2 posts tagged “employement”

New day, old complaints.  Yeah, I am that predictable.  I started this blog to write about politics and faith.  I know I've done little more than complain about my job and physical pain these days.  I've certainly had a wealth of that kind of complaint.  So why not share the wealth - right?

More of the same:  My boss is hanging in there for all she’s worth.  She’s working full tilt for long hours.  She’s really tired, and every now and then it really shows.  She’s really workin it, most of the time.  And then her adult kids show up, demand money, insult her and her bakery, and treat her like crap.  Stupid humans.

The elf who ices cakes for me makes it very clear that she only works when she doesn’t have anything better to do.  So she sets her hours and leaves when she wants to – not when the work is done.  Most of the time that is no big deal and I have never gotten on her case about it.  But right now she’s sticking me with extra work, and that’s getting old.  But it is better than not having her there at all.  So I try to make her happy that she is there and protect her from what some people dish out and hope that she sticks around for at least a while.  She has confided in me that her dream job is to make wedding cakes.  Uh, that would be my job.  Yeah.  Good luck with that.

I walked around the counter today and found two signs of interest.  One was “Try are struddel” and the other was “Try are sourdough.”  Kidding?  I wish.  That was our little Beret elf.  She recently used the bakery to make a number of decorated cakes on her own time.  Bakery supplies and bakery equipment.  What a weird little elf.  I wondered if she wanted to be a cake decorator.  Yeah, that again.  Good luck with that.  These people seem to want my job.  I've got this job.  And I don't even want it.  What a wierd wierd world I live in.

Boss Lady hired a kid who must be a family friend or something.  She’s the bare belly elf.  She comes in with tight little shirts that don’t make it down to her belt.  And if it was a nice skinny toned midriff it wouldn’t be so bad.  Then there is the mile of long hair – untethered.  Which is just wrong in a bakery.  But the worst accessory is the vacant look on her face.  She stands at the front counter and yells questions back to the Boss at the back of the bakery.  Right in front of the client.  That usually means she’s yelling over three or four people.  Amazing.  Where do we get these elves?  Hey, at least she doesn’t want my job.  She doesn’t seem to want the job she has either.  Or is that the rest of us that don’t want her to have her job… can’t decide.

And another elf who makes the icing is sick of making icing.  Can hardly blame her, it takes a long time and it is easy to mess up.  She put off making it until I was completely out.  Then we didn’t have the ingredients, so someone went to the store for them.  Then someone else was using the big mixer, so we had to wait on that.  Then it really takes a long time to get all the clumps out, so I had to wait on that also.  Argh!  So I looked for cakes to finish that used other icing.  We had plenty of coconut icing – but all the coconut cake was still in the oven. 

And this paragraph would be about how tired and ouchy my body is right now.  And more complaining because I missed a party tonight because I just wasn't up to going and playing nice.  And fill in the blank with any kind of creative way to say "ouch" and throw in a little pout and that would about cover it.  I bore myself. 

Well, the Hack is back.  She came in as I was winding up work today.  And we ignored each other as scripted.  But I was standing beside Boss Lady when she came over and complimented me on how the cakes in the case looked.  Wow!  Could have knocked me right on over.  I was so used to her being grumpy that I wasn’t quite sure how to react to her being nice.  I’m trying really hard not to think evil thoughts about it only being about being nice to me in front of Boss Lady, but I’m choosing to take it at face value.  My instinct is that seeing my work is helping her to let go some.  I’m not sure.  I guess we’ll take it as it comes.  Very nice though, I hope I was suitably gracious and that my surprise didn’t show too terribly much.

I’m working on getting some stuff listed in my Etsy store.  It was disheartening that it took me most of the day to get so few items listed on my one day off.  I don’t know how quickly things will start to move on there, or if they ever will.  I’ve got so much inventory from the shop just sitting here.  My money is tied up and I feel like I can’t move on to the next thing because I don’t have the money.  Yet, liquidating what I have at it’s value is going to take some serious work.  I’ve tried Ebay in the past and pretty well got soaked.  In a few cases I basically paid people for the opportunity to ship my stuff to them.  Expensive mistakes.  I hope this Etsy.com thing works a lot better.  And now that I’m working for someone else, well, time is the one thing I don’t have.  I’m not sure how to promote the blasted thing or if this is an exercise in futility.  I don’t know.  This work did so well in my gallery but I’m sick of looking back on the good old days when the money was easy and the work was a delight.  I can’t just put it out on the table and sell it tomorrow like I usta.  Because I don’t have a shop anymore, selling stuff is much more work.  I don’t like it.  I need another shop!

Which brings up another point.  I asked to get paid today.  And either she forgot on accident or on purpose.  Not sure which.  And they have done payroll but somehow they do this thing where they stagger the release of the checks so that everyone doesn’t cash their paycheck at the same time.  Ok, that’s the kind of thing that businesses do when they are almost down for the count.  Um…  It’s just such an inefficient and disorganized business, and when I see things like this it concerns me.  I have to keep telling myself that this is not my business.  Not my problem.  Let it go.  I’ve been the small business owner, I want to help because I know it’s stressful to run a company like this.  Still not my problem.  Let it go.

I’m so frustrated.  I overdrew my bank account this week and didn’t even know it.  We bought paint for the roof and a few other things.  I was thinking things were fine but didn’t have a balance in my head.  Turns out I was off – not by much – but enough.  And our bank will cover the checks and then charge me $30 for the privilege.  So in between the first overdraft and now – I’ve been charged the $30 nsf fee FOUR TIMES!  Nothing bounced, no checks were returned or anything.  I stopped and picked up Benadryl for the dog’s allergies and paid less than $4 for it.  Well, now with that overdraft charge it was actually $34 for Benadryl!  I want to hurl!  I get so frustrated over stuff like this.  None of those purchases were big but when you throw in $120 in fees, suddenly it looks so much uglier on paper.  I can cover it if Boss Lady will ever remember to pay me, but I hate wasting money and when I saw how much the fees were I about had a cow.

I need to replace my computer.  It’s so slow it isn’t even funny.  And I’m constantly generating information for it to store.  I photographed ten Etsy.com items Monday, four or five photographs for each item.  They are great big files.  And by the time I was done with those, my computer was really acting bogged down.  I need to either invest in some more memory or storage or something, but with an old slow processor, I’m not sure if there is any point.  How many hours at the cake place is that going to take me?  Oy!

I’m giving some consideration to talking to the Pizza place people about working some evenings for a while.  I think I can do both the cake thing and the pizza thing for a while at least.  And maybe I could earn enough to buy a new computer or something.  Or else beads.  LOL!  There are always good causes for good money.