Barker’s Barkings.

Current mood: Exhausted.

Yep. Today was my first 7:00 AM wake up since high school.

Why did I wake up at 7:00 AM?

Simple.. work.

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The day, as it went today:

7:00 - 8:00 AM: Get ready for work, (shower, shave, get dressed, gel the hair, et cetera)..

8:15 AM: Hop on the 15B Transpo bus, crank the Mp3 player’s headphones to near max level (today’s choice was A-Ha’s How Can I Sleep With Your Voice in My Head) (which by the way, in my humble opinion is the greatest live album ever) to avoid the Transpo Crazies™.

8:35ish AM: Get to Town and Country Shopping Center, aka ‘where work is.’

8:40ish AM: Receive cell phone call from the wonderful girlfriend telling me “Good Morning”, and talk to her until 8:50ish AM, for then she had her dentist appointment (mainly standing around outside, some sitting in the BMV to stay warm)..

8:55 AM: Stand outside waiting for Vince (the manager), to arrive.

9:02ish AM: Vince arrives, unlocks doors, turns off the store’s alarm and we get ready for the days sales.

All went well until about one thirtyish.

We had a Chinese lady in, who had a cell phone, (a Motorola Razr, black) that was in 100% Chinese, my manager got it working for her, so she disappeared for about an half-hour… then she came back. Unfortunately for me, that left my assistant manager (who was already extremely busy with another patron), and myself to deal with Miss Chinese.

Where was Vince you ask?

Simple, at a PTA conference.

His daughter is getting a new teacher so he had to meet the new person.

Let me explain why this was a pain: This girl had very limited English skills, only knew how to tell me her phone wasn’t working, and she wanted it to be fixed. Alas, it’s pretty hard to neuter a mobile phone, but my joke falls short. I was on hold with Cingular’s (surprisingly phenomenally good) tech-support, for about an hour to two hours.

Why? Because, need I remind you, the phone was in Chinese. She couldn’t remember when she bought it, where she bought it, or when her plan was supposably up. What does this mean for me? I get ping-ponged around with Cingular who’s trying to guide me step by step, by step, how to do a hard reset on the phone so that all of it’s little settings will revert back to normal (aka English). They guided me by icons on the phone because I can’t understand Chinese.. however unfortunately for me, when I got near the end of the hard reset procedure.. it lead to another section of the phone, hence causing more problems for both myself and the Cingular technical support person on the other side of the phone.

So finally, I said “I hate to do this, but I’m going to send them to the Cingular store down the road, and see if they can put a new Sim card in the mobile to hard reset it back into English.” I honestly don’t know why this didn’t occur to me earlier, but the technical support person said that it was probably the best idea we both could of come up with. So cut to ten minutes to fifteen minutes later, here I am, printing off instructions for the lady (in English) how to get to the Cingular store from my humble Radioshack. (Thank you Google Maps!)

After about ten to fifteen minutes later… she was finally on her way.

Joy of joys for me during the holiday season, at my brand new job… fun eh?

The Cingular store, never called, so I guess the note I wrote them was clear enough.

Today, I worked from 9:00 AM to 4:15 PMish so you can see why I’ve decided on the exhausted emoticon for tonight’s blog.

I got home called my parents about tonight’s plans, and we’re about to have a sort of early Christmas and Christmas dinner with my grand-mother. Cheese pasta dinner, with salad, and bread.. here I come.

Everyone have a great night!

-A.

Current Mood: Happy.

Sorry about the lack of updates lately folks, but I’ve been sort of busy.

First of all, I’ve got myself a new job. I quit Hollywood Video because quite frankly the job wasn’t everything I thought it would be. By that, I mean the fact that after my manager left because she adopted a kid, the entire environment changed for the worse, and the people began treating me just like I was a seasonal associate with no potential to move on up to a “full time associate”. So because of this, I just decided to say screw it, and look for a new job.

I thought I’d try with CVS, but unfortunately for me, despite my rabid call backs every week, to find out if they were hiring, they kept mucking around and kept telling me “We haven’t gotten the news we can hire yet.” After about three weeks of being jobless (and trying to apply all over, (and at places like Lowe’s, because my Dad wanted me to work there), I called Radioshack on a whim one day looking for a couple of wires I needed to hook my Wii up to my computer’s LCD screen, and I over-heard the manager (Vince) when he said he was “all alone”, when he asked me if I could hold. I almost instinctively rushed to Radioshack’s website, and filled out an application.

While working on the first part of the application, Vince told me he had the cables I needed for my desired hookup. Anyway, shortly after I hung up the phone with Vince, I finished the first part of the application, and got started on the second part. During working on the second part, Vince called me back (and I may mention, he recognized my voice from when I was looking for the cables), to tell me about the second part. Since I was already working on the second part, I sort of cut him off and told him I was working on the second part already, and he thought it was fantastic.

So, when I finished the second part, I called the store back, unfortuantely, he was too busy to answer the phone, but the associate who answered the phone was the assistant manager (I didn’t know this at the time), but she asked if she could take a message. I almost said yes, but instead I said “Don’t worry about it..” and called Kurt.

I asked Kurt if he could take me out to Radioshack to pick up the cables I needed, and so that I could talk to the manager. After about 10-15 minutes of trying to convince him, he finally came on his way, and we went out to the Radioshack I’d applied at. We got there and I was quite dressed up, I thought I’d wait around for Vince,.. about four minutes later, Vince walked up to the register and didn’t have a customer. I introduced myself and he asked me if I could wait a few seconds. I said sure. Needless to say after about two minutes, he asked me if I could come into the back. I said “Okay.” We walked into the back, and he gave me an interview on the spot. After the interview, he had me fill out all my paperwork. I was hired before I knew what I was doing.

Six fifty an hour, plus commissions.

It’s a fun job too. I started two days ago, and the first day, we were so slow that Vince and I, for the first hour, raced RC Cars around the parking lot like area, and played with one of the little RC Helicopters we’ve got in the store. I’m going to like working there a lot more than I did at Hollywood Video.

They kept me busy yesterday by price checking labels on the shelf with the computers new Holiday Price Checklist. I did that pretty much all day.

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Second, as for what’s new, Brandy and I are still together. (I’d hope so as I’m on the phone with her as I type this)..and she got me an extremely awesome Christmas gift. A pay-as-you-go cell phone.

I’m in love with the thing. As soon as I can, I’ll be upgrading it to one that allows custom ring tones and stuff, but I think it’s an amazing phone for my starter mobile.

I’m also nuts about Brandy, and I know she knows it, because she feels the same way.

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Coming up soon, the 21st through the 27th, I’ll be leaving and everyone will be getting Vacation Ramblings again, because I’ll be in San Fransisco. I’m spending Christmas with my brother because he’s too busy to fly home for the holiday (if you remember, thats why I quit EB.)..

I just thought everyone would like an update.

-Andrew.