly easy to move on with your life in a town where your friends are also your co-workers.  The one thing I regret about working in retail is that it consumes VAST amounts of personal time from me.  Meeting new people has always been quite a challenge for me, when it comes to personal relationships and friendships I am really quite shy and having the option now of meeting new people presents all kinds of challenges that at one time I never thought I would need to worry about again.  Change is good though, and so are life’s challenges.  They always present the opportunity for personal growth even when you are too exhausted to try very hard.

Looks like I will have the weekend of my birthday off this year.  Going to be 34…that’s right THIRTY FUCKING FOUR!  I’m just 6 short years away from being labeled as an old man…over the hill…well maybe not.  I don’t feel old, I don’t look old although I’ve noticed a multitude of white hair on my head lately (time for a haircut), so I guess I’m not then.  Maybe I can try to convince mom to once again make Chocolate Eclair dessert for my birthday…along with burgers and cheesy potatoes….and maybe some sweet corn on the cob with a side of apple sauce served out of a little plastic cup…  I think I’ve requested that dam chocolate eclair every year now since junior high.  I remember at one time it was always carrot cake… better save that one for Thanksgiving.

OK, off to bed now, up tomorrow very early and off work at noon for a much needed day of rest and relaxation.  I have to post this picture here of nephew Christopher.  Its very cute, this child (and of course any additional children) is going to be so spoiled.  What a lucky kid.

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I hate Sunday’s.  If only I could attribute peoples basic lack of intelligence to bushels of straw in their heads.  I should explain.  Working in retail, you tend to pick up on human behavior pretty well.  I see hundreds of people every day of the week from all walks of life and from all social and economic backgrounds.  I’d venture to say that people who don’t work in retail have very little exposure to this many people in a given week, certainly, most people don’t venture past their desk’s or their front doors.  At work I am forced to be social.  It is my job to put my self in front of people every day and try to sell them something.  I get paid to do this but believe me, if I had a choice, there are just SO many people I would rather just punch in the face and ask them how on earth they managed to get their underwear on.

“Do I really need to follow these directions?”, said the man wearing the wife-beater T-shirt with 4 kids in tow.  “Does this color go with mauve?” said the young blond who clearly had no idea what ‘mauve’ is.  “Why doesn’t anyone work here?” said the 60 year old man who could clearly see the line in front of him and the 5 employees scurrying to help 2 and 3 people at a time, oblivious to the fact that he was NOT the most important person in the area.

I’ve reached many conclusions about the general human condition as I’ve worked retail jobs over the years.  One is that nobody is more important than himself.  Many people simply can not deal with a multi-tasking employee and many people need dedicated one-on-one attention.  This is due in large part to pure laziness.  “You know if you had read the directions on the can of paint and applied it properly you would not be here asking me why your paint didn’t stick to the wall”…[fucking dipshit].  “Well, you didn’t tell me that when I bought it!” Why the hell should I have to TELL you anything EVERYTHING you need to know is printed RIGHT HERE on the can!! – you are not building a FUCKING NUCLEAR SUBMARINE HERE!

Now, don’t get me wrong here, I like nothing more than talking with a customer who is truly interested in doing the job they want to do correctly.  I will take all the time they need to expalin how something works, how to do the job, what tools they will need etc.  That is part of my job.  If you listen to me do this however you will see the salesman.  Every other sentence I will drop disclaimers and clauses designed on purpose to protect ME from people’s desire to blame EVERYONE but themselves when something goes wrong.  “This is how you put on the driveway sealer, look right here on the can, THE MANUFACTURER recommends that you…”  A good salesman will sell you the product, back up the product through qualified statements from the manufacturer of the proeuct they are selling, but put the onus for completeing the job correctly squarely on the customer.  We sell it, YOU do it.  That is why it is called a do-it-YOURESELF home center.

I try to keep work out of this blog but since I have nothing else to talk about most of the time you get to read about all the people in the world who are simply too lazy to bother reading or following directions.  MEN are far worse than women and kids…well, I guess spilling paint all over the new living room rug will teach them to PUT THE LID BACK ON THE CAN before starting the wrestling match.

Folks, it’s really very simple.  Manufacturers put directions, and warnings, and disclaimers ON the packages of the products they produce to not only HELP you do the job right but also to protect themselves (and me) from your PATHETIC inability to think about what you are doing before you do it!  Those of us working in retail can tell within 30 seconds of talking to you whether or not you will give us a problem in the future.  We KNOW almost immediately which of you actually reads directions and who does their homework before starting a do-it-yourself project.  We know that many of you need to be spoon fed the most basic information…how some of you can even wipe your own ass is a mystery much of the time.

So, I hate Sunday’s becuase I hate people who don’t think before they speak.  If you are too lazy to read directions and then follow them, dam it, hire a fucking contractor to do the job for you.  Lord knows they need the work.

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