People You Encounter at Work

I've had some downtime on Spring Break so, aside from doing everything that goes along with homework, getting caught up on my guitar playing, getting outside, and doing some reading; I've tried to be more active on this thing. Todays writing will focus on something that I haven't done since moving out to San Francisco in July of last year: work. My previous job at a music store was in a word awesome. I became exposed to new music I might have not been able to find, played dozens of new guitars and even became "good" at drums. I also met some cool people, got to meet quite a few of my musical heroes and also encounter some truly turdey people. Which is the point of this piece.

Most times people who come into music shops are cool enough, they have some unique stories and are just interesting people. On the other hand some people who came in just plain sucked ass. They would act as though we owed them something which would entitle them to free or greatly reduced merchandise. Or they would assume that $49.99 was code for: open to haggling. Often times I wanted to ask "Where do you work? Can I stop by and get a whole bunch of shit for free? No? Than what makes you so special?" Another favorite thing of mine that rude customers would do is rag on what we would carry, how much it sucked, and the price. Seriously? Who has the balls to do that? It amazes me that some people can do that. Of course I loved my job and held my tongue. The turdish people that I encountered were not just restricted to customers, some people I worked with over the years there, also got into the same boat. This was something that I never really thought about much until a friend of mine who also moved out here brought this to my attention. Don't get me wrong, I don't claim to be the most knowledgeable and I occasionally dropped the ball on somethings, but there were others who would take that job for granted. I often told people that I worked with, that this would probably be the coolest job that they will have and they would still screw it up. They would either be so full of themselves, show up late, try to leave early, not put any effort into working, get too distracted by the fact that we were encouraged to play the instruments. It was really incredible. The only thing(s) that it takes to be successful at a job like that are: some product knowledge, not sell people things they don't need or want, be nice and just acknowledge that they exist, don't hover around them, and be available to them. Strangely enough some people still don't get that.

So, yeah thus ends todays readings. Yey akward endings!

The Best Way to Spend 2 Hours of Your Life.

The Department of Motor Vehicles. What can one say about the place that hasn't been said before? For starters it sucks ginormous ass, the people who work there clearly a) hate their jobs b) hate their lives and c) hate you; and the lines are HUGE. It's as though people camp out 5 weeks in advance to get in line. This makes it rather difficult to just show up and you know do something simple like, I don't know renew your license. Although there are some differences with DMV's in different states. For example the one in North Dakota rocks balls. Almost never any lines, you are generally in and out of that place in anywhere from 10-30 minutes. Here in San Francisco, we went to get Mandi's drivers license renewed, boy was that an adventure. We get there at 10:45ish and we leave at 12:30. WOWIE! That's it?! Lets learn a little about this adventure shall we?

We get there and are able to cut through the line so that Mandi can take her written test, but the woman who is working at the desk acts as though we are disrupting her, even though its her job. Then some woman cuts in front of us, which causes the lady at the desk to flip out on her. Then we are given a number to wait in line for her to take her test; G 165. You would think that they do all the G's then switch to another letter right? Wrong, and you're dumb for assuming so, just like me. They call like 10 G's then skip to call like 30 B's then mix it up and do some more G's. So after 25 minutes of waiting, her number is called. I proceed to sit in my chair and read "The Zombie Survival Guide" as to prepare for the imminent attack. Then Americas fattest and smelliest people file in front of me to sit on the opposite side of me, good times. Then a creepy old "rent a cop" parades around wielding his power to keep people in line and make them be quite. Then he contradicts all that and he yells at someone for asking what line to stand in to hand in your test. Finally Mandi finishes, she passes, but I guess that wasn't good enough and the person at the desk taunts her for not doing better. Wow, someone loves what they do for a living.

So, I guess what I'm driving at is that the DMV is awesome and is the best way to spend like two hours of your life and made to feel like a complete idiot for disturbing someone by asking them a question that relates to their job....at their job...

Whoever says they aren't a creeper, is a liar.

There is one thing about social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace that I don't understand. Why is it that people set up security features so that no one or only a select few can see their profile, but then they will creep on everyone else's profile? Don't say that you don't or you don't know anyone who does cause their full of shit. I mean it is your right to put security on your profile but seriously what do you have to hide? I have no restrictions on my profile, not cause its awesome ( even though it is ) but because I don't care. If you want to see what I did when I went to the Twins game in Oakland last year, be my guest. If you set restrictions on your profile, maybe you shouldn't have a profile. Anyways thats my two cents on that topic. Either stop creeping, open up your profile, or just get rid of it.