Don't worry, I haven't forgotten you...

I've just been a little pre-occupied with other things, so I haven't been back to tell you about them because I was too... pre-occupied, obviously.

What have I been doing? Not a heck of a lot, actually. I tried to send Staples my resume to be printed, but it seems that Staples + Brian = screw-ups. First, they scrambled the file by accident. Then, I scrambled the file by accident. So now, tomorrow is the day for resume-getting, and also other various things that I don't have time to get into here, because...

I have a couple of people coming over. I just realized that I never explained what part of my life was coming together when I told of how my professional life was coming apart: My personal life. After almost 3 years in town, I finally know enough people well enough to have groups of them over to my house for activities and movie watching, and so forth, and so on. So tonight is my 'first' foray into that crazy world of hosting, and I couldn't be more excited/nervous. Hope it goes well, and I may come back on later to give you a run down on the night's events!

Later!

Speaking of which...

Does anybody remember yesterday, when I said thank God I still had one of my two jobs? Well, that's no longer strictly true. I was let go from my other job today, rendering me completely unemployed. I'm sure you'll all understand if instead of spending my time writing a witty and clever blog (at least to my eyes), I'm gonna work on polishing and updating my resume.

G'night.

Sometimes life falls apart one way, but comes together another...

So, today was the last day of my short-lived career as a restaurant supervisor at ESMC. I really wish I was more upset, because, while I was really working there, I really enjoyed it. But the last couple of months of having very few shifts, and being told that the trouble lie in the fact that in just wasn't cost effective to have a fulltime supervisor on over the summer, to having no supervising shifts in September, have left me waiting for the axe to fall, and sure enough, fall it did.

This afternoon, when I went in to work at the restaurant, I was told I was being let go. And for (what I've been told is) a damn silly reason, too. On Sunday, after I worked, Dan and I sat down to share a pizza before going to our respective homes. We ordered it, and all seemed well. But we were both feeling a mite more peckish than just half a pizza apiece, so we wanted to order a caesar salad to start. At that moment, the bartender was busy, and seemed to be in for the (relative) long haul, so to hasten matters, I sidled over to the salad hub, and just told the girl behind the counter that we wanted a salad, and she made it for us, since I promised to get it rung in. Well, the bartender took even longer than I expected, and by the time he'd come back, we'd already moved on to the pizza, and were in the midst of a discussion, and getting the salad rung in completely slipped my mind. This is where the error part comes in.

Because it turns out Roger (my former boss) was watching to see if I would have the salad rung in, and when I didn't, he immediately jumped to the logical conclusion that I was stealing salad. This wasn't my intention, but is exactly how it looked, and I can't really blame him for thinking that, since I wouldn't have been the first to do it, and probably wouldn't have remembered anyway. So, by the time Dan and I finished up, and had paid up, I'm willing to bet Roger had worked up quite a mad. He came over, and told Dan and I that we would have to pay for the salad we'd eaten, that it did not come complimentary with our pizza, and that he'd almost fired the girl behind the counter for giving it to us. I immediately felt responsible (and rightly so), but Roger was not in the mood to talk to me right then, so I wasn't afforded the chance to explain that it had been my fault entirely. He didn't seem to have calmed down before I left, because when I tried (again) to explain, he cut me off, said he'd see me later, and turned his back on me. Fully expecting to have the chance to really explain later, I went home.

And so we come full circle back to the beginning of the story: I was "let go" today. Luckily I still have another job, but I really do want to stay in the industry, so I'm off to look for another restaurant job this weekend, I guess. I have received advice from several sources, not the least of whom being my newfound masonic friends, that this looks suspiciously like a ploy to fire me without having to severance me, and that I should press the issue, but I don't know that I want to do that. Do I feel like I deserved to be treated like this? No, not really. Do I understand the reasoning behind me being treated like this? Absolutely. Even a $2.99 salad counts for something. Do I really think that maybe Roger was just waiting for me to make some kind of mistake, so he could fire me without severance? I didn't at first. I'm not so sure anymore.

I've tried to tell the story as un-biased towards myself as I could. I know what my friends think. I guess I'd like you to make up your own mind, and let me know. I've turned off the necessity for you to be a member of blogger to post comments to my comments page, and I'd like to hear what y'all think. Not that I expect there's a lot of you, but hey, who knows? In the meantime, everyone wish me luck with my search for new restaurants frontiers!

G'night!

Uneventful

Nothing of note really happened today, and I have to be up a little earlier tomorrow morning so I can go open the restaurant, so this entry's gonna be REAL short.

Good day. (Short, huh?)

See you on Monday!

G'night!

Easy day

That's exactly what today was: an easy day. And I'm glad, because after the storm of events the past few days, I was ready for it.

Here's my rundown of the day: I was woken up at noon by my friend Mitch, whom I was supposed to have called at 11:30, but didn't since I was (clearly) still asleep. So he came over, a roommate let him in, and he dragged my sorry butt out of bed so we could go down to the Freemason's Hall for lunch. Within 45 min. of being woken up this morning(afternoon), I was chowing down on a very well prepared steak, for the very reasonable price of 9$. After lunch, Mitch and I went down to IKEA so I could get a computer desk and chair, since I was getting very tired of sitting on the floor to use my computer. I ended up buying a desk, a chair, and a set of drawers to go under or beside the desk (I haven't decided yet), all for 260$, which again, was extremely reasonable. Now, I sit in my real leather chair(that I assembled), at my new desk(which I also assembled), looking at my room(which I... cleaned today. Had you going for a minute there, didn't I?), and the various pieces of my drawer set, which I haven't assembled yet, because...

I started chatting with one of the awesomest people I've ever met online today. I spent almost four hours talking(sorta) to this girl, and those hours felt like nothing. No time at all. I'd probably still be talking to her now, except I told Mitch I'd play some CoH with him, and he'd already called once wondering where the hell I was. So I had to bid her a fond "adieu" (she speaks French, isn't that awesome?), and I assured her that I'd talk to her tomorrow, which I'm looking forward to.

Except for the pizza I ordered tonight (Little Caesar's: I'd forgotten how good their pizza can be!), that's pretty much my day. Sorry it wasn't more eventful, but it seemed jam-packed with good things to me, so I'm not complaining!

G'night!

Welcome Back! (The ending is closed captioned for the humor impaired!)

Y'all have been gone a really long time! What happened, did I insult you, make you feel bad about yourself? What's that you say? It's me that's been gone so long? Poppycock! That can't be true, I've been right here the whole time!

Ok, ok, so I haven't posted in nearly two weeks. And that obviously makes me a terrible person. But you know what? I think I'll get over it. >_^ <----(Supposed to be a winky){Face, that is} I wish I could say I've been SO busy that I didn't have time to post. Oh wait, I can say that! Of course, I'd be lying, but I could SAY that. To make a long story short, I was still feeling whiny about the whole jobs thing, and didn't want to harp on and on about it here (people I loved who read this were getting overly worried), so I took a break. And then my internet went away for the weekend. And then I got lazy.

But I'm back, baby! And writier than ever! I even make up words now! That's right, I'm the writiest wordscrafter that shall ever existify this plane of beingosity! Wow, that's a lot more fun than I expected!

I digress. I now know more about entrance mats than any single male, non-business owner type guy should ever know, and have most of that information stored on my STILL cavernous hard drive (Thanks Adam!) If I never learn another thing about mats again... But let me start this story from the beginning. The guys at work(CanadaMat) decided that since I'd done such a good job putting together a little brochure for them to mail out to all our customers, which I did in approximately 6 hours, they wanted me to put together a full color, 4 page booklet for the sales rep to take up north with him next week. To which I responded, "Not a chance in hell, partner! Not for a mere 10$ an hour!" Or at least that's what I wish I'd said, since instead of that, I told them I'd be happy to put it together for them if they would just give me all the information they wanted on it. I didn't, and probably still don't, know enough about the business that I knew what we needed to feature, what needed to be on the thing, or any of that, and didn't want to have to cobble it together from hearsay like I'd done the mailout.
So, of course, none of those things happened. Between the two of them, they mentioned 5 products total, which, even with a kickass cover page, does not fill a 4 page booklet. AND I couldn't do work on it at the office, because the office computer is an ancient relic of a time long ago when people did their math by banging rocks on other rocks. (No, I don't know what that means.) So, I did all the work on it from the comfort of my own home, eventually getting paid for it. Then I sent it to my boss for approval. And of course, suddenly, he's filled with specific ideas that I have not executed. Plus, now it HAS to be ready for the next morning. Well, let me tell you, after spending the better part of the day sitting in front of the computer with no contact with the outside world, I was ready to snap. So snap I did. Politely.
I proceeded to inform Robert (my boss) that I was neither a marketing department, nor a graphic designer, neither of which would be doing the amount of work I was for the little I was being paid. I told him that I had specifically asked for exactitudes (sorry, couldn't help it, it is really fun), and been given very little, and then told to "run with it", which I had stated originally, in no uncertain terms, that I was not prepared to do. He agreed with me, and we came up with a course of action: I was going to stay up all night making the changes he wanted, but I was not going into the office this morning, and he was going to pay me exactly as if I had come in. (It sounded like a much better deal at the time). And so, today, I only went in to the office for 3 hours, got paid for 7, and got a call from the printing agency, where I'd sent my final proof, and asked if I would mind changing the size of my pages, as well as proof reading it, since it was a little rough around the edges from me finishing it up at around 4AM.

Now, aren't you glad I made that first story short? That took forever, and this little guy's all tuckered out now, so I'm gonna go catch a few zzz's. Oh, and you know what else is back?

G'night! <---(The "g'night" is the other thing that's back, for our Brian'shumor impaired viewers)

Working for a living sucks...

Or at least it does if you have my jobs. (Yes, yes, I'm still harping about that) I hear it's possible to have a job, and enjoy what you do every day, and not want to beat your head against a wall until you can't feel anything anymore, but I'm pretty sure that's a myth. There's no way people would ever give someone else money for something they enjoy doing. That's like paying someone to watch TV all the time, or to have a party that never ends, (I'm not sure exactly where that was going, but..)

Well, since I'm clearly feeling a little low right now, I think I'm gonna keep this post short, and only say a few more things: Masonry is awesome, and I'm glad summer break is over. No progress so far on finding a kitten, but I haven't really tried yet, and besides, I don't have the funds for a kitten yet, so no hurry. I think I've come to the conclusion that my time at East Side Mario's Clareview is at an end. I just look forward to every day working there with dread and loathing, and noone should feel that way about their job. The playwriting goes well as can be expected, I'm still not done, but I hope to be soon, and I'm looking forward to reading the half I'm not writing.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnd, that about does it, so I guess I'll sign off with my patented:

G'night!