February 7- At around 10:00 I woke up since my mother had gone to work and we were a little worried that we might miss the UPS delivery again. I remained in my bed watching Good Day Live for a little while before making a cup of coffee and eating a Pop Tart while watching a little E.R. Finally at around 11:30 I got dressed, and headed down to SpeedZone for work at noon, where I began my day cashiering. My shift started pretty uneventfully which was basically just helping Wendy with various redemption tasks. There weren't too many customers to help out which was not a problem for me since I am pretty tired of dealing with the customers and their repetetive questions. Occasionally I'd have customers that needed help, but for a while I didn't have much to do until around 3:00 when things seemed to pick up and I was kept relatively busy doing various things. I was kept a lil busy, though I was never really overwhelmed at any one point. The time went by relatively quickly which was a welcomed sight, not to mention very rare as well. For a while the redemption computer went out, but I didn't want to restart it since I was afraid I would mess everything up. So instead I decided to just keep track of all the purchases on a piece of paper, and since there weren't too many people at redemption it wasn't very difficult. At around 5:00 Jay the gametech showed up and he took the liberty of fixing the computer, which was somewhat of a relief since it meant I could input all the purchases I had taken care of during the day. Finally at a little after 6:00 Ryan came by and cashed out my drawer, and at around 6:20 or so I was on my way out the door. I tried retrieving my voicemail from my phone since I had gotten a phone call from my mother earlier in the day, but I was having difficulties. Considering I knew what the message was about I decided not to worry about it and instead drove home where I was greeted by a great sight. Sitting on my couch was my newest acquisition, a notebook computer. Naturally that garnered all of my attention for the ensuing minutes, and like a child on Christmas I opened up everything and began playing with my new toy. I was a little hesitant at first because I was concerned about making a mistake that would ruin the machine on it's first day, but not to long afterwards I was losing such inhibitions. I sat in the living room of my house watching tv on my couch while sitting online and exploring the new computer. Eventually my parents decided to get some food at around 7:30, coming home with Happy Wok, which I hadn't had for quite some time. When they got home I ate with them at the dinner table, which is an increasingly rare event these days, before eventually falling victim to the spell of the computer yet again. I sat on the couch for the next hour or so looking at various things, getting acquainted with the device as my parents began to watch the Michael Jackson special that was on tv the night prior. I had heard things about the program and decided it would be interesting to watch, and it was. He is one strange person, and the show just seemed to get weirder and weirder. When that was over I continued to sit online for a while before deciding to got to my back yard and sit at the computer. Shortly after I made myself comfortable I was joined by Gabe and Little Chris, and eventually Shay as well. The four of us sat in my backyard for a while talking about various topics including life insurance, and Office Depot. While we sat in the backyard I made an attempt to write the News, but it proved to be a little more difficult than I had anticipated, because it was difficult to stay within the conversation while writing cohesive sentences. I think it may be obvious at which point I was left to myself to write, and when I was distracted by the lure of conversing. At around 12:30 or so Little Chris, Shay, and Gabe all left, and I remained in the backyard, writing the update. My intention was to write the other day's updates, but I decided to just wait until my new computer came. Hopefully now that it has arrived I will get back into the rhythm which it should, as now writing will be more accesible. It's now about 12:50 and I am about done writing for the day. Whether or not my day is done, I am not quite sure just yet.
February 15- My day started at approximately 8:05 after I overslept by about an hour, though it was not that critical. I searched for some black socks, dress shoes, and plain collared shirt to wear to my orientation for Office Depot. With a little help from my parents I found the articles of my scavenger hunt, and ended up in the bathroom by around 8:30. I shaved, and was in the shower by 8:35. I had figured a five minute shower would do the trick and after finishing getting dressed I would be out the door by 8:45. To my surprise, that was the time that I got out of the shower, so I was a little rushed, as well as concerned since I was afraid that I would be late for my first day with Office Depot. Luckily, once I finished getting dressed it was around 8:52 or so when I was out the door, and once I was on the road I seemed to get every light that I would never get on my way to work at SpeedZone. I would have made my best time to work had that been my destination, which would have been only about four minutes or so. My worries were quelled when I made it to Office Depot with a couple minutes to spare, and where I found my new co-workers, Little Chris and Robert. We waited around by our cars before realizing that we had missed the store opening. We went inside where we were directed to the orientation, and we were pretty much the last three to show up. The orientation was pretty slow, and covered a lot of topics. Little Chris was in top form as he seemed to be dozing off, whenever he wasn't keeping himself occupied with child-like antics. We had a few breaks, one being at around 10:15 which we spent standing out by our cars while Chris smoked. There were a couple instances during the session where the instructor asked for volunteers, and as Robert usually does, he did. Eventually he did convince me to do the same on an isolated occasion. During a second break at around 1:15 we made a run to Jack in the Box, where to our dismay, we learned that they no longer offer three tacos for $.99 which was very disappointing. We ate our food in the parking lot, though I had a head start so I finished before the other two, which meant I went back before them. Again we were the last three to arrive. The instructor started things without them, but they didn't miss much. Overall the orientation was a little boring, though it was informative at the same time, though I think Robert summed it up best when he compared it to traffic school. We watched a few videos which varied in entertainment value from boring, to mildly interesting. There was a shoplifting video that had a magician and actors stealing things which was pretty funny to watch, and by far the best video. Another included a re-enactment of a child wandering from his mother in the store, and dictating the procedures when that happens, though the cheesy music was too much to bear, and at one point I couldn't hold the laugh in. We were let out a little early because we didn't end up taking a lunch break, so we were out of there by about 2:15 or so, and I went home, where I found my parents just sitting around: one at the computer, one on the couch watching tv. So naturally I assumed my new position at the laptop while sitting on the couch. I sat there for the next couple of hours, while sitting online, and talking to my mother who was falling asleep. I talked to whoever was online, and went through my list of mp3's, some of which I wondered why I had downloaded to begin with. Eventually my free time ran out, and 6:00 approached, so I went to work at SpeedZone. Shortly after I arrived I seemed to be ralatively busy for the first hour or so, with a barrage of game problems. Luckily the activity subsided, and my duty in the gameroom had returned to the easy job it once was. I spent my time walking around, occasionally talking to whoever came in to get a drink while helping out customers from time to time with their troubles. I also found out from Robert and Paul some details about my upcoming work week at Office Depot, which if accurate, would conflict with my full load at SpeedZone. So I spent some time figuring out how I would juggle the conlicting hours, and I think I will be able to do so. The time actually went by relatively quickly and before I knew it, the time for my break had approached, so I refilled my Pepsi, and went out to my car, not opting to get anything to eat. Instead I sat in my car and wrote half of this News update, since I had been motivated at the moment, and had the resources to do so. I wrote for about twenty minutes before going back to work, where things weren't too eventful, other than dealing with some guy in the gameroom that just reeked of alcohol, and I have a horrible sense of smell. But other than that I didn't have too much trouble getting through the night, until around midnight I had to help out at redemption since nobody else was there. Luckily it was not that busy, since for a Saturday it wasn't too busy in general. The last hour seemed to fly by and it was time to close before I even knew it. The closing procedures took a little longer than usual, but for no more reason than just being slow, and I clocked out at about 1:15, at which point I went out to the parking lot with Gabe, Paul, and Robert. We discussed Robert's encounter with Damon in regards to his leaving to Office Depot, and to some extent, my own. The discussion seems to be one of those filled with false promises, or at best just telling Robert what he wanted to hear. However part of me still bought into the tripe, and I entertained the potential possibilities in my mind for the rest of the night, but in the end I think better judgement shall prevail should anything come about. From SpeedZone, Gabe, Paul, and I went to Denny's, where we hadn't been for a while. I had the club sandwich and it was great as usual. The three of us sat around the table discussing the usual: art, literature, and politics. The conversation was engaging as always, and at around 2:30 Paul called it a night, so Gabe and I sat there for about another twenty minutes or so before we decided to leave as well. Just as I was getting out of the booth, I knocked over my lemonade and spilled it all over the table. I don't know how I did it, but I felt bad since I had made a mess. From there we went out to the parking lot where we stood around for a couple minutes before I decided that I wanted to copy a CD from Gabe's collection. After a little help from Gabe, I copied an older New Found Glory CD with a bunch of movie cover songs on it, before we began listening to a CD by The Exit. There we were, standing around a computer, copying CD's in a Denny's parking lot. Only in America. Finally at around 3:15 we decided to call it a night, and I went home listening to The Exit. I got home, where I sat online for a short while before eventually calling it a night at arond 3:45 or so. |
