Fucking AOL redux, and my handi-clueless neighbor

Oh, what a weekend, what a weekend. So much has happened, all in one weekend. But only one thing of importance.

On Saturday I received an unmarked business-like letter which turned out to be from a collections agency representing, of all people, AOL. AOL, that my long-faithful readers will remember I cancelled over a year ago. My initial reaction was to burst out laughing. Oh, AOL, my psychostalker ex-ISP service who simply will not be ignored. But seriously, the clingy thing? Not so cute any more. My laughter was cut short, however, when my mind made the equation: collections agency = possible negative credit rating, and I can't have that. So I switched to my second default reaction, anger. Goddamn AOL. I'm starting to think it might be easier to quit the fucking Mob.

I am Jack's sense of justified outrage.

Today, I'm dealing with it. I had hoped (but seriously doubted) that I saved the original mail, the letter I tried to send to AOL that got returned to me. I've just been through my files. Every scrap of paper from the MST3k convention 12 years ago, silly doodles I did at work to amuse my friend Karen, and every Christmas card I've ever received, yes. Important documents to support my case to collections agencies, not so much. But why would I save it? I foolishly believed at the time that cancelling by phone was the end of the matter. God knows it would have been for every other company on the planet not run by crazy people. Which is exactly what I'm telling the collections agency (minus the crazy people part). At least I have my trusty journal entry so I can look up dates AND names (for all the good that will do me. I'll bet there are 43 people named John working at AOL. Why couldn't it have been something unique, like Rainn or Nicodemus or Osama?)

The lesson here is if you use AOL, get out. Get out now while you can, because they are truly SATAN'S SPAWN. Or, on second thought, content yourself with paying top dollar for substandard dial-up service for the rest of your life, because the problems only really begin if you try to leave.

As long as I'm in angry mode (well, when am I not?) a short rant about The Alcoholic. Despite having handicapped plates (though the nature of her disability is unclear. My other neighbor Pat says it's the 6-pack of beer she brings up to her unit every night) she has been parking in a regular spot all summer, leaving the handicapped space that was put in at her insistence empty. I see this as her stealing a spot from us non-disabled drivers. Pat said she asked her once why she does it, and she said to keep the birds from pooping on her car. Yes, because the birds consider the slot two spaces over to be out of bounds. She's out of her mind, I tell you. Suddenly this week she started using the handicapped space, and this enraged me even more. I see this as her exercising her rights as a disabled person purely on a whim. Today she's handicapped; tomorrow she won't be. To me this is every bit as bad as healthy people parking in a handicapped space. The cripples would sure squawk about that, wouldn't they? Well why shouldn't it work both ways?

I asked Tery if she thought I would be so angry all the time if I took Valium. She said unhesitatingly, no. However she has an employee on the drug, and when she doesn't take it so much as breaking a nail reduces her to tears. She can't cope with anything without it. No thank you. I prefer to stay just as God made me.

So long RGIS and thanks for all the gray hair

I lied. This is the second important thing that happened this weekend.

I'm done with RGIS. DONE. I've actually been done for awhile now, but wasn't sure what to do about it until this opportunity came along.

Tery manages a vet hospital, I don't know if I've mentioned or not. She hired a guy for the weekend overnight shift who just isn't working out. He's supposed to clean the cages, feed the animals, give them meds, etc. and every day after his shift Tery receives a barrage of complaints that he didn't do a damn thing all night. She's given him several chances and several write-ups, and now he's out. And I might be in. It's just two 8-hour shifts, 9 pm to 5 am, which are the hours I'm awake on the weekend anyway. Might as well be getting paid for it.

It pays much less and some of the work is less than savory, BUT I'd be working for someone who had their shit together (no pun intended), working a set schedule, working alone, and it might just be all I need to supplement my regular transcription job. With my car paid off I'm not living paycheck to paycheck anymore. Plus the thought of working alone all night with only animals to talk to has made me realize that even working the inventory job just a few nights a week is too much togetherness for me. I simply will never be a people person. This strikes me as an efficient, simple solution to both our problems.

People will probably think me crazy leaving a $14-an-hour job for a $9-an-hour job. Frankly, when I put it that way, I think I sound a little crazy too. But when I consider all the stress and the headaches and the bullshit that comes with the $14, I think of it as a great deal. One of my mottos in life is that it's too short to keep working a job you hate, and although I don't bitch about it to LJ much, I HATE the inventory job. More specifically, I hate my bosses and the direction the company is taking.

It's just....the incompetence. The complete inability to grasp basic communication skills. The pigheaded enforcing of rules that are impractical and irritate everyone (and I'm not just talking about the anti-iPod clause). The panties getting bunched over stupid issues like tagging properly when we're counting stores with half the crew we need. The disorganization and the feeling that everyone's heads are stuck firmly up their own asses. I can't take it anymore. The company is going completely to hell and I'm not going with them.

Part B of my gripe centers on just one person, D. D has been a manager trainee for a couple of years, so it's hard to understand why she is so completely clueless now that she's been elevated to area manager. The majority of her stores begin with her making this statement: "I've never run this store before so you guys just do what you normally do." And she'll spend the rest of the time hiding, posting printouts and hoping that everything goes for the best. This is bullshit. Just because you haven't personally run the store once already does not excuse you from having a game plan and acting like a manager. She's taken to doing this so often that it just makes me wish my head would explode and spare me the misery of another half-assed run inventory.


But this weekend is the perfect example of what this company has become, a microcosm of a typical week with RGIS. I was scheduled for a 3-person store tonight, a 3-store run of Walmart meat departments. Very simple, reasonably quick. I was taken out because it was reduced to 2 stores (which would leave the two weaker grocery counters to fend for themselves. Not very logical to me, but I was getting a night off so didn't say anything). Last night I went into work and one of the other counters asked if I'd heard anything, because she was out too. No, no one had said a word to me, which I've learned doesn't necessarily mean that everything has been taken care of. I fully expected to get a phone call at noon today asking if I wanted to work tonight after all. So towards the end of the night I asked the other guy about it, and he hadn't heard anything either but would I be willing to do it? I agreed for his sake but gave him my number in case, through some unprecedented miracle, it HAD been taken care of through the proper channels.

Things didn't used to be this way. Auditors didn't used to have to worry about staffing their own stores. But our current district manager has some real problems keeping things together. Her managing method when things go wrong is just to sigh, shrug her shoulders and say, "Oh well, what can we do?" Her most recent excuse is her father was terminally ill and she was worrying about that. I've lost my father and my heart goes out to her, but meanwhile there's a whole district full of people counting on her. But she's been at it for 7 months and I've seen a slow but steady deterioration since day one. Just this weekend her father finally passed away so hopefully she can get on with her life again. The bad news is I can't wait another 6 months to see if things will improve. I'm ready to strangle people TODAY.

Why today? Because at 11:49 (close enough to noon for my purposes) I got an email asking me to work tonight because they suddenly noticed the staffing problem. If I hadn't spoken to my co-worker already I just might have refused on principle, but as it is I'm going in.

Today isn't the last straw so much as the final nail in the coffin of my loyalty to this company. Hopefully this time I'll never have to go back.