Promotion

I'm so sorry for the long break since my last post. It's been Happy Hour at Starbucks, so I've been working a lot more than usual.

And it looks like this wont end for another few months. Because of unfortunate circumstances, I've gotten a promotion. This should be good news, but I only got it because of a medical emergency that my manager had, and I just happened to be the assistant. The last two times that I had a chance to be manager, someone else stepped up and saved me. I didn't have a chance this time.

I'm not angry, not really. I know it couldn't be avoided, and it's not my managers fault. I really hope she gets better soon. To be honest, I'm nervous. I've been assistant for a little over a year now, but I've always done the simple and easy things, like schedules and orders. Now I have to deal with inventory, paper work and being organized. I just keep telling myself that all managers need to go through a learning curve when they start. My first manager told me that everyone hated her when she first started, because she constantly made mistakes. And my second manager was thrust into the position with no previous training. It's because of her that I became assistant. And I know that the store managers will be willing to help out as much as they can. I think they all understand that this was a shock for all of us, and that I'm not all that prepared.

In addition, I think one of my coworkers will be willing to be trained as assistant. He's been working at Starbucks for nearly as long as I have, so he's just as qualified as I was when I became manager. However, he might not consider it to be worth it. I think I can convince him though.

As it is, I'm already making changes. I feel bad taking advantage of my manager's bad health, but there were a few changes that had to be made, mostly what concerned other workers and their happiness with schedules. I really hope that I can be good enough at this position.

So that's the big news of the week. I'll keep everyone updated over the next few weeks.

Back into the Grind

It already feels like it's been forever since school got out. Maybe because I didn't have any finals, and everyone else is still going through them. Instead of finals though, I have work. After working only a max of 24 hours a week, I have a 39 hour week this week. I'm just over halfway in. The paycheck is going to be glorious...

Anyway, Now that I'm not talking about my class, I really don't know what to say. I've submitted a few pieces of writing to some magazines, and I'm just waiting for replies from them.

Oh! I got the best umbrella ever! I has a sword hilt! I got it yesterday, after many days of sunshine and clear skies. I really wanted a rainy day to try it out. And guess what we got today! Except. it didn't start until around 4, and I was at work since 9 this morning. Without my umbrella. Oh well, I'll try it out next time I leave the house when it's raining.

Time for a Change?

I am FINALLY starting my third year in creative writing and English. I've finished off all my extra courses, so now I'm concentrating everything on English and Creative Writing. By the end of this year, I hope to be done with English too.

I'm only taking three classes this semester, though I wanted to take four. The fourth one I couldn't get into, because the deadline to pay for classes was before our grades were in front the fall semester. Unfortunately, one of the classes I needed as a pre-req was in the fall, and it had not been counted as completed by the deadline. So... I guess I'm taking the next class in the summer or fall.

What I am taking is Advanced Poetry Forms, Romantic Poetry, and Business of Writing. All the classes have amazing professors, and I think I'm really going to enjoy them.

The one problem is that the Business of Writing class is going to take up a lot of my time outside of school. I already told my manager that I'm going to need weekends off, but of course, I've been scheduled for every single Saturday for the next three weeks. The catch? She rarely ever works a Saturday or Sunday. She only ever works them when there's inventory or a promotion set up. And she's normally off doing something else for most of the day, so she's really not working in the kiosk... I guess I have to remind her. She also scheduled me for a Thursday shift in a few weeks, which I definitely need off, because of school.

On a happier note, I'm looking for a new job! Anyone hiring?

Early To Bed

Ugh, I am tired. I am not a morning person. If I have to open at work, I will be grumpy until at least 10:30 am. Unfortunately, I've opened twice this week. I really shouldn't complain, everyone has to open once in a while, but I have a lot of trouble getting to sleep at night, and I need a lot of sleep. And normally I would be happy to get off work early, but these two shifts I've been working until 3:15, so my day is basically over by the time I get home. And to top it all off, I still have to work on Saturday and Sunday. I have to work the whole weekend, which is pretty much the only time that I'm definitely able to see my boyfriend. I guess not anymore.

I really need to remind my manager that I'm not supposed to work over 24 hours a week...

Anyway, I think it's time for bed... at 8:15...

Aching Body

Whoops, looks like I went a whole week without an update.In my defense, I tried to post something, but my internet kept crashing.

Anyway, October is over, and I'm hoping everything will be a little less busy. This past weekend at work I did inventory and the winter promotion set up. Inventory means that I have to count every single ingredient we have, including sugar packets and tea bags. In addition, I had to scan every single retail item. Since it was also promotion set up the next day, that meant I had to scan every single retail item we have for winter.

We have a lot of stuff.

For comparison, our back room is the size of a small walk in closet. We have shelves along two walls, all packed with things like coffee beans, cups, lids and extra ingredients. We couldn't fit all the retail items back there. We had two shopping carts nearly over flowing with mugs and cups, and the rest was packed into every nook and cranny. Even with everything set up, we still have no room for anything else back there.

So yeah, that was my weekend. But it's okay, I actually enjoy set up, no matter how stressful and no matter how many extra hours I have to put in. It's better than constantly making drinks for people. My only complaint now is that I'm sore all over. I managed to hit my back on a corner of a wall, so that's bruised. Then I have at least three cardboard cuts on my hands and another on my arm, and a bruise forming on my other arm. After I finished for the night, both my arms were red. My legs are sore from constantly kneeling and standing up. For the past week or so I have been having a sore knee. That went away by Sunday, but came back halfway through the night,making it very hard to have to bend down to put stuff away.

Okay, rant's over. At least the store looks beautiful.

Being an Adult is Hard

I'm so sick of having to be responsible. I guess I should have know this when I agreed to become assistant manager at work, but I'm just so sick of it now. People are complaining because my manager is grumpy and mean, but I would like to see them work forty hours a week and deal with everything she deals with. It's hard to stay chipper.

Today, at 5:30 pm, I was informed that my coworker could not work her shift tomorrow, and I was only being informed then. I guess she was relying on my manager to change it, but my manager doesn't like that my coworker got a second job and had to change her schedule at Starbucks. So I stayed another half hour trying to work it out. I figured out a perfect plan, but the one last person I need to accept a shift will not answer her phone or her text messages. This leaves us kind of dangling and unable to officially change the schedule until the very last minute. It worse comes to worse, I will take the shift and just work six days in a row.

And now, to top it all off, there is something wrong with me. For three weeks now, I've been feeling sick. It's better some days, worse others. Today is one of those worse days. Normally it's just a small stomach ache, and no apatite, but today my period decided to start. Two weeks early. Needless to say, I was kind of grumpy at work this morning. Not to mention I went swimming in a river yesterday, and I'm feeling every single bump and bruise today (mostly on my feet). I also seem to have pulled a muscle in my shoulder while trying to fix a clogged Pumpkin Spice pump yesterday.

So let's total this up. My feet, back of arms and the front of my right shoulder are all sore. My stomach is aching and I still don't really have an apatite. My time of the month came twice this month, not to mention all my energy seems to be seeping away with every movement I make. I might be facing a six day work week, which all but one of those days I will be working at least six hours.

The really odd thing is? After a while at work, I wasn't grumpy. Time flew, and suddenly I was off. Even now, I'm stressed but not really grumpy. I'm going to say this is because I had an amazing date yesterday.


I'll just leave you with that little tidbit of information.

Customer Rules

As someone who works in customer service, I am just so sick of people. Honestly, I wasn't much of a people person before. Now I hate most people. It makes it worse if someone doesn't follow the simple rules of common sense:

1) Get off your damn phone! Don't you dare stand there chatting on your phone after telling me to 'hold on'. Even worse is putting in a massive order, having it ready on the till then, telling us that you can't pay because your card is on your phone. If that's the case, then get off your damned phone an pay.

2) Have your cash/card ready when you get to the till. This happens mostly with women, who have a purse twice as large as they need it to be, then don't bother with a wallet so that all their money falls to the bottom of their purse and is forever lost. Please, just pay with a card. We don't want to stand around as you count out all your dimes and nickles, then realize you don't have enough and in the end have to pay with a card anyway.

3) Give us the size of the drink you want before you ramble off your list of demands. My memory might be getting better because of work, but I can't remember a dozen different customizations.

4) If you want no foam, tell us before we add the foam. No, we don't just have extra steamed milk. We measured perfectly for the perfect milk to foam ratio.

5) If you ordered a no foam drink, don't leave it on the counter for five minutes. Foam will build! There's this magical thing called science. It tells us that air is lighter than milk. Therefore, the air in the drink will go up, creating foam. You don't want foam? Don't blame us if you leave your drink and let foam build up.

6) No, we made the drink right. You're just a whiny bitch.

7) If we did make the drink wrong, don't ask if you can keep the wrong drink. You have to pay for extra drinks.

8) When I ask 'is that all for you?', that if your chance to take a second to think if you want something else. Not right after the transaction has gone through.

9) Yes, I know we're understaffed. Please don't hold up the line by telling me that.

10) The sugar bin is not a garbage can. The two black things that look like garbage cans on either side of the counter are, in fact, garbage can. Throw your extra coffee into those. Not into the bin that's quite obviously full of sugar.

My Adventures Working at Starbucks

Normally I don't talk about work, because a lot of things can be misconstrued and taken in a bad way, but today I'm going to write an amused list of everything that has happened to me in the last couple days.

1) Yesterday, around 10:00 am, I sliced my pinkie finger on our tape dispenser. It was about to fall, but I managed to successfully, if painfully, catch it. The teeth where the tape is ripped cut my finger though. When my manager returned from whatever she was doing, I held up my finger and calmly stated "I think I might need a band-aid." (By this point the bleeding had stopped, and it's been perfectly fine since)

2) I started today thinking it was Tuesday. I was looking around at all the date stickers, and couldn't figure out why there were so many Monday stickers, and why those products that not been thrown away. I would quickly remember that it was Monday, but a few minutes later would forget, and get confused all over again.

3) Later today, while making a drink, I was pumping raspberry syrup. As is often the case, it splashed up and out of the cup. I didn't think it was too bad until I started to make a drink on the espresso machine a few minutes later, to find drops of raspberry syrup on the machine. The syrup is about five or six feet away from the espresso machine...

4) Not long after the syrup incident, I was making a fresh pot of coffee. While trying to put the bin of coffee filters away, I managed to hit myself in the face, thus knocking my glasses off, which fell into the garbage can. I promptly burst out in laugher and nearly began crying.

5) I got home a little after 11:00 am, and realized I managed to get raspberry syrup in my hair. When I got changed, I found raspberry syrup on my chest, where my shirt was covering the skin. The saddest part is that I only made two drinks with raspberry syrup today, and now it's showing up everywhere.

Needless to say, I'll be happy to get some more sleep tonight. Maybe I'll be a little less clumsy wen I work on Wednesday.

I'mma Just Going to... Sleep...

As the title suggests, I am very tired. And as you might have noticed, it is very late on a Saturday night, which means that I missed my Friday update, and I apologize to anyone who freaked out (kidding). My excuse is work, since I worked every day from Saturday to Thursday, whether at Starbucks or the Museum. Then I had another Zelda party on Friday, and more work today.

I believe I mentioned in my last post that I got a job at Starbucks. Since it was my reading week, I was able to stuff all my training into one week. This also meant that I had at least 24 hours or trained work, then I also had another two days as a full worker. I think by the end of today, I've worked a total of about 42 hours... And yes, I did just add that all up on a calculator, because I am too tired to do simple math. Now I'm not complaining, far from it. I'm overjoyed that I have a job now, and it's a lot less stressful than I originally thought it would be. I have a pretty bad memory, so I was scared about learning all the drinks. Ends up a lot of them are very similar. I'm still not very good with iced or blended drinks, but I figure as soon as it gets warmer out, I'll get a lot more practice.

Anyway, on Thursday, which was Valentines Day, instead of going on a date or anything, I worked from 9:30 in the morning to 6:00, at which point my parents picked me up to drive me to a book signing done by Brandon Sanderson. I got in line around 6:30, and left around 9:30, so three hours in line. About an hour of that wait was either spent waiting for Sanderson to actually come out (it started at 7), then there was a Q&A and a very brief reading from the book (the famous first paragraph from the first chapter of each Wheel of Time book). The last time I went to his signing (a couple years ago), I was in line for about three to four hours. I had gotten there an hour late, so the line was huge. This time I arrived half an hour early, so that probably cut the wait down for about an hour. All in all, from waking up around 7:30 and getting home around 10:00, I had been sitting for a total of two and a half hours. Needless to say, I wasn't able to feel my feet for the rest of the night. Then to next day my right calf hurt... Just my right one.

Which brings me to my Zelda Party! (A lot happened this week, I'm sorry) Kyra dressed up at Tingle, so I dressed up at Link. Then we (Shaina, Brandi, Kyra, my mom and myself) went to Walmart... We didn't get as many stares as I thought, but if we don't end up on the People of Walmart, I will be very disappointed. Actually, I seriously think I will submit a photo myself. Although I just checked it out, and you apparently have to live in the states to submit a photo to that website. Dang... Anyway, we bought some post-Valentines Day chocolates and ingredients for home mad mac 'n cheese, then we lost my mom and had to wait outside for almost half an hour. One of the employees gave us a funny looks, then smiled, and another customer asked Kyra is she was an elf. I'll post pictures at the end of the post.
When we got home we played some Skyward Sword, then took some pictures, then played more Skyward Sword. In total, we played about ten hours, though about an hour of it was just when the game was on and we were out doing something else. Still... We started at the boss fight in the first temple, and now we're just starting the Ancient Cistern temple, so that's about two whole temples done, along with a bunch of other side stuff and preparation to get to the water temple, including the damned Silent Realm.

Okay, so the party was great. Only Vanessa slept over, but that was okay. We played a bit more in the morning, then she went home and I continued to just kind of wander around Skyloft... Then I had to start work at 5:15 and was supposed to end at 9:15, but I was closing by myself, and I ended up getting out of there at around 9:35... I'm hoping it will be a lot sooner on Tuesday when I have to close again. I was just paranoid that a customer will come and want a food item that I had just thrown out (because it's no longer fresh after a certain amount of days). So I waited a little too long and then had trouble wrapping all the food up, because I am terrible with Saran wrap. But still, it was only a little over fifteen minutes late, which is still almost half an hour sooner than I expected... And I know I will improve. I don't think they expected me to do an absolutely perfect job, as long as I did the import things.

And now I need some sleep. I have tomorrow off, which I will be spending reading my book for class. It's 150 pages long, which is funny because there's a chapter in A Memory of Light that is 195 pages long. I've been on that same chapter for days now (I had to take a break to start reading my school book, I'm honestly not that slow of a reader.) But it really messes with me, because when I read in bed, before going to sleep, I like to get to the end of the chapter. I still have, like, thirty pages to go until the end.

Anyway, here are some of the best pictures!

This is us at Walmart, Shaina was taking the photo.

This is the most bad-ass I have ever looks. And yes, that is a sock sewn to my back. I use it as a sheathe for my sword.

I was trying to imitate how Link runs in Skyward Sword when you don't put his sword away and you hold the wii remote upwards. Then Tingle started to either imitate me, or wanted to hit me...

Tingle trying to be as Awesome as Link

The Tingle smolder

The Lazy Tingle. It was a little too late, but we should have brought a bottle of beer for her to hold.

And then just a quick photo of me at the book signing

I know there are more photos, but I can't seem to find them while stalking people's pictures on Facebook. I don't own a camera, so I only have one photo on my phone, which I'm too lazy to get off of it.

Coffee Flingger

Oh man, I completely forgot it was Monday. It's a holiday, so I just kind of assumed it was still the weekend... and it's reading break, so I might forget again...

Anyway, I have some pretty good new. I recently got hired at a Safeway to work in the Starbucks. I had my first real day on Saturday working on the till and doing small things like pump coffee and make tea. I think I caught on pretty qucikly, since the till is kind of similar to the till as my other job. I still get a little confused as to what button corresponds to what coffee, since it's not labelled dark roast and medium roast on the till... I think I might be getting the hang of it though. Luckily, even if I press the wrong bottom, most of the time I'm the one getting the coffee, so I know what to pump.

Today was my second day, and I learned some of the more popular hot coffee drinks, like lattes, cappuccinos, mochas, things like that. I was told how to make other drinks too, like hot chocolates, but I haven't actually made one yet, so it might take me a little longer to get that. I assume that I'll be taught the non-coffee and cold drinks soon, though they're not going to get popular until the weather gets nicer.

So far it's been enjoyable, if a little slow. I guess on weekends and holidays you don't get as many people. On a weekday, especially in the morning, I assume there'll be a lot more people. Pretty much all the customers have been very friendly, a few have even wished me luck or said that I was doing very well. I think my favourite part is being inside, even if one (or both) of the doors gets stuck and there is a bit of a draft. Since my other job is pretty much outside, I think I have gotten used to working in the cold. For once I'm not the one bundled up in five layers and still cold.

So we'll see how things go by the end of next week, when I'll be going to work directly from school. Luckily I think I'll be able to get a ride, or it might even be quicker to bus there...

And on an unrelated note, on Thursday I'll be going to a book signing for A Memory of Light. I'm very excited, but it's at 7 at night... A little annoying, but I figure as long as I get there about an hour early, I shouldn't be home too late. I just need to find a friend who will for sure go with me. Then on Friday I'll be having another Zelda party, so look forward to that!