ocularnervosa

 When I got up my phone was ringing, what now? It turns out it was the Late Guy, he didn't know where the ticket paper for the lottery machine was. When they moved me from the position of manager I did the right thing and gave him the full tour, here's this, this is the control for that, here's where I hid the cleaning supplies so the Part Time Woman can't steal them all and so forth. One of the things was "here's the keys and here's what they go to" which includes where the extra supplies for the lottery are stored. The thing that amazes me is it's been three months, you'd think they would have sold enough tickets to have gone through a couple of rolls by now. So I had to tell him where the stuff was stored and where the key should have been. I didn't get a call back so I guess he found it. When I showed up to work it was total bedlam. A couple of old ladies couldn't get the lids on their cups and they were blocking my way so I couldn...

As I was pulling on to the lot I noticed the suspicious red car pulling into the vacant lot again. They drove behind the trees where they wouldn't be seen on any of the station's security cameras. I really have to mention it to someone in a position of authority. I figured it was going to be another slow day. I started my cigarette count, we have to have the incoming and outgoing numbers to make sure nobody is stealing, as I was doing it some guy was hovering so I went over to the register to wait. When he started his second lap around the store I went back to doing my count and sure enough he practically ran over to the register to buy the first thing he had grabbed off the shelf. Every time. Then I got a line of people. I finally got to finish the count, in between customers, and then they all left. There is a glass display case at the front counter that locks up in case you want to sell high value items. The Manager uses it for storage of stuff she needs quick access to but ...

The plumber is coming to my house on Friday morning so I had to get my weekly lottery ticket early. I took a walk to the Haunted Station, the Weekend Guy was covering the morning shift. Boy was he in a bad mood. Stuff isn't working, stuff isn't being ordered, stuff isn't in the system. While I was standing there some guy wanted one of those air fresheners you hang off the rear view mirror. I use to make sure they were in stock because we sold a lot of them, and of course there weren't any. There is a new personal wipe you can hang up in your car and the Late Guy said it probably wasn't in the system, he even wanted to make a bet. I said that some had already been sold so it probably was, the Late Guy owes me a dollar.  I was mentioning the Specter of Beggars Past (see my last post) and he said the guy had come in to the Haunted Station too. He said he thought it was the guy who use to drive around town on the bicycles that had been joined together and he put a motor...

 I was getting ready for work when my toilet came loose. It's still attached to the sewer pipe but loose from the floor. I contacted the handyman and he's coming on Friday, my day off, but until then I have to be careful when I use it, so I went to work early to use the office toilet, I didn't clock in first, I did it on my own time. My first customer wanted to know if we had a hose, sorry. He bought a bottle of windshield washer fluid and bitched about the price. My attitude is the same, don't like it? Go to Walmart and don't complain at me. The first hour of my shift was non stop busy. I figured it would be like that for the rest of the day. And then the crowd dropped off to just pissers and lingerers. The Manager told me that Stinky is working at Arbys. She walked in, saw him back in the kitchen and walked out. I guess I'll be going somewhere else for a while. That guy had a stink that would linger, I can just imagine trying to eat something he's been nea...

 When I got to work all the diesel pumps were shut down. It seems the #12 pump started leaking and set off the leak detector in the system, which shut all the other pumps down. They had a call in to the repair guy and he said he'd be there in "2 hours". They called him at 10 AM and it was 2 PM and he wasn't there.  Meanwhile the pump on the ice maker has stopped working and the machine is slowly filling up with water. I don't know how this is going to end but I assume it won't be well. Mrs. Late Guy was telling me the Professional Mooch came by. He was ranting about me kicking him off the lot. He claimed the owners gave him permission to be there, lie. He said he was going to kick my *** so he'd better steer really wide from me now on because the last time I taught someone a painful lesson I swore I'd never do that again but in his case I'd make an exception. Mrs. Late Guy told him off and said I was only following the Boss's orders. I guess he...

Today the sky wasn't messing around, it was serious about raining so I left the Bad Hawg at home. Instead I loaded up all my household trash in the truck and drove to work, I dump it there because the raccoons in my neighborhood spread trash around the street if you don't throw it out a half hour before the truck shows up. And it rained on me while I was tossing everything in the dumpsters. Then it stopped. Pump number 3 decided to stop reading cards. I checked the receipts and it had been doing it all day, and half the night. I put a Pay Inside sign on it but I made sure I took it off a half hour before shift change. Let the other people deal with it plus the Boss would complain at me if he found out I did something on my own. Today was sloooow Moooootion Tag Teamers day. They came in one at a time, used the restroom, wandered around the store and as they left the next one would come in. Every time I went to do something here they would come again. A five minute job would take...

 I forgot to post this yesterday but when I was chatting with the Late Guy on Friday he told me about a bear situation. It seems that a bear broke into someone's house and was eating their food. The people called the Game And Fish but by the time the ranger got there the bear had taken off. They baited a trap in the area and caught it, they hauled it to a place about 40 miles away. Well this week it showed up again and broke into someone's garage and ate the contents of their fridge, and it turned out to be the Random Woman's garage. The bear was easy to catch because that is where she stores her edibles. The bear OD'd so they had to "put it down". The Random Woman is going to be on edge for a while since her "prescription" went into the bear.  The weather report said it was going to be clear so I got out the Bad Hawg and fired it up, it's an electric trike for those who haven't read my past posts. As the day went along the horizon got really...

 As I was heading to work the rain was coming, so I was rushing. First I had to wait for an RV that was sloooooly turning a corner. Then a guy was coming the other way with his turn signal on, but he wasn't in the turn lane. I sat there and waited until he actually turned, I flipped him off of course. And then it rained. At least I only had to run from my car to the door but none the less, if you're turning use the turn lane.  Bigfoot miscounted his drawer, again. He adds up the loose coins but doesn't include the rolled ones. Good thing I'm not a thief.  The Manager had taken the anti slip rug from under the soda machine and put it outside. Did I mention it was raining? The thing was soaked so I had to leave it outside for half the day. A guy was parked at the pump, not a customer, just sitting out there playing on his phone. I was going to go out and tell him to leave but I had too many customers in the building. When the place finally cleared out he was gone. Here...

 Remember when I said there was a strange tuna smell in the building and I couldn't find the source? It turns out the Boss put up a bag full of fly bait and that's where it was coming from. It got so strong that something had to be done, even the customers were complaining. So the bag is gone and the stink is gone. Those things are meant to be hung up inside barns or garages, not businesses.  The only time I like being in a soap opera is when I'm just in the background. Today is one of those days. When I walked in the Manager was on the phone with the Boss because nobody could get hold of the Late Guy. After she hung up I got the full story, she dropped a glass bottle in the walk in cooler and was trying to clean up when she heard someone shouting her name. When she went out Frankie the Cop was there, and he had questions. It seems that when the Boss was checking out the security cameras he spotted an RV parked behind the Haunted Station, and they were plugged into the buil...

 I woke to the sound of my phone ringing, since the Graveyard Shift Guy was loudly coughing last night I didn't want to answer it, could be the boss asking me to cover the graveyard shift tonight. It turned out to be my niece, her and the family will be in town next month and wanted to make sure they could stay here. The only problem will be the fridge, I now have a small one and there isn't room in it for stuff for 9 people. When I got to work the Manager was in a bad mood. A little of her normal Monday bad mood and a post vacation bad mood. I did my best to not say anything. For some reason she felt it necessary to clean the restroom despite both me and Mrs. Late Guy being there and it was slow. Oh well, I'm not going to complain, and I wasn't going to say anything to her either. I got the Manager's drawer and she was $10 short. She miscounted her five dollar bills. Again, not going to say a word. I just opened the door for $10 less than normal. The Handyman was a...

I started the day in the usual way, I wanted to do my opening paperwork but some guy wanted a pack of smokes but he didn't know which one, he finally went with the cheapest brand. Then he had to get his card to work on his phone. Meanwhile a line was forming behind him. Seriously people, you can turn on your card before you get to the counter. I counted in Bigfoot's drawer and he was $7 off. A crowd of people were coming in so I opened it at the proper amount and figured I could recount it after the shift change rush ended. Except everyone decided to pay cash and altered the amount in the drawer. I could try to do the math but when I finally took a second look I discovered he had forgotten to add in the rolled coins, dimes and nickels, which came to a total of...$7. Ha, I was right and he was wrong, and I'll never tell him. A storm was blowing in, literally. I was trying to keep an eye on the trash cans to make sure they or their lids didn't blow away, while waiting on ...

 It's Saturday which means I'm back to my normal schedule. After 24 hours of recovery I'm ready to face the day, but first I'm going to lay in bed for a little while longer and play Angry Birds. That's when my doorbell rang. I live in a small town so this is a pretty strange event, everyone comes to the back door. There have been wildfires in the area and I was hoping it wasn't the fire department telling me I had to clear out because one was burning in my direction. Instead it was the Late Guy, what could this be about? The Boss sent the Late Guy over to my house to pay me a bonus for working the extra shifts. $300 bucks!!!!!! I'm going out to breakfast! Oh wait, since I've been laying around instead of getting up and doing stuff I'm behind on the day and don't have the time. Perhaps I'll take myself out to eat on my day off. When the Boss asks I'm going to tell him the Late Guy gave me the full $100, and then laugh. There was a big hail...

 I had a dream that I was taking a bath, but was fully clothed, and the door to the restroom was open, and my family (parents and siblings) were all home. So I got out of the tub to close the door and then looked in the mirror, someone else was looking back at me. And the alarm went off. When I got to work I had to close out the day and wait for the report to run, and just as the printer was making the download sound a power spike hit. The computer started making all kinds of interesting sounds while various warnings blinked. Thankfully the register worked but the report didn't print. The Crazy Lady suggested closing the day again but I told her yesterday had already closed and all it would print was the one customer I had waited on this morning. I don't know the system so I didn't know how to get it to reprint. Oh well, Skippy will have to take care of it later. Later when he showed up he couldn't get it to print either and had to take a screen shot. On Friday when Mrs...

 Hell Week Redux Day 5, and make it a double. Whatever was burning last night must have been stomped down fast because the air is clear this morning, at 5 AM.  Later I found out that it had been a shift in the wind and the fire was still burning strong on the Colorado side of the mountain. If it shifted to the west it would shut down the interstate and that would cause traffic chaos The first time I got stuck going back to the Truck Stop the Crazy Lady would mumbly, very loudly, under her breath that I was taking too long to finish my paperwork and was just "milking the clock". My attitude was "bite me, I'll take as long as necessary". Today she spent a half hour cleaning the restrooms, something she could have done for the eight hours she was on her normal shift. No wonder she's on the short list to get fired. They had said they weren't going to put in an order this week so I wasn't going to have to deal with the supply truck, however the last order...