Abigail Road’s Neighborhood

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For a full sit-down dinner with several guests, would you rather be the one cooking or do you prefer to just show up and eat?

I've been away from Vox for months, and I'm pleased to be welcomed back by the easiest question I've ever had to answer. I would prefer to show up and eat. When food is involved, I view all human interaction as a pretext for getting at the food, eating the food, eating more of the food, and as a follow-up, eating the rest of the food. Even bad food, when made available at somebody else's house, will do just fine for me. I do like to cook, but I like to cook for two, or put in my share at a potluck.

I ran into someone the other day that used to be a big part of my life for a while.  He saw me and I saw him, and we thankfully ignored each other.  It's weird to watch someone like that, that you had such a connection to, from a distance, where you can see them, but they can't see you.  Are the same thoughts running through his head as mine...I don't hate him, I don't like him, I'm not indifferent...I'm somewhere in between where all the feeling and yet not of it at all exist.  I know they talk to him, I know he has talked of me.  I don't want him to know anything, yet I'm curious as to what he'd say.   

I'm always wondering what twists around in the minds of people you've eliminated from your lives.  If someone does the physical act of going up to a person and telling them that they don't want you in their lives because you aren't healthy for them to be around, does that send the other person into a tailspin?  Does it make that person see how you see them?  I recently told an old friend that I couldn't be his friend because of things that he had said, and things that he had done.  Thing is, this person has been trying to make amends for other past indecencies stemming back to his teenage years.  I'd always stood up for him.  Even risked my friendship with a good friend who felt, I guess, discombobulated by the relationship, by telling her that I was going to be his friend no matter what happened between them.  Why is it that I even felt compelled to talk to him, and explain why I wanted him out of my life?  I don't feel like I owe him anything.  Maybe it was just that I wanted the satisfaction of not having him confront me and try to talk to me, even though I made my feelings clear.  Maybe I just wanted to see his reaction to what I was confronting him with.  I still don't know.  I do know that I'm glad I said it, because it helps me reaffirm my beliefs in who I am as a person.  I don't want hate and lies in my life anymore.  I'm just so done with that part of my life.

It has been quite a while since I updated this little blog o' mine.

The past few weeks have been fairly stressful and full of work time.  I worked over 130 hours (on the clock) for the end of April.  I managed to knock that down to about 115 hour (on the clock) time for this first half of May.  That's a lot of hours.

I've been making improvements to the store.  Getting things fixed that were never touched before, working on marketing and advertising, hiring and firing; you know, things that managers do.

I wound up having to fire two employees for stealing from the company through the clever use of coupons.  Good times that was.  That contributed to the massive hours I put in at the store for the end of April.  The funny thing is is that they thought they could get away with it and got really greedy about it.  They were using a 50% coupon on orders about two hours AFTER the customer had already paid for the order.  Excellent.  Idiots.

I actually had the store turning a profit for the past two months, which is fantastic.  I got a nice little bonus out of that.  I should be getting a raise soon, which is even better.  I can't wait.  Maybe by next year I'll be paid what I'm worth!

Not too many fun stories lately.  Just the usual drivers getting tipped with weed or beer, crazy customers who scream and shout over ridiculous things (YOU DIDN'T BRING ME ENOUGH RANCH DRESSING!)  Stuff like that.

I'll try and keep this going a bit more frequently, if I can find the time.

Hello friends.  Been quite a while.  I've been quite busy since my promotion to general manager of the pizza place where I was merely a driver.  Things have changed a lot since I took this position.

Be not afraid, I still take deliveries.  In fact, I'll be working a few delivery shifts in the upcoming weeks due to the day driver being unavailable for a few days in a row.  I'm quite looking forward to it.  I enjoy getting out of the store, smoking a cigarette and listening to the radio.  Good times.

I did want to share this with you, because I find this to be quite hilarious.  Monday is a busy day for us managers.  It isn't so much that the stores are all that busy.  Some of them are, but for the most part, Monday is a fairly slow day.  People are getting over their weekends of over-stimulation, over-indulgence and over-spending.  For the GM, it's a day of paperwork and reflection over the last week of business.

Mondays find us sitting in our offices, writing up paperwork, crunching numbers and figuring out how much cheese we've actually lost over the past week.  Last week I lost 40# of cheese.  Acceptable standard is about 30#.  I hit that goal the week before.  I've been as low as 15# before.  I digress.

Monday is also the day when we are all on the phone with each other pulling of major league food trade.  It's like the first round draft picks or something similar. 

"Hey, how's it going?  Listen, I need some spicy wings and canadian bacon."
"I can't help you on the wings, however, I can assist with the canadian bacon.  You need to do me a favor though."
"What is it?"
"I need a bag of white flour and a 1/3 gallon of hot sauce."
"Hmm, let me go check."
*hold music*
"Alright, I can get you the hot sauce and the bag of flour for the canadian bacon and two orders of wings."
"Fine fine fine.  I'll give you the wings and the ham, but I also need a can of olives."
"Done."
"Fantastic, I'll send a driver over now."

Repeat with the next store. Etc.  It's kind of fun.  You just keep transferring food in and out of your store all day.  Drivers are flying all over town in between the six stores getting things taken care of for the stores.  It's fantastic.  It's also a good way for a manager to get out of the store for a while. 

"Hey, I gotta go get some wings and olives from store X.  Be back soon."  And then you go to store X, and then you go and get some lunch (drive thru, can't be gone too long) and then you go back to the store.  You are much more relaxed, fed and ready to finish the paperwork ahead of you.

Being a GM isn't all bad.  But the phone calls, well...that's a different post.

I got the promotion!

I shall begin my time as the new General Manager of the store as of the end of the month.

Yay!