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11:48 am - Sun 3/17/02 Well, work provided a number of surprises yesterday... The first one was that I was ACTUALLY supposed to work from 1:00-9:30, and not 4:00-closing, as has been the case for many, many months. OOPS! (Score another one for my subconscious; I'd written the right time down in my "pocket journal", but I think at some level I just wanted to extend that "long weekend" a little LONGER!) The second was a memo from Padric in my mailbox; The store has not met sales projections for the past couple months now--has not even been CLOSE, apparently--so the company is cutting his payroll hours. This is basically where I came IN; When I first started at the store, about a year ago, it was operating with a skeleton crew, and looked like "Ground Zero". The last time they cut hours, I lost 2 or 3 hours a week (It was one of the considerations that drove me into the "loss prevention" position; That money is from a different stash, apparently, and is exempt from these type of cutbacks, at least so far). If next week is an indication of what they're going to do for at least the rest of the quarter, I'm in BIG trouble; They basically lopped off a day's pay (I'm down to about 30 hours). Have I mentioned I make $7.50 an hour? Have I mentioned that, as IS, about 60% of my take-home pay goes to RENT? I'm running out of time for commentary on this state of affairs, but I WILL say this, which is something I said to a few of my coworkers yesterday--Short of BORDERS blowing up, I can hardly get a clearer message that I need to find something else to DO with myself out here. This company obviously doesn't give a FUCK about me, so I need to start seriously thinking about how I can help MYSELF. (There'll be lots more on this later. Trust me.) Another surprise yesterday was that Devin has given two week's notice. He's not been happy in LA, apparently, and wants to move to New York. And I LIKE Devin, so I'm saddened by this turn of events. I wonder if he needs a roommate...? (END) (I actually did the first bit of this online early this morning, but Diaryland is messed up for some reason, so I had to cut and paste to my Lotus Notes, then BACK into Diaryland. I can only hope you appreciate the lengths I go to for my "fans") Got back from rehearsal a short time ago. I did the lines as written--I might have missed a "yo" here or there, but just by accident--and Mark didn't say anything about it, one way or another. I assume that means he's fine with it. (Actually, when I heard the lines out loud, my "issue" became not so much about sounding "black" as just sounding INCONSISTENT; Sometimes I'm "sho nuff"-ing all over the place, and sometimes I sound almost NORMAL. But anyway...) I'm starting to think at this point that the show is going to be solidly MEDIOCRE; We're all doing well enough that it won't SUCK, but this isn't exactly ________(Insert the title of your favorite classic play here). I'm going to TREAT it as if it is...but it isn't. It just isn't. But my mind is really on Borders right now... Part of me wants to rail against this heartless corporation, that doesn't care if I can't pay my rent or my bills as long as the stock goes up another five cents a share, but that would be stating the blatantly obvious. Now I feel pretty stupid for having bothered to CARE about this job, cause the job OBVIOUSLY doesn't care about ME. (And I'm just curious; If this store is in such a slump, sales-wise, how exactly is gutting our ability to keep the store together and serve customers going to HELP? But there's the rub; Not only does Borders not care about the employees, they don't really even care about the CUSTOMERS. The only people that really MATTER in this little equation are Upper-echelon management and shareholders. The rest of us can pretty much just crawl in a hole and DIE) I guess when I go in today, I should buy a paper, and I need to renew my relationship with AppleOne and Cenex, as well as find out what the other games in town are. Here's the "up" side to this development: 1. Less money for food=flattering weight loss 2. Full understanding of how little Borders thinks of me or cares about my welfare means I can relax on the job, and give the bare minimum without straining myself. 3. More time to focus on "the finer things in life" (Like looking at dirty pictures on the Internet). 4. An interesting sociological/scientific experiment on exactly how little money I can have coming in and not DIE. 5. Motivation to do better, personally and professionally (Up till now, I didn't really WANT to quit Borders. Now I DO). That's about all I can think of at the moment. The mood is pretty grim at the store, as you can imagine (Made a little grimmer, I think, by the fact that they just HIRED four new people. Apparently, there was writing on the wall that our management team was just too fucking STUPID to see. Either that, or more cynically, they're hoping that people who are being paid higher wages will quit in disgust, and be replaced by this people making entry-level wages). But attacking Borders isn't going to do anything--some of us were fantasizing about a walkout yesterday (Though how do you walk out when you've got nothing to walk out WITH?)--because Borders is Borders is Borders. It's just a big corporate behemoth that is only there to perpetuate itself, by any means necessary. The only thing to do is to find the means and the guts to say, "I'm not going to be treated like this. I'm OUTTA here!".
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