ridin' dirty

so much going on. but when isn't there?

i've started cracking down on the staff at work. better late than never, i suppose. stuff that i've let slide lately (tardiness, for example) is now On My List. it's been a rough couple of weeks with all the enforcing of various policies and procedures, but i feel it's for the best. what's pissing me off now: one of my employees asked me on friday if he could switch his tuesday schedule for a monday schedule with another employee. as long as there is coverage, i'm usually not picky on who works. so i told him no problem, as long as he let me or the store manager know by sunday. so when the employee he wanted to switch with showed up on monday, i asked her why they didn't switch. mind you, i never heard from him whether he was going to switch or not. she said he never asked her. end of story, right? nyet. apparently said employee calls the store monday night after i went home to let whoever was working know at the time that he wasn't coming in the next day. mind you, no one working monday night was going to be working tuesday morning, and the manager on duty had already gone home. so imagine my surprise when i wake up tuesday morning to a phone call from the manager, who was scheduled to be off, saying something about how the employee didn't come in and we were short-staffed, so he decided to come in and work and cover the jackass employee. good on him, but he's always good like that. bad on the employee. so when said employee came in to pick up his check on payday today, i had a nice little chat with him about how he effed up. his claim? that he let me know he wasn't coming in. so i asked why he felt the need to call in monday night anyway. his response? he didn't want to call me too late on my cell phone. mind you, this is the same employee that hasn't had a problem calling me at all hours on my cell before. he did this kind-of wavering back and forth before he admitted he messed up. THEN he asks what the status of his request for a day off this coming saturday was. i heard it through the very active grapevine that he wanted saturday off, but he never let me know himself. i told him as much, and said if he could find someone to cover his shift it'd be fine. he's burned a lot of bridges with other staff members, so i won't lie and say i didn't get any pleasure out of seeing him beg the most senior staff member to cover his shift. this guy has gone from being my favorite staff member to pretty much the bottom of the barrel.

i know i haven't mentioned it but i got a new car. well, new to me. when my grandmother passed away two years ago, my sister got my grandmother's car and i got some much-needed cash. fair deal. so i sold my sister's car on craigslist. it was an ordeal, one that i wasn't looking to repeat any time soon. when my mother got a new car last year, i was assigned the task of selling her old car on craigslist. that was much less of a headache but still not easy. so when my sister's boyfriend, john, got a new truck, he gave her his jeep cherokee, thus leaving my grandmother's old car with no one to drive it. as i had been looking for a new car this was the perfect opportunity to save some money and keep the car in the family. which meant i needed to sell my car, a 1997 jetta. i've been driving around my grandmother's sister's my honda for a couple of months and had been putting off selling the jetta. because, let's face it -- selling a car is No Fun, and selling one on craigslist with all the flakes can be pretty bad. so over the weekend i picked up the jetta from my parent's house, where it had been sitting for the last new months and took it to get a smog check (to register the car, and it's also a requirement for selling a vehicle of this age) and washed and purdied up so i could take pics and put it on good ol' craigslist. long story short (too late) -- i listed it last night and secured two separate buyers this morning. because i've had bad luck with craigslist flakes, i wanted to make sure that if the first person flaked i could show it to a second on the same day. yeah. it bit me in the ass. i had a woman and her daughter and a father and his daughter arguing over who emailed me first and who had a right to the car in my cul-de-sac. the woman won out, because she really was the first person so contact me but the guy was PISSED. i truly felt bad, but you really never know how many people are going to show up and kick tires and throw out some ridiculous low-ball offer. the good news is that i got my full asking price, no questions asked. and deservedly so -- 77,000 miles on a 10 year-old car in excellent condition. and i just had it detailed, too! so. less than 24 hours after it was listed, the jetta was sold. i can't say i'm not a little sad to see it go, it's served me well over the last 10 (!) years. it was my first (and only) brand-new car and i'm sad to see it go.



(if you followed either of these disjointed stories, congratulations!)