Soaring Ahead

Insomnia

homeschoolzoo — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 00:37:42 +0000

As with most women my age, I often have trouble sleeping at night. My blood pressure medicine actually helps me sleep by making me drowsy, but after about three hours, I wake up again and have a hard time returning to sleep. Other post-menopausal women I’ve talked to seem to have the same problem.

The mattress on my bed is comfortable enough. In fact, even though I bought the bed, frame, foundations, headboard, and footboards at a yard sale, the mattress and springs were actually brand new. Still, I might need something else that will help me stay asleep at night. I’d like to try out a sleep number bed for a couple of weeks and see if that makes any difference. If you’ve got any experience with this, let me know what you think.

Glorious spring day

homeschoolzoo — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 00:33:10 +0000

For once, I had a day off where it didn’t rain all day. It seems like the past few weeks, my days off have been rainy, sleeting, cold, or otherwise just plain miserable. This makes it impossible to get outside very much. Today, though, was gloriously sunny and warm.

I don’t have my gardening supplies yet but I still got in a nice stroll around the yard, figuring out just where I want raised beds for veggies and spots for clusters of flowers. I’m hoping to have enough left over from my paycheck to at least get a few gardening supplies this week.

First thing tomorrow morning, I’ll go see about picking up my wayward check, go to the bank, and do the things that need doing with the money. I work tomorrow night, so I won’t really have time to start digging in the dirt yet. That will have to wait for another day off.

Documentation

homeschoolzoo — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 18:35:48 +0000

Maybe by Monday I can get my bank account back on an even keel, but that still won’t fix the fundamental problem with what goes on at the main office. That problem is: they can’t seem to get their heads together enough to follow through on their tasks.

This isn’t the first time someone’s pay has been mis-directed. Along with that, when you send in supplies lists, they don’t always fill them as they should or they send your stuff to the wrong store! I’m beginning to think I need a camera and compact flash to photograph documents so that I can wave a picture around in front of them and say, “See? This is what I needed!”

Where’s the money?

homeschoolzoo — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 18:28:20 +0000

This is just great. My paycheck wasn’t at my new store location on payday and it’s also not at my old store location. This means it is probably still at the office, on someone’s desk. I talked to my old supervisor then to the director of operations. The DO said my check was probably on a desk right next to his…in another person’s office that he doesn’t have a key to!

I am not happy about this. I needed that money in the bank so I could pay my bills on time. Now it will be at least Monday before I can get it and deposit it, throwing at least one bill late. I’m like everyone else - I live paycheck to paycheck right now.

All this will ease up in the next couple of months. My rent in the “new” house is just about half what it was in the old house, so I’ll start feeling a little financial relief when everything gets evened out. But for now, where’s the money??

Employers really shouldn’t mess around with people’s pay. It’s just not the right thing to do. Their employees depend on the paychecks being handed out in a timely manner.

Safety is a factor

homeschoolzoo — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 17:58:51 +0000

Sometimes it’s hard to get employees to use proper procedures at work. Procedures which have proven to be profitable and safe. It’s my job to teach them and help them understand how critical these procedures can be and how to properly utilize the safety equipment we have in place. Equipment such as the heavy, heat proof gloves and face shield that are used when filtering hot oil, or the pyrometer that’s used to test food temperatures to make sure they’re at the proper and safe levels.

Some employees think they’re in some tough-guy contest and don’t want to be burdened with the equipment. Tough guy or not, third degree burns are entirely possible when dealing with hot, fryer oil! And food safety is definitely an issue since we don’t want any of our patrons to wind up with a food-borne illness!

I’m going to see if there are any videos available that will bring home the importance of using the right equipment for every purpose.

Return to normalcy

homeschoolzoo — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 17:52:08 +0000

Today is a quiet day at home for me. It’s my day off and for the first time in 8 months, I can really know that a day off means I won’t have to worry about being called into work to put out fires or settle some drama, and I won’t be called in to attend meetings. ::sigh:: It feels good to know I can just do my laundry, clean the house, fix a meal, and not be interrupted or rushed.

This really gives me great hope about being able to have a small garden once again, do some crafts, blog, and engage in other activities that I’ve really been missing. I think I forgot how normal life can really be very refreshing!

So, I’m doing laundry today and hanging out the clothes. They will smell glorious when I bring them in. My bed sheets and comforter will smell like the fresh air and I’ll be able to fall soundly asleep nestled in them tonight.

I think that after a few weeks, I’ll really start feeling like my old self again instead of some madly driven store manager who has no life outside of work.

Small spaces

homeschoolzoo — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 01:37:19 +0000

In our crew room at work, there is a computer that’s used for some of the training. I think they’ve moved that setup everywhere in the small room to find a good corner that’s out of the way. The problem, as I see it, is that the table it’s on is really too big for the purpose. I suggested looking at tv stands to see if there was something that could be put into a corner and take up less space while still holding the computer, monitor and printer. So far, my suggestion has fallen on deaf ears.

The way it is now, crew members who go on break have to be crowded around another table in the room. There’s already a small filing cabinet in there and a rack for hanging coats. Plus, the table they use for meals has some other junk piled on it that probably could be either tossed out or at least organized to fit into the filing cabinet. Maybe I’ll see about taking on that task myself.

All day meeting

homeschoolzoo — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 01:22:30 +0000

I had a pretty interesting day today. I was scheduled to work at the restaurant but got a message last night that I’d be attending an all-day meeting in another city. I also learned I’d be the chauffeur for three other managers from my store who were also attending.

We met at our restaurant at around 7:30. There was a heavy fog which didn’t help our travel time at all, and on top of that there were a couple of wrecks on the interstate that held up traffic for quite some time. It took us over an our to go 20 miles! This threw us late getting into the other city.

One of the fellows with me was my navigator and reading the directions to the meeting site to me. Well, next time it’ll be someone else because this guy left off some important information about a turn and we wound up far away from the place where the meeting was being held. By the time we got there, we were 45 minutes late!

The meeting gathered about 200 or so store managers to give us tips about how to be more effective in several areas at the store. Everything was kept pretty light and fun, so the day passed quickly and we were on the road home again by around 3 PM.

Working world

homeschoolzoo — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 03:51:59 +0000

I’m still waiting for the store manager to acquire my new uniforms and get me logged into the system at work. I have a few old uniforms but they aren’t the same style as the new ones so I look a little out of place. It’s not as if I had to wear heels and pearl necklaces at work, but I’d still like to look like the rest of the managers instead of looking like a visitor.

Maybe by the end of the week I will have everything I need and it will all be worked out like it’s supposed to be. In the meantime, I’ll just continue as I did today.

I did have a good first day and was able to spot a few procedural errors crew members were making. I taught them correct procedures and will back that up with more coaching as the days go by. I think teaching is my favorite part of my job as a manager.

First day at old new job

homeschoolzoo — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 23:14:51 +0000

I don’t know what I was thinking. I originally set my alarm for 4 AM, but then reconsidered and set it for 5 AM. See, I didn’t have to be at work until 6 and it’s only a 15 minute drive. When I was working in the other town, it took me nearly 1.5 hours to drive there, so I guess I thought it would be the same this morning.

Anyway, I’m glad I changed the alarm setting to a later hour. I got to work in plenty of time and didn’t feel the least bit rushed, either. It was busy at work, but nothing stressful. I handled everything OK. There were enough crew members on hand that I didn’t feel like we were getting swamped at any time. It all went pretty smoothly.

I still don’t have all my passcodes for work so I have to use someone else’s for now. Maybe in a few days all that will be taken care of so that I don’t have to run get another manager for special register functions.

There were some new-to-me people working there, but there were also quite a few familiar faces so it felt like I was going home again. I was warmly welcomed by all who knew me, and that made me feel pretty good all day long.