Mundane Midweek

I'm linking up with Charlotte again this week for the Mundane Midweek Linkup.

My week at work was spent largely in the "dish room", putting clean dishes away only to pull them back off the shelf two days later to fill dish orders for the coming weekend. Fortunately for me, most of this weekends dish orders were not as massive as last weekends (175 of everything). But between all the dish orders, a lot of dishes still went out.

Today (Friday) I spent two hours taking an SOS pad to rusty knives. The owner had to pack the silverware so tight when the dishes were returned on Monday that many knives came out with a lot of rust stains. So there I sat for two hours at a little table in the corner where I could still easily greet and help customers should they come in. Which, of course, they did. And I had to keep a small fan blowing on me because it was 110*(F) here (for you Celsius folks that means it was really effing hot) and it felt like it was 80* or so inside the building and a little muggy. UGH.

This morning I had a phone appointment with a company I had applied to earlier this week - selling pet food on weekends at local pet stores. The title being "Pet Nutritional Consultant", and having worked in pet retail and veterinary offices, I'm a shoe-in. We had an appointment for the gal to call me at 11am as I had told her in an email that I had to be at work that afternoon. 11am came and went until noon showed up. I finally left the house for work and she called a couple hours later. She told Granny she'd call me back at 7pm tonight. She did call at 7pm and apologized profusely, saying she'd been out in the field and had forgot to bring my phone number. She then told me that they had just hired someone for the Redding area, but that 30% of potential hires fall through because they don't have the correct amount of auto insurance (or aren't insured at all) or fail the background or DMV check. I agreed to go ahead with the interview in case something happened. We spoke for close to half an hour and she loved my answers to everything, especially to her question, "Give me an example of how you've dealt with a customer who complained about the cost of something." Oh. Do I have stories. The only stumbling block for me would be, if I were to be hired, I would have to purchase a tablet. Evidently laptops and Kindles are a no, but an iPad or Tablet is okay. The company would reimburse up to so much of the cost of the tablet, but I honestly told her that I have other bills that have to be paid and that a tablet is not something I would normally purchase because I have a smart phone and a laptop, however if I was offered this position I would see what I could do about purchasing one. (I'd rather not, though). In the end she was ready to hire me, and said she would keep in contact about the situation via email.

Also got an email this week from a pet food company who had a similar position as the company above, so hopefully will have a phone interview with that person, too. Which reminds me, must do research on that pet food company because I don't know all that much about them.

Neither of these positions are full time - they are part-time, Friday through Sunday, and do a 4 hour demo at a time for the brand(s) you're hired to market to retail customers. Basically you wander the store for 4 hours, stalking customers and asking them what brand of food they feed their pets, and see if you can't get them interesting trying Brand A versus whatever their buying. But you still get paid over $10/hr for a pretty easy job. And I could use the part-time work AND the extra few bucks it would shoot my way.

Keep your fingers crossed one of these work out for me, because I'm totally qualified and I could use some extra work and money. (Well, really, who couldn't these days??)

 

Wednesday Hodgepodge

1. Summertime is a season of reunions, weddings, and other family celebrations and gatherings...are any of the above on your calendar in the next two months?

Yep! On Friday, I have family from Georgia coming to visit for about a week. And in July, I have a cousin getting married (he asked her to marry him 35 years ago, and she said no because he wasn't a member of the Mormon Church. He recently moved back to Redding, met up with her and started dating, he asked again and she said yes [she hasn't been a practicing Mormon in a long time]).

2. June is National Iced Tea Month...are you an iced tea drinker? If so, how do you like yours (sweet, flavored, etc)?

 Not really. Raspberry flavored iced tea is okay, but otherwise, I'm just not a tea drinker.

3. When were you last nervous?  Looking back, was the 'event' actually nerve-worthy?

A job interview I had  awhile back. I'm always nervous for those. And I think you should be a little nervous for a job interview.

4. The bristle toothbrush was invented in China on June 26, 1498...not sure how that date was pinned down so precisely but, on a scale of 1-10, with 10 being sick to your stomach and 1 being not at all, how nervous do you feel when you're headed to the dentist?  Do you see your dentist twice a year?

Yeah, that is a bit odd how they have a specific date for that. lol I'm not too nervous when I go to the dentist. I used to go twice a year, but then I left my job that had benefits, and it's been a year and a half since I've been. I just don't have the money to pay for a cleaning, but I really want one. I usually get lectured for not flossing like I should.

5. What's making news in your town this week?

 Here are tonight's headlines:

One person dies, 5 year old suffers trauma in crash.
Baseball franchise effort for Redding falls through.
Skeletal remains unearthed by Tehama County detectives.
Controversial cable company may file for bankruptcy; Tehama County customers also dropped.
Heat expected this week in Redding.

6. Curtains, drapes, blinds...your window treatment of choice? Are there any bare windows in your house? Is that by choice or because you haven't gotten around to covering them?

A combination of those. At my parents house, there are blinds and curtains on most of the windows. I think the laundry room window is the only one without anything on it. 

7. Summertime is officially here (in the Northern hemisphere anyway)...what one song is a must-have on your summer playlist?

It's just a fun song. :)

8.  Insert your own random thought here.

I spent yesterday evening at a friend's house, trying to help her figure out her wedding invitations. She had no idea what she wanted, so Mom and I went over there to help her out. Her big sister also showed up to help out, and we had Panda Express for dinner. After about three and a half hours, I think we finally got her a template to go off of, something she really liked. A big shout-out to Google Image Search as well. Good thing we got it figured out (for the most part, at least), because her invitations will need to go out in August. It's closer than you think!

I Am Most Seriously Displeased

Does anyone want to know the most annoying sound in the universe?

It's not that horrific sound Jim Carey and Jeff Daniels make in Dumb and Dumber.

Give up?

It's silence.

I have been job hunting since March. I've had two job interviews in three months. Two weeks ago, one of the three staffing agencies I'm signed up with called me and asked if I'd be interested in a potential job. I said yes (duh), and she put my resume in the pot. She called me a week later to tell me that I hadn't been chosen. (sigh)

I search online for jobs a few times a week. I apply for retail jobs, clerical  jobs, part-time and full-time. I apply for weekend only positions, and anything that doesn't require a phlebotomist license and a medical billing/coder degree. I apply for jobs I see in the paper.

My parents check online for jobs for me every couple of days and the paper every day.

And in the three months of job hunting and countless (read: couple hundred) applications I have sent in, only TWO have called me for interviews.

T.W.O.

And one of those that called me for an interview wanted to badly to give me a job - 5 hours a week for minimum wage.

Are you fucking kidding me?!

I am frustrated. I am pissed. I am annoyed. I am hurt. I am perturbed. I am irked. I am upset. I am miffed. I am fuming. I am offended.

I. Am. Tired.

How do people keep this going for months, or heaven forbid, years? How? My money is pretty much gone. And if not for the kindness of my parents, I'd be homeless. Unemployment didn't pay that much, and them assholes cut me off because they didn't believe me that we lost our mail distribution center (they say it only takes three days from mail to from Redding to where ever the hell they are and in reality, it takes 10 days. TEN.) and my stuff was always late because of it. But it can't be the mail, it must be me.

I am so tired of job hunting. Of constantly entering the same information over and over and over. And over. I'm tired of uploading my resume to "fill in the application" and it gets most of it wrong so I have to correct it. I'm tired of the fact that in this day and age, you rarely have a person to contact regarding your application because businesses prefer you to apply online. I'm tired of the online assessment tests. I'm tired of having to create a "log in" for every single business I apply to because they each have their own website or they use some random third party place and I have to "register" in order to apply for the damn job. I'm tired of applying for jobs I know I can do but can't get a call back on. 

Most of all, I'm tired of being tired. I'm tired of being worried - constantly worried about money. I'm tired of losing sleep - knowing my part-time job is only temporary for the busy wedding season (so through September at best) and the end of wedding season is looming, even though it only just began a month ago. I'm tired of wondering what I'm going to do if I still haven't found another job.

Don't get me wrong, I'm thankful for my cousin for getting me part-time work and trying to keep me close to 20 hours a week. I'm thankful for him putting up with me at work most days of the week. I'm also thankful he gave Boyfriend a job doing deliveries and pick-ups. I'm glad to have a job to go to; something to go do for a few hours every day. But it will end at some point. And some point is just a few short months away.

I'm angry and tired. And I'm tired of feeling that way.

Mundane Midweek

I'm linking up with Charlotte for her Mundane Midweek Linkup.

Have you ever wondered how much work goes into a dish rental order for a wedding? No? Neither did I until started working part-time for a wedding and party rental place. And I can tell you I had never thought about it either. Also, I can now tell you it's a lot of work.

I spent 4 hours at work this afternoon - solely in the dish room to fill dish orders for reservations this weekend. On three orders. Just three.

Seriously.

One reservation wanted 175 (white) dinner plates, 175 knives and 175 dinner forks, 168 fluted champagne glasses, 175 water goblets and 22 wine liters.

The white dinner plates are wrapped in packages of 6 and 3 wrapped packages fit into a milk crate before you can no longer lift the crate. For most orders, there's always a few "extra" plates, which have to be taken from the "extra stack" and wrapped in saran wrap.

Anyone have any idea how heavy silverware is? Heavier than you think, especially when you need 175 pieces of it. I can barely lift a crate that has 175 knives in it. Because I realized early on that I could easily run out of crates, I wanted to try to not run out. So I had to try to make the crates as heavy as I could manage. So I started stuffing bags of silverware in with the plates.

 I had to pull two boxes of wine liters down from the top shelf.

Then I had to get crates of fluted champagne glasses and water goblets.

Each crate loaded with dishes, glassware, or flatware must also be labeled with the name on the reservation account. Also included in each crate are instructions as to how everything should be brought back.

 It turns out this reservation took up 4 carts. Carts that were stacked above my head.

Another reservation 146 clear dinner plates, 37 white salad plates, 146 knives, 146 dinner forks, 146 fluted champagne glasses, and 146 water goblets. 

And the final reservation was (fortunately!) much smaller - 36 of everything. Ahhhh.

Plus the phones continued to ring and people kept coming in the door to rent things.

And now I know how much work goes into large dish orders for weddings.

Father's Day Weekend

First of all, a Happy Belated Father's Day to all the Dad's out there. Hope you enjoyed your weekend with your families.

Father's Day for my family is kind of bitter-sweet.  The date of Father's Day this year happened to be the date we buried my Granddad (my Dad's Dad) two years ago. It will always fall around Father's Day, and the last couple years we've kept them pretty low-key.

And being that my parents usually host some sort of Father's Day event, usually a BBQ of some kind, I figured my parents were due a break. Since Boyfriend bought himself a boat with some mad money he had a couple months ago, I thought it would be a good idea for us to take my parents out on one of the two big lakes near us, Shasta Lake. We had taken his Mom out with us for Mother's Day and she enjoyed herself. My parents hadn't been out on the lake in about 20 years. The friends they had known with boats had drifted away and they had never owned a boat themselves.

They agreed to go out on the lake, and Boyfriend and I both had Saturday off, so we went out on Saturday. Boyfriend wound up doing boat prep by himself as I wound up with an impromptu girls night out, which he told me to take. My parents bought deli sandwiches, potato salad, cole slaw, chips and salsa for lunch (and dinner lol), and away we went.

The boat launch we went to turned out to be closed, even though the website said it was open. But it was closed because the lake is so damn low, there was next to no water in that arm of the lake. So we went to find another boat launch that was (fortunately and for the time being) open.

Boyfriend got us out on the water and we cruised around the Shasta Lake, going to parts none of us had ever been to. We stopped periodically and jumped in the lake. Boyfriend's answer to my parents question each time of "how's the water?" was always "it's fine." Well, the first time, that was true for Boyfriend and myself and I think Dad may have lied a little to her because when Mom first jumped in, she called us all assholes when she came back up for air.

Overall it was a great day to be out on the lake, everyone enjoyed the lazy day on the lake.

Me & Dad

Mt. Shasta from Shasta Lake

Me & Boyfriend (usually he smiles lol)

 

Wednesday Hodgepodge

1. What do you think makes a good dad?

A guy who loves his kid(s) unconditionally and supports them in their endeavors. A guy who lets his kid(s) know every day that he loves them, just as they are. A guy who teaches his kid(s) how to be responsible a responsible adult, and instills a conscience and respect for others.

2.  What's something you learned from your own father?

Here's one recent thing: Recently I had a day where I felt like a complete failure. I've been looking for work (full-time) since last October with only one bite, which obviously didn't happen since I'm still looking. There were other things in there and I felt like a disappointment to a family member because I didn't want what they wanted (or wished, rather) me to want. Dad pulled me aside and told me that I wasn't a failure in way, shape, or form. To anyone. And that he had moments when he was my age where he thought he was making a huge mistake taking a job. And that if I hadn't moved back and been doing what I was doing, I wouldn't have met Boyfriend. And most importantly that he loved me and supported me. Then he gave me a big bear hug.

3. It's your birthday-what kind of cake will we be having?

I'm either easy or boring. White cake with white frosting. Or the "funfetti" mix.

4. When you're faced with a big decision are you more of a go with your gut type of person, or are you someone who reasons it all out, weighing the pros and cons?

I do both. Sometimes you have to just go with your gut, which doesn't usually lead me astray. But I can over-think things as well and that can lead me astray.

5. June is National Dairy Month. What's your favorite dairy item? Most often purchased dairy item?

Cheese. Sharp Cheddar cheese. :)

6. Explorer Jacques Cousteau was born on June 11, 1910....what's something you've recently discovered or something you'd like to explore?

There's so much I'd love to explore - I wouldn't know where to begin!

7. Are you typical of your generation?

Hmmm. Yes and no.

8.  Insert your own random thought here. 

Since we're kind of on a Father's Day theme, I think Boyfriend and I may take my parents out on his boat for Father's Day. Just a nice, easy day relaxing on the lake. :)