I have the day off, and after hardly sleeping at all last night, I feel like I really need it. My plan was to wake up early, get things cleaned up around here, and get out to do something fun. Now I am going to write this and see how it goes. Good news on the personal and professional fronts: yesterday I talked to the corporate guy who demoted one of the managers, and has been responsible for clearing up some of the chaos at work. He said that the company is really happy with what I've been doing and how I've been doing it; he said that morale is up in the short time that I've been in the new department, and that made me ridiculously happy since I had expected the comment to be focused more on my organizational efforts and attempts to streamline things around there. When I asked if I could start coming in earlier to avoid arriving to a desk full of messages and a service drive full of customers he approved that, he also shared some of his ideas on better labeling cars and running loaners through the service drive when they return so we have a better idea of when they are back, and can keep up on the paperwork.
We are supposed to wear close toed shoes at work; yesterday I wore a pair of sandals since I went to put my socks on and snagged a part of my pinky toenail that got stuck in my compression hose. It was extremely painful and I explained that I normally do wear close toed shoes since I am in the shop quite a bit as he rightfully mentioned. Most of the guys wear steel toed boots, I thought that might be a requirement, but apparently it is optional. I might do a longer piece at some point; but I feel like there are so many pieces on entitled and ridiculous customers that it doesn't really serve any purpose other than to let me vent. Yesterday; after I scheduled an appointment at the end of the day for a woman to bring her child's vehicle in, she called one of the guys three times in a row and refused to leave a message. The car had to have an engine replaced, so I get that she might be concerned, she's taking it somewhere else for service, so I discounted some of her hysteria when I learned that; and I let it go completely once I met her.
I'm not sure what I expected; but this pseudo sweet and bubbly larger than life personality wearing riding clothes, and trotting around with her ass prominently on display was so obvious as to be laughable. She gathered a crowd of guys around her and I thought to myself that she is just one more of the alpha females who ignore the person who did the actual work, me in this case, I had called her back and let her know we could get her in, but that was secondary to her first priority which was to secure a loaner for the weekend. I despise people like that. Several of the men I work with defended her, I admitted that she had a great body, and also state that I'm envious on several levels. I'll never be able to compete with a woman whose family owns a riding studio (stable?), a martial arts business, and a couple of other side hustles, however, I would absolutely never want to be that pushy, that aggressive, that insensitive, and that self centered. If you have to act like that to get what you want rather than simply stating it, I'm out.
It was kind of funny when I said that I wished that I had a body like that and another guy from the shop said that he did too. We all laughed at that, my manager said something, and I said that she was one of these women who has everything for men, but nothing for other women, and he agreed with that. She knows how to work men over, and it was amusing in a kind of perverse way to watch her mainpulate her audience like that. We are still dealing with the overgrown man child in our department, but I feel like he is a bit better than he was initially, not that I enjoy giving him that credit, but do like to recognize it despite my wishes to the contrary. I heard that he threw some other employees under the bus and was neither shocked nor surprised by that. We've had several conversations about him; nothing changes, his sister also works for the company, but at a different store, and I found out that people are not too fond of him and his ways at that place which again, was hardly shocking, or a major revelation. When I was given the okay to come in earlier I tried talking to him about it.
He seized the opportunity as if he was a large mouth bass swallowing bait whole. Basically his idea is that I should start doing a larger portion of his job; it was pretty funny when he said something about me looking for things to do, customers deserve better service, and that was my angle. I am not going to sit there, go back into a schedule I'm quite familiar with since I stare at it for hours a day, and bail his dumb ass out by printing out paperwork that it is his job to prepare. It's not my job to get people into loaners; it's theirs. I help when and where I can, but I also have a job to do, and even if I am standing around filing my nails and unwrapping candy, this is his job, and he is very far from being overworked. I could manage my time better and do more at work; but I'm not being paid to do his job, and I can already see that if I agree to help him out periodically, that will become an expectation, and loaners are far from my favorite part of the job. Another guy asked me to put paperwork together for someone, but that was an entirely different request, and one I don't mind doing.
An employee accidentally cut an air conditioning hose; we had wanted that particular vehicle to be part of an event that nobody wants to go to today; and then it ended up not being available anyways. I thought it was interesting to see how people handled the incident and appreciated the big picture view my friend had when he said that the guy never should have been assigned that vehicle, and it shows a lack of (something, maturity maybe?), on the part of the other guys that they left that work for him. It was kind of funny when I was in the shop yesterday morning. I had a three quarter length shirt under a vest, I was wearing a scarf, and a pair of pants that probably fall under the athleisure category. They're navy blue with bows on the side, and one of my best friends at work has told me that is her favorite outfit of mine. So I had to go back there yesterday and two of the guys started in on me about how many layers I was wearing. I knew that they were teasing, and jokingly told them that I hated all of them. Then one guy said that he didn't care what I wore, and I amended my statement to exclude him.
Later in the day I was out there again for some reason that escapes me now, but was related to the vehicle two guys were working on at the time. I volunteered to go get pricing for the visor that was shorting, and this one guy told me to look at the neck hair on the back of another. I had no idea why I was being asked to do this, it hit me really funny even at the time; then I asked my manager if that guy thought I had a crush on someone, or he was just being a guy, and was told that he was just being a guy. Still, it was nice to be included in the teasing session, and even nicer that this time I wasn't the one on the hot spot. I don't know why they were ragging on his facial hair; I think he's a really good looking guy, but I also know that is how people interact, especially in that type of an environment. It was funny and we were all laughing which was a nice way to relieve some of the week long stress that had accumulated. It's fun hearing some of those guys say my name, one guy asked whose initials were JJ, and then felt stupid once I told him it was me, because who else would it be?
I saved the best part for last, and not just because it includes some personality theory...
On second thought; maybe I will just end things here.
Take care,
jessicaj
P.S. I found this after a few days; not sure why I left off where I did, but it no longer feels right to continue so apologies if you feel as if I've left you hanging.
j