Even when it’s gloomy, things can be nice

Boy could this sentence be used for a lot of situations.  But today, instead of getting into more of the ugly stories from work, I’m going to share some nice sunsets with you.  It’s been raining a lot this winter but with that comes some great sunsets for a few minutes, if we’re lucky enough for some of the clouds to lift before dark.

The first two pics are taken from the back of the house, which faces northeast, but sometimes the sky is pink and orange all around.  The last photo is looking west.  The sun looks like a blaze under the dark storm clouds.

I hate all the gloom but this is much better than being snowed in any day.  Until next time, I’m ticking off those days until spring.  Only two days of January left.  Hurray!

What do you think about donating your body to science?

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A couple of people I knew have done this recently.  It’s a cheap way to dispose of your body if you don’t have the money for a burial and it also helps science research.  They can use your body to teach students about anatomy, for surgical practice, or any number of other procedures that people can study including decomposition so the information can help in solving future crimes.  You don’t have a say as to how your body is used after you die, if you do decide to donate it to science.

Not all bodies will be accepted either due to weight issues or contagious diseases.  The institution that picks the body up for science will also take care of the expenses of cremation when they’re through using your body for research.  Your ashes can then be returned to family members if that’s agreed upon beforehand.  You must take care of all this paperwork when you’re still alive.

I read that between 10,000 and 15,000 Americans donate their bodies yearly to benefit medical science.  I never knew this and thought I’d look into it after this actually happened with my friends.  Before that I never really gave this any kind of thought, or even heard of it before.

A few facts about donating your body:

You must donate your whole body in most cases, so organ donors don’t qualify.

Transporting your body to a science facility is free unless you’re being shipped to another state.

You may not qualify if you’re morbidly obese, badly damaged in a car accident, or have a contagious disease (such as tuberculosis, HIV, or hepatitis.)

The medical facility won’t pay your family for your body.

The family can conduct any memorial service beforehand, but they will have to pay for those costs.

You can’t request that your body be used in a certain way.  Science will decide.

I found all this interesting, but I always like to learn new things.

Wow! Food service has really changed

The fast food soda machines look like this

I don’t go out to eat very much so it surprised me to find all this new equipment in restaurants today.  I’m talking about fast food as well as sit-down restaurants.  We only get fast food a couple of times a year.  Hubby won two meals at Wendy’s from the radio station so we went there about a month ago.  It took us a minute to figure out how to use the soda machine.  We’re used to the old fashioned ones with a slot for each beverage.  This one was all press buttons.  Once I selected a beverage a whole new screen popped up with more selections.  We finally got our drinks.  This sure is high tech for fast food.

 A tabletop tablet

All you do is sign with your finger after putting in the tip  Very space age, huh?

A couple of weeks after that, we met some friends at Olive Garden for an early dinner.  I was surprised to find a pay center right at the table.  It even spits out a receipt for you.  When were those installed?  Now there’s no need to wait for a waitress to take care of the bill.  I can see this would be good because it frees up the staff and they also don’t have to leave with your credit card.  Everything is becoming so high-tech.  I’m not sure I like it.

There is life beyond work

It’s occurred to me that I’ve really been complaining about work lately so I think it’s time to write about something else altogether for a while.  While it’s true a lot of my time is taken up with work, there’s also life beyond the world of food demos. 

We’ve had some gorgeous sunsets here in the desert and I’ve managed to capture a few of them.  I just love all the oranges along with the gold and pink.  Sadly sunsets never last long enough for me.  I’m not always in a position to grab the camera soon enough either.  Sometimes the pinks and oranges give me a 360 degree view and that’s impossible to capture in one picture.  It’s a nice five to ten minute feast for the eyes though.

 Sometimes the rocks and mountains behind the house light up at sunset

Hubby got a shot of this big hawk on the roof the other morning

 

We’re also beginning to get just a small taste of the spring weather that’s coming and not too soon for me.  A few days ago it was in the low 60’s here, sunny with beautiful puffy clouds all over and just beautiful.  We had a slight breeze and it was so nice I would have liked to have bottled that day.  The next day it was back to the gloomy business with more rain and it was quite a bit colder again.  We’ve had a lot of rainy days this year, but I guess that’s better than snow and ice.  Luckily we’ve only had one day of that so far and it was hailing one night when I got off work, so that wasn’t at all fun to be out in.

 Koki likes to chase her tail on this level of the cat tree.  She's done this all her life.  She'll be twelve in May.

Raven and Koki on the cat tree

 

My cats are playing together more, which makes me very happy.  The two of them only have each other now so it’s good they can get along.  Of course I get no sleep when they both pile on the bed because one sleeps on my pillow and the other on my legs.  But I can’t throw them off the bed.  They won’t be around forever and I know I’m gone working a lot so I’m glad they’re happy to see me.

Koki sharpening those claws to attack me with later.  LOL

 

Raven with the new toy I got him for Christmas

 

On another note entirely, I’m not writing as much as I used to (except for blog posts) because I simply don’t have the time to sit quietly and think.  I hope to get back to my mystery series of future novels soon.  I found out about a citizen police academy on the radio last week so I inquired about that and have signed up for the classes that start in February.  Of course they do a background check but I expected that.  I wouldn’t want any criminals taking the class with me.  My purpose in doing this is to make my murder mysteries as realistic as I can.  My editor suggested I go to the police department and talk to someone there about protocol, so I figured this would be even better.  This class is two times a week for three months and will cover everything that the police department does.  There will be more about this later.

Make the world go away

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Sometimes it’s hard to keep your lips zipped shut when working in the world of product demos.  I wonder how some of the people where I work have been there ten years.  The customers really pull so much crap that you’d love to reach out and bop them on the head, but all we can do is smile and offer them samples.

All of us are abused by the “shoppers” on a daily basis and no one seems to think anything of it except all of us doing the demos.  It’s the normal life of the demo person to let customers abuse us and say outlandish things all day.  I’ve only been there a year and a half and I already have plenty of stories for a book. 

Sometimes I wish things were different and we had people to back us up, but they say the customer is always right.  The only time that goes out the window is if another customer is taking on a fellow customer.

Not only do we have to cook and prepare samples to hand out, we have to clean up all the spills and messes left by the customers during the day.  We don’t want a mishap to come along so everything stops until we sweep or wipe up a spill, change gloves and resume our duties behind our food cart.

I’m always amazed at how oblivious the customers are if they spill something.  They simply walk away and leave it, or step on it.  I know half of them know they dropped something.  Do they expect us to clean up after them?  What do their houses look like?  Do they leave things there that they drop on the floor?

And sometimes this is deliberate as was the case the other week when one of my coworkers was doing a demo for popcorn, which we all call “drop corn.”  Once that cup is picked up half of it immediately falls on the floor.  It’s stepped on, rolled over with shopping carts and kicked down the isle while we’re trying to sweep it up.  One gentleman deliberately spilled his entire sample cup on the floor in front of the demo person.  I guess he wasn’t a gentleman after all.

Not long ago, another gal was cooking shrimp and an older man took the entire sample tray and ran down the isle when she put it out for the crowd waiting.  We’ve had people come up behind us and use our spatula to remove things off the grill because they were tired of waiting and wanted to eat.

People always make smart remarks daily.  A guy asked if a cheese stick was a suppository.  The demo person told him to let him know how it works out for him.  That was great thinking.  Usually I’m not that fast with a comeback, but maybe someday I will be if I stay at this job much longer.

Most of the time when the day is over I’m driving home thinking make the world go away if we have to wait on anymore stupid and inconsiderate people.  There are always exceptions to this, thank goodness, but they’re few and far between.

Young people today – were we all this bad?

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Maybe I’m just getting old, but when I was in my twenties and working I always listened to my supervisor and tried to play by the rules.  I was very attentive and dedicated to doing a good job.  Today I really wonder what has become of all the young people.  No one really cares anymore.  It blows me away.  They think they know everything about everything and there’s no point in telling them the company rules, or how to do something.  Not only that, I think common sense is lacking.

Young people just don’t seem to have the same attitude or work ethic as us older folks.  This gal in question has done many crazy things at work.  She won’t listen to any of us and I do wonder why she still has a job.  But this latest thing is simply beyond me.  A group of us were working last Saturday and she was heating up soup and serving that to the shoppers.  Somewhere in the course of the day she decided to take off her shoes because her feet hurt.  How she had time to even do this is beyond me because we get super busy on the weekends.  On top of that it’s winter here.  How can you work on concrete without foot protection?

The next thing you know this girl is working barefoot.  Eeeww.  What?  You don’t serve food, or work around food barefoot unless it’s in your own house.  All of us know we’re supposed to wear closed in shoes and socks.  The only other place this gal has worked is McDonalds and it now makes me wonder if they walk around the kitchen there in their bare feet.  If the boss was there that day and had seen this I’m sure the girl wouldn’t be working there now.  We all know the dress code.

I still can’t figure out why the young people think the rules include everyone but them.  Is our society really becoming that lax where no one cares anymore?  I know all the customers care about at our work is getting free food so maybe no one noticed the workers bare feet.

But this isn’t the only young person who is above all the company rules.  Maybe some other time I’ll go into more stories.

Has the world gone bonkers?

I’ve asked myself this question more than once lately.  There’s some crazy news and crazy people out there, but maybe there always has been and news is just more available now.

In today’s paper I read about an inmate in California who is serving a sentence on death row for murder.  This person has no chance of parole.  Now what caught my eye here is that this individual wants gender identification surgery and the court has granted his wish.  So the state, which I think means the taxpayers, will be paying for his surgery.  Am I the only one who thinks this is crazy?

I’m the type of person who cares less what anyone does to their body, or what gender they identify with because it’s none of my business and if they aren’t hurting anyone, who cares?  But I think it’s wrong for the state to foot the bill for this guy’s surgery.  Do you think the state would pay for surgery for any of us?  I don’t think so.  And I’m not thinking about a gender change.  I’m talking about any surgery.  What about life threatening situations.  This surgery is a want – not a need, and I don’t think the taxpayers should pay for it.  Period.  Why does anyone on death row need this type of thing?

Early bird Dinnertime

Yes, Costco seems to be the place for those early bird diners.  We see the same people daily in our local store.  They just come to eat, which is obvious when they have no shopping carts. The eaters that do have them use them to lean on and the basket is covered with sample cups.  I’m not joking.  I see this daily.  There are also walkers who come to eat, no carts needed, and people in those motorized scooters who zoom from demo to demo.  Don’t get in the way because they’re likely to run you over.  They hit our food carts daily because they’re reckless drivers.  All they can think about is free food.

Hubby and I were in Costco shopping today because we were both off.  There’s no time to shop when you’re working, unless you already have a list and can grab those things and run for the checkout after work so you can get on the road for home.

As we were leaving the daily diners were coming into the store through the other door.  It was then that it occurred to me they’re using Costco for an early bird dinner place.  Why not?  They can make the rounds for the next two hours and eat as many samples as they want for free and then go home.  I’m sure they think their Costco membership allows them to have a free dinner like this everyday.  And not only that, but they also feed their “service dogs,” which are far from that because a service dog doesn’t eat on the job. 

Some of the eaters even have the nerve to tell us that our samples are too small and they serve bigger ones in other stores.  Really?  Well, what are you doing in this store then?  Of course we can’t say that even though we’d like too.  These same people will complain if we have nothing good to eat that day.  This isn’t a restaurant people.  We serve samples so that members can sample before they buy because the food at Costco is in large quantities.  Period.  We have a nice snack bar upfront if you’d like a meal.

Yesterday I had a customer who told some other shoppers “no, you can’t have another sample.  They aren’t feeding you dinner.  These are samples.”  Bless you, lady.  Where did you come from?  I wish you were in the store everyday monitoring things.  Of course we can never say anything like that to a member, but it’s nice when these real people come along.

Happy New Year

Celebrate with good sense

Hi everyone.  I could write some craziness as things cross my mind all the time that bring a smile to my face.  I guess this is a good thing, although sometimes I do have to question my sanity.

Just Friday my boss called asking me to come into work on short notice.  I had ten minutes to get there because someone had called in at the last minute.  Of course it takes me longer to get to work than ten minutes, but this would’ve been okay.  The situation was I wasn’t dressed for work so I couldn’t just bolt to the car and get on the road.  I had planned to spend the day finishing the calendar for my mother.  So I said no, even though I rarely do that.  There is life beyond work after all.

I felt bad about saying no because I honestly love the people I work with, the customers not so much because most of them are very rude and disrespectful toward us.  But I would miss most of my coworkers immensely if I ever left there.  One of them is leaving.  Saturday was her last day so we said out goodbyes on Friday.  She and her sister helped me so much when I first started there.  I’ll always be grateful for that and will pay it forward to all the newcomers because it really helps to have someone on your side when you’re new and trying to learn everything.

Tonight I had finished the calendar, finally I might add, and I was feeling giddy because I have so little time for extra activities beyond work and daily life.  I actually accomplished a big task I’d been working on for the last month. 

 Clip art from the net.  I've never tired of watching this movie.

 

I was sitting in my chair tonight trying to relax and thinking about being Dorothy on the Wizard of Oz.  She finally made it home with Toto and said, “I love you so much Auntie Em and Uncle Henry.”  I envisioned myself hugging some of my coworkers and saying what a pleasure it is to have them in my life.  Now maybe this has been on mind because a coworker and I were talking about the Wizard of Oz on Friday.  We were discussing riding out brooms about the warehouse because we were constantly sweeping.  We both wondered who the bad witch on the Wizard of Oz was because we knew the good witch was Glenda. 

I had to giggle at myself.  Hubby was cooking dinner and told me to stop talking so I was fantasizing instead and thinking I must have the perfect job because it requires me to talk all day long.  Now I know my brother-in-law would also have a fit because he always says my family was born with a phonograph needle in our mouths.  Oh my!  That is so funny, don’t you think?  All of us are talkers and I can’t really envision life any other way.

Happy New Year to all of you who are following me.  I hope 2017 is the best ever.