Ever notice how it's the little things in life that amuse us so much? More to the point, ever notice how it's the silly little idiocies in life that amuse us more than anything else? Well, this is not as much ''the little blog that could'' as it is ''the blog that enjoys going up the down escalator in your local mall.'' Will it have anything of real importance? No, probably not. But enjoy the ride never the less!

 

I'm typing this little bit of nowhere out amidst reading an online article that has 5 signs to tell me if he's cheating on me. So far it looks like I'm safe: he hasn't started to question my appetizer-making skills, nor has he suddenly lavished me with expensive, guilt-ridden presents (such as a recipe book on how to make exotic party appetizers).

The kiosk has a computer, and more importantly a computer that works. Beyond the kiosk crew having to contend with Lenny The Curtain Who Hates Your Fscking Guts, things seem to be going rather well. On the other hand, the store got a complete overhaul today. Again. And while I admit the happiness of knowing our district manager is making the store look better (mostly by giving us the go-ahead to ship out a whole lot of crap that is in our store for a reason I can only list as: would someone at Head Office please start dislodging heads out of asses? Please?!), I've spent most of the day being run ragged in a valiant attempt to get as much stuff cleaned, revamped and rearranged before our day off tomorrow. But it's a good kind of run ragged. If I'm lucky, the store will be presentable inside and out by the end of Saturday.

This is happiness. Not quite on the same level as the happiness from snuggling with Mel, or wearing the Puchuu hat, or Mel actually letting me snuggle with her while I wear the Puchuu hat. But it's close.

On the other hand, of a greater level of happiness is the fact that our bedroom window has finally been replaced. Gone is the giant spiderweb of glass being held together with duct tape and sheer will power. Good-bye has been bidden to the black garbage bag that used to cover the spiderweb of glass. It's good to have a window we can look out of without having to worry about the window collapsing or imploding all over us.

The ordeal's been enough of an adventure if managerial ineptitude as it is, with the building owner taking his damned sweet time to fix a serious safety threat we probably could have sued his ass over had something gone horribly wrong. And as corollary to Murphy's Law, naturally they decided to have the window replaced after Mel started working at the kiosk and suddenly wasn't around all day if the need arose. We notified the owner in May about the window. I think after the guy dicking around for 5 months is justifiable cause for us kicking him in the bahooglies if he asks us how the new window's working out.

Though I must confess to taking a bit of sadistic pleasure in seeing a few droplets of blood on the floor from the repair job. It looks like the window o' doom managed to slash somebody's hand open. To which I can only say: and wouldn't that be ironic.

Don't you think?

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to brace myself for tomorrow. If the release dates are correct, the first Sesame Street: Old School DVD set appears on the shelves. And I will get to stand there sniffling over the fact that I won't have the money to snatch it up, snuggle it and then sit down to some old-fashioned Henson goodness.

Today's Lesson: there is nothing quite so amusing as watching the Colbert Report and seeing George Lucas kill Stephen in a light sabre duel by impaling Stephen in the crotch. Brilliant, I tell you!
posted by Phillip at 10:42 PM

 

The kiosk has been open for 2 days now. And while my dispassion for it has not yet reached the epic levels of last year's "give me a match, some gasoline, an alibi and some marshmallows", I am still left feeling rather unimpressed with things. In cases like this, one always has to assume that something will go wrong when a temporary kiosk gets put into a mall. (And yet, you'd think that after 8 years of doing this, they'd have most of the bugs squashed by now...or am I being too optimistic?)

Here's a basic breakdown of the last few days, brought to you in a point-counterpoint form. (Now is most certainly the time to disregard your mother having taught you "not to counterpoint at people, it's rude.")

GOOD: the kiosk arrives on the day it should and is mostly assembled.

NOT SO GOOD: by mostly assembled, I mean the contractor never put in the closet used to store the curtain. So he left it in the middle of the mall corridor, failed to mention this fact to anyone, and when he called back to say he'd be installing that piece the next day, he told us to go looking for it in the completely wrong spot. (Smeghead...)

GOOD: we had electricity going into the kiosk on our first day, and this morning we had a working phone line. (Fantastic, I say, considering last year it took a week to get one and two weeks to get the other.)

NOT SO GOOD: on the other hand...is the curtain rod supposed to just rip right out of three of its support struts like that? Isn't the whole point of the rod, you know, being able to actually hold the weight of the curtain at any given place around the kiosk?

GOOD: luckily, the company handyman (whose great sense of humour is rivalled only by his contempt for the ineptitude of the idiots at Head Office. Oh, the stories he's told us....) was able to come by today and fix the track. And the drawers. And the cupboards.

NOT SO GOOD: unfortunately for poor Tom the handyman, ours was Winter kiosk #6 he'd had to fix so far in the last few weeks. Two of those were major repairs almost requiring the whole kiosk to be dismantled and reassembled.

GOOD: it didn't take 2 months for us to get our hat racks and mirrors. They actually sent them along with the kiosk this time!

NOT SO GOOD: what the hell am I going to do with 4 scary-looking, styrofoam mannequin heads? (Beyond using them as bowling pints, natch)

GOOD: we received fewer boxes of stock than we had around this time last year.

NOT SO GOOD: we're still waiting for our box of much needed kiosk supplies to arrive. (It's on the manifest, dammit! Make the box manifest itself already!)

GOOD: on the Friday before the kiosk went up, we received the computer monitor, the computer, the receipt printer, the standard printer, a lot of miscellany cords to connect them all together, and a swanky scanner I still covet.

NOT SO GOOD: the cash drawer was auspiciously missing.

GOOD: for some silly-arsed reason, the Guleph kiosk got 2 cash drawers and kindly sent us one.

NOT SO GOOD: 5 minutes before the box from Guelph arrived with our drawer, I discovered that we had in fact already received the original cash drawer meant for the kiosk. Someone else had received it, not bothered to tell me about it and hid it in a part of the stockroom I don't normally check out. (Smeghead...)

GOOD: but that doesn't really matter, since we've now got our cash drawer.

NOT SO GOOD: the one sent to us directly by our Head Office (coincidentally, the one that someone at my store neglected to tell me we got) had one of those old-fashioned bells that rang really, really loudly whenever the till popped open. You can hear it from halfway down the corridor. Great way to let everyone know we've got our cash open for grabbing.

GOOD: the cash drawer Guelph sent us had no ring-a-ding-ding function, so we were able to set ourselves up, prime the system and start using our computer.

NOT SO GOOD: which would have worked great if the computer itself wasn't bunged up horribly. The damned thing couldn't stop cycling through the opening screen. It constantly reset itself whenever it reached one specific point, and even the guys at our MIS department couldn't poke at the problem.

GOOD: and yet the MIS crew, in seeing this problem, immediately set about creating a new replacement computer exclusively for our kiosk.

NOT SO GOOD: the new computer won't arrive until Thursday sometime. At best. So we're stuck with cash only, and having to do manual receipts.

GOOD: the day is almost over and I can go to bed.

NOT SO GOOD: I have to get up early tomorrow, take stock of the store and actually make everything look presentable. Again. (I swear, you're gone for two days, and somehow everything manages to bundle itself in a nice wicker handbasket and express-mails itself straight to hell.)


Today's Lesson: your cat will try and sit on your head whether you want him to or not.
posted by Phillip at 8:40 PM

 


Today marked Mel's final day of freedom. Which was celebrated by sleeping in, doing homework and staring outside at the rain which only seemed to let up long enough to tease us. (As in: it stops raining long enough for me to think its safe to take Shady outside, and then lets loose with a torrential downpour when the dog & I are at the furthest point from home on our walk.)

Tomorrow, Mel gets to grumpily rise and eventually shine as she accompanies me to work. Yep, the winter kiosk shows up tomorrow morning. I can only wonder what sort of silly-arsed things are going to leave us weary and homicidal this year. After all, it's hard to outdo a kiosk with no electricity for a week, no phone line for two weeks, and a month before we get any real banking information for it.

So far, things are looking optimistic. All the technical computer bits for the kiosk were shipped to our store on Friday, and a quick check of all the assemblage shows that not only is everything in perfect working order (with a notable lack of a printer with a giant dent in it, unlike last year), but they also have a scanner this time around.

It's a very sleek and black scanner, and looks like an oversized Philishave. I think I'll be commandeering that scanner once the kiosk closes down. It's a very happy scanner.

Should I be worried I seem to be currently suffering from scanner envy?

In other news, I had many a colourful and silly anecdote to share about the past week's goings-on, and with the exception of getting to watch Gabezilla run around with half of a high chair strapped to his backside, I can't recall any of them.

Today's Lesson: sadly, it's possible to get outwitted by an empty cardboard box.
posted by Phillip at 9:14 PM

 

It's only mid-October.

For some reason, I stepped outside to walk the dog and had a blast of snow blown up pants. I was not impressed. In fact, I was very cold and said a few colourful words that made Mel giggle over my random nounage.

Ah, winter: why must you be so cruel and vindictive? You already get total control of 3-4 months out of the year. Why must you torment us when we're still trying to salvage what's left of autumn? Or are you so determined in your bid for power that you'd crush the other seasons if they show any signs of weakness?

In other news, happiness is learning that the Old School Sesame Street DVD box set will be out in stores at the end of the month. It's all 70's & 80's, and all pre-Elmo. Joy!

Today's Lesson: naturally, when Head Office wants you to switch the store around to display all sorts of new stock, they will send you all that new stock a week after the switch-around was supposed to be done. Bravo, Head Office. If wasn't so busy flipping you off, I'd applaud.
posted by Phillip at 9:30 PM

 

It's a day off. I'll take it!

And then I'll hit it over the head with a seemingly innocent yet blunt object (probably the rabbit cage), stuff it into the trunk of Mel's car and have us all drive off into the Hollywood sunset. I could use more days like this, especially since the winter kiosk is due to open soon.

Well...it was supposed to open this coming Wednesday. That wasn't an entirely fun prospect. While Mel & I very much enjoy spending our anniversary together, I don't exactly see opening a kiosk as quite the romantic outing we had planned. But then, early last week, I was suddenly possessed by the sneaking suspicion that someone at Head Office was on the verge of, or already had, taken their cranium, bent over with it and stuck it up their ass.

(Sort of like the same technique an ostrich employs, only more disgusting. And irritating for me.)

Acting on this premonition, I double-checked with the mall administration to see if they had a confirmation for the kiosk's opening date. The lady checks the papers sent down by Head Office. Last I checked, the 23rd of October does not fall on the exact same date as the 11th. So, the kiosk opening was pushed back for two weeks. So, yay, the anniversay is for the most part, ours again to celebrate with as we please.

On the downside, all the work I've thrown into getting a staff ready & able to work the damned thing by next Wednesday now has to wait another few weeks. Luckily, everyone involved can still get in a few training sessions and they didn't throw a hissyfit about the delays. Yet what boggled me more than anything is the incompetence on the part of our Head Office. That the kiosk was delayed didn't surprise me; it happened last year anyways. What did raise my level of disgust was that no one bothered to inform me or my District Manager about the dates being changed. The mall admin's got all the paperwork from our H/O a week prior...and yet where was the H/O memo to those of us in the retail trenches?

Though it was somewhat amusing to hear the sheer unimpressedness in my DM's voice when I informed her about the new dates. "It's what now? And they didn't even bother telling me?!" Ah, if only I could be there to watch as she reached through the phone to grab the Head Office person responsible for this communications breakdown, yank their head out from their butt and then throttle said person. (Ideally gloves will be used for sanitary purposes.)

But that's just me ranting.

It's Thanksgiving after all, and I really should be thankful I had the foresight to check the dates anyways. Or else I should really be thankful I didn't have a pick-axe and a plane ticket to Montreal handy. (Had I voiced my "exasperation" with Head Office in creative and physcially painful ways, Mel would have killed me for missing our anniversary due to being arrested, then find a way to resurrect me just so she could kill me again for being such a stupid tit.)

So, Thanksgiving then. Mel's family was down for the weekend, wherein there wasn't as much Thanksgiving festivities as there were "happy to see you again, and by the way, happy anniversary" festivities. They also gave us an advanced Christmas present: a fantastic-looking wood display cabinet/counter for some of our nicer dining pieces. I was ecstatic about getting furniture for a gift. Not blase or disappointed that it wasn't money or a movie...but genuinely pleased if not excited to see the cabinet up in our dining room.

Dear lord, I'm becoming a grown-up! Quick, someone fetch me my Puchuu hat!

We also saw The Guardian, which all in all wasn't a bad movie...if not for the 4-5 scenes where you could actually see the boom mike in the shot. You think I'm joking? Keep your eyes open on some of the interior shots (ie. Costner's wife's trailer, or the Coast Guard Rescue Command Centre during the last reel). The boom mike makes a few appearances like some silly, black chandeilier. Some blatantly to the point where you have to wonder just how the hell everyone else on the editing staff missed it. With today's technology, you could easily erase it digitally from the shots, which leads me to believe that no one saw Waldo--er, the boom mike until after the film was in theatres.

Beyond that, work continues to grind on, as always. The weather over here at long last remembered that, hey, it's not November yet so maybe we should really give the people some sunny, warm days before winter hits. The happy buffet Mandarin restaurant finally opened, allowing Mel & I to have our anniversary meal there. And The Project is off to auspicious and hopeful beginnings.

All in all, a decent beginning before the world spirals into Commercialmas craziness and sad product-pushing songs being looped over the mall speakers telling me how wonderful Christmas is, and could I please stop chasing the patrons around with a pick-axe while exclaiming, "The Christmas carols are out to get me!!", as it takes away from the spirit of the season.

So here it is, Today's Lesson: drawing shut the living room curtains is more complicated than I could have ever imagined.
posted by Phillip at 10:03 AM