Phonin' it in

I'm exhausted. My last pay period had 138 hours of paid time between Day Job and BBHIS. Plus commuting time, plus (unpaid) meal breaks at BBHIS. This one is shaping up similar, and MrsZ was out of town for nine days - meaning I was doing all of the home stuff on top of the standard workload.

She's home now and I'm sure the dog appreciates it.

One of the cats, however, seems to have a UTI. Need to try to reach the vet today and see if this requires an office visit or if she'll just take our word on symptoms and write the 'scrip.

Stupid has been strong lately. To the customer who wanted a tub faucet: starting your conversation with, "Well I hope you can help me, because no one in this store knows anything!" is not likely to get you optimal customer service.

Quick Updates

At least they've taken "chance of snow showers" out of the weekend forecast. Yeesh.

I've been scheduled a pretty consisted 25ish hours at BBHIS, on top of the 40 at Day Job. I'm generally having fun with it, although it certainly helps that I'm doing it because I want to and not because I have to. I can see people getting frustrated in it - "full part time" seems to be a standard for them (39 hour weeks) and a certain repetitiveness to the day. We're usually out the door around 11pm after doing nightly closing chores - facing, stacking and restocking, sweeping, etc. I really enjoy that hour after the door is locked. Half the lights go off, I can turn off my brain and just start winding down. Pushing a dust mop up and down an aisle isn't stimulating work, but that's not what I need then.

I ordered and brought home most of the materials needed to build a small (12x12) barn for the goats and the impending chickens, along with enough space for MrsZ to keep her garden stuff and maybe a potting bench. Driving home, the load came loose and tried to end up in traffic. The city officers were polite and professional, exactly what I expect from them. No tickets, although if they had chosen to write me for an unsecured load I wouldn't have argued - it's their job, and it was pretty clearly inadequately secured. DPW happened by with a loader and shoved the load back on the truck enough for me to get out of traffic and re-stack everything. No harm, no foul.

I'm going to try to document (and photograph) the barn-building process as I go. This is my first attempt at real framing and I've been reading *constantly* to pick up tips and ideas and see how others have done it.

Tech again, work some more

Wirefly - not recommended. Incompetent customer service. I ordered a Galaxy Tab from them over the weekend, and they needed the PIN for my Verizon account in order to activate it. I went by the Verizon kiosk and set one up, called Wirefly and gave them the information, and was told my order was going to shipping. Then I got an email that they needed the PIN, so I punched it into their site. Thirty minutes later I got a call that they still needed the PIN.

An hour later I clicked the "order status" link, and it had been switched to "cancelled". I started by emailing them, then tried the "live chat" link.

Chat Monkey 1 took all my info and promptly kicked me up to "Specialized Team". Chat Monkey 2 basically told me, "Too bad, so sad." Their reason for canceling the order - without ever talking to me - was that they were unable to verify my shipping address.

(1) Their order form ONLY had a space for a shipping address (NO PO BOXES!), not for a billing address. (My bills go to a PO Box.)
(2) They told me the problem was with my credit card company - except that I know for a fact that the company has BOTH my mailbox and street address as approved addresses, and EVERY merchant I've ordered from has been able to send to one or the other.

I had a (3), but now I don't.

In any case - "we can't fix it and we don't care".

Worked BBHIS last night, spent the evening on register. Pretty slow; learned that Timberlands are NOT a good option if you're going to be standing in one place on concrete all night. Further research required.

Only working the Day Job for the next two days, then day shift at BBHIS.

BBHIS

As I mentioned last week, I'm now working part-time for Big Blue Home Improvement Store. The first week has been an interesting experience; this is my first time working in a large corporate entity.

My first job out of college was selling cars; the dealership had perhaps 35 employees. From there I went to a software company of about 280 people, a different software company of 75ish, and now to my government job in an office of about 35 people. BBHIS employs about a quarter-million people according to what numbers I can find.

I arrived for my new-hire orientation Monday evening as instructed, and joined a group of five other new hires. Interesting cross-section of the world - a retiree, a former Air Force EM, two students, and a guy whose background I don't know. Most of Monday evening was listening to the HR Manager go through policies and rules - no big deal and nothing unexpected.

Tuesday evening I got plugged in to their computer-based training system and turned loose. I cordially detest CBTs because they are generally lowest-common-denominator and not necessarily self-paced. This was compounded by a slow network connection and/or antique hardware (566MHz/512MB thin clients on a *nix platform) - imagine watching YouTube over a 56k modem. It's just not pretty. Regardless, I plugged through the courses and got a lot done.

I also found out what department I'd be in (building materials; i.e., lumber and masonry) and my pay rate. I have never before had an employer offer me MORE than what I'd asked for in my application - but BBHIS has a pay matrix they use, and apparently my background and position point to the rate I was given, about 5% more than what I requested. What am I going to say, no? :-)

Wednesday night I was off and MrsZ and I celebrated my best man's 36th birthday at a local pub and gave him a bottle of Balvenie Caribbean Cask. (Yes, I would like one of my own, please.)

Thursday I was off from the day job and worked 8-5 at BBHIS - more CBTs. Yes, eight hours of CBTs.

Friday was again at BBHIS, but after a couple hours of CBTs, I was sent back to receiving to learn fork lifts. The standard counterbalance fork trucks were pretty simple once I adjusted to front-drive rear-steer. After that we did a quick run-through of order pickers which were a little harder to work but manageable. They'll take some more practice. And then ... reach trucks. Basically, a forklift that allows you to extend the forks, and is capable of operating in much tighter spaces than a standard fork truck. These are ... tricky. One hand to steer, and the other hand does ALL the other controls - moving forward/back, fork up/down/forward/back/in/out/left/right. Side note - if you see someone zooming their forklift - of any type - around a warehouse and picking things accurately and quickly, they've been doing it a while. It's easy work but it's not easy to do well.

After lunch I was tossed on registers. Not terribly hard given my background (the software company I worked for did cashless and POS systems), just a learning curve.

I've got the weekend off from BBHIS, but I'm back at the day job. Back to BBHIS for a few evenings and a few days next week, and hopefully I'll start getting regular (perhaps even consistent) hours there soon.

Welcome...

"Welcome to MusicTown. May I service you?"

Instead of being told, "You're overqualified, thanks but no thanks!" ... I go in for new employee orientation on Monday evening at Big Blue Home Improvement Store.

The hiring process was simple:
- fill out an application online, with a relatively quick multiple-choice quiz as part of it (If in situation X, is Y or Z the better choice?)
- phone call two days later to schedule an interview
- interview with HR person at store, second interview the next day with an assistant manager
- call a week later to come in for a pre-hire drug test

The interview questions were scripted (as expected for a large company), the people I talked to were quite friendly, and it was about as painless as any hiring process I've ever been through.

Oddly, I *don't* know what department I'll be in yet - the HR person hasn't decided where she wants to put me yet (a lumber manager expressed interest), and corollary to that is not knowing what kind of compensation they're going to offer. I asked for a reasonable rate (about half my hourly rate at the Real Job), and would probably settle for a bit less. I have a firm lower limit in mind, though.

I was impressed with the benefits package for part-time employees, too - optional medical/dental/vision coverage, basic life insurance, 401k with matching (they'll match 1:1 for 3%, .5:1 for another 2%, and .25:1 for 1% more, meaning a total of 4.25% for 6% of my money), and a stock purchase plan, along with employee discounts and paid vacation.

I find it odd that people are griping about how hard it is to find work when it took me less than two weeks to get a second job with benefits available...

Face it, you were a shitty banker anyways.