20060129

A story about a bunny

Here's a song I haven't heard in forever. I liked it as a child, and now I laugh at the thought of me doing this for my kids some day. I can't picture myself doing it, but I know I will at some point. That point being a time when none of my friends are around, and the wife is out doing wife things.


Little Bunny Foo Foo,
Hopping through the forest
Scooping up the field mice
And boppin' 'em on the head

Down came the good fairy and she said

"Little Bunny Foo Foo,
I don't want to see you
Scooping up the field mice
And boppin' 'em on the head.
I'll give you three chances,
And if you don't behave
I'll turn you into a goon!"

The next day:

Little Bunny Foo Foo,
Hopping through the forest
Scooping up the field mice
And boppin' 'em on the head

Down came the good fairy and she said

"Little Bunny Foo Foo,
I don't want to see you
Scooping up the field mice
And boppin' 'em on the head.
I'll give you two more chances,
And if you don't behave
I'll turn you into a goon!"

The next day:

Little Bunny Foo Foo,
Hopping through the forest
Scooping up the field mice
And boppin' 'em on the head

Down came the good fairy and she said

"Little Bunny Foo Foo,
I don't want to see you
Scooping up the field mice
And boppin' 'em on the head.
I'll give you one more chance,
And if you don't behave
I'll turn you into a goon!"

The next day:

Little Bunny Foo Foo,
Hopping through the forest
Scooping up the field mice
And boppin' 'em on the head

Down came the good fairy and she said

"Little Bunny Foo Foo,
I don't want to see you
Scooping up the field mice
And boppin' 'em on the head.
I gave you three chances
And you didn't behave
Now you're a goon! POOF!!"

20060126

The Lastest News for Weird Al

So in doing some research, I've found out the Weird Al has finished recording and mixing the first six songs on his next album.

Truck Update

So I took my truck into the shop, and got an estimate. Its going to be $1,000+ to fix the thing. In the meantime I'm driving a rental, atleast its American. Its a Chevy Malibu. It looks nice, but I prefer my truck, and I'll be glad to get it back. Tomorrow I go in to schedule my court date. Overall, I miss being in the south.

20060122

Super Geeks Unite!!!

guess I'm more of a geek than I thought. Not that its a bad thing :)

20060121

Trucks are Tough

I got into my first accident last night. (Well, first accident that had to be reported.) Completely ruined the bumper of the car I hit. Plastic bumbers just aren't the good. I wasn't going fast enough for my airbags to deploy, and so far my truck only seems to have some cosmetic damage, namely the front bumper got dented. Although I didn't announce this at the start, no one was hurt in the accident. I wasn't driving wrecklessly, and I was actually being a good driver. It was snowing bad, and my truck lost control. I did everything I could think of to stop it, but the truck insisted on still going. I hit the rear of their car. (They had apparrently previously lost control of their car [I hadn't seen this] and were likely recovering from the shock of that, only to have a truck hit them.

The Policeman who showed up ended up giving me a ticket for "Failed to stop in clear assured distance." The ticket no where mentions that the road was icey. nor does it mention that it (the accident) was on a semi-steep downhill road, so that I hit them coming from above, my truck literally slid the thirty feet to hit them. I'm going to fight this ticket, anyone know what kind of chances I have?

20060117

Answering some questions

This will be added to as more questions are asked.

Question: If a cashier does a particularly polite and efficient job and I inform the manager of this, will it do any good?

I've done this a few times, and I hope the compliment got passed along.
- Harvey

It all depends on the manager. In some cases, the manager gave me a $5.00 gift card to the store, in others, I didn't find out about it until a week later and from a co-worker who was related to them.

"Mebbe not 'free', but I always say 'It's a nickel.' If it doesn't scan, it's a nickel, right?"
- _Jon

Usually, if an item doesn't scan, if the customer doesn't do the stupid line about it being free, I'll give it to them for a reduced price, usally about 99 cents, unless I think that price is too much. I adjust the price depending on the item and how much I like the customer.

20060113

Cashier Has Authority To Solve All Problems With A Ten Gauge

I’ve decided to become a teacher of sorts. Today you are going how to be a proper customer in a retail store. I’ve had it with stupid customers who come into my lane, and as we are not yet at a point where Cashiers and other “Customer Service Representatives” can solve any problems that arise with a shotgun (This will change when I rule the world. [Mandatory safety classes and IQ tests must be passed before one can become a Customer Service Rep.] ) I have therefore decided that it is high time we had a customer training pamphlet.

Unloading the Cart~

When unloading your cart, please keep all of your like items together as you place them on the belt. You don’t want your bread placed in a bag with your heavy, bulky, and non-yielding cans, as that would crush your bread, so why would you place one loaf of bread in the middle of your placement of cans? You know that dozen eggs you’re buying? Place the bread on top of that, then, when it gets bagged, you’ll know where both the eggs and the bread are, and they won’t get lost in the process of ringing you up. Keeping all your like items together also serves to keep your cashier from having to stand on tip-toes and reach halfway across the lane just so they can put another item into the bag. To spell it out: meat goes with other meat, dairy with other dairy, frozen with other frozen or cold items, keep the crushable items with the other crushable items. Keep in mind that you may not have a cashier in the prime of their shift. They may have just started, in which case they need time to get into cashier mode, or they could be just ending a shift, in which case their brain is fried from dealing with stupid people all day, so the less they have to think about what’s already in the bag, the less likely they are to make a mistake and put the watermelon on top of the birthday cake you special ordered for your kid from the bakery because you were too damned lazy to bake one yourself.

Requesting Special Bags~

This one is simple. If you want your things put into paper bags, use this question: “May I have my order bagged in paper please?” (Be friendly, remember, you don’t know how many idiots we’ve had to deal with already, so you don’t know how close we are to the point where we just go retail.) Do not ask to have your things placed in bags, we all ready do that for you, so be specific. “Paper bags” and don’t call them brown bags either, they are paper bags, so that‘s what you should ask for. Also, don’t wait until your order is halfway finished (or completely finished) and give us the, “Oh, I wanted paper bags,” crap. Also, most cashiers hate bagging paper, so if they’re doing a good job, let them know, it’ll help brighten their day.

If you have brought your own bags, be they paper or cloth, let us know in advance. If they’re cloth bags, understand that things are going to go a little slower, as cloth bags have no support and its hard to hold them open and scan items at the same time.

If you want bags to be packed lightly, let us know, and don’t get mad at us if the bag is still too heavy (unless its obvious, like twenty cans in a bag) what’s light for us might still be too heavy for you, so it takes a little trial and error for the first couple of bags.

The Scanning Of The Items~

Okay, lets say that the Cashier is going a little slow with the scanning. The likely thing is that either they’re new to being a cashier, or they’re tired. In either case, yelling at them to go faster isn’t going to help you. It may increase their speed a little, but it increases the likelihood that an item, usually glass, will “accidentally” fall onto the ground and smash into many pieces of possibly lethal shrapnel. This will in turn mean that you then have to wait while someone goes back and gets you a replacement for that item. Usually this item is a rather expensive wine. Also, if the slow bagging is bugging you because “you have other things you need to do today,” then you should have re-thought what order you did things in. Grociery shopping takes time, and if you have a particularly large order, it takes a while to process the order. Then you have to drive home and unload everything. Grocery shopping should be done as the last thing you have to do before you go home for the night.

Loading the Cart~
A few grocery stores still employ baggers to bag your groceries and load your cart. Some will even have baggers who are there specifically to take the groceries to your car, and load the car for you. However, stores like Meijer and Walmart now employ a system called scan and bag, in which the cashier does everything from scan the items to bagging it. They will also load your cart for you, however, this takes time, especially if you have a large order. The easiest thing is if you load the cart yourself. The benefits of this is that you will know that your eggs aren’t in a danger zone inside the cart. Also, if you have requested that your bags be light, because you can’t lift much, loading the cart yourself will tell you in advance which bags you can lift, and which need to be redistributed into other bags or into their own bags. (My favorite are the people who want light bags because of a bad back, but have no trouble getting the 50 lbs. bag of dog food onto the belt.)

Price Discrepancies and items that don’t scan~

Okay, you think an item is supposed to be priced differently than how it shows on the screen. Be courteous to the cashier, “You know, I think that that item was on sale.” or “I’m pretty sure that the tag has a lower price.” If you are nice about it, the likelihood is that the cashier will give you the item for the lower amount, even if that item isn’t on sale and is correctly labeled. Being rude is a sure way to keeping the price at the current amount.

If an item doesn’t scan, don’t say anything like, “Oh, it didn’t scan, it must be free.” This was never funny, and is indeed quite annoying to a cashier. Nothing is free. Not even air. Air has pollution in it, so you’re still paying some kind of price.

Clothing~

If you don’t want to put your clothes on the belt because “they’ll get dirty,” that’s fine, but don’t hand the clothes to us all at once. Hand the clothes to the cashier one at a time so that they can scan and bag them easily. I’ve noticed that a lot of the customers who do this will place their produce items directly onto the belt without having them in a produce bag first, I don’t think they realize just how nasty these belts are. We don’t clean them efficiently until after midnight. I just hope they wash the stuff before eating it.

Cards and Coupons~

If you have coupons, don’t hand them to the cashier one at a time, hand them to the cashier all at once.

If you have a store issued card that gives you savings, or goes to charity, hand it to the cashier to scan, don’t reach around and scan it yourself. Its an invasion of personal space. We all have our little bubbles that we don’t like invaded by strangers, so stay out of mine.

This is all for now. If you have any questions about how you can become a better customer, feel free to ask them in the comments, and I’ll answer them at a later date. Also, please pass word of this post as far and wide as you can, so that many can learn how to be a propper customer. Copy and Paste it into your own blog (give me credit though!!!) or print it out all over the work place.

The World's Best Blonde Joke

If you like Blonde jokes, you're gonna love this one.

In other news, look for a post about proper customer behaviour later this weekend.

20060103

Some Resolutions for the New Year



In the year 2006 I resolve to:

Start a cult.



Get your resolution here




I'm already partway there with my internet ordination . . .



In the year 2006 I resolve to:

Become one with my inner sociopath.



Get your resolution here






In the year 2006 I resolve to:

Get on the FBI's Most Wanted List.



Get your resolution here






In the year 2006 I resolve to:

Be on Cops.



Get your resolution here






In the year 2006 I resolve to:

Take over the world.



Get your resolution here




I like the way they all kind of work together towards a common goal. When I do rule the world, people who work in customer service will be allowed to be rude to the guest if the guest is rude to them first, without fear of losing their job-- among other great things

Some Good Advice

This came in one of those lovely forwards where if you send it to 15 people, great things will happen to you, and if you don't send it, bad things will happen to you. Well, I'm not sending it to anyone, but I will post it here because I do agree with the advice (I've edited it a bit so it makes more sense to me), so hopefully it will balance out, and nothing will happen to me :-D

1: Give people more than they expect and do it cheerfully.

2: Marry a man/woman you love to talk to. As you get older, their conversational skills will be as important as any other.

3: Don't believe all you hear, spend all you have or sleep all you
want.

4: When you say, "I love you," mean it

5: When you say, "I'm sorry," look the person in the eye.

6: Be engaged at least six months before you get married.

7: Believe in love at first sight.


8: Never laugh at anyone's dream. People who don't have dreams don't have much.

9: Love deeply and passionately. You might get hurt but it's the only way to live life completely.

10: In disagreements, fight fairly. No name calling.

11: Don't judge people by their relatives, but judge them on how they treat their relatives.

12: Be slow to talk, but quick to listen/think.

13: When someone asks you a question you don't want to answer, smile and ask, "Why do you want to know?"

14: Remember that great love and great achievements involve great risk.

15: Say "bless you" when you hear someone sneeze.

16: When you lose, don't lose the lesson

17: Remember the three R's: Respect for self; Respect for others; and responsibility for all your actions.

18: Don't let a little dispute injure a great friendship.

19: When you realize you've made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.

20: Smile when picking up the phone. The caller will hear it in your voice.

21: Spend some time alone.

20060101

Happy Frelling New Year!!!

So its the new year, nothing as impressive as in 2000, when all 4 digits changed, and there was the whole Y2k scare (whatever happened to that?) I later had heard that it was going to happen on Feb. 29, due to the fact that when they fixed the bug in the original programming, they forgot to do something about Feb. 29th. This also didn't happen. I blame the democrats for the entire scare :-D.

This year, I'll be dropping out of college, trying to find a new and better job, or a second job and trying to sort out some of the things going on in my life.

"Life. Loathe it or ignore it, you can't like it." -- Marvin The Robot.

Sorry Marvin, but I'm just crazy enough to like mine. Sure, there are some things in my past that I wish I could change, but everyone has those. So this year, I'll be taking this semester (I still live by semesters, I just dropped out, so give me a break) I'll be focusing on getting things in some sense of order.