Warning: May Contain DOOM!!!
The Lizard King. The Walrus. The Shiznit.
I am all of these things. Forget the fact that the walrus might eat the lizard, and the digestive result is a word that amusingly resembles 'shiznit', but I am all of these.
Today's little bit of nowhere features an inflated ego of epic proportions, brought about by sadism and grandiose accomplishments. And exhaustion. It's probably the exhaustion talking more than anything else, and when the euphoria passes I'll marvel at how silly I sounded and wonder how on earth the cat ended up wearing my pants.
On Saturday, I had the pleasure of working a full 12 hour shift at the store, due to a very sick employee. With a little help from Mel, and more than a handful of Tylenol, I survived. Sunday was spent helping Mel with a research essay wherein one of her group partners made a contribution that ultimately sounded like what might happen if you heard the bagpipes being played by a deaf, leperous giraffe.
(Mel has just informed me that perhaps I've given that team member a little too much credit, so we may have to revert to the old stalwart "a contribution as impressive as a dead mouse performing Shakespeare.")
Monday was another 12 hour day, capped off by a first for me. I got to fire someone. In fact, I was sanctioned by Head Office to spread the doom. Doom, doom, doom! What was her crime? Well, said now-defunct-employee spent most of her shifts being perfectly useless, and seemed to think it criminal that she must perform customer service in a retail job. (The nerve of company policy! I mean, really! What are they going to expect us to do next: work?!)
Head Office went so far as to send an auditor in to observe her, and by all accounts gave the command to my district manager to have this employee axed. So far, I think a grand total of no tears have been shed by anyone else over her sudden and swift boot-to-the-ass dismissal. Mel even took up to singing, "Ding dong, the witch is dead!" at the kiosk when she arrived for her shift later that afternoon.
Granted, in firing the girl, I was forced to take up her shift for the day, and then cover the remainder of my evening shift at the store. But meh, what can you do in a case like that?
But the Monday didn't end there. Upon returning home, Mel & I were up until 3am working from scratch on an English paper about the use of the supernatural in Oedipus (the guy who killed his father & slept with his mother) and Hamlet (the guy who killed his step-father after his step-father tried to kill him but accidentally killed his mother instead. Oops.) We were going to work on it Sunday, but the bagpipe/giraffe project ended up taking the entire day to unravel, tweak and rework into something that didn't look like it had been copied word for word from a university textbook.
While today was a mere 8-hour shift by comparison, tomorrow's got another 12 hour gig in store for me. And if I'm really lucky, the next day I have off will be Sunday. Somehow I still have most of my mental faculties despite all the long hours. All in all, I'm impressed at how well I'm faring, but then again, we've only reached the midweek. I've already conquered two 12-hour shifts, giving me an inflated sense of accomplishment as I face the third one. Plus, there's that whole getting to fire an employee who was really starting to piss even me off. I'm floating high on a managerial God Complex.
Damn, but I'm good!
I am the Lizard King! I am the Walrus! I bring you tidings of my inherent awesomeness, and
DOOM!!
Today's Lesson: sometimes, metal dollies can spontaneously manifest themselves in the middle of your store. Oh, and poodles can also be guide dogs for the blind.
posted by Phillip at 9:16 PM
