Don't call it a come back.

It's been a few years since I have written any entries on this blog. It's been a busy few years. I had another child, which brings my total to 4 kids. Last time I blogged I was in retail. I ended that career after about 8 years. I couldn't take that world anymore. I worked for the corporate giant Wal-Mart. That was quite the experience. People say they are a horrible company to work for, which they kind of are a bad company, but not the worst. Hours were flexible, the job was easy but the pay sucked. Now I know there will be those people that don't agree with the first two parts of that last statement. I'll clarify what I said a little better. The hours are flexible, if you know how to get them to work with you. The job was easy, if you knew how to manipulate people. You see, the Wal-Mart I worked at was very fond of ass kissers and brown nosers. If you kissed ass and crawled up the managers ass far enough, you could get away with a lot and get a lot in return.

I started there on overnights as an assembler. I was tucked away in the back building bikes or if it was close to spring, I would be building grills or playground things. I did my job well and was very productive. I didn't bitch, I did what I was told and didn't have to deal with management all that much. Fast forward a few months. One night it was slow in assembly so they put me on the sales floor to help out. I noticed some people didn't do much of anything while others were busting their ass covering for the lazy ones. Over the next fews days I remained on the sales floor. I paid special attention to the slackers again. I noticed how they sucked up to the boss while I busted my ass for them. Right then I decided I needed to work a different way, I needed to find an easier way to make the small paycheck I received. I started kissing ass. I found ways to connect to the manager and get on his good side. It worked. I became a favorite. I was in, now to make my move. I became a go to guy who got shit done. Yes, I was still busting my ass but I really didn't have to. If I wanted to slack, I could.

Doing this for a few months, I was asked to do an interview for a day shift position in automotive as a manager. I agreed to do it since overnights sucked. The only good part of overnights was my hot, steamy affair I had with one of my co-workers. I think I may write about that eventually, but not now. Back to the interview thing. I did the interview which was a joke. He asked the usual questions but didn't really give a shit what I said. He was checking his e-mail most of the time or we talked about nonsense. I had the job already, he just had to put on the interview show for everyone. The only answer the boss ever cared about was asked after the interview. He pulled me to the side and asked me if I could be the asshole he needed me to be. I of course said yes. Job=mine! The funny part about this whole thing, I never put in for the position. I have no idea how I managed to get into the system to be interviewed.

Now I was a boss. I had power. I knew all my ass kissing on overnights wasn't going to get me far on days. It was a different world, a different management team. I had to find a new way to maintain my status. First thing, fire people! I said I'd be an asshole so it was game time. Within the first two weeks two were gone for dropping the f-bomb in the garage. Foul language isn't tolerated in Wal-mart, if they don't like you. It is an immediate firing offence. After that, I had my place. I got in good and I knew how to work the system to my advantage. During my time there, I should have been fired many times over. I eventually didn't give a shit about it anymore. I stepped down from my position and moved to a lesser position. I got bored with that and tried moving back up the ladder but since I stopped kissing ass, I couldn't. I finally just moved on to another company.

There are soo many other stories I could have told about my Wal-Mart experience. If I ever run out of material, I'll go back and bring some more up. But for now, I'll keep it current.

Next blog in the works is what I have learned becoming a homemaker.
Stay tuned.

Decline in mankind

At what point in time did people get so damn stupid? It's a rapid increase in our society. The amount of lazy people has gone up, people who are out to make money on nonsense lawsuits and people who go absolutely mad over the "threat" of bad weather.

Lets start with lazy people. Being in retail for the last 4 years, I have seen a lot of them. People too lazy to look for things, people too lazy to read a simple label or package and even people too lazy to walk.
I understand there are some people that do have health problems that can't walk long, those aren't the ones that piss me off. It's the ones that park half way down the parking lot, walk perfectly fine into the building and then grab a motorized cart. The other ones are the lazy no lookers. They walk in, find the first person they see and ask where something is. Usually its the most simple thing to find. They are usually given the answer of "right behind you" or "right next to you". Hey lazy person, use your eyes!

I'm going to save the lawsuit part for another blog in the future. I'll move on to the crazy weather people. I've been on this planet for 37 years. 32 of them I can actually remember without a problem. Not once do I remember the weather ever causing people to rush to the store and buy everything because of a possible hurricane coming. Seriously people, we don't live by the ocean. We are not going to get stranded anywhere. And think about this. All these people bought large amounts of refrigerated foods. What are they going to do with it if the power goes out? It's all going to spoil. And I'm sure not everyone that was buying this stuff has a generator. How many people did I see buying canned goods and water? Not many at all. I just don't get what has happened to our society.


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Lesson learned

Yesterday I did a 2 pound burger challenge with my bro, my bff and her bf. You are given and hour to finish it.

Now the meat patty is 2 pounds, throw in a huge bun bigger than my face, lettuce, tomato, onions, relish, pickles, banana peppers, ketchup, mustard and mayo. You can remove one of those items before the challenge. I removed the peppers. I should have removed the relish..too sweet. I also asked for a side of bacon with it.
15 minutes into it I was making good progress. It had a nice flavor going on. I though I could finish the burger, maybe not in the required time though. 30 minutes into it and I was slowing down. Shortly after that I hit the "wall". The taste of everything became too much to take. No matter what I did, there was no way I could get it down. I wasn't full though. By the time the challenge was over and I finally tapped out, I had the shells of the bun left, the veggies, and a fistful of meat.
I was a little angry with myself that I didn't do better and I was a little humbled by it. Me of all people that can eat everyone I know under the table couldn't finish the burger. Oh well, I tried, that's what matters.

Lesson learned, keep pushing past the wall.



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Slacker

Well I've been slacking the last couple of days. My last post was about smoking I think, or lack there of smoking. That didn't work out well. I did manage to make it 3 1/2 days without smoking, then the demons overcame me and I cracked. Two of those days I wasn't working, so that helped a great deal. The third day I went back to work and made it till early the next morning. I guess you could say I made it close to 4 days. Next time I try, I'm going to take a week vacation, 7 days, and try again. That will give ample time for my body to cleanse it's self and for my mood swings to chill out. I wasn't doing too bad with the mood swings during those three days. I had my moments but never snapped on anyone. I was angry within.


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Day Three?

Really? It's been 3 days since I quit smoking? It doesn't feel like it at all! It still feels like the first day, but I'm at work. So it is my first day not smoking at work.
I'm feeling so lost and confused today. I don't know what to do on my breaks and lunch. I'm passing the time on lunch now with writing this.

The hardest part of this whole quitting thing isn't the not smoking part it's the doing it cold turkey route. Anyone know what cold turkey is anyway?
I've talked to many people that have tried to quit. They have tried patches, gum, or other things prescribed by their doctor. And all of them went right back to smoking in no time.
Those nicotine gums and patches don't really fix the problem. Yeah sure, no more ciggies, but you are still a slave to the nicotine. You're still losing to the addiction.
Let's look at the drugs my doc always wanted to give me. The two popular ones, Wellbutrin and Chantix.
First, Wellbutrin, it's basically and anti depressant. I was on that already. Let me tell you, never give and anti depressant to an already happy person, it doesn't work out too good. Imagine mr Rogers but 100x happier. Oh and don't forget it kills the sex drive too. No thank you!
Now Chantix. If anyone has actually seen the commercial and listened to it, they would have heard a little side effect of night terrors. The other goodie, blood clots! Oh boy, where do I sign? Don't forget about mood swings and other psychotic stuff it does.
That drug does not work for me either. Besides, taking one drug to kill an addiction to another one seems silly and pointless to me. And for someone like me that has had health problems in the past that required large amounts of pills to control, more pills isn't the answer. I'm free from pills except for the occasional excedrin for a headache.
So that's that.
My blood/nicotine/caffeine levels are still adjusting.


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Now what?

I'm on hour 13 of the no smoking thing. I'm very tired and kind of spacey. I'm trying to figure out what to do after I eat, during commercials, etc..it used to be grab a smoke. I'm lost now.

No smoking?

I have been a smoker for, well, too many years. I've said I have wanted to quit many times over the years and haven't been able to. The closest I have come is when I was in the hospital for a little over a month when I had my surgery. I didn't smoke for a little over a month after I got out. I slipped and bought a pack. I figured one wouldn't hurt. I was wrong. Once you have one, you have another and before you know it, back up to a pack or more a day.

This morning at 2am I finished my pack of smokes I bought the previous morning. I didn't buy anymore. I have two days off in a row so why not try and quit? I have 48 hours to get through the initial phase of the nicotine withdrawl.

It's now 11 a.m. I already hate everything.
You know what else, girlfriend hasn't noticed I haven't been smoking.