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| My Future? |
| 07.26.04 (11:09 am) [edit] |
I am feeling down in the dumps today. I keep trying to focus on the here and now but my mind will not listen to me, as usual, and I keep slipping off and thinking about "the future". To some people that may not see that scary, but there are others out there that know just what I mean. Like many people in the last few years it seems that my once stable job could be in jeopardy, and that scares the shit out of me. Up until this point in my life I have not had to worry about employment. Actually, things could not have worked out any better in that area.
I got my first job as a bagger at our local Big Bear at the ripe old age of 16. When I went for the interview and took the written test, which basically any 10 year old could pass, I was not nervous at all. Why should I be? It really did not matter if I got hired or not, I had Mom and Dad to fall back on. But, I did get hired and worked at Big Bear for about 2 years before I headed off to Columbus to go to college.
Finding a job and a place to stay at in Columbus was easy as well. One of the guys I had worked with at Big Bear was attending the same college I was (DeVry) and naturally we shared a place on the east side. He was also kind enough to get me a job at a automotive warehouse. I do not even remember if I had an interview. I showed up one day, filled out a form, and they told me I would start the next day. Not knowing a damn thing about cars, because I am a total geek, I was a bit nervous but not too much. I worked at the warehouse for a few months only to come back to the apartment one day to see my roommate and the assistant manager sitting at our dining room table smoking pot. That fact that my roommate was smoking pot did not upset me in the slightest, even though I do not do drugs at all (caffeine does not count!). Seeing the assistant manager there really surprised the hell out of me, but did not upset me. The fact that my room mate had my $200 dollar Oakley's one did.
I am a very private person. The fastest way to tick me off would be to take something of mine without even asking. I find that very rude and inconsiderate. Call it a pet peeve, call it just being a prude. All I know is that I was ticked off. I let it ride a few days and was about to let the whole incident go, but then it happened. After getting home from school one night my roommate told me he was thinking about getting another roommate. I was a bit shocked. We are living in a 2 bedroom, 1 bathroom apartment. Where was this new person going to sleep? Surely not in my room! That's my room! Apparently he knew what I was thinking because he continued on to tell me that the guy was going to share his room. Be droned on about how cool the guy was and what a party animal he was. Images of the apartment crowed with people, all wearing my clothing and going through my stuff assaulted me. Before I could say something he grabbed me and said that we were going to go over to the "new roommates" current house and meet him. Still shocked I did not resist.
We arrived at another apartment complex after a short 10 minute drive. As soon as we walked into the room I knew something was just not right. The place looked like your normal college pad: A black futon with various "unknown" stains covering it, giving it a weird urban camouflage. Half empty pizza boxes in various states of decay scattered the room, intermixed with bags of chips and both crushed and uncrushed various of soda cans. Thick smoky air turned into a blue haze by the soft glow of a neon lava lamp. The smell of old socks and alcohol oozing around the room.
As I walked down the hall, behind my roommate and whoever let us in the apartment, a guy popped his head out from a side room. "Who are these guys?" he said. It was obvious he was high on something. "Friends, they are helping (I cannot remember his name) move!" came a reply from further up the hall. The guy looked right at me with unfocused eyes and said "Hey, your want to score some blow?" I did not reply and kept walking down the hall and turned off into another room.
In here was our new roommate. My roommate and the soon-to-be-roommate were discussing something, I did not pay any attention to them because I was too busy detailing my escape route and trying to calculate when and where I could run if the proverbial 'shit hit the fan'. A few minutes later we were safely back in the car and on the way home.
"You ok with him moving in?" said my roommate.
"Sure" I said. Knowing full well it really did not matter at all what I thought. That guy was going to move in no matter what I thought.
As the next day rolled around I woke up early, called in sick to work and waited for my roommate to head out to work. As soon as I was sure he was gone called my father and told him what was going on. He said he would be there in an hour. I hung up the phone and started packing up my room.
My father showed up just as I finished packing and we started hauling stuff down to the mini van. When I had moved up here it had taken 2 trips in the van and on trip in my car to haul it all, but somehow we managed to get it all stuffed inside that mini van. I left a note saying that I had to move back for some reason or other and then jumped in the van headed home.
Hmm. I seemed to have gotten off on a tangent :)
I continued to work up in Columbus for the next month or so but eventually I had to quit. Getting up at 4 in the morning and driving an hour to work in a cold as warehouse for $5 an hour, then going to school from 11am-8pm, and finally getting home at 9pm, was getting old fast.
At that time my parents told me to concentrate on my studies and not to worry about working for the time being. So, for the next few months I relaxed and was able to leech of them for a while. Man that was a great time!
Eventually I started to feel bad and needed to get a job to help pay for school. I did not want to go back to Big Bear so I decided to try the other grocery store (krogers), hoping that my previous experience would help me get a job there. It did, and I worked at Krogers until my final year in college.
Getting close to graduation I applied for a job at a local utilities company, and after a decent interview I was hired. Over the next few years I was promoted to various jobs until finally landing my current job.
I have been working here for roughly 7 years now and it has been really nice until recently. In the past few months I have seen friends and coworkers lose their jobs and I am now starting to fear for my own. So far I have been able to keep my head off the chopping block by getting lucky and taking jobs in all the right areas of the company. But, I am afraid that even my luck may run out soon.
All that has caused me to start thinking about what I would do if I lost my job? And honestly when it gets down to it I have no clue what I would do. Always in the past I was able see new opportunities in my future. I was able to slide into another job, each one better and more lucrative then the last. But now, when I look out to the future, I only see a blank wall. And that scares me
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| Rain |
| 07.22.04 (4:29 am) [edit] |
I woke to this morning to the soft patter of raindrops on my roof and the gentle rumble of thunder in the distance. Ahh, I love days like this. I am not sure why, perhaps it was because I had been born on a rainy day, who knows? The one thing I am sure about is that it took every ounce of willpower I had to get my lazy bum out of bed and off to work. But, that was only after weighing the possibility of calling in 'sick' :)
Of course I did not call in and now I am sitting here in my office watching the rain cascade down the side of the buildings, wishing that I was back in bed. Hmm. Maybe I can lock my door and get a few minutes of sleep in.
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| Just moved in. |
| 07.20.04 (7:29 am) [edit] |
Well, thats the last of them. As you can probably tell by the mass of posts I have made today I am moving them over from another blog. Thankfully I only just started so I did not have that many to move over.
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| Good Morning? |
| 07.20.04 (7:25 am) [edit] |
Today did not start off well at all for me at all. I awoke after what seemed to be the shortest 4 hours in my life to find that my Wife was already getting ready to take off for a training class in Columbus. She was moving slowly around in the bathroom as I lay sprawled out on the bed with our english bulldog, who is taking up most of the bed. I spend 20 seconds fighting the dog for covers, trying various military techniques passed down over the ages. But she is having none of that and goes right to her main weapon, gas. If you have never owned an english bulldog then you have not clue what I am talking about. The stench that comes out of that dog burns your nostrils and peels the paint off the walls. Recoiling from the attack and using my meager covers to form a "poor mans" gas mask, I roll over and try to go back to sleep.
Just as I am starting to drift off into that heavenly oblivion my wife, who has about as much sleep as I, decides to start dropping stuff in the bathroom. "BAM!!" The noise rips me from my "warm fuzzy place" and hurls me back in the cold harsh place that is reality. My first thought is that she doing this on purpose, that she is punishing me because yesterday was he last day of vacation. And that is my fault, of course.
"You OK in there?" mumble from under the covers.
I hear some grumbling coming from the bathroom and take that has a yes.
The gas must have gotten to me because things get a little fuzzy after that. The next thing I remember is the blaring of my alarm. Looking up I see that I must have hit snooze a few times in my sleep because I am now running about 20 minutes behind. I jump up, getting a grumble and "the look" from the dog as I disturb her, and rush into the bathroom to get ready.
Ten minutes later I walk out, teeth brushed, hair slightly messed up (I refer to it as 'my style', but its just me being lazy) and somewhat clean clothes on. Looking over to the bed I size up my competition. The Hairy-Meatball, as I so loving refer to her, is stretched out on the bed, her head resting and drooling on my pillow. One eye slowly peeks open as I walk over to the bed. "Come on girl, lets go outside!" I say energetically, hoping to get her to move. But of course this does not work. It never does, well I should say that it never works for me. My wife can just look at the dog and the damn thing will get up and run outside.
Running late and running out of options I man-handle the dog out of the bed, getting my share of grumbles and "eat-shit-and-die" looks. "Ok girl, lets go!" I say, half commanding half pleading.
And after her morning ritual, which mostly consists of snorting, scratching, and a bit of gas (yes, I am talking about the dog, not me. Honestly. I don't snort ) she starts to move. Like a lumbering steam engine she slowly chugging down the hall and building up her speed to a slow walk. Bulldogs have 2 speeds. Slow and Stopped.
I get her outside and she decides to bless me once again by only relieving her bladder and not her bowels. "Great!" I think. "Just what I want to do, clean up dog crap when I get home." Its early and it takes a few seconds for my mind to get into gear and realize that my wife will be the one returning home first. "Good girl!" I saw as I usher the dog back into the house, a devilish grin splitting my face. Maybe today is going to be OK after all. Wrong!
I make it to work right on time only to find out that we are having some problems accessing our webmail interface using Internet Explorer. I guess it started yesterday around 2pm. "Hmm," I thought "I never noticed any problems when I left". After doing a bit of troubleshooting, then a bit of swearing , and finally a bit more troubleshooting I had gathered that the reason I did not notice is because it only errors out when you are using IE on a windows computer. I use Mozilla as my primary browser so that is why I did not notice it.
I start scouring through the logs again trying to find something that I had missed. Some little clue, a nugget of hope, something to that would tell me what asshole screwed up our webmail. I was sure that somebody has compromised our security and that it was only a matter of time until I nailed that bastard.
After another 30 minutes of searching a little voice spoke up in my head "Uh, you do know that you made a change to the firewall yesterday right?". I pause. Shout and expletive and check the firewall. Yup. There it was. 30 seconds later and everything was fixed. Like I vowed earlier in the day I had found the asshole that had broken our webmail. I did not however expect that asshole to be me :D
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| Say what? |
| 07.20.04 (7:23 am) [edit] |
I do not follow politics. I might occasionally read bits and pieces if something catches my eye, but on the whole I prefer more sophisticated reading, like comics. Today something caught my eye. It was an MSN ARTICLE about California's favorite Gov. Arnold.
"If they don't have the guts to come up here in front of you and say, I don't want to represent you, I want to represent those special interests, the unions, the trial lawyers ... if they don't have the guts, I call them girlie men," Schwarzenegger said.
And in "true" American fashion those "girlie men" instantly accused Schwarzenegger remark as sexist and homophobic. I kid you not! Hell, even State Sen. Sheila Kuehl said accuses the Terminator as "resorting to blatant homophobia." It seems like today people are just waiting for you to say anything that they can jump on and gain some sympathy or their 15 mins.
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| Return of the Tv(Finally). |
| 07.20.04 (7:21 am) [edit] |
Good news! After a month of going back and forth with Best Buy and the local "repair" shop Aztec I am getting my television back. My wife called me a little after 11am to tell me that our television was now fixed and ready to be delivered to our doorstep. I know I ranted about this whole television thing, and some people would say "It is just a freaking television. Get over it!" But, it was never about the actual television. Being without our television was really only a minor inconvenience, the real problem was the service I received. I just have a real problem with people who say they are going to do something and then never do it. I was raised to respect people and their time and I expect others to treat me the same way.
Oh well, it is done and over now. I have my television back and if it breaks down again I am just going to take my business elsewhere.
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| Best Buy? Poor Service. |
| 07.20.04 (7:19 am) [edit] |
/rant on
A little over a year ago I happily arrived home with Phillips 27" television, purchased from
Best Buy. Being the smart guy that I am I opted to purchase the extended 4 year warranty. At the time of purchase the Best Buy employee, with a fake smile plastered on his face, had insisted "if something happens you just call us and we will take care of everything in no time at all."
...June, one year later. It was a nice and stormy night. The soft trickle of rain pelting my roof and the rumble of thunder shaking the pictures on my walls. I was nestled before of my 27" tv with my favorite lady (my wife :)) watching Futurama on Cartoon Network's Adult Swin, when all of a sudden the tv dies. At first we think that the power has gone out because most of the lights were off anyway, but looking around we see that the cable box still has power. Before I can get my lazy bum up and walk over to the tv to inspect the damage my glorious sense of smell reports that the tv is toast. Literally. Ahh. There is nothing like the spell of smoldering electronics.
"Well crap!" I said with a sigh. Not too upset because in the back of my mind I knew that I had the wonderful Extended warranty to fall back on. So, after making sure that the tv was not going to erupt into flames and burn the house down, I went to bed thinking about my wonderful foresight in purchasing the extended warranty.
The next day (Tuesday) I woke up bright and early and phoned up Best Buy's customer support. After blazing a trail threw their automated tree I was rewarded with a live person on the other end of the line who sounded like she might moonlight as for a phone sex service. Trying to get the images out of my head I finally stutter out my warranty information. We schedule an appointment for around noon on Friday. Neither I nor my wife would be able to make it but fortunately my father stepped up to the plate and said he would wait.
The week creeps by and finally it's Friday. I wait patiently by my work phone for my father to call me and tell me "the tv is fixed". Around 3pm I finally break down and call. He just stepped in the door and the news is not good. Some "part" has been fried and it just so happened that this "part" is a very hard to get "part". Walt, the repairman, had to take the television back to the shop and order a part. He told my father that he would let him know in a day or two when the television would be fixed.
A week went buy and nothing. No phone call. No messages on the answering machine/voicemail. Nothing. Just for good measure I waited 2 weeks. "Maybe he meant 2 weeks instead of 2 days. Right?" Wrong. Annoyed I called up Best Buy again and told them my situation. They gave me the number to Aztec Television, the people they sub-contracted to do repairs in my area. As soon as I heard this I knew I was in trouble. I have never had a good experience when the work was sub-contracted out.
Hanging up with Best Buy I called Aztec. "Maybe my luck will be better with them?" Nope. The guy that was fixing my television was not in at the moment but he would call me as soon as he got in.
Two days later I call back.
"Aztec, this is Roy"
"Hello Roy, is Walt in" I ask.
"Nope."
Well I was not going to wait around anymore for Walt to call me so I told good ol' Roy what was going on. He said that he did not know anything about it, but he would sure check on it and let me know by the next day. I hung up, feeling a little better.
The next day came and went without any word from good 'ol Roy.
Ok, now I am getting pissed off. I call up Aztec and my good friend Roy answers again. Ofcourse Walt is not in so I ask Roy if he has found out anything concerning my television.
"Yup" he says.
After some silence I have to prompt him a bit but he finally tells me what is going on. Apparently the part that they had ordered a few weeks back had its part number mysteriously changed by Phillips.
"Uh, how long does it take until you realize that the part you ordered is the wrong/nonexistent part?" I said, barely able to keep myself from yelling.
"Well, we just usually wait until the customer calls in and complains and then we go back and check to see if the part is wrong or if it has been misplaced"
This is where I pretty much lost it. I went on a long tirade about proper business techniques and practices and various others things that popped into my mind at that time. I followed that up with the standard "I-will-not-be-doing-busi ness-with-you-and-I-am-go ing-to-tell -everyone-about-you" threat. I finally closed with:
"Honestly I can not believe that you are still in business when you have such poor service"
He chuckles "Well that's we do it here".
I could take no more. I just hung up on the bastard. He actually chuckled at me. CHUCKLED.
After a few minutes of consulting with my wife and cooling off some I called Best Buy and talked with a supervisor. I told him everything that has happened and the what Roy has said a few moments before. He, like a good supervisor, told me exactly what I wanted to hear.
"Don't worry, I will take care of everything. I will get in touch with Aztec and speed things up and then I will keep in contact with you and let you know where we are at and when you can expect your television." That was 1 week ago today. And guess what? Not one freaking call from them either.
So, once again I call Best Buy and talk with a rep named Sharon. She seems nice and has a slight southern drawl. I give her a fast rundown of everything and she takes a look at my case and puts me on hold to call Aztec. After about 10 mins of listening to some 80's music she came back on the line.
"I talked with Walt,"... What? How on earth did she get ahold of Walt? "He said that when he contacted Phillips, they said that the part was shipped. So you are looking at about 1 week."
"1 week," I repeat "Well I have waited this long I guess I could wait a week. What happens if they are not done in a week. They have had my television for over a month now."
"Well, they have 45 days to get the part in. If they cannot then we will fill out a replacement form and get you a new television"
With nothing more to say I give her my thanks and hang-up. I keep replaying everything in my head. All the stuff that Roy said and I remember something that he told me on our last conversation.
"It usually takes about 2 weeks after we get the part before we can get around to fixing your television"
Recalling my early childhood math classes I quickly add 2+1 coming up with "3 Weeks!!"
No way in hell am I going to wait another 3 weeks. I pick up the phone and call them back. I get another rep and once again I tell him what is happening.
"I am tired of all the waiting. It has been over a month now and I want a new tv and I would like one now"
"Well," the rep says using that just-calm-down-sir tone "lets see what we can do"
"The other rep I talked with today said that I had to wait 45 days before I could fill out a replacement form"
"Nope, you can request a replacement at anytime"
At this point I was silent for a few seconds trying to take it all in. "Does anyone know what the hell they are talking about there" I thought.
"Well that is not what I was told, you might want to inform Sharon that she is giving out wrong information. And how long does it take to get my replacement"
"Well after the form is submitted it takes 3-5 business days to be reviewed and then they will call you and let you know IF you are approved for a replacement. Then your replacement should ship within the next 3-5 business days...."
CLICK.
That is just bullshit. So far neither Best Buy not Aztec has kept in touch with me. I was given false information every single time I called in and nobody really seemed to give a damn. So...
Tomorrow I am headed to Best Buy to purchase a brand new 27" television that I have no intention of keeping. I am going to take it home and enjoy the new television until my old one is repaired, or 29 days has passed.( Best Buy return policy states you cannot return it after 30 days)
/rant off
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| Bah! |
| 07.20.04 (6:46 am) [edit] |
The first post always sucks. You sit there staring at the blinking cursor trying to think of how to start it out. Should I be witty? Cynical? Hmm perhaps some self deprecating humor? Ultimately the best thing, or so I have been told, is to just start writing. Well, so far so good.
I am not really sure why I decided to start up this Blog. I am not a very open person and, as you have no doubt already discovered, definitely not a writer. Also, it is not like somebody will actively sit out there waiting for my to update it so they can get their daily dose of "me". I guess when it comes down to it, I just needed a place to get my thoughts down in "digital" form so I can sit back and try to make some sense out of the mess.
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