Rave: Visiting America/Canada when I get back from deployment. Rave: Have the next week off before I leave so I'm headed to Sydney/Brisbane to see some mates.
Rant: Work has been rougher than normal lately. My amazing manager of 2 years left right before Christmas and the guy who they have in place now fucking sucks. Like, sucks so bad that he is running the biz into the ground....and he's only been official MoD for 3 weeks. Rave: I have a meeting set up with the owner this afternoon downtown. I have a huge list of talking points typed up. I figure I should try to make a positive change before I have to find a new job. We are so short right now on staff and if even one person quits, I am so fucked. It is a last ditch effort, but I would rather try something than see it all burn in my rearview mirror. For whatever reason, I like working at that restaurant. I'm starting to get that queasy feeling in my stomach, just like before job interviews. I have the balls and the guts. I will talk to anybody. It's the moments leading up to it that kill me.
Rant: Dollar Shave Club. Like the company, but Jesus Christ, these razors make me break out big time. Whatever chemical they treat the blades with is awful. Rave: Wife *might* be pregnant. Ohhh boy. If so, thats two years earlier than we wanted to start trying, but its kind of exciting anyway.
Raves: A lot of things have been going well for me today after a so-so couple of days: - I've got hotels tentatively booked for all four of our potential first round playoff cities. It's a definite pain in the ass to tell places that "we might be coming" but so far so good! No matter where the chips fall our team is in good hands for the postseason. Oh, and the fact that we're playoff bound for a second straight season is a major win for our franchise and it hasn't happened since 2005-06 and 2006-07. - The GM bought lunch today. - I've got a double date scheduled for tomorrow. I've been seeing a girl now for about four months and things are going eerily well. She's the first girl I've dated seriously since my split/divorce (a lot has changed since 2011!) but I'm feeling cautiously encouraged by all that's unfolded to this point.
Rave, continued: The meeting yesterday went well. Neither of us were looking forward to the meeting but it was extremely productive (the beer helped a lot). I went in there with my bullet points detailing issues with examples, dates, and names (hey, being wired all the time and noticing every.single.detail finally came in handy!), and I think he was expecting a pissy employee who didn't get her requested day off or something. No, actually the new manager likes me a lot. It isn't a personality thing. The owner got stuck on my first point and was talking a lot about that one thing, but he started skimming and seeing a huge variety of issues so he took 5 minutes and poured over what I had before asking me questions about specific examples. We met for almost 3 hours. He covered the back of the paper with notes. The main bartender put in her two weeks during our meeting, and I let him know it was happening. He reached out to her but it may really be too late. We are about to hemorrhage employees if something doesn't happen fast. The owner has promised to be around constantly and to give the manager feedback as an opportunity for improvement, I think to see in person the things I detailed, and also in part to talk to the other main players in person. He is fair to give the guy a chance to improve. It is something I hope someone would do for me if I were struggling at my job in some way (actually, just went through that....and I can't believe I am coming out of this with way more respect for the bulldog multi-restaurant owner rather than my last engineer boss/owner), but I am worried that by the time he validates all my claims, the regulars, our bread and butter, will be long fucking gone. Oh, and I did some digging. I asked around and it turns out that big restaurant on the causeway that he "managed"? He was the assistant KM. Yes, we now have an assistant KM as our front of the house manager. FUCK. Rave: This morning I took a final look at the splinter in my foot. I thought I cut my foot about a week ago and didn't pay it any mind until it still hurt about 4 or 5 days later. I took a look and it was.....a splinter. I took a better look. It was.....a hair. I couldn't get it out with tweezers yesterday but I took a steak knife to it this morning and it is DONE.
Rant: A little puppy showed up at our house. It's starving, dehydrated, has an infected wound on its neck and cute as hell. Hope I can fix her up and find her a home. Rave: Finally get to pick up my new camper today. I signed the purchase agreement over 2 months ago. The sales person, kept dragging their feet with my trade and financing, lied to me about sending in paperwork. They had my money and my trade for a month but kept putting off delivery. I called my lawyer, had to get the dealership's operations manager involved. The sales person is no longer employed there and things are happening when I want them to happen. It's about 40% larger than the camper I traded in. That extra space is going to be nice.
Rant: Whenever I fly, I always get stopped at the body scanner. And asked to go through a second time, and after going through the second time I get a pat down. The machine always alerts on my groin, always. This isn't something that happens occasionally, its always. When I flew out to Minneapolis on Friday the machine alerted on me, I asked the guy if it was my groin, he said yea, and I just opted to skip the foreplay and go straight to the pat down. Nothing starts my trip off right like have a grown man rub his hands just above my cock, and then on my inner thigh and Friday was my ass as well, a little bonus. This morning was the same thing, because like I said it always happens. Same deal, old grown man fondling me, this time he actually touched skin, he put his fingers inside my waistband. At 5:00am, I was pissed I want to know what about my man parts keeps setting off the machine. Do I have exceptionally saggy big balls? One or the other? I want to go to a GP to get an exam and for them to hopefully say I'm healthy. I'm hoping I can then get a note and give it to the retarded TSA people so I can stop getting sexually assaulted every time I fly Edited because I wrote the original post while in the airport fully pissed off about what had just happened.
RAVE: It's about 75 degrees here and Rita's is open. I'm irrationally excited for my first misto shake of the season. It was SO hard to come back from lunch.
Rant: I can't catch up. I keep pushing forward and getting knocked back. The Husband has surgery scheduled for 18 March. Again.
Rave: Finally slept with the hot waitress that I've been interested in for weeks. Rant: Midway through the boyfriend she neglected to mention happened to call and inquire when she was coming home. Mini Rave: I couldn't help myself and still finished. Double Rant: I'm the bartender where she works and I can see no way that this doesn't end up biting me in the ass.
Rave: Saw this awesome sculpture art at a gallery today and it would look fantastic hanging on the empty space on the wall in my game room: Spoiler Rant: The gallery was asking 50 grand for it. Even negotiated down, that's till outside of my comfort zone and current budget. I need to get a better paying job...
Rant: The HVAC system in my office has been fucked up for about 4 months. Spoiler: Spoilered for length. It's a two-stage heat pump. So, when I need A/C, the refrigerant handles the cooling. When, it's cool outside, the heat pump will keep me warm, but then when it's REALLY cold, the auxiliary heat kicks in. This one works with electric heat strips. Well, the heat pump is totally broken. As long as it's cool but not cold, the aux heat was running alone to keep me warm. It doesn't get THAT cold here, so if was a little colder, I could run my space heaters in the morning and been fine. The office complex is only about 1/2 rented. My space is controlled by the thermostat in my office, and it supposed to serve two other spaces. But, they aren't leased. The owners know about it, but they are also friends of mine. So, I haven't pressure them about it, since I know it's a pretty big expense for almost no return. A couple weeks ago, I called the landlord and said, look, it's time, because it's getting hot. I can limp along with the space heaters in the winter, since you're paying the electricity, but I don't have a space cooler. So, last Thursday, they finally installed a new unit . . . completely wrong. The air handler is blowing so hard that it blew debris all over my office - little pieces of grit and crap lodged in the duct work for the past 50 years. And, it sounds like a jet taking off. And, it was cross wired. The thermostat wouldn't call on the heat, and I couldn't shut the fan off, so it was cold. The cut-off breaker was on the roof, which I can't get to, and the breaker panel is in a locked room. So, the guy comes out the next day, and said he needed a part (for a NEW unit? Wtf). I was on vacation until today. And, now it's fucking 80 degrees in my office. They successfully replaced the old unit that had a working air handler, thermostat and aux heater, with a new unit with nothing that works, except for making loud air. Awesome.
Rave: I've been given more responsibility at work. Rave 2: Which comes along with a little more money and a little more respect (theoretically. It's nice to know that the Powers That Be think highly enough of me to make this decision). Rant: All of the People I call when stuff like this happens are out of town.
Rant: Grandfather had a heart attack. Thankfully he was quickly into surgery and a couple of stents have supposedly fixed things up. Mum thinks he has been hiding things about his poor health for a few years Rave: I had a good couple of days in Brisbane catching up with a mate and got to another really close friend I didn't think I was going to be able to see.
After 25 years with the company the news of a clients death is never easy and always weird. Especially since I just saw them last week. RIP you were a great person that did great things on this earth. A couple of Purple Hearts being only a glimpse of those things.
Rant: When I woke up this morning my left heel felt like someone had hit it with a hammer while I was sleeping. After limping around all day it's not any better and for the life of me I cannot figure out what the hell I did to it. This is the second time in three years I've had some sort of random foot pain that I can't explain. Getting older sucks.
Rave: I resigned from my job, and I won't be spending next year in Kansas. Rant: I have no job as of right now, and am currently unsure how to a.) continue doing my job at an acceptable level so that I don't feel like I'm failing my students (this is basically impossible as teaching basically makes me feel like a giant failure every day as none of my students are prepared for the next step in their lives, b.) finish up grad school, and c.) find a new job. Rant: All of the above now includes a case of Bell's Palsy which while not really a big deal is seriously fucking with my head about my ability to get a job. My confidence has basically dropped into the negatives as I roll around with an eye patch and a speech impediment. I look and sound a figurative version of Marco Rubio's presidential campaign.