Some quiet at work for now…

I wanted to write a brief post about Peg. I found out recently that she was no longer with the company. What did her in was her attendance as I learned that she called out one final time and that was it. She had already been on a final warning and since we record tardies and absences with points she arrived at her final point. It’s not something I will take very lightly and lackadaisically because it happened to me under different circumstances, however, her time with our team was rife with drama. And she only lasted just about two months with us…

Peg I would often dub a “Ms. Know-it-all” as she came in all hot earlier this summer. I won’t say she isn’t good at her job, but as it turns out she’s one of those workers who’ll give everyone a headache. Even worse at least for me she comes around with this confrontational attitude with very little flexibility towards whoever she worked with. I ran afoul of this once and told mgmt about it, however, little did I know her time was short. She came in and burned some bridges for sure with a lot of people.

Even I had to sigh of relief on those days when she’s off because it meant quiet. She will make her presence known, and often what she says gives you a WTF feeling. One day I had to joke when she walked back to the floor she joked “I can’t work in such an environment”. Then I said behind her back and unknown to her “She just told the truth about herself” to which one of the supervisors laughed at this statement. Of course what this referenced is a probably “hostile work environment situation”.

Well a very short time after this, a matter of a week or two she’s gone. Her behavior towards me and some other members of her time probably didn’t help her cause. It’s OK to come in with some ideas, but one of the many things that cause me to bristle with other people at work is their ability to take charge. They take charge but won’t go for the real responsibilities. As even I had to learn it’s one thing to think you can tell people what to do, it’s absolutely another when you get the real pressure on you. How long until your bosses realize you can’t handle the heat coming at you?

Missy returns?

All the same I view Peg in somewhat the same view as the “one-off foe“. There was a time she came in hot and there was a possibility (and I do believe she sought it) that she could become the next supervisor at The Show. And this foe, went further with me than even Peg tried (“I better not see on you on Roosevelt Rd” the foe once said). At the end of the day while one put in her notice and the other got her pink slip both never got what they wanted.

The foe never got promoted not even close and some devastating rumors came along in her wake. As far as Peg I don’t really know what she wanted although she wanted us to believe she was all that and a bag of chips. She actually had gotten hired at another store but with the excuse of “store not making sales” they sent her to us. As per hearsay she did come around and say they got rid of her as one of their best workers, however, thanks to her behavior we quickly realized possibly why they sent her away!

I sort of feel bad for her I under-estimated her age and thought she was mid-20s as someone stated she was in her early 30s. Also she does indicate she has children so this is another reason why I won’t gloat over this. I could feel bad for her, but these results are earned. You don’t come in with negativity and expect it to go over so well in the long run.

I’d been looking at her background before they finally took down her profile on Fresh’s social network. She’s had a few supervisory and mgmt positions including working for the personal shopping service that the company formerly worked with. Who knows if such positions were such an ego boost that no matter what job she had she could never lower herself to being just part of the team.

All the same there one quote to leave you with on this end: “never stand in the way when your enemy is self destructing“. That’s what happened here…

June

I’m struggling to really come up with something to write about lately. Basically what I’m trying to avoid talking about are some of the negative situations I’ve been in (especially the person I’ve been writing a lot about lately). In a period of change & growth I feel as if it’s really a retread and without that person in my head I can really accomplish some things without him throwing doubt around or just attempting to leach off of it.

So, I’m trying to get that blog back in an optimistic direction. That has always been my plan when I started this blog, however, there are occasions where this blog had gone into a very negative direction. I want to take my life into a far more positive direction than I felt it was once I finally graduated from college years ago.

Either way, I’m trying to avoid telling variations of the same story that I’ve told recently. I could space them out, however, these need not be important stories now. However, if there are old stories to tell I want to tell different stories. That’s my goal as of now!

How much longer…

As we go into May, I’m still planning to write a few more posts about Ant (and another few stories somewhat related to him). As I stated in March with regards to how many I have left, I’m sure this storyline has finally jumped the shark. Well now is the time to start leaving well enough alone and move on

Sometimes it does no good to dwell on the negative and not only that just say so-and-so was such a bad person. In this instance seemingly this wasn’t always true, but as I don’t mind stating the bull$h!t just became too much to ignore. Of course seemingly due to his intermittent attempts at contact he wasn’t ready to come to that conclusion and this relates to the other part of this story I want to tell.

Beyond this, you get the basic gist of who he is. He’s a guy who has a history of hustling, he can be a manipulator, and he’s the type who likes to get into people’s heads. I’ve allowed him to get in my head and at some point I’ve given him the keys to it. So as I don’t mind stating I’ve had a nice vacation from him. I’ve realized that my life has so far been better off without him and his needs (monetary especially).

He’s helped me realize how important boundaries are. While he enforces his own, he has little issue walking all over mine. I’ve allowed him to and even he would fight me on this if I assert my boundaries. Perhaps anyone who feels the need to butt into what shouldn’t concern them about me I just need to walk as far away from them as possible. It’s just necessary and on the other hand I must respect others’ boundaries as well.

With this said, perhaps the spring cleaning I needed to do is overdue at this point. Perhaps what I needed to do on select social media sites were necessary to block his ability to lurk my facebook page or even to comment on it. Perhaps instead of just ignoring his phone calls I could just block his number. So many things to send a signal that I’m fully pulling back from him after a number of years of a one-sided friendship.

So I still have a few more posts with him and probably will delete a few of those posts in the pipeline. Ultimately by the end of next month barring any possible updates that hopefully this might be the last month on this blog we’ll ever talk about Anthony the hustler.

Gift of gab

I’m writing something of a prequel post before sharing hopefully tomorrow what happened once I was fully committed to that path. The path I’m referring to was ultimately getting hired at a bank during the Streak Era when I had no success at securing a job offer until Gotham Bank wanted to hire yours truly.

Anthony makes an appearance in this post, but remember we were friends and I had learned to lean on him for advice on finding a job. One of the things I marvel at him for was his ability to just go into a place and start talking to mgrs about jobs. He would go up to a mgr and try to talk his way into a job, though I admired the moxie there weren’t many results from it. Mainly it seems he often never got a job from it, though only he knows why it never worked out.

One day at work we were talking about the jobs I had been pursuing (which I often focused on what I knew which was the movie theater business, the national chain which at the time I viewed as the promised land). Either way as I begin to talk about the job hunt Anthony decided for me that these jobs just weren’t for me and decided I should pursue banking because without no real explanation he thought it “suited” me. His justification confused me but he really had no further explanation.

He knew my mother worked at a bank and he did loudly argue why she never tried to get me on at her job. I had to tell him that this was what I wanted, if I had wanted it perhaps I’d have been working there. Though in reality I had no idea what I wanted once it was time to start looking for a job. All the same just consider that I tried it a year later with my mother’s company and came away without a job offer.

Either way, since Ant decided he needed to get directly involved he got to work over my head on this. One day he called me letting me know he has a contact at a bank downtown and suggested that I give that contact a call. There is one catch I can’t mention him at all, this will be a cold call with nothing to fall back on and I needed to use the “gift of gab” to talk my way into a job. And I thought, what a tall order he’s trying to get me to do.

Another catch is for some reason, he would never give me the contact information he claimed to have. So on this I have no idea what he was waiting for and besides this was something he thought I should do. I don’t remember if we talked more about it or what, however, what I ultimately told him was that I won’t call this contact unless I could find a job to apply for. In other words, I’m not going to cold call anyone with nothing and this means not without having something for them to pull up as far as an application.

What I’ve learned about Ant is that he would try to do an end run around the application process. He tried to talk to a GM at another theater trying to see if he could send his resume and the guy merely just repeated that he needs to file an application through their company’s website. And other situations, I just know what he portrays often is that he knew someone who put in a good word for him and eventually because of his experience someone called him back and got the ball rolling.

Yeah that’s great if you’re some high priced talent, but really impractical for someone who I’ve only known to pursue relatively low-stakes jobs. Remember so far he’s mostly been working low-level jobs in grocery and security at least for the last few years since leaving the theater where we formerly worked.

I also want to illustrate for you how he did finally arrive at The Show where he did attempt to hustle money of yours truly as quickly as he could. According to him he had left a mgmt gig at a local retail chain – according to him he burned a bridge. Anyway once he quit that job he made a call to the wife of our house manager who later called Ant up. Next thing I know on the floor of The Show we have an older guy working with us. Strangely he’s curious about yours truly once we begin to work together.

To get back to what happened with this supposed banking hot shot. I kept blowing Ant off as time went on. He would ask me if I found anything to apply for and often my answer was I hadn’t. My idea was very narrow as far as what job I wanted to apply for and saw that if I was only looking for a teller position that there different levels such as teller I, teller II etc. I never saw what I thought was a basic teller position to apply for and once Ant kept getting the same answer from me eventually he would just drop his design.

Of course if you want to know what happened afterwards I will refer you to the story where he tried to borrow money from yours truly for his dojo. As for myself well the next year after he left the theater I had really began applying for jobs at banks attempting to end the rut and had finally found one who’d hire me. The branch that did hire me help me recognize that perhaps Ant was wrong and perhaps that business didn’t exactly suit me at all.

That’s the story I want to tell you all next!

Got a question

I’m taking the lead of Tommy at the Formerly Unfortunate Male Virgin. If you got a question, I hope I got an answer. Perhaps your questions will be the basis of a future post. But otherwise let’s have at it.

1337

Heh, 1337 or leet! It has no real significance for this blog I just find that funny. There are those who have been on the internet since the early years who will understand far better than I do the significance of that term.

Thanks for all the likes here over the years! At this point the tally is actually 1,339 likes.

I’m still working on tomorrow’s post, however, have yet to decide if I want to share with you the last time Anthony borrowed money from me or just come up withe something more original. Time will tell on that….

And again thanks for your likes!

On the spot…

We’re approaching an anniversary, when I wrote this post last year I had just been rehired at Fresh Foods. It effectively ends the era from the previous year called “The Reign of Error“. Not much to say about this moment, just starts a reboot with the company. I finish what I started and will continue!

What got me out, however, and some of the circumstances of it well I have only learned to laugh about it now. I don’t know why I still even devote much thought to it. Regardless as far as the dept mgr involved it didn’t entirely end great for him in spite of his massive ego.

Feeling No Love

BREAKING NEWS!

Your hero – OK fine – yours truly is back at “Fresh Foods”! This is a fresh post and it all happened recently. When I learned I scored an interview I had to resist the urge to mention it here. Glad I did and it just means something to discuss later.

Meanwhile there is one more “Ruthless Roger” thought coming next week so stay tuned. That is one storyline that needs to be put to rest as now I have a reboot at “Fresh”.

So at this point four months into 2018 one resolution down. And as I said the easiest one to fulfill!

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Spring

We’ve gotten out of winter here in Chicago. While the weather hadn’t warmed up yet, we get more daylight which is always good. The warm-up will come but I can’t believe this is already April.

What this also means is that now is the time to plan for the coming spring. What should I get into when the weather warms up? I don’t know where to start with summer time activities. Perhaps it’s time to change the same ole, same ole.

This is also important with the job which in my mind could start with increasing responsibilities. Time will tell on that, I just hope that I can find the right role for myself. Life is too short for only settling for merely the bare minimum.

Also I do have a family reunion this year. Of course this means I could be going back to Georgia where the real life version of Mission College is located. Been years since I did one of those and unlike the last two times that I’ve went to a reunion since starting this blog, perhaps I should write about it. Drama and all though mostly my own drama (and there’s a rather self-imposed reason why I hadn’t went to many family reunions during this decade).

What adventures could I find myself in this coming summer?

Honesty Box feet nsfw

I’m sharing this because this particular young lady is no longer with us, she died sometime last year. I had wanted to admit this to her although we weren’t exactly corresponding on a regular basis other than a happy birthday here and there. When you think about it now she seemed quite cool about a guy liking her feet.

If I had went for it although it was years after the fact I can only wonder now. And even then if I had tried years ago then this would be a long distance relationship. Hell I even suggested in the honesty box of all places that I’d like to go with her to the interesting places she liked to go out.

My activities in honesty box assuming she realized they were all from the same man – yours truly – she admitted that “I’m really flattered, but this is both unorthodox and cowardly”. Yeah, it was.

Anyway here is an example of an exchange from years ago back when honesty box was a thing. And may this beautiful and pleasant young woman rest in peace.

This young woman seemed to be like whatever. I got away with talking about her feet. If I had just come out would it only have meant trouble for me. Pic below may not be safe for work because someone could be uncomfortable with the display of feet

you said,
if i may be nasty for a sec i just got to admit that i want to press my mouth on that nice foot of yours
—
they said,
My feet! Really? Whatever floats your boat.
—
you said,
sorry i’m attracted to feet. and your present pic well that looks so tender. lol
—
they said,
I take care of my feet. For that same reason.
—
you said,
i’m starting to feel like i’m cybering with you. it’s starting to go down that path. lol
—
they said,
I am not even sure what “cybering” means. Your level of comfort my increase if you tell me who you are.
—
you said,
do you care about my level of comfort? lol
—
you said,
ok more serious question comfort about what? or just in general.
—
they said,
Its just in general.I always want people to be comfortable and express themselves honestly. Even though the honest box is suppose to encourage honesty. It doesn’t were are talking but nothing is being said. But its not that serious and you don’t have to do anything that you aren’t comfortable doing.
—

And you know she was probably right. Am glad that she realized everyone didn’t have the same comfort level. However, what if I had been more straight up.

We’ll never know.

Guess who’s back…

For a limited time only, hopefully.

If you’ve noticed it’s been a while since yours truly had mentioned by moniker “Ruthless Roger”. If you’ve noticed you might have seen him referred to as that guy or that other guy. It was my point to avoid talking about him unless it was important to say something. Well February is an important month with regards to Rog as this was the month I found out he was no longer the mgr of my former dept at “The Hole”.

The video you see about could involve “Ruthless” perhaps not to a “T“, but I think some of what Dr. Gary Namie talks about could describe. Let’s also be fair, I’ve ran into those types at “The Show” also. Many of the managers – especially senior managers or even the house manager – were of the bullying type. Very hard to go toe to toe with a mgr if they’re the boss and no matter what they can make life almost like hell. It’s really hard to go to work and you’re always guarded.

Now what he describes could also include regular employees. Some of those may be in the pockets of mgmt so you would have to fight a number of battles not just one with at least with one coworker.

Either way even though I’ve decided in December that it was time to lay off of Roger we can look at ways he probably was a bully. He could be a screaming Mimi and probably not as dramatic as is described here. But he did find things to pick at and he either did it on display in front of others or he also pulled me into the office for them. Usually it was often about things that I found petty such as over boxes or food debris.

That example could bleed into a constant critic, although for that again not as dramatic. I do believe however that he was looking for things to pick at with yours truly of course, but I suspect he did that with as many people he could get away with. Either way over the course of say three or four months that I worked with him as my boss from my recollection Rog only critiqued me at least three or four times.

I don’t think I will describe him at the gatekeeper or even the two-headed snake. Roger just strikes me as a reactionary opportunist. I feel as if with him the right hand didn’t know what the left was doing. It’s deniability and controlling the narrative but it could also be incompetence. Perhaps when I got hit with that weird attendance probation, he probably didn’t immediately know I got hit with it because he also seemed willing to put me permanently with my team’s buy/receive staff until he later changed his mind. This was not long after getting hit with it.

Either way after all that happened near the end of 2017 until February 2018, I’ve simply learned to laugh at it. It’s a learning experience and these days I’m en guard for such weirdness. Perhaps I should’ve learned from my experience at “The Show”. All the same what makes that odd episode known as the “Reign of error” laughable was the fact that “Ruthless Roger” aka /goofball ultimately didn’t survive in his role.

I would even dare say his fall from dept mgr to a supervisor at another store to ultimately leaving the company, is just evidence enough for me to say he got exposed. He rose to his level of incompetence. Unfortunately he left a trail of wreckage in his wake.

During the course of this week I would like to “reblog” some key posts written from between when “Ruthless” was finally replaced by a much better dept. mgr. Some of what I have learned since he had moved on. In addition the steps I took to return to “Fresh Foods” now that he was out of the picture. I had been concerned that he might be the type that could influence whether or not I could return to the company, however, due to his fall from grace as it were I had few worries at that point.

I hate to really go over this again, but I just can’t believe it’s been a whole year since the events I sort of predicted would happen actually came to be…