After reading my post about Silent Bob, a lot of people asked “How is it possible he didn’t get fired?”

Hell, I’ve worked in pizza shops for eight years, and I’m still not sure what you have to do to get fired.

The truth is, even if you called a customer a “fucking worthless cunt bitch” and kicked him or her in the groin, slit their dog’s throat, lit their house on fire, and pooped on their car, the boss would probably still have to think for a few moments before (possibly) saying “Oh, fine, you’re fired.” He could as easily just say “No raise for you! Now, can you work tomorrow night?”

And even if he did fire you, as soon as you came back and begged forgiveness and admitted the evil errors of your ways, well, you’d get your old job, and your old hours, back.

The truth is that it’s hard to find good employees, and harder to find good delivery drivers. That’s why so many shops have to settle for average, mediocre, and crapalicious drivers. And while skill levels in customer service, map-reading, and motor vehicle operation are highly rated, the skill most valued by any pizza store owner or manager I’ve ever known is availability.

When my cell phone rings and I see the Indy’s or the Franchise’s phone number, I know almost immediately what is going to greet me when I respond: “Hey, are you available to work?”

I got one of those calls today. It was James at the Franchise. I was already working tonight, and told him I’d get back to him about Saturday night. Gary was coming back from Deep Creek today, but I know what’s going to happen to Choir Boy as soon as Gary gets to the schedule: his hours are going to be crossed off with a thick black magic marker and the words “FUCK YOU” are going to be written across his name.

I’m trying to remember when Choir Boy was first hired. It had to have been before Toothless. Only a few months ago, at most. I’ve only worked with him a few times. He keeps to himself a lot. He’s very feminine, and, frankly, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone hold a mop so lovingly. He hasn’t been on the schedule much lately — a couple of weeks ago, an hour before he was supposed to start his shift, he called up and explained that he was going on vacation.

For two weeks.

With no notice.

Gary was completely unhappy, but what could he do? He made arrangements and the shifts got covered. Choir Boy returned from his vacation last Saturday night, and even stopped by the store to check his hours for this week. Then, this morning, he calls up James: “I’m going to choir practice.”

“You’re working in two hours!”

“I won’t be in. Oh, and, actually, I’m going somewhere with my church, so I won’t be in for two more weeks.”

I can just imagine James’ reaction. I can just imagine the reaction every single one of my coworkers at the Indy will have as this news reaches them: “What a worthless fucking toad shitbrain”, accompanied by a shudder, a groan, and an eye-roll.

But Gary’s not going to fire him.

He’s just not going to schedule him. For any hours. At all. Ever.

(Until he comes in and begs forgiveness and requests a second chance).

So I’ve got some money I owe after the last year in school, and I would love to be able to consolidate all of my outstanding debts into one, easy to pay loan, but the process of finding a loan (with so many offered by various lenders) is just so frustrating and tedious and … mathematic … that I hate doing such research. Thankfully, if you’re British, UK Personal Loans will search over 90% of the secured lender market so that you can find the best match for your loan needs — be it debt consolidation, or for a car or house, they’ve totally got you covered, and you can avoid an adverse credit loan!

Well, I hope no one in your family works as a grocery store checkout clerk because their days, if already weren’t numbered enough from self-checkout lanes, now face added competition from “scan as you go“, making its intro into the U.S. here in Mary’s Land. (more…)

Premiering June 28th on USA Network is a new one-hour drama about a CIA agent who gets … fired. USA Network’s Burn Notice‘s premise is simple: premiering June 28th, it stars Jeffrey Donovan as Michael Westen, a CIA agent who gets “fired.” This paid post appeals to my creative writing side: “Write a fictional short story telling us why and how he was fired. Since we’re talking about the CIA…. let’s be creative!” It’s almost like they know what my degree is in!

Here goes:

“Wait, what?” Westen said.

“Look, it’s pretty cut and dry,” his boss said on the other end of the telephone, munching on an edible cigar. “You’re supposed to be a secret agent.”

“I am a secret agent!”

“Secret agents aren’t supposed to have blogs, Michael,” his boss rolled his good eye.

“But, boss, c’mon, aren’t you being unreasonable?” Michael fidgeted against the stone wall and transfered the silenced pistol to his other hand and took a swig from the beer he’d placed on a turned-over trashcan. “I mean, it was a secret blog.”

“Just because you set yourself to be viewed by ‘friends only’ on your MySpace blog — and, seriously, a MySpace blog? How lame can you get? I should fire you just for that — doesn’t mean it’s a secret blog.”

“C’mon, please? I promise not to write any more entries about Agent Cooper and his rotating caliphrating manfibulator problems.”

“Yeah, those were actually funny posts. Course, he didn’t care for them too much. Anyway, listen, you’re, as they say on the ‘blogosphere’, ‘dooced.’ Good job there, Mike, and, oh, you can’t have your last paycheck until we get our silenced pistol back.”

The cell phone went dead. Michael snarled, then smiled as he contemplated what a wonderful blog entry this would make.

That’s my version of why he gets fired. Go here to find out the real reason.

At the Franchise, we have a stacked conveyor belt gas oven. It’s essentially two ovens stacked one on top of the other, with a big ventilator overtop to suck out all the nasty gas. It’s pretty easy to operate: each oven has three switches (HEAT, BLOWER, CONVEYOR) to activate. There are only two settings for each switch: ON or OFF. It’s pretty much retard proof, which means, of course, Zebulon could fuck it completely up.

Friday morning, Greg showed up at 10am to do his prep. He finds the store filled with the evil choaking gasses and that while the ventilator had been turned off, someone had left the oven running all night. Turned out that after we’d closed Thursday night (a busy night, we were here well past when our doors were locked), Chewbacca had turned the oven off. When he was leaving, Zebulon had turned it back on (apparently thinking he was turning it off). I mean, I understand it takes a long time before it completely shuts off and stops making loud noises, but considering the bozo only worked six hours, you wouldn’t think he’d be that tired to make a stupid mistake like that.

But noooooo … (more…)

You would think a Father’s Day meal with my parents and sister wouldn’t revolve into an argument between my Mom and Dad about, of all things, me. It started off simply enough with Mom asking us for our first memories of Dad. Dad, then, perhaps to encourage me (or shame me into silence), started telling his first memory of me. “So there are the nurses, smacking you, and we didn’t realize this wasn’t usual… ‘We’re not going to lose him!’, they told us.”

“We weren’t about to lose him!”

“It was a little serious.”

“No it wasn’t! (To Me:) You just had some holes in your lungs, dear.”

“And that’s not serious? You were in the ICU. There were these two twins there, Mia and Tia? And they were so tiny, their dad was sitting in a rocking chair cradling them. You were a big baby.”

“You were jaundiced. You were in too long.”

“What your Mom means is you were overcooked…”

Thanks, Mom.

Summer, for me, as a pizza delivery guy, officially begins when I deliver pizzas to a house where no adults are present and a bunch of possibly high-school or first-year college students are sitting around blasting music, slapping each other’s asses, and drinking cheap beer. And, although this time no cute girl informed me she was “trashed“, I was offered cheap beer. I declined for a few reasons, mostly because it was cheap beer (and not of the National Bohemian variety).

My last run of the night was to an apartment complex near where I live. Because we were closed when I returned to the store, Robin let me take the run on my way home. What this entails is paying for the ticket when you check out, then just not returning to the store after the customer pays and tips. We’re not supposed to be doing this anymore. Why? (more…)

Even though the Indy opens at 11am, Gary likes to get in early so that he can do his pre-prep work, muse over the previous night’s paperwork, and essentially lounge around before we worthless peon employees show up around ten. There are things Gary does not like to see at 8:30 in the morning (which, for him, is “running late”): a messy close the previous night is probably number one on that list, but I’m sure seeing me sitting against the store’s front door with my car nowhere in sight is at least a top twenty.

Where was my car?

Thanks for asking, it’s a funny – and long – story. (more…)

So I’m not the most computer-literate guy in the world. I’ve told you the story of when a friend was examining my computer and asked if I’d ever defragged it. I told her — and, I honestly believed this to be the truth — that, yes, the computer was old and crappy, but did I really need to blow it up with a hand grenade? She gave me a look that said “Wow, you’re stupid.”

I’m not stupid enough not to know the risks that exist with spyware that could be located on my computer and pose a danger to my machine and to personal information about me. I hate spyware. I hate pop-ups.

Spy Sweeper is the most award-winning antispyware software. It’s the best bet you’ve got to keep your computer free of malicious programming (which gets more inovative and insidious every day) designed to turn your machine into a zombie computer. Spy Sweeper gets all proactive about hunting down spyware, and in addition to checking your computer for already hidden bugs, its Smart Shield blocks known and new infections before they reach your computer (you can pretend to be Captain Kirk when you boot your computer up: “Smart Shields Up! Lock Anti-Spyware Phasers!”)

(I mean, I suppose, instead of using Spy Sweeper, you could just, y’know, throw away your modem. Me? I’d just go with Spy Sweeper…)

So my heart began palpatating when I saw a manilla envelope marked “URGENT” on it with a Towson University logo. I walked into my apartment, dropping bills and flyers onto a side table as I made for the dining room table with his particular letter. I sort of roughly “crashed” into the dining room chair and waited a full moment, breathing steadily, before I dared open it. Had I missed a requirement? I must’ve. Why wasn’t I graduating?

The first thing I saw on the letter, in small print, was a notice that Towson University reserved the right to persue any debts assessed prior to the release of my diploma. I unfolded the letter and …

(more…)

I think that it’s a ridiculous sign of my insensitivity and dorkness that when I read this story the line that outraged me and made me say (aloud) “That’s completely ridiculous!” wasn’t ‘Police say [Jason] Griffith first assaulted his wife in the kitchen, then tried to drag her upstairs. The two argued in a bedroom there.’ No, what got my attention was ‘Griffith fired a .40-caliber bullet into the computer.’

I mean, that poor defenseless computer …

(And that woman with the violent husband needs to move, right quick. Where was he at two AM? I bet he didn’t shoot his girlfriend’s computer!*)

*Sheer speculation on my account.

I grew up just outside of DC, and maybe that’s why I’ve always had this irrational fear of “big cities.” But this isn’t about my fears, rather, how I’m coming to think that it isn’t irrational to be afraid of Baltimore City. Maybe I’m just being reactionary, maybe my soft suburban self is just whiny and scared. I know that crime and random violence can touch my life up in Timonium as easily as it can across the city line, but things like this certainly don’t help convince me that Baltimore is a safe town. (more…)

If you could make one generalization about the crime problem in Baltimore from watching TV shows like “The Wire”, it’s that a whole lot of people are doing a lot of craaaazy chemicals. Of course, you can’t force someone to clean themselves up, but Stone Hawk is a drug rehabilitation and alcohol detox clinic staffed by ex-addicts who are trying to give back because once, someone cared enough about them to help break their addiction. Yeah, it might not be the closest place, but when you’re trying to break someone from an addiction, you’re probably more concerned with quality of service, not location.

I think I’ve had to read “A Rose For Emily” half a dozen times for various English classes. Great story about a divorced-from- reality fat former Southern socialite with a penchant for keeping corpses in her house, and this article in yesterday’s The Baltimore Sun calls it to mind: (more…)

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