Saturday, July 9, 2016

Wearing and tearing

OK, this marathon is starting to get old.
Two nights to go until my vacation. Hopefully I can blow everything off for the next two nights and head on into nine days of bliss.
But I've had three Fridays in the last 10 days -- last Friday, last night, and July 4th. And I'm somewhere beyond tired, now.
Last night was a zoo when I got to work. My Manager bailed early to go pick up her Dad from the Hospital. Her daughter could have done it alone, but I guess it took both of them. There was nothing seriously wrong with her Dad, he was just short of breath and they kept him overnight.
I guess all she did during her shift yesterday was worry about him -- because apparently she didn't do much else.
When I arrived, our Weekend Replacement was coping, barely. My roommate had been in, and my Manager was in such a hurry to get out of there that she forgot to charge my roommate for the $20 in gas he bought. Replacement let that mistake sit there for two hours until I came in.
Roommate came in and paid his bill, but I had to call him at home. (Roommate is such a Regular his phone number's on the wall in case the store needs to buy change or needs hit-man services. So why didn't Replacement call him?) I warned Replacement that Roommate might be too drunk to come in and pay his bill -- but he was right there, paid it off in cash, and Replacement could then go home.
Meanwhile, I stocked the beer and sodas cooler, which was a mess. For the past 10 days, no one else has stocked the cooler, no one else has bagged ice, no one else has stocked waters or other drinks in the front of the store, nobody else has cleaned the restroom. Or even offered. Its been a real education. Sometimes they can't be bothered to clean coffee spills off the floor or even wipe off a counter-top.
And my Manager wonders why I get upset. I get upset because I get stuck with all the work nobody else wants to do.
I'd just gotten on the cash register when another Regular told us that it smelled like someone had been cooking heroin in the bathroom, preparing to shoot up. It wouldn't be the first time.
"Not that I KNOW or anything," she said, "but it smells burned in there, and someone would've been in there for awhile."
Replacement hadn't noticed. Nobody else did either. I checked the bathroom -- I hadn't had a chance to clean it yet, too much to do first. It DID smell burned. I sprayed lots of air freshener and checked the toilet and garbage can. No evidence left behind. It took HOURS for that smell to go away.
It was screaming busy for the next two hours, but after that the evening was OK. I didn't start getting grumpy until 11:45 p.m., when everybody and his neighbor came in to cash-in scratch tickets.
Meanwhile, Roommate told me someone had stolen a ton of change and some checks from him, bounced $800 worth of his checks in the last week, and tried to bounce more. He changed the locks on the house, and asked me to make sure none of my stuff was gone. I checked after work -- some of my stuff had been messed with, but I had no small change to steal (I'm broke), and I hid my checks in an even-better spot. Things just get weirder at home. As if work wasn't weird enough.
If it weren't for my girlfriend doing her absolute best to keep me relaxed and happy, some of this stuff would piss me off.

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