John’s Musings

Epiphany #2

Monday, February 11th, 2008

It’s been about 8 months since I’ve posted last. I’ve missed this outlet but never could decide on what new level I should take my rantings to. I do plan to stop bitching and whining so much and would like to begin posting in a way that will hopefully benefit my ~5 faithful readers. I also plan on changing domain names soon. I’ll be sure to inform you as to what the latest and greatest name and domain will be once I work it out.

Anyhow, a brief update is due.

I got a decent job last April at a local home-construction firm. I got so tired of the futile and stressful environment I was dealing with at the supermarket that I started looking around for a different job. While volunteering with Habitat for Humanity a number of months earlier, I had made the acquaintance of a foreman who had previously worked at my current employer. He suggested that I apply there if interested in a construction job. I applied then and was turned down due to lack of need. However, upon applying last year, I was interviewed on the spot and hired the very next day. I then tried to work full-time with the homebuilder and part-time at Kroger but that naturally left me feeling even more stressed and tired. So I quit Kroger, although I found it necessary at the time to burn the bridge with my Kroger supervisor by blowing the whistle on something she was doing that really wasn’t a big deal. That is definitely something I wish I never did.

The construction job has been great. I was hired in with Trent, a national guardsman who quickly became a very good buddy of mine. We’ve had some crazy adventures both at work and at various college towns. He’s been deployed to Iraq since December and work has been rather monotonous ever since.

I’ve been going to school this semester and have been working hard at getting accepted into Purdue this fall. I’m thinking about pursuing a degree in Civil Engineering, but that could easily change.

It’s getting late and there’s always more homework to do. I do plan on regularly updating this blog with some meaningful content so please keep coming back.

Posted in My Life, Ramblings | 4 Comments »

Public Access

Saturday, April 28th, 2007

One of the commonly-seen aspects of basic cable is the presence of one or even several public-access channels. Due to the 1984 Cable Franchise Policy and Communications Act, US cable companies are required to fund local organizations to provide training and access to media technology and cable distribution on the local cable systems. Many times these channels provide an important service to citizens. These channels provide local governments with a medium that allows them to broadcast local meetings and other similar functions. These meetings are about as popular with the under-90 crowd as CSPAN-2 is, but they do serve their purpose. However, some of the content that appears on public-access could be considered some of the worst possible content that the human mind can conjure.

Point in case. I was watching television until the wee hours of the morning. Due to my rather drowsy state, I would land on a channel and watch it despite its content. One of these channels happened to be Fort Wayne Access. The “show” consisted of a darkly-lit set with a brick wall background. The “hosts” were a 15-year-old male and an 18-year-old female. Both were dressed in punk/goth clothes. The male “host” sounded quite gay, as he mostlikely had multiple oral piercings that gave him a quite effeminate lisp. Both of the “hosts” were not well-spoken nor intelligent. Some of their conversations caused me to enter a state of great distress and agony.

“Um, yeah, so, what kind of clothes do you wear”, asked the obviously unintelligent female.
“I, uh, wear punk clothes, because I want to be different”, returned the microscopically marginally smarter co-host.
“What is punk clothes?”
“Black clothes, baggy, you know”
“Faded with holes in them”
“No, that would be grunge”
“Nirvana is a grunge band, right?”
“Uh, yeah”
“So, what’s the difference between a rock band show and a punk band show?”
“Well, rock bands have lots of, uh, strobe lights and colored lights. Punk bands have a lot of red lights”
“What kind of lights do punk bands have?”
“Mainly strobe lights”
“So no flashing lights?”

It was like I was staring at a horrible car accident. You are shocked by it, yet can’t look away. I felt I was getting more stupid as the horrible excuse of as show progressed. I think the thing that bothered me most was how stupid these “hosts” were. Do the powers that be at Fort Wayne Access screen their hosts before they film them? Do they have to meet a retard quota when they find their hosts?

Maybe I shouldn’t get so worked up over such matters.

Posted in Current Events, Ramblings | 6 Comments »

Washington Mutual

Wednesday, March 14th, 2007

Several months ago I was watching prime-time television. While flipping through channels I saw a commercial for a bank called Washington Mutual, or otherwise known as WaMu. This bank advertised itself as being better, non-typical, and unlike any other bank that’s out there.

Being the easily influenced individual that I am, I signed up with WaMu. I should have first noticed that WaMu doesn’t have much of a presence east of the Mississippi. Essentially, I would only have online access to my accounts, with no bank that I could make a deposit or withdrawal at. However, the promise of a 5% savings account and unlimited checks (which I had no need for) lured me in.

At first, WaMu seemed like a great bank. They had good customer service and had a few tools, although their selection was rather limited, as they don’t support BillPay and other amenities that most banks offer.

However, after a short period of time, I started to realize that WaMu was indeed a bank.

And banks tend to rape me.

First it was the “Excess Activity Fee” that was appended to my savings account if I made more than four withdrawals per month from it. Each time I made a withdrawal I got charged $3.

Then it was the “Non-Sufficient Funds” fee that was charged when the bank denied a transfer request because of NSF. Now, WaMu didn’t actually let the transfer go through, pay for the transfer, let my account obtain a negative balance, and then charge a fee. No, WaMu denied the transfer and then charged me $32.

Then it was the bogus debit transaction that was posted to my account. It was very similar in description to the purchases I had made at Kroger, with the word “Florida” placed right before the regular debit description. This charge was reversed a week later.

However, the last straw occurred yesterday. I was going to buy some food at Kroger last night and thought to check my checking account balance before I would make my purchase. I performed a balance inquiry at the ATM at work. I got a balance and made my purchase accordingly.

However, upon viewing my account history this morning, I saw this:

*ATM BALANCE INQUIRY FEE - DOMESTIC
$7.00

I’m already in the process of transferring my direct deposit to my account at Wells Fargo. Once I get that set up and once I get my tax refund transferred out of WaMu, I will close the account.

Don’t bank with WaMu. They find numerous ways to screw you out of your money, usually by way of one hideously over-priced fee at a time.

Posted in Complaints, Ramblings | 2 Comments »

Epiphany

Sunday, March 4th, 2007

A thought passed through my mind today while I was working my usual 3-11:30 PM accounting shift.

What the hell am I doing here?

I started to do some thinking.

Last week’s paycheck was $210.07. That was for 40+ hours of work. During that period of time I have had to deal with high levels of stress. I had to deal with managers talking to me in a condescending and disrespectful manner. I had to listen to customers yell at me. I had to listen to customers and managers order me around as if I were a dog. I had to deal with co-workers giving me a hell of a time. I had to pick up the slack when co-workers were lazy.

I then thought about what happened this Friday.

I leisurely finished a project for a customer that I found on Elance. The project that I completed probably took me 3 hours to complete. I charged $199 for the job, a fee which my client happily paid.

In summary, I’ve come to the realization that I need to cut back my hours at Kroger and eventually quit. There’s no need to take the shitty wage and frequent disrespectful treatment if I can make better money while maintaining my dignity.

Posted in My Life, Ramblings, Work | 1 Comment »

Respect

Tuesday, January 30th, 2007

It was a busy Saturday at Kroger. It was also my first Saturday that I was scheduled to close in accounting. Work was stressful and busy, but I tried to stay ahead of things.

At around 5:30, I was adding up some checks in the accounting office when I noticed some of my co-workers enter the room adjacent to the accounting office, a room know as the countdown room. Since there’s a small 6″ x 2′ window between the two rooms, I was able to join in this conversation and chat with my friends while working on the pickup. We maintained a light banter until a 16-year-old coworker, who’s name is Trevor, walked into the small, crowed countdown room. He had been in a very bad mood all day and showed no sign of letting up.

Courtney, one of the girls in the room, teased Trevor about the fact that the whole room smelled like his bag of cheesy poofs that was sitting in the room. Trevor, looking for an excuse to get angry at anyone, projected an angry reply in her direction. Courtney told him to chill out. At that moment, Trevor got in her face and told her never to tell her to chill out. Courtney pushed Trevor back and told him not to get in her face. Trevor then struck Courtney in the chest. He kept lunging at Courtney, while the the other co-workers in the countdown room tried to restrain him to some extent. “Back off!” I ordered him quite loudly. “I can do what I want. I’m a f***ing cop!” he retorted, referring to some junior police-academy program he was involved with through his school. Trevor then stormed out of the room.

Fortunately, there is a camera the records everything that occurs in the countdown room. I suggested to Courtney that she find a manager right away and get the footage. She did so, and the footage was pulled.

Faced with the evidence, Trevor was told that he could either be suspended or her could resign. Trevor resigned.

I was glad that Trevor’s employment with Kroger had reached a close. He usually had a very bad attitude and a volatile personality. Most of the front-end employees were glad to see him go, especially, of course, after the above-mentioned event.

I came to work today with a sense of closure. I was furious on Saturday concerning what had happened, but I had time to cool down.

However, the general sense of closure we all shared had been revoked. Apparently Trevor’s father felt he had to make a trip to Kroger and quite loudly tell the manager that he felt that it was unfair that Courtney wasn’t fired (a.k.a. forced to resign) because she had “teased Trevor”.

Excuse me?

I may be old-fashioned in this respect, but I was taught (and I will always believe) that hitting a woman for any reason other than life-or-death self-defense is completely and unequivocally unacceptable. The provocation is irrelevent if you go so far as to strike a woman because of it.

I’m standing in shock as Trevor’s father is nearby, loudly explaining why he felt this and that was unjust. He said he is going to press harassment charges. He told the manager he was going to call the union and get Trevor’s job back for him.

And I’m nearby, livid as hell. Having witnessed this extremely disturbing occurrence, I know who was at fault. I know who was not at fault. The little wimp who hit a woman because he was mad at something she said was undoubtedly and unquestionably at fault.

And his father’s reaction couldn’t be farther from what it needs to be.

Posted in Current Events, Ramblings, Women | 4 Comments »

Armed Robbery

Monday, January 15th, 2007

FORT WAYNE, Ind. (AP) - A gunman fatally shot the assistant manager of a pizza shop during a weekend robbery and investigators were searching for two men who committed the attack, police said.

Other employees of Tasty Pizza told police officers that two armed men entered the shop early Sunday and demanded money. One of the robbers shot Chad D. Brunson, 23, of Fort Wayne, in the head and he was pronounced dead at the scene, police said.

The robbers, who had their faces covered, fled on foot. Investigators did not immediately know whether they got away with any money from the business on the city’s south side, police spokesman Scott Tegtmeyer said. Tasty Pizza owner Rick Harkelroad said he trained his staff to give up everything in the store and not jeopardize their safety. Brunson had worked at the store for four years.

â€˜â€˜It was wrong, totally wrong,” Harkelroad said of the shooting. â€˜â€˜It should have never had happened. It was one of our worst nightmares.”

The preceding story details something that happened recently here in Fort Wayne. Essentially, two men entered a pizza shop very early in the morning on December 31. They demanded money and then murdered the man behind the counter by shooting him in the head. This cold-blooded act has shocked many.

Working in retail, I harbor a small, yet ever-present fear of being robbed. Actually, I don’t fear getting robbed. I fear the possibility of some fuck telling me it’s his financial gain or my brain on the wall.

Armed robbers are highly irrational. For a criminal to come to the point where he’d threaten and even kill innocent strangers if they would have not complied with his demands, it must mean that he has lost it completely.

Given that a convicted armed robber doesn’t actually kill someone, the worst sentence¹ that he or she could receive is life in prison. Although the thought of one of these individuals being someone’s bitch forever sounds nice, I think that the punishment for such crimes needs to be changed. If a robber compliments his demands by displaying a weapon that appears to be perfectly capable of killing his victim, he should be put to death upon conviction. Not only would this deliver justice, but it would also act as a deterrent, making would-be armed robbers think twice and hopefully decide against executing the deed.

And maybe they’d get a job and work for their money. Just like the rest of us.

Posted in Current Events, Ramblings | 6 Comments »

Work Update

Wednesday, January 10th, 2007

I’m doing much better at work now. I finally have a complete understanding of how to run evening accounting, and the job overall is becoming less and less stressful.

However, I was extremely stressed on Monday night when I was $2,225.00 short when I counted out. I left at 11:45 PM and returned at 6:30 AM to catch the morning accounting guy. He found quite quickly that I never made record of the lottery scratch-off sales, which were $225.00. That made me only $2,000 short. Being exactly $2,000 short means one of two things. Either I deposited two bundles of 100 $20 bills and made a record for only one of them or one of the bundles was lost or stolen. I strongly hoped for the former, but there was no way to find out until Brinks would come to remove the deposited money from the safe.

The morning accounting guy–Chase–told me he’d let me know if I made a deposit error. I then left and went to my class.

At about 2 PM, I get a text message from Chase:

It wasn’t in Brinks

I can’t really describe the terror that I felt at that moment. I called Kroger right away and asked Chase if we were really $2,000.00 short. He said “No, whatever would make you think that?”

In reality, I did make a deposit error. Chase just scared the crap out of me because I made a tiny error when counting my checks that required him to spend 1 1/2 hours to find it.

So it’s all good. I’m very careful with deposits now.
I also counted out even for the first time tonight. I even got out on time.

-John

Posted in My Life, Ramblings, Work | No Comments »

The End of the “Kroger” Chapter of John’s Life?

Wednesday, December 13th, 2006

Today was unbelievably and unspeakably bad. I went to work at 3 PM, and was immediately inundated with tasks, as I had the 3:00 to 11:30 accounting shift. I counted in, then proceeded to perform pickups, run customer service, ensure that all cashiers had enough change, and even bag groceries.

At 6:30, something happened that shouldn’t have. A man bought about $1,100.00 of MasterCard gift cards on Uscan. Things were hectic, as I was running back and forth doing various tasks. The Uscan cashier then proceeded to allow the man to pay for the order…with a credit card.
I went over to Uscan within a few minutes.

“Hey, how did that customer pay for those gift cards?”
“With a credit card.”
“What?? Did you get his driver’s license number down?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you make sure his name matched with the one on the credit card?”
“No.”
“Can I see the credit slip that he signed?”
“Sure…it’s right here…um…where is it…uh oh.”

Basically, we sold a man $1,100.00 in gift cards. He paid with a credit card that could very well have been stolen. We have no signature, as numbnuts let him grab the credit card slip.

I immediately called the manager on duty. She was beside herself, and understandably so. If we got ripped off $1,100.00, quite a few people, herself included, would look bad.

I pulled up a copy of the receipt from the server and printed it out for reference, as we had no receipt whatsoever. The manager then proceeded to let me know that she was extremely disappointed in me. I told her that I assumed that the Uscan cashier would have known better. Selling someone $1,100.00 in gift cards and accepting anything but cash or debit is something that you just don’t do! I told the manager that I dropped the ball in assuming that he was bright enough (not my exact words) not to do that. However, I wanted to clarify that it’s impossible for me to babysit everyone, and that this could not be entirely my fault, as I did not ring up the transaction, nor did I accept payment. The Uscan cashier did not ask for my help at any point.

She’ll talk to the head manager today. If they guy was legit, all is well. If not, the owner of the credit card will call their card-issuer and raise a huge ruckus. The charge will be reversed, but the gift cards will have been used, essentially making Kroger have to absorb the loss. That would be a bad thing.

Later on I closed the safe door too hard, causing it to hit and shut an inner door that has a time-activated lock. I couldn’t get it open for the life of me, and had to call someone to advise me. At the end of the day, I got out at 1:30 AM, when I finally accepted the fact that I was indeed $250 short and that there was nothing I could do. The morning guy will figure it out, hopefully.
I’m unnerved, irked, and angered right now. I’m going to hear about quite a bit tomorrow. I’m going to hear about the gift card issue,. I’m going to hear about how I was at Kroger for 10.5 hours with only a 15 minute break (I won’t hear about it because they care about my well-being. No, they’ll chew me out because of the overtime). If we end up being $250 short, I can assure you that I’ll hear about that too.

You know what? The stress and the responsibility that this job contains is not worth the paltry $6.90 an hour that I get paid. I am starting to hate Kroger more and more with greater and greater burning passion as each day goes on.

I refuse to deal with accounting anymore. I’ll tell my boss that I will take no more accounting shifts.

I also refuse to subject myself to the stress, lame pay, despicable policies, and horrible work environment that Kroger has to offer. I plan to leave as soon as I possibly can.

Posted in Complaints, My Life, Ramblings | 3 Comments »

Forced into a life that’s split in two…

Tuesday, October 17th, 2006

Let’s revisit This Dying Soul, by Dream Theater

Born into this world a broken home
Surrounded by love yet all alone
Forced into a life that's split in two
A mother and a father both pulling you

Then you had to deal with loss and death
Everybody thinking they know best
Coping with this shit at such an age
Can only fill a kid with pain and rage

Family disease pumped through your blood
Never had the chance you thought you could
Running all the while with no escape
Turning all that pain in to blame and hate

Living on your own by twenty one
Not a single care and having fun
Consuming all the life in front of you
Burning out the fuse and smoking the residue

Life is crazy. I’m working a lot right now. It keeps me busy; preventing me from having to think as much about what’s going on with my family. I swear, if I think about it too much, it will drive me nuts. Yet, I don’t think avoiding this is doing me any good.

I just wish life would make sense for once. I’d like things to wrap up and be good for a while. Ever since I was 10, my family has gone through a ton of unexplainable shit. My brother dying, constant moving, ever-present rejection, serious issues with my parents, my sister leaving home, and everything else that’s transpired makes me wonder if this will ever end.

I know the answer. I know I can make it end for myself. I’ll make a life for myself, and do my very best to try to prevent the same from happening again.

But I’m not the only person in this equation. There are others I must worry about. And that doesn’t make things any easeir.

I feel like I’m on the outside looking in right now. This doesn’t seem real.

Posted in Education, Family Matters, My Life, Ramblings | 6 Comments »

Kroger Drama

Monday, October 2nd, 2006

I come into work today, and immediately learn that Jessica’s boyfriend (who is now her former boyfriend) was informed about the relationship that Jessica and I had while he was in boot camp. I learned that on Saturday night he was boiling with rage over it. Fortunately (for him), one of my co-workers talked him out of attempting to inflict bodily harm on me. I talked with him today and straightened things out. I told him that what I did was something that guys don’t do to other guys, and that I only pursued Jessica because I was led to believe that she was single at the time. He was cool with that, and we are now cool.

Dang, work is one big gossip network. It’s a big pain in the ass sometimes.

Posted in My Life, Ramblings, Women | 10 Comments »

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