You are currently viewing the entries from December 2008

Customers Suck

Okay, I understand people find the holiday season stressful. I also understand that people find the prospect of being snowed in stressful.

However, this does not mean you can throw a shopping basket at me when I tell you that the Transformers DVD that is on sale today (or, rather, Saturday when this happened) will not be on sale tomorrow, even if you put it on hold at guest services.

Yes, I’m serious. A “guest” threw a shopping basket at me because he was supposedly freaking out whilst trying to find provisions, but apparently had enough time to pick out a Transformers DVD set.

Everybody is freaking out because they think they’re going to lose power. Everybody is foraging for food. You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake.

After I told him he wouldn’t get the sales price, he started going off and spewing a bunch of nonsensical bullshit:

1. “I’ve been living here for 30 years and…” (So what? My store hasn’t even been there for 35 years.)
2. “I’m ex-military and…” (Is that a threat?)
3. “I’ve been to three stores trying to get provisions and I don’t need this right now!” (Dude, you’re buying ping pong balls. How is that helping your search?)

Then he threw the basket at me. I backed up into the corner of my little register section and he began yelling at me to not freak out on him because he “doesn’t need this right now.”

I informed him he couldn’t attack me and that pissed him off. He said he wasn’t attacking me, to get better customer service skills, and that his generation had to deal with “it” and so I have to as well.

Excuse me? Your generation wasn’t typically known for throwing things at shop girls.

After I give him his receipt and run away, I get sort of freaked out. When someone’s in my face, I don’t really back down. I finally found my manager, who I normally hate, and she went over with security and kicked him out of the store.

This is where it got interesting: He started rambling about being ex-military and war and some incident in Germany and whatnot.

Here’s the thing: he was only about 35, max. There is no way he was ever in a war in Germany. And again I say, so what? What does Germany have to do with throwing a basket at me?

Bastard.

Let It Snow

Today is my great-grandmother’s 100th birthday!

We were going to have a huge party today, but due to Snowpocalypse ‘08, nobody from out of state can get here and most people in-state (including my family!) are stranded as well. Plus she (the birthday girl!) has a terribly unfortunate cold.

My aunt doesn’t want to deal with weather issues again so she wants to postpone until February.

Now, my great-grandma might be healthier than the rest of my family combined…but 100 is really effing old. You cannot postpone someone’s birthday party for two months–especially if they are into the triple digits.

My uncle is going off about how he’s never planning a birthday in December ever again. Because we get actual snow every five years or so? Seriously?

He’s even angry that she “decided” to get sick. Really? She decided to get sick? That’s a new one.

I love my uncle, but needless to say, he can be a bit of a self-centered bastard. My mom showed great restraint in not strangling him over the phone when she heard that.

Moving In

While I’m not dead, Briar.cc is. I’m officially finished moving to my new domain, Donut.nu.

I’ve also rewritten most of the about section. A few kinks are still being worked out, particularly with the film and book logs. In addition, I’ve upgraded to WordPress 2.7 which was a bitch to upgrade from a plug-ins perspective.

My new RSS feed is feeds.feedburner.com/donutnu

Why Donut.nu, you ask?

Well, me being lazy, I’m just going to copy paste what I wrote under the website section.

My first name is Donna. One of the most awesome people on the planet, my friend Patricia, calls me Donut. She informed me that dona in Spanish means ‘doughnut’–at least in Venezuela. There’s also a slight Veronica Mars connotation there for me.

Oddly, I loathe doughnuts. Except the powdered ones. Those are delicious.

I chose it because it’s short, sweet, easy to remember, and still personal at the same time. It’s a name I can keep for a long time.

I’ve decided to go by my first name from here on out rather than my middle, particularly since Donut.nu is based upon said name.

Mostly Alive, Nearly Kicking

I am not dead! I felt as if I was, but alas, am not. I was going through a rough personal time including, but not limited to, death in the family. I’m still trying to get through it and I realize now that had I been regularly clearing out my mind here, I might feel better.

I’ll moving to a new site within the next few days and will be posting much more often.

Despite the bad, a few good things have happened since my last entry:

1) I went to see The Phantom of the Opera when the tour came to Seattle. It was a-effing-mazing and worth every penny of the exorbinant amount I spent on my four row-center tickets. Despite the fact I totally couldn’t afford them.

2) I took a day trip to Bellingham with my friend who was catching the ferry to Alaska.

I loved it, particularly Fairhaven. It was pouring down rain when we arrived by train and the first thing we see is a fish and chip shop being run out of a double-decker bus with a gazebo on the side for indoor dining. It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen at that point. We were there for over half an hour and yet our food managed to be burn-your-mouth hot the entire time.

Click on image to go to source.

It’s particularly good that I loved it because I’ll be moving up there when I transfer to Western Washington University for their elementary education program.

I want to get my master’s degree in Library and Information Science (an MLIS) so I want to get my teaching qualifications as an undergraduate while still being able to double major. The education program before the double major is a five and a half year program. Adding in another concentration to that might add a considerable amount of time, but I’m hoping to plan it well.

3) My friend and I have resolved to travel through Europe for three months in 2009, unless one of us wins the lottery in which case we’re replacing the words ‘Europe’ and ‘three months’ with ‘the world’ and ‘forever’. Likely from September to December. I’ve done the math on what I need to save (plus what I was saving for my formal education, but am now deciding to blow on travel–a different sort of education, but arguably of equal importance) so I’m in the process of trying to find an additional job or two that pays the same or better than my current job.

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