Updates from the Working Jane world

So, it has occurred to me that I haven’t really regaled you with any tales from life at the greenhouse.

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What can I say.  It’s a joe job, and remarkably devoid of any interesting happenings.  The most fascinating thing I can say, and believe me, there is a significant amount of tongue-in-cheek when I say fascinating, is that we sell a variety of marigolds named “Janie.”

The weather is still somewhat dodgy up here, so there has been several days I’ve stood around picking dead blooms off flowers in pouring rain, 30 mile an hour winds and 50 degree temps.  I suppose it might seem odd, but people still shop a mostly out door greenhouse in thunderstorms.  Besides from that, I really can’t complain about the customers, as they just want to talk about plants.  Well, mostly they want to talk about plants.  There was that one guy the other night who if he wasn’t old enough to be my grandfather I’d have sworn he was hitting on me.  Then again, he still might have been.  But I digress.

The job isn’t bad, and my coworkers are all remarkably fun to chat with in the down time.  We have all remarked how refreshing it is to not have those personality conflicts that so generally happen in workplaces.  And the manager knows a lot about plants.  Can you sense the but coming?

But, when I call her manager, it’s in title only.  She is a very nice person, who I like, but she has absolutely no skills for managing people unless you consider avoidance a management technique.

It’s just a minimum wage job, and I do need the dough, so I’ve tried to pretend like this little problem doesn’t matter.  I’ve been able to ignore not being trained on anything except how to water plants.  I can ignore being left alone to work the last 3 hours and close by myself.  I can even ignore seeing her miscount a stack of one dollar bills and her ignoring me when I mention that the singles have been counted wrong and the drawer won’t balance then heroically biting my tongue when she tries to blame the problem on some one buying pennies and not paying for them, despite the fact that a roll of pennies is only fifty cents and we’re off a dollar.  However, I started getting a bit put out when she was calling me in early for shifts and asking me to work my days off because she hired people knowing they were waiting to hear back on other job leads, and after just the first week they quit.  Not one person, but two did this.  But, I finally threw down when she began adding me to cover other people’s shifts without so much as a “Oh, Janie, I needed someone else tomorrow because Sue quit.  You can cover it can’t you?”

The first time she added me without saying anything I happened to notice several days before.  I mentioned to her that I noticed I was added to the schedule and said that I could work but I would appreciate her asking first.

The second time happened Monday.  I noticed when I sat down to steal a break at around 5pm that the schedule had me written on for Wednesday.  She hadn’t bothered to communicate this to me so if I hadn’t just happened to glance at the schedule while on break I would never have known she expected me to show up on my day off.  Apparently someone else quit so she just added me on earlier that day.  Well, I was pretty pissed that she’d done it to me again after I specifically told her to tell me if she was changing my schedule.  If I agreed to work the shift then I would end up working 9 days in a row with out a day off, and on top of fighting of the last bit of this cold, I needed that day off.  So I called her up and we had a throw down.  I tried to be polite, but she just wasn’t getting why I would be mad.  She said, “Well, you never told me you couldn’t work that day.  You should have written on the schedule “No Janie” so I’d know I couldn’t add you on.”

So, you never would bother to consider a person might have made plans on a day they weren’t scheduled on?  So you’d never bother to think a person might not want to work 9 days in a row?

??

So apparently in her world staff need to go through and write down all the days they can’t work or she’ll assume she’s free to make use of you even at the last minute and without telling us she put us on.

Well, that just doesn’t fly with me.  Nor apparently with other employees, so we all demanded a fixed schedule.

Then yesterday I noticed she had done it to me again without asking.

Once, twice, three strikes, you’re out

And so, that’s hopefully the end of that.

Sometimes it’s hard to be a grown up, but then it’s harder to be seven

So the new job wanted me to start just as finals week arrived.  No rest for the wicked I’m afraid.  The job isn’t terribly hard, but in just two days I’ve already been reminded why I’m going to school:  to not have to work a minimum wage job.  Most of the people working there don’t work for money, they work for the discount, which is 40%.  Nice if you want to spend your whole paycheck on plants, but for those of use who have to pay bills, it’s not much consolation for a laughably miniscule paycheck.  Well, unless you actually enjoy standing on a blacktop parking lot all day in the rainy drizzle watering plants with water that is barely 50 degrees F (for my Celsius using friends that’s roughly 10 degrees C).  Because for the last 3 years I’ve spent 90% percent of my day sitting either at a desk or in a car, my feet and knees are quite unhappy.  Though spring is here, it’s still not really warm on a daily basis, and as customers tend not to shop on days with 20 mile an hour winds and spitting drizzle, so it’s been pretty dull.  But it is an honest living, and the other employees so far seem like good people.  Once my woefully neglected body toughens up I’ll likely be fine.  Until then, hello prescription muscle relaxers and Aleve!

However, my sad story is nothing compared to the misery the poor Spud has suffered this weekend.  Her balloon broke last night.

This wasn’t just any balloon, but a humongous purple number with stars on it that she payed way too much for with her own chore money at the circus yesterday.  The highly anticipated circus was wonderful.  We all had a great time.  The Spud even got to ride an elephant!  Happiness is a big purple balloon and an elephant ride at the circus.  So it was rather heart breaking when her much loved circus souvenir broke just 6 hours after getting home.  Sometimes, when your balloon pops, it’s hard to be seven.

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Get a haircut, and get a real job

My dear blog friends may not know, but I have been applying for dozens of jobs in the last couple of months, as I can’t live on unemployment forever.  But, times are hard.  Jobs in the Great White North are few and applicants are many.  I’ve only gotten two interviews.  And, as I really prefer not to wipe the behinds of Depends-wearing, mentally handicapped persons, I didn’t even like wiping my daughter’s behind when she was a baby,  I put on a brave smile and eagerly accepted the only other offer I’ve gotten while mentally calculating that it pays 2.5 times less per hour than my last real job.  If I get enough hours each week I might end up with enough of a paycheck to pay at least my rent, which is important, so off to work I go.  So, I don’t have a big brother Bob, I really do need a haircut, but at least I now have a paying job.  At least for the summer.  Which is good.  I couldn’t afford to keep this job all year ’round.

*Sigh*

But, it’s at a garden center where I will spend my time watering flowers and imbibing lots of fresh air and sunshine instead of sitting at my laptop doing homework.  Sounds pleasant enough as jobs go.  And, if I manage not to kill all the stupid customers who ask, “Do I need to remove this from the pot before I put it in the ground,” or “What do you mean I can’t have a refund!  It’s not my fault that the plant dried out and died from sitting in a tiny 1″x1″ plastic container on my black top driveway for 3 weeks in the blazing sun and it never rained once” I should have something new to blog about besides school.

Well, I best go make myself as presentable as possible.  My duty to the boss is calling…

Flashback Friday and the Rabbit Lathe Workers Union 101

Continuing the fun of Flashback Friday, here’s a quirky post from my glory days when I was actually employed and not throwing money into the black hole of Higher Education at rates too scary to contemplate. Enjoy!

Wanted: Experienced Rabbit to Work Mini Carrot Lathe
Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Today coworker #1 had a birthday. As per usual, a potluck was chosen as the celebration method of choice. Coworker #3 brought a relish tray with those tiny pre cut and peeled carrots. Sitting there at lunch grazing, I began to wonder how they get the carrots into that shape.

Me: Say, do you suppose that they have mini lathes to peel and shape these carrots?

Co worker #2: No wonder why it’s so much more expensive to buy these, can you imagine the man hours it must take to process these?

Me: Can you imagine listing carrot lathe operator as your job title?

CW#2: Maybe they use rabbits.

Me: Rabbits?

CW#2: Yeah, maybe they just have a warehouse full of rabbits gnawing the carrots down to size. Green Giant could be the world’s largest rabbit employer.

Me: Good grief! Mini carrot shaving sweat houses. Maybe we could get Rachel Ray to play Norma Rae in the rabbit version of the movie.

CW#2: Maybe it would be a great job if you’re a rabbit. All the carrot shavings you can eat.

Me: Maybe they don’t use rabbits. Maybe they use beavers. That would make sense, after all. Take a long hard carrot, shove it in the gaping maw of a beaver, and in moments your carrot’s shape shrinks to a fraction of it’s former size. And, beavers are used to spitting out what they can’t swallow.

*pause*

Me: Maybe we took this analogy a bit too far….

That was actually a really great job. Don’t get me wrong, it really, really had it’s moments when you understood the depth and breadth of the phrase, “gone postal.” Over all though, it was a really great job. Way, way better than being unemployed and going to University. *Sigh* I also miss Co Worker #2.

Janie Gumbo

Ahhhhhhh….

Some people say business travel is a vile anathema. There have been times over the last 4 weeks when I would have agreed, but right now I just can’t remember why.

Tonight my room was upgraded to a jacuzzi suite.

Is 30 minutes too long to soak in a hot tub? Definitely not, if you don’t mind looking like a craisin when you are done.

*Sigh* It’s moments like these, when I’m getting paid to soak in a hot tub and eat cheesecake in bed on top of my regular salary that I start to think I just might miss this job.

But I’ll arrive at the office at 0800 tomorrow and Marcy will remind me of how glad I am that I will be unemployed on October 16th with all the grace and subtlety of a brick through a plate glass window.

Check out time isn’t until 1100.

*Cough*Hack*Wheeze* Maybe I’ll come down with some freak illness and have to call in sick tomorrow. Better to use those 80 hours of sick time than lose them when I get laid off….

Cheers. I’m going to take a muscle relaxer and stone my steamy craisiny self to sleep, and I just might not notice the bed is as hard as a wood plank.