the Strangeness that is my life

[spizio]

Clearly union workers

[salamanca]

Sitting at work. Stuff is slow. Mall guys come by on same lift that gave then hassles in my last post. And...same problem in the same spot!. You cannot pay for this level of entertinment.

[salamanca]

Just got asked for a "Biz Markie" calendar. Need to look up when Biz last had a hit but I am mostly positive it was "Just a Friend" back around 1989. Also had a mall marketing meeting today. Turns out there is a secret code word to tell security if you need help and don't want to tip a suspect off. It must be real secret as nobody attending knew of it or what it is. (and still do not as the security guy didn't want to reveal it in an open meeting). Keep in mind some of us have worked here for a decade and do not know this protocol. I shall guess it has never been used in an actual situation.

[Black Jack Rackham]

Turns out there is a secret code word to tell security if you need help and don't want to tip a suspect off. It must be real secret as nobody attending knew of it or what it is. (and still do not as the security guy didn't want to reveal it in an open meeting). Keep in mind some of us have worked here for a decade and do not know this protocol. I shall guess it has never been used in an actual situation.

Come ON sal, everyone knows it's "es'Hay an Obber'Ray." Works every time.

[salamanca]

Debated about posting this at all but it's totally the kind of week we have had. This morning was full of accidental racially insensitive staements. I will shre the highlights. So that marketing meeting I mentioned... One of the assistant managers tried to politely complement a new manager on one of his employees being very helpful and polite. Unfortunately, she has no idea what the kid's name is and after an awkward minute of trying to describe him blurts out "he's got colored skin". Thankfully, the self centered manager at the Bath and Body Works ignored the comment and interrupted to talk about herself which diffused the situation but I literally watched the majority of the room struggle to keep their eyes from popping out of their heads in shock. I was sitting across from the Hot Topic assistant and she is looking at me with her "did I just hear that" look while her fingers are typing it to her boss. Now fortunately for all involved, it's going to be downplayed and forgotten in a week because it's obvious if you were there that it was not intended the way it sounds. She had just run out of descriptive words for the kid she was describing.

[salamanca]

Event 2 was first browser of the day. He is looking for an Ireland calendar and we are long sold out. I tell him that and he replies "damn irish. Never around when you want them". At least he was good natured about it. The third bit was funny only because of the earlier incident. I had a lady looking at Pug calendars that was mad at the picture selection because she "doesn't like black ones". Now she was a sweet old lady talking about dogs and that is all well and fair but in light of my morning, it was a horribly rascist sounding comment that had me biting my tongue to avoid laughing and having to invent an excuse for finding that funny. It was like hearing Mrs. Cleaver talking jive in the Airplane movie. (or Santa telling you how he hates children but keeps the job for the cookies). This afternoon I may have become a military arms supplier by accident. Some Sergeant on leave dropped by and bought all 3 remaining sets of Lazer Tag style guns we had. After he paid for them he told me he was taking them back to base so his unit could get some practice in. Had I known it was for government use, I would have removed the discount and charged him triple.

[salamanca]

Ok, Hot Topic has started valentine's promotions and it's DC comics themed so they have posters of Batman smooching Catwoman and Superman locking lips with Wonder Woman (which is now a thing) and the slogan "Heart Attack. Crush Hard. SAVE THE DAY.". Neverminding the stupid slogan, the staff and I both agree the superman pic just doesn't look right. (it's the pic that showed up in all the media when this storyline happened with the couple in flight and the magic lasso). My favorite staffer described it as a "bit rapey" because wonder woman has a posture that implies she is pulling away to avoid the kiss. I pointed out that Superman being tied up in the magic lasso was not helping matters. But the real thing that sticks in my head is that it's not Lois Lane. SUPERMAN AND LOIS have been a couple longer than my grandparents have been together. This is like finding out Mal Reynolds dumps Inara for River Tam. It just feels wrong.

[smafdi]

The only thing I can think of where the superman x wonderwoman thing came from is i know in the Injustice storyline (based on the game dur) SPOILER ALERT!!!


After lois is killed with clarks unborn child inside him he goes kinda nuts and all red state on the world. wonderwoman helps him and kinda gets him all into her, so to speak.

[salamanca]

Actually, it's a new 52 thing at DC. They are the "power couple" to see what sort of stories develop and to launch a team up book similar to the superman/batman comic but with romance included. Speaking of heroes: today I stopped a runaway toddler who abandoned mom and family a good quarter mile down the mall and was wandering without a care in the world. Mom was apparently overwhelmed looking after her other 4 kids and little Jake made a break for it. And I yanked a different toddler out of the path of an oncoming train when she ran out of Build-a-Bear while mommy was paying. (yes a train. It circles the mall concourse as a ride for kids and parents and is one of my many headaches. And yes, it is in the way, a danger to shoppers, annoying, and staffed by less than responsible people).

[Rebecca Iavelli]

Reguarding the "implied" wrong words that you mentioned in your store meeting on one of your previous post, I was at the bank yesterday morning, waiting for the next teller, while there was a guy talking to one of the tellers, and they got to talking about scars and such, (both were white), and the customer mentioned that the one on his face was work related and that he was going to get a new nose job from his workers comp, because of it. The teller then popped up with "Well, just don't do the Michael Jackson route with it." Then the customer replied back "Yeah, I'm already turning white." Now that was just so wrong, and way so wrong for mentioning in a bank, with other people standing around waiting for service.

[salamanca]

Working all day alone when kids are all off for holiday = miserable. Doing that while having a 75% off sale = even worse hassles as the cheap browsers pester you for even bigger discounts. (75% off is apparently not enough). Doing that with a 24 hour stomach virus = you don't want to do that without training, just trust me. (and remember, it's 138 yards to the nearest restroom). Today was a much happier day. Still need to sell 2300 calendars by week's end.

[spizio]

Do you have any with non black pugs in Ireland that I can have for 80% off?

[salamanca]

Funny you should ask... Last year, and I may have mentioned this then, one of my employees decided that if we printed a calendar featuring Justin Beiber in a sports car with a bikini clad girl holding a Pug on an Irish Beach near a Kinkade style cottage for a dollar less we would corner the market.

[spizio]

Sorry I can't take a calendar with Bieber in it unless it is 100000000000000000% off.

[salamanca]

It will be fine. The girls don't care where he is in the pic as long as they see his face sticking out from under the tire. (we thought about that factor). Now if we do a second calendar featuring Tom Brady (oh so pretty football star for you sports impaired folks) and Taylor Swift (oh so pretty pop music icon for you tabloid impared folks) riding tractors with kitten wearing hats then we have all the sales locked down. But if anybody can get Gary Larson to do a new page a day calendar of Dilbert office antics, we can own the universe.

[salamanca]

Day 115... I have 41 actual games left on the shelf, all of them suck. 25% of what I have is copies of the NCIS board game or something called "korner'd". So I did good. Boss insists our numbers are behind last year but my shifts are ahead by just a little. Since he and I work all the shifts I can only guess who is to blame if we are behind. I am now finished with clerk work for the season. Just need to tear down Sunday, load the truck and maybe tear down his other store. Cannot happen son enough.

[salamanca]

Day 119. Finally officially done (but unofficially probably need to help saturday with the other store). So let's talk about tearing down 2 booths in one night. This should never be done. You just cannot get enough good help to do it. We had a bunch of people that just did not get that things had to be done quickly. 3 hours into this fiasco, I kicked everybody off of the teardown team except the boss' son. The pair of us tore down the second booth pretty much solo. The boss literally did nothing but haul remaindered calendars to the recycle dumpster all night. (using the smallest cart we had one box at a time...efficiency is not in his tool kit). We started at 5pm, I left the mall at 1:35 am. (by which time the boss and I had long been ditched by everybody else). I have to say it is strange being in the mall at that hour alone. Everything is dimly lit. If you know the mall as a staffer you look at it differently anyhow but in the middle of the night, stuff just gets weird. Sounds echo. The kiddie rides make creepy giggle noises and you become very aware of the fact that the only other person in the building is the security guy that reminds you of Elijah Wood's character from Sin City. (and if he ends up being a lunatic, nobody else is ever going to find you). The good news is that he is not an active lunatic (or had a victim I was not aware of). And the nice man in the freight truck showed up promptly yesterday and hauled everything away. He was a very nice man who knew how to operate the equipment he uses every day properly (unlike most of these freight guys we deal with). So today I spent the day putting a small dent into the massive job of closing the other mall's store my boss runs. The help there made my crew look like a NASCAR pit crew. I never realized until today that people would be unable to comprehend that if stuff sticks out of the box, you will be unable to close the box. I thought people would understand "tear the back page off and put it in box 1". No such luck.

[salamanca]

Ok did some wandering around the company website and online sale board. Turns out we carry at least 25 games that have appeared on TABLETOP. of those, I can get maybe 11 in the store if I order them and get the employee that knows what they are doing on the other end of the phone.

That is over half the games covered and includes Carcassonne, Last Night on Earth, Lords of Waterdeep, Gloom, Qwirkle, Dixit, Formula D, Smash Up, Kings of Tokyo and some pretty fun stuff that they never send us out to sell. Partly due to space, partly due to inventory numbers and partly due to price point. But I still think they should reach out to Wil and look into some sort of endorsement with QR links to episodes.

Funnier is the list of recommended items you may also like if you like these products.
If you like Lords of Waterdeep, you may also like a Charles Wysocki "Americana" calendar.
If you like Get Bit, you may also want a "Kitten Cuddles" calendar.
No rhyme or reason at all.

[spizio]

I wouldn't worry about psychotic mall security guards. First it is unlikely that his Seque, yes that is misspelled and no I don't care, is charged. Even if it were it's a frick'n Seque. Second we have already learnt that he ha to stop periodically to scan bar codes. That should give you more time to run or hide. But if he does have an episode and actually catches up to you, DO NOT GO FOR A HEAD SHOT! The mandatory safety helmet will likely save him.

[salamanca]

Those are all good tips. Double points for the bar code thing. And odds are good by that hour the segway was spent, he was weaving through the chairs of the food court in boredom by 11 pm. Today I met a kid named "Mervin". He was exactly what you would expect.

[CaitlinCallahan]

We had our second round with the landlord's HVAC company today. Yes, I said second. In this record breaking Chicago winter, we have now been without heat on two separate occasions (the first was approximately 60 hours, this one was only about 36).

The first instance was due to a bird seeking warmth in the chimney that acts as an air duct into the furnace. Said bird would probably have been better off braving the cold, since it wound up blocking the fan.

This time, on the first trip out yesterday afternoon, the tech found a loose connection, tightened it, and thought everything was okay. When the house failed to heat up to even 50, we called them back, and when the on-duty tech came back out last night, he determined that the circuit board needed to be replaced (which he couldn't fix until today). After waking up to a 46 degree temperature in the house (quite the shock when leaving the space heater warmth of the bedroom), the tech finally showed up around 1:30. Don't know that I've ever been quite so thankful for a working furnace....

[Rebecca Iavelli]

I've got quite the situation happening here right now. It too has been pretty cold, and I guess it caused a water pipe to bust, this past weekend. So my neighbors downstairs called our landlord and informed him of it. He told them to call a plumber to have it fixed. (At this point, I still knew nothing about it.)

So the other day, I get a call at work, from my landlord. He tells me the neighbors called him regarding the broken pipe, and starts on a rant that they must have had a window open, and wants me to go and check. So I get home that night and chat with the neighbors and they told me that the pipe that was busted was not in their apartment, but down in the basement, by the landlords washer and dryer. They were wanting to know what to do regarding the bill from the plumber, and I told them I would call and see what our landlord said. So I call him and tell him where the pipe had busted, and he tells me to have them take the difference off of their rent bill, and I go and inform them of that. Figured, that's all, everything is done. WRONG!

The next day I get another phone call at work from my landlord, and he starts ranting that the neighbors downstairs must be using his washing machine because he had turned off the water, so the pipe shouldn't have busted. I told him that there would be no way to tell if they were using his machine or not, though I know they have their own machine. But then he rants that he knows they have used his dryer before, so they must be using his machine. (Meanwhile without my knowing at the time, he had been texting and calling the people downstairs, ranting.)
I get home that night, and no one is home, so I just go up to my apartment to relax, and about an hour later the daughter gets home. She comes up to my apartment and ask me if our landlord had called me. I said yes, and she said was it about using the machine, and I replied again, yes. Well, she shows me the texting rants that our landlord had sent her. She said he called her just about hourly, til she turned off her cell phone. She then took me down to where the plumber had fixed the pipe down on the first floor by his washer and dryer, which is outside of his main apartment on the first floor, at the entrance to the basement. They are on a un-isolated wall, so with all this cold we are having, the pipe had busted. It had caused flooding in half of the basement, which is quite large. So anyway, the last text rant our landlord had sent her was to tell them they had 30 days to get out of the house.
He had wanted me to get a copy of the bill so he could get the plumbers name and phone and call him. I haven't done that yet, after what she showed me, and I have no idea what to do in this situation. I shouldn't even be involved, as it had nothing to do with me, the pipe busted and even with the water turned off, the pipe would still have water in it (can't get that idea into his head, since he has it that they turned on the water and used his machines), but turning off the water does not mean that the pipe is empty of water!

So, I have not called him back, and don't plan too. If he should call me again at work, I will explain the pipe situation to him as I saw it, but with the way he has been ranting, makes me wonder how long it will be till I get my notice to move too, because I didn't give him his information he wanted.

[Sister Sonya]

I owned an 8-flat circa 1890 (no insulation anywhere and unheated basement) for 21 years, so have lots of experience with cold and water pipes.

My advice is not to get involved with third parties for any reason. The landlord should be dealing with this situation himself or solely with the one tenant.

If the tenant has a lease, a 30 day notice will work only for very limited situations (mostly criminal activities after arrests).

You might want to go looking for a new place anyway, as your landlord seems like a disaster waiting for you as well.

[CaitlinCallahan]

I would echo the "stay out of it" advice (as well as the "it might be time to look for a new place" advice, though I know that can be difficult to do).

The landlord sounds like a piece of work - he shouldn't have sucked you into the middle of this, and if he's doing this to them, you could be next.

[Rebecca Iavelli]

Yeah, I've totally stepped away from it. I have not called him or talked to him since he called me last time, so its been at least 4 days.

I have no idea why he went on a rant, he is usually fairly decent, and I've lived at the place I am since 1999. I'm just wondering if he's going through a senior moment.