Archive for March, 2005
March 17, 2005 at 12:02 pm · Filed under Work
Alright, normally I wouldn’t blog twice in a single day, but I just remembered something funny and thought that I’d share.I used to work at the Save-On on 9th and Jasper here in Edmonton. I worked in the produce department. It was a pretty crappy job, but I was a pretty crappy employee. I suppose the only real reason that I worked there for 2 years is that I worked with some truly hilarious people.
Anyhow, my blog about the poor incompetent Subway worker reminded me of 2 guys I used to work with at Save-On, Tim and Dion. Two of the least smart people I’ve ever met, let alone worked with.
First Tim. He was tall (almost as tall as me) and quite…. lithe? He was slim and kinda feminine. I think lithe sums that up, but man have I ever been wrong in the past. Tim always wore his shirts open 2 buttons too far and all of his shirts had wide lapels. He also had a fine coiffure of hair that was parted to the side and almost Conan O’Brien like in its volume. One day my buddy Blair came up to me and said “don’t you think Tim looks like a Russian figure skater?” He did.
Tim was retarded, and prone to faking injuries so he could go home early. He was also completely incapable of doing the most simple of tasks, even if you told him exactly what had to be done. One day when he stopped showing up for work, nobody really cared.
Then, like 2 weeks later, his Mom phoned to say that Tim was sick and that he wouldn’t be in to work today. Jay, one of the managers who would require a blog all his own to detail how hilarious he is, was the one who answered the call. Jay is about 30 and still living the punk rock life. As such, he is incredibly blunt and has little patience for stupid people. He HATED Tim. So he said “Tim hasn’t shown up for a shift for 2 weeks. I don’t care if he’s sick because he doesn’t work here any more.”
Then Tim’s mom started to cry.
Now I know you probably don’t think this is overly funny, but man did I laugh. Not only was Tim completely incompetent, but his Mom knows it and this isn’t the first she’s heard of it. Ouch.
Dion. Dion was odd. One time we were short staffed and Dion was supposed to come in at 4. At about 12 I called him and said “Dion, can you come in early today and work a full 8 hours? We’re really short staffed”. He said “sure” (which was 90% of what I ever heard him say).
At 4:30 Dion showed up. I went up to him and said “Dion, how come you’re so late, where have you been?”.
Honest to God he said “I don’t know”
WHAT? You don’t know? What sort of life do you lead that you can easily lose track of 4 hours of your life and have no recollection of the events leading up to your current whereabouts. The really funny part was that he considered this an appropriate response and walked away. I let him go because, frankly I believed him that there was a good probability that he did not remember.
Another time, Jay asked Dion to “go clean up in the warehouse” which was where we stored all of the fruit in the back. It was cleaned almost every night. Dion said “sure”. It is important to understand that often Dion would work early ‘warehousing’ the orders in said warehouse. Also, he had been with Save-on over a year at this point.
10 minutes later Dion returned and asked “uhh, Jay, uhh, where’s the warehouse again?”
Incredible. This gives me the wonderful mental image of Dion, standing in the warehouse, looking around at all of the boxes for 10 minutes trying to decipher the riddle as to what exactly a warehouse is and how one would go about cleaning it.
These stories make me feel good. One, because they’re funny, and two, because they remind me that I’m not Tim nor Dion. Aahhhh
March 17, 2005 at 8:00 am · Filed under General
I went out for dinner with Ali last night. At first we went to the Olive Garden because I wanted to rape them on their free salad and breaksticks deal. I can eat a ridiculous amount of breaksticks and salad. I’m pretty sure they’re paying me by the end of the meal. Sadly, there was a 45 minute wait, and frankly, the Olive Garden isn’t really worth waiting for. Luckily, Ali was all wacky with hunger so I was able to convince her that The Keg would be a better choice. HaZaa! Let me tell you something. There is absolutely, positively nothing better than steak. Well, in the food realm at any rate. I suppose if given the choice between sex and steak there wouldn’t be much deliberation… unless I was really really hungry. I suppose I could always try the Costanza and combine my love of ‘makin love’ with my love of food, but steak might be a bad choice. What will all of the sharp utensils involved and my relative clumsiness.
What was I going talk about here? I came into this ole blog with a purpose, but it got lost amidst the gutter talk and thoughts of Ali. Damn her hotness. Wait… don’t damn her hotness, I’m actually a pretty big fan of it.
Oh yeah, I was going to make fun of hippies. I don’t really dislike hippies. I’m actually friends with some of them. Here’s what I hate though, hippies who don’t know that I don’t care what they think.
Hippie: Hey man, you know, that was a living thing. How can you destroy one of God’s beautiful creatures?
Okay, first and foremost. I’m pretty sure Jesus ate meat. If you believe that Jesus was the son of God, and as such he never sinned, you can infer that God made meat for the eatin’. That’s why we have sharp teeth in the front. To tear into meat. That’s why our bodies are designed to digest meat. Also, God used to be a HUGE fan of animal sacrifice. He doesn’t seem to be all about it these days, but I’ll tell you what, you cannot read a page of the old Testament without finding at least one dead lamb.
Furthermore, meat is yummy. Vegetarians are fond of saying that it’s unhealthy to eat meat, but have you ever taken a good look at a vegetarian? They’re all sunken and weak and pale. Every one of them. I’ll tell you something right now, cows are vegetarians. That’s why we’re able to outsmart them and eat their delicious meat, they lack the energy to put up a fight. Also, cows have like four stomachs so that they can process complex starches and so on. Thus they are able to gain enough nutrients to survive. Last time I checked, I only have one stomach, and frankly it does a pretty crappy job of digesting vegetables.
Long story short: Hippies = bad, meat = good.
I hope this helps. Remind me to tell you why PETA is the damn dumbest of all the hippies some day. For now, I have to work.
March 16, 2005 at 3:47 pm · Filed under General
Ten Reasons why snow in March is worse than malaria:
- I’d take the sweats over being cold any day
- You can only get malaria once, while I get snow every damn march
- Malaria holds the promise of death
- If you take pills you can avoid malaria
- I could use some time relaxing in bed
- hallucinations are fun
- A high fever is a great way to sweat off some unwanted winter poundage
- If I have malaria I’m somewhere tropical
- Mosquito bites hurt less than frost bite
- There hasn’t been nearly enough blood in my urine lately.
I don’t know why that 10 is black. I also admit that it’s hard to come up with 10 reasons, so that last on is pretty weak
March 16, 2005 at 8:14 am · Filed under General
Whew. I’ve been busy lately, and such have had no prime bloggin’ time. Things have not changed. I just need 10 mins to gain my bearings and this seems like a wonderful little distraction.Okay, time to admit one of my biggest secrets. I watch American Idol all the time. It’s on like 40 times a week or something like that, so it’s not hard to find. I just love to make fun of all those fools. Also, some of them are real good like. I’ve never bought an album, and I really dislike Clay Aiken, but I watch nonetheless.
Anyhow, right now there’s this dude on named Constantine. I hate that dude soo much. He’s like Scott Stapp of Creed, but less cool and cheesier. Plus, I can sing better than him. No one less talented than me belongs on TV and I’ll stand by that until the day I die. I don’t know what the hell is wrong with America, because they keep voting for him. I feel like I’m takin’ crazy pills here man!
Long story short, I prefer porky pig to Scott Stapp. If you watch the show, you’ll totally know what I’m talking about. If not, hopefully you’ll be intrigued as to whether porky pig is a boy or a girl. Then you’ll watch the damn show once and never be able to turn away again. I personally think it must be Ryan Seacrest. He’s dreamy.
Didn’t there used to be two hosts? What happened to the other dude? I just thought of that. His name was almost Dumbledore, like the dude from Harry Potter books. Hmm. Odd.
March 14, 2005 at 2:23 pm · Filed under General
Okay, today K-Rock played ‘Until it Sleeps’ by Metallica. I was all like “hey dudes, I hate to burst your bubble there, but that song isn’t classic rock. It’s only like…. 10 years old.”Uh oh, this could spell trouble for our intrepid explorer. It’s a bitter realization indeed when you discover that a song you loved when you were a teenager came out 10 years ago. 1995 doesn’t seems like it was back in the past, I can still remember much of it quite clearly in fact. What happened?
Here’s the deal. Music my dad listened to when he was a teenager. Now that’s classic rock. Or classic crap as my Dad has notoriously bad taste in music. Music my older brother listened to in High School. I hear that on K-Rock all the time, but it didn’t bother me, because it was music my older brother listened to. Music I listened to? Unacceptable. You see, K-Rock plays crotchety old rock tunes for crotchety old men. As I am still young and virile and living in the prime of my life, the music that I loved as a teen should still be on it’s way out of the top 40. Not on klassic rawk stations. Right? Right?
Crap.
March 13, 2005 at 3:39 pm · Filed under General
So I went for lunch at Subway today. Why? Because I like sandwiches and I’m too lazy to make one. I always go to the same Subway because the guy who works there always hooks me up and makes a mean sandwich. He’s almost always working, so I almost always get the good deal. He wasn’t working today.
In his place was ‘Christine’. That’s her real name according to her name tag. I got the impression that things weren’t going to go well when she couldn’t figure out how the punch in the order for the guy in line ahead of me. I knew things were going to be bad when she walked out from behind the counter and started to pick up some trash before swiping the guys debit card. The guy looked at me with his ‘what the hell?’ face and I responded with my ‘I couldn’t tell ya’ shrug. She came back, figured out the debit machine and he was on his way.
I’m now at bat. I say “can I please get a footlong turkey breast on italian herbs and cheese?”. I’m always polite to people who can spit in things I eat. She opens up that little plastic bread container and looks inside. There are 2 pieces of bread in there. From through the lid and over the sneeze guard I can instantly tell there isn’t any of the bread I want. She continues to look for at least 30 seconds. It doesn’t sound like long, but look at a piece of bread for 30 seconds and then tell me it isn’t.
She goes to the warmer type area and starts hauling out trays. First, you can see what type of bread is in there without looking in the tray. Second, by process of elimination you can instantly rule out all whole wheat breads, and breads without cheese. This search should take about 5 seconds. A solid minute later she says “we don’t have any, I’d make some but it’s crazy busy”. I look around. I’m completely alone and it’s 2pm on a Sunday.
I switch to honey oat because I noticed that it was one of the two types left in the plastic container and my patience is reaching it’s outer limits. She grabs it, cuts it and heads right to the veggies. I say “Turkey Breast please.” She comes back and adds meat to my sandwich. Then she counts the slices. Then she takes one off. The she rearranges them. This process is repeated for the cheese. Really. She once again added cheese, counted it, then removed a slice and rearranged. O…. kay…..
I usually group veggies in two’s. As in ‘lettuce and onion’. I try this. I get lettuce, then a blank stare. “Onion please”. I alter my strategy and begin to list off veggies on at a time. She adapts her previous method of adding and removing and begins a new trick which consists of staring at my sandwich for uncomfortable length of time midway through adding a veggie. To her credit adding sauce goes without much drama.
When she cut my sub I was certain that she was going to lose a finger due to her placing the knife between her middle and index finger and using them to clamp the knife in place. Yikes. The she wraps, fails and rewraps (a minor failure, but acceptable to her) my sub in paper. Of course paying was painful, but at least she didn’t leave me in the lurch halfway through.
Now I’m pretty sure she wasn’t handicapped. She spoke normally and looked normal (although short and stumpy). I’m forced to assume that she was completely incompetent. I mean, it’s not a difficult job. I’d argue that there aren’t many jobs that are less mentally taxing. You just put stuff on bread and people tell you exactly what stuff they want put on. She wasn’t new as I’ve seen her there before.
It made me feel sad at the end of the day. What kind of life can you make for yourself if “can I have some cucumber?” is a tough question. I’ve worked retail, and I hated my job, but at least I did a competent job of it. Sure I only did the bare minimum, but at least I did that.
Yikes.
March 11, 2005 at 12:14 pm · Filed under Work
So I run a company on the side of my actual job. I just take some contract work and whatever else happens to come my way. It’s a nice way to make some extra cash. Recently though, I’ve learned some interesting things.First, your business can write off more than it makes for the first three years. What? Awesome. While the source for this info is somewhat sketchy, it’s definitely worth looking into. If that is the case you can bet your ass I’ll be running it at a deficit for at least 3 years. Money in for work, money out for stuff. I’m actually going to attempt to write off pretty much everything I do. Lunch out? I’ll invite a friend and ask them if they need a new website. New computers? Oh yeah. Books? Sure thing. Hell, I think I’m even going to set up a ‘home office’ in the new house just so that I can write off some of the mortgage.
I pretty much only started the business to avoid those pressing tax avoision charges, but now I’m really starting to see some money making potential. I wonder exactly how far I can stretch the bounds of writing stuff off.
It’s almost like being a kid again, where you save your money and your parents match what you save. I’ve taken my parents to school with that for years. Just look at all of my guitars, amps, remote control cars and other crap. Now I can continue with my cheating ways, but this time the government is going to pony up half. Kick ass.
I wonder what happens if I try to write off more than I made….. do I pay negative taxes? Somehow I think not, but the idea of no taxes sounds enticing. I need an accountant stat. Best of all I can probably write off his services. Eh! If you’re reading this and you’re an accountant post a comment telling me how to save more money. I’m pretty lazy so if someone just tells me what to do I think that would be for the best.
March 10, 2005 at 11:42 am · Filed under General
I finally got some good sleep last night. I think it was the best thing ever. I’m not certain, but I don’t think too many experiences in my life can equal the joy that good sleep brings. Swimming at the great barrier reef? It was pretty cool, but it was no 8 hours of uninterupted sleep. My buddy Mr. Humble brought up the good point that wives are to blame for all of this. Back when I was young and free I hardly slept at all, unless I was supposed to be in class. Then I would often have a nap.It’s day two of Operation No Wife. Things are quiet on the Keith front, but we’re expecting some increased activity towards the weekend. I have a pretty major deadline for a client I’m doing some contract work for next Monday, and true to form I’m putting it off for as long as is humanly possible. That would line this weekend up to be one last desperate effort to get something cool together for our meeting. Eh! I don’t know why I do this to myself. It would seem that at any given time Halo 2 can make a fairly strong argument for becoming a priority.
From the beginning Operation No Wife has be plauged with free time. I’m not sure how to fill all of this free time (as working wouldn’t make any sense at all) . I think that being married is a pretty full time job, so now that I don’t have to take care of being married I have at least 4 more hours of free time every day. I have no idea what to do with this time. Last night it turned into play some guitar, get up, check to see if we have and food in the cupboard. Realize that the cupboard hasn’t changed in the last 20 mins. Pour a glass of water, go play some Halo. Repeat. While this would seem ideal, it lacks fullfillment. I think tonight I might mix in some good cry time. Then again, maybe not.
I think a better plan would be to fill the cupboard with an exotic array of snack food. That ought to liven things up. Or perhaps I could venture into the realm of public contact. That seems scary and new though, so we’ll have to see.
March 9, 2005 at 12:07 pm · Filed under Work
Have you ever had someone ask you to do something, you do it, then they say “no, not like that, it needs to be more…. I don’t know. I want it to (insert nonsense word here ie. pop)”.First. That doesn’t help.
Second. Could you please be more vague, because I almost have a clue as to what you could possibly be refering to, assuming certain variables. I’d hate for you to be helpful, descriptive or, dare I say, productive?
This has happened to me like 6 times today. Then I was told “I can’t come up with all of the ideas. I really need you to do something to wow me”.
I’ll get right on that. Let’s see….. open photoshop…… filters/render/wow. Oh yeah. That’s the way. I don’t know why I didn’t think of that.
March 9, 2005 at 10:40 am · Filed under General
Ugh,No sleep. I need sleep. Sleeeeep. Sleeeeeeeep. I had to drive Mrs Ironkeith to work last night so that I could pick her up and drive her to the airport before I go to work. First of all, what? Airport? No wife for a week? I don’t like this. Maybe single guys and dudes who have been married for a long time are cool without their wives, but I’m not. I’m whiny and lonely. I’ve grown accustomed to having her around all of the time and her being in Kingston just doesn’t cut it.
Second. I need sleep. Last night I did manage about 4 hours which I had previously stated as being primetime for the high highs and low lows. Today I’m all lows. No sleep. No time to write. Too sleepy. I need to sleep. Ugh
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