Back in my usual corner this morning at Starbucks with a coffee in hand as I type this up, everything is as it should be. I have been looking forward to this "weekend" more than a normal couple days off for some reason. October, while full of excitement, was full of travel as well. It took quite a bit more out of me than I imagined it would. I think I have been looking forward to this couple days off in particular because they are the first in a month that don't include travel plans or the need for packing for future traveling. Just a true, lazy two days off is just what I needed I think.
I really don't have much to talk about today come to think of it. The work meeting yesterday was all about upcoming holiday merchandise and whatnot so I am starting to get into that mindset already. I am only missing the snow to fully get me into the holiday spirit (I always tend to be ready for the holidays much earlier in the season than most people). With this time of year I also start thinking of my birthday and whether or not to try to plan some sort of get together for it this year for the big two-five. That's more planning than I want to do today though. Mindless youtube watching and waking up with this coffee while talking with some friends working is all I want to do today. After a busy October and very busy work week I think I earned it! Stay warm ladies and gentlemen, and thanks for reading!
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
A late Night
Well as strange as it seems I have found the energy after my shift to sit here and type up another entry. How's that for commitment to keeping regular entries? Not a whole lot to add for the day however, not a very interesting shift.
I will say it was more difficult than I thought to come back to these hectic 8 hour shifts after 4 days of relaxing and having some fun! I get back into the store and almost immediately I am bombarded with questions I don't have answers to because I had been gone for four days! What is this blog for if not to be honest about how I feel right? I started getting annoyed early and often today. I don't have the answers, you know more about the problem than me, I'm sure you can figure it out if you slow down and think for a minute. This was exactly what I did with them instead of just saying what to do. I went to the side with them and explained the process and encouraged them to come up with their own solutions. Yes that's right, even though I was annoyed that doesn't mean I showed it.
Other than that my plan for closing at night is continuing to work. It was basically a plan to simplify what is expected of each person. Instead of everyone trying to run around and find something that hasn't been done (which takes a long time because everyone asks each other what has or has not been done) I changed things a bit. Whatever station I deploy you to that night, you are responsible for only that station. You make the drinks, do what is expected in that particular station and when the time comes you clean whatever is expected. I instruct them to not even look at another station and to let me deal with that if I need to. If they get their duties done and the gate is closed, they can take a bag of trash and they can go home. If they haven't completed everything, they stay until it's done (with help from me if need be). I also rotate jobs so it isn't the same person on the same station every week.
That is, as it turns out, my personal stamp on the job I think. I found a, so far, optimal way to close the store and clean it at the end of the night. Not to mention it is very stress free because you know exactly what is expected of you and can gauge your own progress but I also have the option if you want to you can stay and help out a fellow employee with their duties if you have yours done. This has the potential to build trust and rapport between two or more people at once. I know I wouldn't forget the person who stuck around to help me get my stuff done to leave on time! It also helps me to assign accountability, I know who is doing what and thus who to talk to if something in a certain area needs done. This is still an early stage of development and will no doubt get smoother as everyone begins to understand this is how I run things from 4pm until 12am.
Anyway, I better get back to my extremely late dinner and enjoy this rare late October thunderstorm! Thanks for reading ladies and gentlemen and have a great day!
I will say it was more difficult than I thought to come back to these hectic 8 hour shifts after 4 days of relaxing and having some fun! I get back into the store and almost immediately I am bombarded with questions I don't have answers to because I had been gone for four days! What is this blog for if not to be honest about how I feel right? I started getting annoyed early and often today. I don't have the answers, you know more about the problem than me, I'm sure you can figure it out if you slow down and think for a minute. This was exactly what I did with them instead of just saying what to do. I went to the side with them and explained the process and encouraged them to come up with their own solutions. Yes that's right, even though I was annoyed that doesn't mean I showed it.
Other than that my plan for closing at night is continuing to work. It was basically a plan to simplify what is expected of each person. Instead of everyone trying to run around and find something that hasn't been done (which takes a long time because everyone asks each other what has or has not been done) I changed things a bit. Whatever station I deploy you to that night, you are responsible for only that station. You make the drinks, do what is expected in that particular station and when the time comes you clean whatever is expected. I instruct them to not even look at another station and to let me deal with that if I need to. If they get their duties done and the gate is closed, they can take a bag of trash and they can go home. If they haven't completed everything, they stay until it's done (with help from me if need be). I also rotate jobs so it isn't the same person on the same station every week.
That is, as it turns out, my personal stamp on the job I think. I found a, so far, optimal way to close the store and clean it at the end of the night. Not to mention it is very stress free because you know exactly what is expected of you and can gauge your own progress but I also have the option if you want to you can stay and help out a fellow employee with their duties if you have yours done. This has the potential to build trust and rapport between two or more people at once. I know I wouldn't forget the person who stuck around to help me get my stuff done to leave on time! It also helps me to assign accountability, I know who is doing what and thus who to talk to if something in a certain area needs done. This is still an early stage of development and will no doubt get smoother as everyone begins to understand this is how I run things from 4pm until 12am.
Anyway, I better get back to my extremely late dinner and enjoy this rare late October thunderstorm! Thanks for reading ladies and gentlemen and have a great day!
Monday, October 24, 2011
Aaaaaaand We're Back
Alright y'all back again finally for some more entries. Was quite a break there while things for Mike's wedding starting coming into play! The bachelor party was a lot of fun and the wedding was even better, I will talk on such topics now.
First of all back in early October the bachelor party was scheduled. I was planning on staying the night here at Purdue and then going down to Indy like at 11am on Saturday to get things going but I am a fan of changing plans last minute and doing the unexpected. I ended up getting back from work Friday night at about 7:30 and within a half hour I was actually in my car driving to Indy to start things for the party at 10:30 that same night. While I won't go entirely into detail about the proceedings I will say I had just a few drinks and things went well for the night. The next morning (after 2 hours of sleep) we all got up and went to play nine holes of golf. This was a lot of fun for me because I had been wanting to golf for a long time and I happened to have my clubs in my trunk. We got into groups of four and started in. After a long night this was probably the absolute best way to recover. Right after golf we were all back in the caravan and headed to paintball. This was my first time so I was pretty freakin nervous about it (especially after I saw before we started we had to sign a waiver!) but I manned up and got suited. First of all, that equipment is heavy! I was alright standing but once that game started and I had to run for cover it was rough. After a short all out sprint and throwing myself into the side of a hill for cover I was already out of breath! That helmet was tough to wear too, trying to look around was a lot more difficult. Well, for my part, round one I got shot in the neck (the one place I was not covered haha) and then a couple days later I took one right in the dome. I must say my ears haven't rung like that in a while. That ball hit the top left of my head and that echoes somethin fierce inside the helmet. My night wrapped up after getting to the hotel after paintballing and watching a little football. I got back later that night to West Lafayette and got back to relaxing.
The wedding was up next a couple weeks later. I ended up driving back to Fort Wayne first to visit the parents and waited for my brother who was on his way to pick me up so we could carpool. On Friday we hit up the rehearsal dinner. Nobody was nervous going into this but afterwards, once we got all the instructions and little things we had to make sure of we all got a little iffy haha. We were all good students and practiced a couple times as far as who walks out with who and where to go once we were out of sight. My brother and I hadn't worked out where we were going to stay that night but our uncle had us covered. He and our Aunt picked up an extra room at the hotel and offered it to us as well as our cousin Tim. So we went and chilled at the hotel that night and got up like at 9 the next morning for breakfast (I had something called the tremendous twelve? haha don't knock it til you try it) and went to pick up the tuxes for Ryan and myself. We made it to the church at right around 11 I believe and we got changed into the tuxes and got to hang out with all the groomsmen. We went around getting pictures taken in various spots around the church (making sure to not let the groom see the bride or vice versa). The most intense part I think was waiting with a half hour til game time in the groomsmen staging area with Mike and his best man Jon. We kind of all just talked each other up and got pumped up. Listened to some specific tunes to get ready. Then it was go time. Everything went off without a hitch, it was fantastic. It was tougher than I thought to stand up there for that long in that tux but I took it like a pro.
Right after the ceremony ended everyone kind of stuck around to help clean up and chat a while. Then we piled into our cars and went to the after party. Started things off in a tiny room as all the guests arrived and had a Blue Moon. I got a chance to talk to some old friends before all the guests were ushered to the reception room and the bridal party stayed in that small room before being taken to our staging area to be announced. This was a nervous time for me, not big on being the center of attention but good to get the practice in. I was lucky enough to escort a friend of mine in rather than someone I didn't know at all! The dinner was served which was also delicious, I am very picky about what I eat so that's saying something. Jon's toast was fantastic, the amount of backstory behind everything in the speech was staggering haha. Only the close friends and those who knew Mike in college got the full blast of humor. After dinner the dancing began. Time for me to be nervous again! The traditional dance of just the bride and groom and then the parents is fine. That next song though, it was just the bridal party. I tiptoed onto the dance floor and couldn't find a dance partner haha. A couple of the bridesmaids were MIA at the beginning of the song. Luckily I was saved by a friend of mine yet again until they got back.
That was most of the night right there. Just hitting the open bar and getting back out onto the floor to pretend I was back in college with my friends I haven't gotten to hang out with much since college. I went back just a little while with the bridal party to have a couple more drinks and some pizza which was pretty cool. They opened up the bar for us and we set in. I stayed until about 2am and then headed back to my parents who had a hotel for that night and the rest is history. Here I am now back at Starbucks at Purdue writing this entry getting back into the swing of being on campus again. My entries to this blog will hopefully be back to being once a day if I can stay on top of things. No matter if something really exciting happens or not, I want my life as it is to be publicized every day. Thanks for sticking with it even when I haven't! As always, have a good one ladies and gentlemen.
First of all back in early October the bachelor party was scheduled. I was planning on staying the night here at Purdue and then going down to Indy like at 11am on Saturday to get things going but I am a fan of changing plans last minute and doing the unexpected. I ended up getting back from work Friday night at about 7:30 and within a half hour I was actually in my car driving to Indy to start things for the party at 10:30 that same night. While I won't go entirely into detail about the proceedings I will say I had just a few drinks and things went well for the night. The next morning (after 2 hours of sleep) we all got up and went to play nine holes of golf. This was a lot of fun for me because I had been wanting to golf for a long time and I happened to have my clubs in my trunk. We got into groups of four and started in. After a long night this was probably the absolute best way to recover. Right after golf we were all back in the caravan and headed to paintball. This was my first time so I was pretty freakin nervous about it (especially after I saw before we started we had to sign a waiver!) but I manned up and got suited. First of all, that equipment is heavy! I was alright standing but once that game started and I had to run for cover it was rough. After a short all out sprint and throwing myself into the side of a hill for cover I was already out of breath! That helmet was tough to wear too, trying to look around was a lot more difficult. Well, for my part, round one I got shot in the neck (the one place I was not covered haha) and then a couple days later I took one right in the dome. I must say my ears haven't rung like that in a while. That ball hit the top left of my head and that echoes somethin fierce inside the helmet. My night wrapped up after getting to the hotel after paintballing and watching a little football. I got back later that night to West Lafayette and got back to relaxing.
The wedding was up next a couple weeks later. I ended up driving back to Fort Wayne first to visit the parents and waited for my brother who was on his way to pick me up so we could carpool. On Friday we hit up the rehearsal dinner. Nobody was nervous going into this but afterwards, once we got all the instructions and little things we had to make sure of we all got a little iffy haha. We were all good students and practiced a couple times as far as who walks out with who and where to go once we were out of sight. My brother and I hadn't worked out where we were going to stay that night but our uncle had us covered. He and our Aunt picked up an extra room at the hotel and offered it to us as well as our cousin Tim. So we went and chilled at the hotel that night and got up like at 9 the next morning for breakfast (I had something called the tremendous twelve? haha don't knock it til you try it) and went to pick up the tuxes for Ryan and myself. We made it to the church at right around 11 I believe and we got changed into the tuxes and got to hang out with all the groomsmen. We went around getting pictures taken in various spots around the church (making sure to not let the groom see the bride or vice versa). The most intense part I think was waiting with a half hour til game time in the groomsmen staging area with Mike and his best man Jon. We kind of all just talked each other up and got pumped up. Listened to some specific tunes to get ready. Then it was go time. Everything went off without a hitch, it was fantastic. It was tougher than I thought to stand up there for that long in that tux but I took it like a pro.
Right after the ceremony ended everyone kind of stuck around to help clean up and chat a while. Then we piled into our cars and went to the after party. Started things off in a tiny room as all the guests arrived and had a Blue Moon. I got a chance to talk to some old friends before all the guests were ushered to the reception room and the bridal party stayed in that small room before being taken to our staging area to be announced. This was a nervous time for me, not big on being the center of attention but good to get the practice in. I was lucky enough to escort a friend of mine in rather than someone I didn't know at all! The dinner was served which was also delicious, I am very picky about what I eat so that's saying something. Jon's toast was fantastic, the amount of backstory behind everything in the speech was staggering haha. Only the close friends and those who knew Mike in college got the full blast of humor. After dinner the dancing began. Time for me to be nervous again! The traditional dance of just the bride and groom and then the parents is fine. That next song though, it was just the bridal party. I tiptoed onto the dance floor and couldn't find a dance partner haha. A couple of the bridesmaids were MIA at the beginning of the song. Luckily I was saved by a friend of mine yet again until they got back.
That was most of the night right there. Just hitting the open bar and getting back out onto the floor to pretend I was back in college with my friends I haven't gotten to hang out with much since college. I went back just a little while with the bridal party to have a couple more drinks and some pizza which was pretty cool. They opened up the bar for us and we set in. I stayed until about 2am and then headed back to my parents who had a hotel for that night and the rest is history. Here I am now back at Starbucks at Purdue writing this entry getting back into the swing of being on campus again. My entries to this blog will hopefully be back to being once a day if I can stay on top of things. No matter if something really exciting happens or not, I want my life as it is to be publicized every day. Thanks for sticking with it even when I haven't! As always, have a good one ladies and gentlemen.
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