Hell's Half Acre

Meltdown-On-Thames

yesterday I walked from Putney Bridge to Waterloo. It was a good long walk, especially since I hit some weird dead ends and had to backtrack. I found Battersea Park. . .pretty cool place. Yesterday it was beautiful here, around 70 degrees so by the time I got to Battersea it was full of kids and families and sunbathers. I thingk I may have gotten a little color actually. People were grilling in the park. . .it felt pretty American, except I realized that we, meaning me, don't really go on picnics much anymore. I miss that.

Yesterday I had a bit of a meltdown surrounding food and etiquette. I felt out of place, tired, disoriented and mostly just tired. I'm off my routine. I may seem spontaneous but I really am not. I am a creature of habit. I go to the same coffee shop each day. I take the same route to work. I go the same bars where I know people.

Since it was nice, I knew my task for the day was to walk and get familiar with this place so that I can make an educated decision about where I will look for a flat, when it comes down to it. BTW, this place is fucking expensive. Manhattan pales. SF doesn't register. They're just stepping stones. Thankfully I've lived in both places so the sticker shock isn't as bad as it was for G, who moved here from Houston. I'm digressing. This story is about blowing the routine and how I almost had a meltdown in a restaurant.

So with my task ahead of me, I take off, figuring I'll grab a bite somewhere. It was a little after noon and I haven't had food. My body and I are firm believers in the power of breakfast and if we don't get food in the morning, we will start to unravel by 2pm.

2pm hit. no food. I decide to duck into a cutesy little restaurant on Putney Wharf. The area reminds me of being in Battery Park. I look like I should be in my hood in Queens, schlepping around on 37th ave. I feel like the hostess is humoring me by allowing me in to the restaurant.  I feel conspicuous as hell. It's as if I have lost all powers of communication. I am the only person in the restaurant dining alone. I am the only one who looks like they just rolled out of bed.

The server never comes. Hunger is making me shake. I begin to get enraged, in the way I get when I am ridiculously hungry and can't think straight. I have a dilemma. Do I flag down someone with a loud "EXCUSE ME" in my american accent? Is this restaurant all "european style" where we have to reflect for an hour before we order? Why hasn't the person even asked me what I want to drink? How do I get someone's attention without looking like a chaod, considering the fact that I'm entering a dibetic coma? Oh I know, they won't serve me because I'm fat. That's it. They figured I'm good to go already? Sure. Or is it because I am alone? Maybe they don't realize that not everyone comes as part of a pair? Could that be it?

It's been twenty minutes. Two tables seated after me have their orders taken. I am so angry and at a loss for etiquette that my eyes start to tear up. Then I get more angry. I am ready to storm out. It seems that there is no way to handle this without a "Scene."

This whole thing would have been solved in 2 secs in NYC for me. Easy. "Do we have a server? can you send them over? I'm ready to order."

Here I am a newbie and far too self-conscious of American stereotypes.  I notice that the table next to me is having a hard time getting their check. The table on the other side of me is having a hard time getting menus. I finally realize, there is no etiquette problem. The server JUST SUCKS. BIG TIME. And I suppose when you don't make your living off tips, it probably doesn't matter to you that you suck.

So I flag down the hostess. "Can you send over my server? I'm ready to order. And I'd like a glass of tap water and a Sauvignon Blanc, mmmkay?"

The service still sucked but at least I got the ball rolling and prevented further meltdownages.  Did I tip? Was I supposed to? I used this opportunity to practice the no tipping habit so prevalent here. I wouldn't have tipped in the states? 25 min before the person show at my table? Not acceptable.

So if you're at Putney Wharf, avoid this place. It sucks.

DMV - another rant

how can it be that there are only effectively three DMV offices in Manhattan?

Harlem, Herald Square & Battery Park.

Seriously?

And Queens isn't any better.  For all of Queens, there are two DMVs, Flushing and Jamaica.

Late hours? nope. Saturdays? Nope.

What the fuck New York State?  I love having to burn a vacation day to take care of a driver's license. Even New Jersey, for as back-ass-ward as that place is,  had offices with Saturday hours.   

who put the mess in Messenger?

I'm so happy that MSN has no failover for their messenger service. I'm so glad we've chosen that bug ridden company's tool as a primary communication device with the kids across the pond.

I can't login. I can't communicate with the rest of my team.

What do you do when you are a MAJOR corporation and your services and products FAIL?  What is your back up plan? How long is an outage acceptable? Just asking. . .you know, so if I ever like start a major company I can use the answers to these questions as guidelines.

argh. . .I'm so intolerant of this kind of failure. ANd yes, I've rebooted my system. I can't connect to their website either.

hates

*sigh*

I was forced to upgrade to office 2007 today.

*double sigh*

I hate changing interfaces. I hate it when things change and I can't find anything. I mean, this is not just in software. My room and desk are in disarray but if someone ever came in and moved as much as a slip of paper, I would be upset. If my hand automatically went to a place where I had previously left a pen and that pen wasn't there, I'd be having a meltdown. This could be a symptom of some early childhood issues (like my mom the garage sale queen who would root through my belongings and sell them without my permission. Could have something to do with that.) Anyway, suffice to say. I really fucking hate change and now I will be pouting about this for the rest of the day.

*heavy fucking exasperated sigh*

wamucards.com sucks

I don't understand how you can run an credit card company and have downtime on the tool that is supposed to be there for you to manage your account.

Here are the keys to success, as demonstrated by wamucards.com

The number one great thing to do is to provide ABSOLUTELY NO CONTACT INFO for tech support.
Can't log into the site? Too bad. One in ten logins work and clicking on an additional link sends you back to the login page? too bad. Try again later.

If your site is experiencing technical difficulties for a period longer than 15 minutes, you SHOULD NOT provide a message alerting your customers that the site is experirncing problems and engineers are looking into it. Ignoring the problem and the customers instills confidence in your product.

On top of that, make sure that there is NO WAY to perform the same functions through alternate means such as your automated telephone system. Need to reschedule or edit a scheduled payment? Too bad. Try again later maybe.

Wamucards.com: Another shining example of ineptitude.

 

above the law

okay, not to beat a dead whore but I just asked GG why was I upset that P. Hilton got a get out of jail free card. Home detention. Big whoop.

If she was another color and in another income bracket, they would have locked her up for longer without a chance of parole(I'm paraphrasing GG.)

What's it like to have the rules not apply, is what I am wondering?

Really? Damn.

Poor baby. Had to go to jail and and it wasn't a joke this time. It wasn't the simple life where she got to run around mocking people who actually have to struggle to get by. What a spoiled pig bitch.

It's fucking irritating. It's irritating that this there is this whole class of people who think they are so above and beyond the rules that the rest of us live by. I suppose this is why, when suddenly there is an ugly mugshot of Nick Nolte, Natasha Lyonne, or Yasmine Bleeth on the net, the shit gets passed around like a joint at a Dead show.  Or why people wait, holding their breath to find out whether or not Scooter Libby or Jeffrey Skilling will actually have to pay for their crimes.

Jesus Christ. At least Martha Stewart went on and did her time. And she's like a billion years old. 

Welcome to today's rant. Have a nice weekend.

highway to the anger zone

okay, maybe it's because my uterus has betrayed me once again when I am preparing for a trip. (will I NEVER have vacation sex ever again?)

maybe it's because I am so far behind at work due to problems for which I have no tools to solve?

maybe it's because mini b is grating on my nerves by questioning all my work today?

maybe it's because I have been out of the hidey hole for three days and am just now realizing that I have an alcohol dependency problem? (I reject that notion straight away.)

Whatever the reason, I have turned into Mt St. Krixfort, roiling and boiling and seething on the inside, ready to explode if the pressure hits the tipping point.

Please put on your safety googles henceforth. 

lost my connection to the real world

Re-installing DSL on the recently reformatted old-ass gateway. (Don't laugh. This thing only has 16MB of RAM. You'd think as a programmer I would have the latest and greatest but that's not the case.)

Anyway, I get through the install. Modem is on, it's talking to the computer, all the ethernet lights are on--blinky blinky. Now I have to set up my account so that I can log in to Verizon's servers and get the internets for real. I go through the Account set-up page and . . . nothing. Hangs. Hangs for a good 5 minutes. I try again. Same. I reboot and try again. Same. I am thinking that Verizon is having trouble with their registration servers.

I call tech support anyway.

I don't have a lot of patience for tier one technical support, especially when it comes to diagnostics. I am probably the worst customer when it comes to this. I get on the horn with the lady and say, I got to POINT X successfully in the installation. When I try to do this at POINT X, the process fails.

She starts at point A.

Is the modem plugged in?  Yes. Are the lights on? Yesssssss. Is your computer plugged in? ZZZZZZZ.

Okay not that bad but I'm giving her a bit of technical info off the bat. Can't we just cut to the chase?

Long story short. She has me do a bunch of crazy crap, gives me a bad set of instructions, has me delete the current connection interface and then says nothing. I think she's looking something up. So I wait. And wait. ANd wait. and then the phone goes "click." ANd I say "Hello? Helllooooo? hello?" and the phone says "beeeeeeep. If you'd like to make a call, please hang up the phone and dial again."

ARGH!

So I reinstall everything, just like I did the first time. I get to the account set-up and voila, the set up page doesn't hang, it finally comes up. I still believe the problem was a server issue but whatever man. At least now I'm connected to the real world again.

StarFucks

This is a bit of old news but New York Magazine just wrote an article about Starbucks shift workers ("baristas"--wtf--is that in the italian dictionary?) who want to unionize.

I say GO YOU PROLETARIATS GO!

The Starbucks Workers Union Website states that:

We are Starbucks Workers Coming Together for:

• Increased pay and raises
• Guaranteed hours with the option of fulltime status
• An end to understaffing
• A healthier and safer workplace

I spent many years entangled in that company, both before and after their I.P.O. and I did the salaried and non-salaried thing for quite awhile.  When I started in 1990 in Seattle, they had a union pay raise scale left over from when they were partially unionized. I was grandfathered in so I was able to increase my wages fairly quickly (.25 cents an hour at a time--don't kid yourself. It was retail.) Of course that was thrown out the window as the company started its ameoba-like growth.  I was also there before the "Star Time TimeClock and Scheduling System" went into place.

The article in the New York Magazine profiles a guy who kicked off the unionizing fervor. Every complaint he has about the working conditions in the stores is completely valid.

When Gross walked into the store for his first morning shift, he was dismayed—and encouraged—by what he saw. Just three workers were completely slammed with businesspeople for the A.M. rush. “In this kind of job,” he says, “you expect to work hard, but you don’t necessarily expect to go home feeling like you just ran a marathon.”

Once upon a time, prior to all the efficiency experts and stockholder accountability, Starbucks managers were required to analyze their business traffic patterns and schedule accordingly. They had the freedom to determine how to best serve their staff and their customers. But when I was managing stores, the number one mantra that was drilled into my head was that "LABOR IS THE NUMBER ONE CONTROLLABLE COST."  Okay okay, yes you have to keep an eye on it and manage your business or your labor costs could spiral out of control. I guess a lot of managers were not able to perform that type of analysis or manage their labor costs effectively. Efficiency experts were brought in to conduct time and motion studies, asking questions like "What is the amount of time it takes to move between the cash register and the espresso bar?" "What is the least amount of people we can use to serve the most amount of customers?" And so Star Time was born. How great! A scheduling program that uses an algorithm to determine how many people should be scheduled at any given time, determined by a previous week's customers per hour count, allowing no fluxuation for spikes in traffic, or anomolies in the weather, and taking the common sense aspect right out of the equation.

Let me tell you a little story about Minerva and I working in a triple A store, (stores were ranked by volume--highest was quad A.)  For some reason, because of a slowdown on the Sunday prior, maybe it was rainy or something, we had a four hour block of time where it was just her and I in the store.  And guess what? The sun came out. And all the people came out. And we suddenly had a line of people snaking throughout the store for three of those four hours. Let me tell you, it is impossible to magically clone yourself to instantly turn into more people so that you can attend to all of the tasks required to run a store for a sustained customer rush for that amount of time effectively.  Minerva and I did our best between running out of supplies, overflowing trash cans, and irate customers. Then, our brand new manager-in-training walked in, surveyed the hiroshima-like devastation and the line that flowed through our store like the Amazon river. At last! Relief. We could go to the bathroom, have a ciggarette break, take out the trash, refill the creamers, brew more coffee, stock the cups, etc. 

He proceeded to stroll back to the back room, and sit his ass down at the computer to check on the schedule.  I will spare you the details of krixfort having a meltdown when the 400th customer asked what was in a frappucino.  Anyways, point is, they understaff the shit out of the stores.

Newsflash: pulling shot after shot of espresso DOES CAUSE RSIs. I sometimes cannot use the mouse and my current job is somewhat contingent upon that.  Do not ask me to write a handwritten letter. I can no longer do that. By the time I reach the bottom of the page, I can no longer grasp the pen.

Newsflash: $6.50 is barely a living wage anywhere, let alone in a metropolitan area. $7.75 in NYC or SF? You have to be out of your mind. And tips?  Minerva and I can tell you how we lived on our tips in Seattle, maybe around $40 a week but we only received that high amount because we succumbed to the position of shift lead for its guarantee of a 40ish hour work week.

I've already gone off about the hypocrisy of their mission statement in earlier blogs but I'll give you links if you haven't tired of hearing me rant pointlessly about a company that I've been out of for almost a decade.

Do I owe them a thank you for all the good things they did for me. Sure. Thanks for the IPO stock options SBUX. They supplemented my $11,000 a year barista income.

The panacea, my ass.  I hate hypocrites.

Links to additional krixfort rants about SBUX:

Job Schmob

Keeping the dream alive