The Good, the Bad, and the Long-Winded

I just realized that four days ago marked the four year anniversary of when I quit my job at Dead Poet's Espresso. Man, how time flies. It really doesn't seem like nearly six years ago when I started working there. It feels like only a couple of years since I started there and oddly enough, only a couple of years since I quit.

The strange thing is, it feels like forever ago when I worked at the TV station, right before Dead Poet's. And it feels like only a couple of months since I worked at Gendler's. Shoot, only a month ago marked the four year anniversary of when I started working at Gendler's (that's right, kiddies, I worked DP and Gendler's concurrently for awhile). Time has a strange way of working, does it not?

Like, the last year and a half seems to have dragged on and on as I've worked in places that I've for the most part despised. Yet, Gendler's closing, which was before all of that, seems closer to me than the last year has been. Perhaps our minds like to keep the good things close and push the bad things away?

In all honesty, I'd like to get back to the good ol' days of working. Yes, Dead Poet's frustrated me, but I didn't hate it with the same level of vitriol that I've had for the Putnam or Galaxy 1. I'd like to go back to having a job where I'm allowed to do my job.

The Putnam...I held my tongue on the hatred I had for that place while I was there. But the asinine way things are done there...its no wonder to me that the place is millions of dollars in debt when you have incompetent people running things. That's not to say there aren't good people there, but there are quite a few people in positions of authority who I wouldn't trust to tie my shoes , much less run a large organization.

The whole of Visitor Services needs to be overhauled. Frankly, I'd merge that entire department in with the IMAX Theatre department, get rid of the Visitor Services department head, have an Events Coordinator, get rid of the Visitor Services Supervisor, and have two or three part-time Lead Cashiers. Even when I worked there as Lead Cashier, I thought having me there full-time was a waste of company money. They should split the shift into two parts with a morning Lead Cashier and an evening Lead Cashier. Having three part-timers would make it so that they worked five days each, with an extra day off rotating between the three of them. They'd get rid of the problem of over-lapping shifts with the Leads and also get out of having to pay health and dental insurance. The Leads could take care of scheduling CSAs and ordering inventory in concessions (which is what we were doing anyway...for the life of me, I never did figure out what the VS Supervisor did other than get stressed out while dealing with customers and being angry most of the time). Also, I'd probably get rid of having a full-time receptionist and instead have a couple of part timers fill that spot. Then again, what do I know? I just worked in the trenches and have a penchant for problem solving.

But yeah, it frustrated me working there because there were problems with the way it was run and I'm usually pretty good at figuring out better ways to do things. I've always been big on simplifying things and working smarter rather than harder. It's why I think I was good at Gendler's - I could stock quickly and efficiently because I just "saw" patterns as my mind tried fitting together the "puzzle" of the empty or low wine spaces. I can't figure it out much better than that. Things would just "feel" right and I'd do them that way. Same when I made drinks at the coffee shop. Same when I write. There's a "feeling" to these things and I trust my instincts with them.

The Putnam never "felt" right. It was always off and I think it was the mismanagement. Same at Galaxy 1, but that pretty quickly seemed to me to be coming from the mismanagement of one Mr. James Reilly, who was better at talking than doing anything else. Man, that guy would outright lie because he thought it was what whoever he was talking to wanted to hear. At least he was fired shortly after I quit. Man, I wish I could have stayed there long enough to have seen that. But I digress.

Anyway, now I'm just looking for a part-time job between 25 and 30 hours week, preferably for $8.50 or more. I'm wanting to go back to school because I know that the kind of money I'd like to make isn't going to come to me unless I have an education or get really lucky. And since I don't believe in luck, that pretty much puts it in my hands. And I know from past experience that when I've tried to do school and work at the same time, one has to win out over the other. I've done better at school when work hasn't been as much of a priority and I think my parents have finally realized that also, as they've dropped the "Work! Work! Work!" mantra and begun going with the "Go to school and then you can get better jobs!" slogan. And that's the truth of it. I'm not one that's good at keeping multiple balls in the air. Either school's my job or work's my job - I've always had difficulty in doing both. For whatever reason, it's just the way I'm wired and every time I've tried changing it, things have wound up poorly. So, instead of trying to do things quickly against my own nature, why not work with it and build up things for the long term? I can work part time and pay my bills, though I won't have much money to do a lot of other things. But even so, I never have anyway, so what difference does it make? Besides, I've learned how to cut out social time to focus on a goal (my novel) whereas before, I had difficulty balancing school, work, and my personal life. Now that I've gotten better in balancing my personal life and saying "no," it gives me a bit more freedom to focus on school itself.

I'm not saying it's going to be easy. I've always had a bit of a disciplinary problem when it comes to going to class, a problem that I'm sure has been compounded by having GAD. But knowing now that I have GAD and that's what it is makes it more difficult to use it as an excuse for ditching class. It was easier when it was just some strange feeling of dread and I could talk myself into abandoning class. Now that I know it's not that big of a deal, it gives me more power over that feeling and less reason to act out on it.

Anyway, this is all turning into ranting. So, I'm going to go. But yes, the Putnam is bad and Galaxy 1 is bad. Dead Poet's, well, you can find better made coffee at Starbuck's but not better product. Gendler's had good wine and I'm going back to school if I can get me a decent part-time job here within the next month. That's about it. Out.