Frustrated In Kansas

Tonight I picked up a shift at Shmupplebees. Ten months ago I had them stop scheduling me so that I would be available anytime I was needed at the Mental Health Center, where I had just started working as an attendant care worker. I pick up serving shifts when I am available, which usually consists of me walking in between five and six and asking if anyone wants the night off, or me covering for someone that has too much homework or is sick. Because I haven’t been there as much, and I don’t solely need Shmupplebees to live off of, I was actually starting to enjoy my job there again. I remembered that I do like serving. Days are rarely like the last. I get to meet new people every night. They tell me where they have been in life and bring something fresh and new with them when they come into my section. They give me ideas for blog posts which have been severely lacking since even before I started as an AC worker (sorry..).  But tonight I received a reminder why I do not want to work in a restaurant for the rest of my life. The employees; or, for this purpose, the management.

Working at the Mental Health Center, I have found something that I had lost a long time ago. Pride in my work and a hunger to do my job well. I even tried to bring this mentality to Shmupplebees but tonight I was sorely disappointed to find out that I am not as invested as other employees to do my job correctly since I am not scheduled. At least this is what I was told (by someone other that the person who said it) tonight.

It began when I asked the manager on duty if she thought that my closing duties were less than what they needed to be. I had a bad close a few weeks ago, in which everything was fixed before I left, and have been punished, so to speak, for it ever since. The manager that was working the night of the bad close told Smichelle that I could close for her, but if I did a bad job then Shmishelle, not me, would not be allowed to close again. Come to find out, it was not because I had been performing poorly consistently, it was because I wasn't as ‘invested’ in doing a good job. The manager working tonight said that my job performance was excellent, by the way.

Shmichelle, the manager, and I were talking in the office after the restaurant was cleaned up this evening, and that is where I found this information out. I was also told by the manager that I had the most guest complaints than any other server that worked there. The manager said that she had never seen a complaint on me, and I have never been told of any at all by any of the managers.

None of this should bother me. It’s just Shmupplebees and I don’t want to rely on it to survive anymore. I’m just upset that I am hearing these things through other people. Wouldn't it be easier to talk to me directly so that the problem can be fixed? Unfortunately the people in charge of running the restaurant can’t simply sit down with the person and talk to them about how to fix the problems that are occurring, so that the employees creating said problems can do better at their job performance. It would make sense to, but why deal with confrontation when you can just sit in a manager’s meeting and never do anything to actually solve issues.

It does bother me, though. It makes me feel bad about myself. I have no proof that I have the most customer complaints, but in my mind tonight there is a plethora of people out there hating my guts for ruining their dining experience, and that doesn’t make me feel great about myself.

I will probably have let it go by the morning, but for tonight I remain frustrated in Kansas. 

It Could Have Been True Love

Dear 503-457-1003, 

I really appreciate you calling me again today. I'm sorry I haven't answered, but you must understand that you really are a strange number, and it just didn't seem like I would enjoy talking to you. I have looked you up on Google, and have seen the error of my ways. Why, you're just a harmless number, aren't you 503-457-1003? I shouldn't have called back and pressed one after your automated message said that you were a preferred marketing company and I could press a button to be taken off of your list. Now I'm afraid I'll never get the chance to talk to you again. Please give me another chance, 503-457-1003. I think I could really learn to love you.

A lot of people online agree that you just call and call but don't leave a message. This gives the impression that your call cannot really be that important, but we know better 503-457-1003, don't we? Carolyn, Karen, Mona, and many others have been brave enough to answer when your mysterious number shows up, and they found you to be quite rude. I personally thought you were very helpful, however, when Mona asked you how to get off the calling list. You politely told her that the way she could be removed was to suck your dick. Very original, 503-457-1003, very original. You're not like those other boring companies that simply make you press a button, or ask three times before you remove them. You really do have a business that works hard at setting itself apart from the rest, and really standing out and shining. 

We really must know where you are located, though, so that we can make sure to send more customers your way for, what is it that you do? You seem to be really expanding into different areas such as trying to collect fake debts, selling home security systems, and selling air conditioners. Bob D. was nice enough to tell us that these calls were coming from Tillamook, Oregon, where, as he so eloquently put it, "I can only guess must be a hotbed of mental illness. And if your reading this and you are Tillimook well, I'd say something insulting but you've got it bad enough being from someplace called Tillamook."

Uh-oh, 503-457-1003, looks like your giving Tillamook a bad name.

Well, I would love to stay and write more about you, 503-457-1003, but I simply must go sit by my phone in hopes that you will forgive me for taking myself off of your calling list. Thank you again for calling me so many times a day. It really makes me feel better knowing that you care.

Love,
Kara



To see the other lies people have been spreading about this wonderful, innovative company, go here.  

Not Every Man Can Be A Hero AND A Vampire Slayer

Four score and seven years ago our father brought forth on the continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, that would eventually be taken over and ravaged by vampires.

Confused? So was I since I never learned this part of history when in school. I have recently come to find out that everything I learned was a lie, and wanted to share my new found knowledge with my blogger friends. Before I start, though, I need you to find your nearest window. You may also want to store this location in your memory for when you want to jump to your death at the end of this blog post. Open the window. Now, take everything you have ever learned about Abraham Lincoln and throw it out. Just toss it on out into the free open air never to be heard of again, because the truth is about to take our known history and bang its head on the pavement until it stops trying to spread these awful, awful lies.

Now that you have cleared your head you are ready to hear the truth. Lincoln was not the great man we thought he was. He was better. This baddass of history not only ended slavery and brought the nation back together, but he was also a killer of those pesky little blood-suckers we call Vampires.

According to the novel, Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Slayer, by Seth Grahame-Smith, Lincoln found out at age eleven that Vampires do exist, and they killed both his grandfather and mother. Being the all-mighty future president/hero that he is, Lincoln began killing Vampires, including the one that killed his mother.

If that plot line isn't awesome enough, you find out through the book that the Vampires who were leaving Europe (those damn English causing problems for us Americans again) to come to the United States had been using the slave trade to find humans on which to feed. Well Lincoln couldn't just stand by and let that happen, especially when he found out that these Vampires were planning on starting a Civil War and enslaving the entire country. And what do you do when white people are about to be enslaved along with black people? Well you finally actually do something about it of course. Good job Smith for incorporating that into your plot.
The book ends with Lincoln being killed by a Vampire version of John Wilkes Booth, who is surprised that the other Vampires aren't rallying around him, finds himself alone, and is supposedly killed by one of the good Vampires in the story. This Civil-War-Meets-Twilight novel ends with the good Vampire and Abraham Lincoln attending Martin Luther King Jr.'s I Have a Dream speech, because 'some people are just too interesting to die.'

Don't feel like reading the book? You don't have to. Tim Burton is helping produce the film which, contrary to my opinion of it being a comedy, is under the genre or horror and thriller.

Good Riddance to Bad Rubbish

Oh Drama. Don't we all just hate to love it?

I know that my posting has lacked a little something lately. Mainly it has lacked....well...posting.

Let me catch you up a bit. My boyfriend got a new roommate towards the beginning of the fall semester. Let's just call him Shmel.

Shmel was not my favorite person in the world. My best guess was that he is in his fifties, even though he looks closer to his eighties. Shmel has also done a lot of drugs in his life. Way too many drugs. Shmel was a little creepy. He was upwards of 300 pounds and had bad teeth and a wheezing laugh that inserted itself into my life at awkward unexplainable times.

Also, Shmel liked to dumpster dive. If you don't know what dumpster diving is, it is where mentally insane people and/or hoarders peek their heads into dumpsters hoping to find that one item that will change their lives forever. One man's trash is another man's treasure, right? With the exception of a few novel trinkets, what they mainly end up with is a bunch of useless shit that should end up in the dumpster.

One day Shmel came home from work. He was carrying a blue box that I didn't really give a shit about. Unfortunately he told me all about it anyway. This box had been in the dumpster behind their apartment complex. And what wonderful marvels did it reveal upon opening? I know because Shmel also told me this. He liked to talk, that Shmel. It contained a computer monitor, a laptop, a journal, a music pedal, cassette tapes, some receipts, and shoes. I didn't pay much attention to him, mainly because I was ignoring him, until the name that was on the stuff was said aloud. I went to take a closer look, and sure enough it belonged to a friend from high school.

I told Shmel that I would like to get a hold of this guy on facebook, and helped him put the items back in the box. I still wasn't listening to him that closely because I don't enjoy listening to people I hold a large amount of disdain for, but he gave at least three sentences that included the phrase, "Well, finders keepers in my mind."

Mainly he was complying for the moment because he either didn't want to stand up to me, or he didn't think I would actually do anything about it.

I got a hold of my friend and discovered that it was some stuff that he found in his parents' house that he was trying to get rid of. He gave me his number and asked me to retrieve the box so that he could dispose of it properly. The next day, I went over to my boyfriend's apartment and picked up the box so that I could give it back to my friend. When he came and picked it up I asked for the computer moniter as a consolation prize, since that is what Shmel had verbally expressed the most interest in. I also asked about the laptop but was informed that it was royally fucked and there was no point.

The next day my boyfriend joined me at the bar for a shot because of his terrible day. He told me that on top of other things going on, Shmel had yelled at him when he was told that I had taken the box. I later found out that he had yelled at him in the middle of the open kitchen of the restaurant they both work in, and had chosen to scream like a five year old without any consolation from the truth that the laptop did not work. He refused to speak to my boyfriend after that, either at work or at home.

About a week and a half ago I got a phone call at work. It was from my boyfriend. "You know how I told you I had a funny feeling about Shmel lately?" he said. "Well, I came home and all of his stuff is gone."

Yes, Shmel upped his piece-of-shit-ness by just moving all of his stuff out of the apartment without any warning other that being a shady bastard. He then had the balls to tell my boyfriend at work that he had left some things of his at the apartment and would like them back. The response? "The apartment is now considered abandoned by you. Legally that shit is mine."

You may think you won, Shmel. But I won, you piece of shit. I won.

Hitting? Nah, I'll Just Screw With Your Mind Instead

I was having a conversation with my boyfriend a couple weeks ago that travelled to the subject of hitting or spanking kids. He posed the question to me:

Well what if the kid stares you straight in the face and calls you a bitch?

Yes, I'd probably be upset, but I stand firm that there is never a need to hit a child. My dad used to use a belt on us, and I would say that there are only negative impacts from that. It literally did nothing to curb my behavior except that I started putting books in the back of my pants when it was time for punishment. I am actually still a bit angry about it, and find that I take the approach that this sort of punishment is wrong rather than saying, Oh, well, I was spanked as a child and I turned out just fine. Any form of physical abuse is not an excuse to pass the behavior on.

To answer his question I told him the approach I took, and still take, with my niece. To best portray how I got her to behave I will tell a small tale of manipulation and annoyance.

I don't remember what she had lied about. If I remember correctly, and it is very possible that I don't, she was around three or four. The important thing is that this tiny person looked into our eyes and blatantly told us something that we all knew was untrue. I took her into the living room of my mom's house so that I could demand her full attention without distraction. I sat her down on a kid-sized bench and asked her why she had lied. She, being the stubborn little shit that I love, would not make eye-contact or answer my question.

You need to tell me why you lied, I said for the thirty-thousandth time.

Finally my niece burst into tears. Through dramatic and unnecessary sobs she told me, Because, *sob*, I just like lying!!!

Did I continue the conversation after this? No. I immediately made eye contact with my sister who was hiding on the other side of the wall and had to expend all of my energy not laughing in front of my niece so that she would not think that her behavior should continue because I thought it was funny.

I don't know if you have ever giving a small child a lecture, but they do not like it. Their little faces look like they are going through the most excruciating event they will ever experience in their lives. Mainly, it works magic.

So will I hit my children if I ever choose to have them? I hope not. I would rather morph their psyche and their behavioral patterns by making them hate the repercussions so much that they would rather do things differently next time than ever have to go through that experience again.

Welcome Back To Shmupplebees

After a summer of working in a lonely, empty restaurant, I have almost forgotten what it is like to be busy at Shmupplebees. The fair is in town and school is about to start back up, so the customers are returning to make our restaurant their home away from home. ...because at home you toss food on the floor and yell at the person who cooked because he/she did not put enough Alfredo on your pasta. Right?

My favorite part of tonight?

Oh how can I choose.

Was it the table who insisted that I sing to their friend even though it was physically impossible for any of the six people on to do so?

Or the table that racked up a seventy dollar bill and conveniently took both of their merchant copies so they didn't have to tip me?

Maybe the table that walked up to the bar to collect their own drinks because they had been waiting too long even though I warned them prior to ordering that it would be awhile because we were busy as shit?

At least I will have my expendable income back. Being poor during the summer makes for a very sad Kara.

Thank You Again, Facebook

An actual post on a facebook status. It was one that a mutual friend posted on, so it showed up on my feed.


"Y do u do this to ur self??? i no u have a good heart n all n u always mean well but u have to stop n this looks like the purfect time just get a job get ur own place n do ur own thing n mayb not worry bout others so much n worry bout u a little more! I seriously believe if u wood do that u wood keep a gf n eventually have a much happier life its ok to care bout sum1 just not so much. U r a good guy n a girl wood b lucky to have u if u get ur priorites strait! plz i dnt like to c hurt n confused!!!"


What. The. Hell.

Oh, and thanks for the easy blog post.