Emotional

The visitation

/ Codefreak / Leave a comment

So I had my parents visit this weekend. They drove 13 hours and made the long trek to see me and my family. It was a pleasant visit that refreshed me very much. I was not able to keep up to date with the blog so I am playing catch up.

Family is so important to me. My family has given me strength and helped me through some tough times. I do not want to know where I would be without my wife. My daughters have brought me joy and strength. I am coming up on my 9 year anniversary in marriage. I worked hard on it and am proud of it.

I do not get to see my parents very often anymore. Being a couple hundred miles away makes it difficult to see them more than once a year. When come down it is a special time.

It takes me back to a time of me being younger.

I end up pushing the shopping cart at Walmart.

I find myself laughing at my dad’s “dad jokes” only now with more understanding.

Its family.

and they came to visit.

Hug a pony my friends.

…before the Dawn.

/ Codefreak / Leave a comment

And now the conclusion for the previous post.

It was a rough day the other day. I had not prepared myself for the follow up. The following day was a day to remember.

But this time it was in a good way.

I actually enjoyed work for the first time in a while. I was able to make it through the day and not have a bad customer (that in and of itself was a miracle).

My wife is doing much better. She was able to get up and get around the house. Almost back to her old self. We have looked into a plan to get her back into yoga as that has helped before and should do so again. I am crossing my fingers that it all works out.

My daughters have been angels. Now that is common for them to behave good for a few days but this time, there seems to be a deeper connection. My oldest is taking more responsibility and is working things out with her sister.

And no one is talking about hitting the other person.

To encapsulate this whole day, I got one of my last Plushies in for the Build-a-bear My Little Ponies, SPIKE!! I did win the bid on him and he is in great condition.

I find myself in an unusual situation. I am not one for “The sun will come out, Tomorrow!” (too bright and cheerful, bleh) but I did feel I needed the win. While this may not help you all, please share in my win. I spread it around to all.

While I use this blog to help get things out of my system, i have a habit of always trying to help other people to the fault of putting myself at risk. But in this I share, share in the joy of a win. If its yours or mine or someone elses, share joy.

And there is no greater joy than I know of, then hugging a pony.

It is always darkest….

/ Codefreak / 1 Comment

I hit a rock bottom for me today. This was a low of a low today. Dark could not begin to describe my mood or my whole day.

Today started with me still in pain from not getting my medication due to the pharmacy issues. Me, being foolish, decided not to take my dose before going to bed and woke up in serious pain. I had slept horribly.

Not a great way to start the day.

I had not been in pain like this for weeks, since I started the new meds. I had forgotten how bad it was and I was reminded in the worse way possible. I realize now how bad it was and is and can be.

But I wasn’t the one hurting.

My wife has had a few car accidents in the past. Her family also has a history of spine and neck problems. There are days that it acts up. There are bad nights were she sleeps on it wrong. This was one of the dark days were it was bad. She woke up crying from the pain. She had been up most of the night. The pain was so bad, she had thrown up a few times. Any medication, food, even water she could not keep down. It was a bad moment.

I don’t do well with family being in pain. I can help others and deal with other people, but the moment it is my immediate family, it becomes different. I was not able to help her in this. I still had work and asked her if she wanted me to stay home. She told me no, that she would handle it. I got ready for work and on the way out told my daughters to behave and be good for mama.

I went to work feeling horrible and proceeded to have the same result there. Massive amounts of returns (almost half of that days sales to be exact) the same rude customers and more. I tried to pick myself up, the meds started kicking in, and I was struggling to deal with everything. My wife called me later that evening. She informed me that she had to get out of bed because my girls were tearing up the house, screaming, fighting, and becoming uncontrollable. She asked me to talk to my oldest daughter and calm her down.

I sighed and stepped into my backroom and proceeded to try and calm my daughter down. She is uncontrollable at times and this was one of those times. I have what is called their “getalong shirt” were I make them fit into one of my shirts with arm holes cut out and they have to do everything together.

They hate it, but it teaches them (hopefully) to get along.

She would not listen to me. I tried to talk but she kept interrupting me and would not let me talk. I snapped and told her I would be home in 5 min (I live very close to my store) and that she and her sister was in the biggest trouble they could imagine. I hung up on her, clocked out for lunch at work and drove home.

What awaited me at home was rock bottom.

I came home to a locked door that I could not open. I banged on the door when the key only unlocked the one lock. My oldest answered with the nervous scared look on her face. I told her to go to her room and I would be in there in a moment. I looked around to a disaster of a house and went to check on my wife. She had thrown up again and still couldn’t keep things down and she could not help with the girls. I came out and could not find my youngest daughter. I turned to my oldest and asked where she was. She told me she had told her sister to hid.

I was confused.

Why did you tell her to hide? Where is she? What is going on?

My daughter told me that when I had hung up, she had told her sister to hid so she wouldn’t get in trouble and that way I couldn’t hurt her.

I was dumbfounded and hurt.

Let me be clear, I have never hit, punched, kicked, or maliciously hurt my children in ANY way. There has never been a moment in anger where I have deliberately hurt them. There was no justification that I could think of that would provoke this thought.

I asked her to go get her sister and called them both in the living room. I had one of the hardest conversations in my life. I asked why they thought I would hit them. They told me that they had heard it. I asked where from and they couldn’t tell me. I told them in very clear words that I would never do that. I would protect them and that I loved them and that they could always come to me. I told them that it hurt my feelings that they would think that.

This was a new concept for them. Hurt daddy’s feelings? We talked about that and what would happen as punishment. I took away the TV privileges, the few video games and anything electronic. This was two-fold as I believe even the shows I allowed them to watch and kept an eye on what they were watching, was teaching them bad things. I asked them to get along for mommy’s sake. We spent a few moments crying and talking through things.

I then had to go back to work as I was late getting back. I left them instructions, and checked on the wife and went back to work. The pain that I had been avoiding all day decided to hit me once again, reminding me that, yes it was still there. I finished the day and could not wait to get off.

It was a terrible day.

I needed my pony.

I have a follow up to this post coming soon, I ask that you hold any questions about how we are doing. I have taken a day or two to compose my thoughts on this so I am writing it after the fact.

Anxiety now?

/ Codefreak / 14 Comments

So I have been on medication for almost 2 weeks now. I have been without pain from the day I started.

It has felt amazing.

My headaches have not been there. My back is loosening up. I have slept well. This isn’t to say I haven’t had a few side effects but overall, it has gone well.

And of course, today happened.

I have been running low on my medication. I have been meaning to call the doctor and talk to her about as I will run out before I will see her again. I called to get a refill and found out she had not prescribed one.

Ok no big deal.

I call my doctor’s office and ask to see if I could get another refill on it and they readily agreed. They told me they would talk to the doctor, and they would be contacting the pharmacy.

That was yesterday.

Today, I had not heard from the pharmacy. I called the automated line and it kept saying that it had not been filled. Getting anxious, I decided to call the pharmacy. I was not prepared for the quick conversation that followed.

“Yes I am calling about my prescription refill.”

“Name, Date of birth”

I replied with the correct information.

“Ah yes sir. I see that this was a prescription that did not have a refill. The doctor has informed us that this will be the LAST time we will be refilling this prescription. We will not do this again.”

“Excuse me?”

“Your prescription was refill will be done in an hour please come by to pick this up then. Thank you”

*click

I was stunned. I have never had a refill for this before. Heck, I have never had this medicine before.

I felt Ashamed and embarrassed. What had I done to be treated like a drug addict? Why was this said to me? Was my doctor mad at me? Did they think I was abusing my dose?

It was this downward spiral was further pushed down due to me being late on my medication. I had not had a panic attack in a while but this started a mild one for me. The feeling that I was alone and that no one believed that I needed to take my medicine. This is what had kept me from going to the doctor for many years along with the lack of courage to admit I had a problem and the willingness to do something about it.

This did quite a number to that.

I have talked to a few friends of mine and was told by a few that I was treated not only poorly but that this could be major violation. I have calmed down, and taken my meds.

I will be hugging a pony tonight.

Death of a friend.

/ Codefreak / 4 Comments

I found out today that my pet dog that has been in the family for quite a while passed away today. He was a fantastic companion that was there for me in so many ways.

I got he when I first moved to Georgia for the first time. He and his 3 sisters were left in a box on the side of the road near our property.  Pretty common in the country. We all decided to keep one puppy each. The only other option was to euthanize them and after we had just rescued them we couldn’t do that. Besides there was something special about them.

I pick my Tyty out of the bunch because he came up to me out of the box laid down and fell asleep on me. I was still upset with moving away from family and friends that i had known for years and wanted nothing to do with the dogs, but he chose me.

I was touched.

We set about training them and guiding them. Along the way 2 broke out of the pen and ran away. Another broke into a neighbors farm and was shot (wild dogs are a very serious problem where we were so this was not uncommon) but my Tyty was still there.

He ran off a pack of coyotes that had circled the house one night (a very very long night with them howling).

He followed us through the woods on excursions.

He was there when I went off to college.

He was there when I came back.

He was there when I proposed to wife.

He had become a family member and was in our hearts for 14 years.

My sister texted me that he had passed. We are unsure how it happened as he was found near the road. My sister commented on how thos past month he had done so well they let him off the chain to roam around free. He had not gone after any farm animals in a while so they had trusted him. We both thought that him being free was good for his last month.

I promised myself i would not get emotional writing this but i have failed. Tears now run down my face and my jaw is clenched. Ty was my pet, my companion,  my friend, and my family. 

I’ll miss you boy.

You will be in my heart forever.

Love you Tyty.

Hug a pet and a pony my friends.

Learning.

/ Codefreak / 1 Comment

I have not forgotten this blog, dear reader. I have been busy. I have started in the journey for knowledge. I have to keep this post short as time for me is almost gone at this point, but I believe it is for a good cause. I have not even had time for my two favorite pastimes, reading and video games.

People have been asking me what I have gone back to school. I have been asked this question a LOT so I will come out and say it. I am in a online Tech school for CISCO certifications. I have decided to pursue my career in computers (something that I enjoy and love).  I hope to finish my Basic in about a month or so. I am very excited.

I hope you will bare with me through this time, post here will be shorter. I hope you can stay with me and I will try and keep you posted. I have a few articles I want to get to and some other life changes coming.

Hug a pony my friends.

Rough Weekend

/ Codefreak / 2 Comments

So work was killer this last week. I have so much going on, it is not even funny. Let me list this out for you.

1.My RD (regional director, My boss’ boss) left the company. This was a man who I respected and who gave me a lot of encouragement. He had been with the company for over 26 years and had come up through the ranks and took care of us. There is much fallout to be had over his leaving and, not only a new person, but a Vice President of the company now is over us.

I am worried.

2. One of my employees broke down crying on Saturday. People just don’t realize that we are humans in retail.  She had a customer in our store doing a difficult transaction for 2 hours only to be followed up with the general mad rush of a weekend day, and then topped it off with a customer who, I believe, is crazy.

This final gentleman had a son who traded in some items to put toward some other items. He told my employee that his son did not received all the items he had purchased and that we needed him to give him his sons items. He also said we need to give him $40 in exchange for the items that he had brought in, along with the credit those items were given for the purchase he made. He also did not have a receipt or know what day his son did this but we had better take care of him.

My employee made it to the back room before breaking down on the phone crying with me, asking me to come back to the store to help her take care of the customer. My assistant manager was stuck on the highway, due to the highway being shut down, so no one else could help her.

I come in and talk to her and calm her down. She tells me whats going on and I approach the customer. The customer tells me a new story that involves his son buying a item, us not giving his son his item, and us telling his son we would hold his item for over 2 weeks until his other item that he had a special order for came in and we would give him both.

And we owed him $40 for the credit on the items his son traded in.

And no, he did not know the date or have a receipt.

And we better take care of him.

After a long process of looking through days of receipts, I find his son’s original transaction, and show him that: We gave him the proper credit for his items, his son placed his order and paid it off, we gave him all the games he purchased, and that we did not have any items for his son. The gentleman looked at me, smiled, and said that is exactly what he wanted to hear, turned and walked out without me saying another word.

I still do not know what crack he was on.

3. We ran a contest at work to promote growth in an area of business. Simple right? Hit this certain dollar goal, and all the managers in the store get a bonus.

AWESOME, right?

So, me and my team attack this with a vengeance. It is difficult because the contest runs through the holidays. We enter January just a little behind goal. We have to the end of the month to hit it. The dollar goal is $98,467 for what we are tracking. We enter the final week and I get an email about how much we are short.

$847

We got this.

We bust our butts and go all out to hit this goal. End of the week comes.

$3,259

About four times what we needed. We celebrate and cheer and wait for the money.

That never comes.

Two weeks later, we get an email saying we did a great job but that we fell short of our goal. Confused I ask my boss about it (who was also keeping track of everything) and we looked into it together. Turns out the goal they gave us was the wrong goal and that, while we did amazing for having one of the highest overall goals in the area, we fell short $347. The final week goal of $847 was an approximate amount and not an accurate number.

$347 out of $98,467

My team was crushed. I was crushed.

I went out and took $60 bucks and bought a $20 dollar gift card for each of my managers from my own personal money as a thank you. Still, it was hard looking back and kinda feeling like we got the rug pulled out from beneath us.

Rough week for me overall. Time to hug a pony.

First day back.

/ Codefreak / 1 Comment

So I have been enjoying some time out of my store, both with my vacation and with helping out some other stores with my manager mentoring. I had enjoyed my time off immensely and was looking forward to coming back to work.

I should not have been so excited.

All in all it was a good day. Numbers for everyone was good. We were very busy but we were handling it well. I was training a new person, saw an old manager of mine.

You know, a good day.

Should have been my first clue.

It was about an hour to close and I was helping a regular customer when the phone rang. It was from a private number. Now, if you remember a blog post I did a couple of weeks ago about the prank calling through a private number, you know I am always a little leery. I answer the phone and am immediately greeted by an adult male who is upset to the point of yelling. He asks for one my other key-holders who is not working at the moment and I inform him that they are unavailable. I ask them what the call is about and he interrupts me and says he can only talk to one of the managers. I inform him that I am the store manager and asked if I could help him. He tells me that his son came in a few weeks ago and bought an item from us that requires an ID to purchase and that his son is not of age and was able to purchase the item from my employee without being carded.

Now the employee in question is one of better employees and has never, EVER not followed this policy.  He is one of the better ones.

So I ask him the date of the purchase and he says he doesn’t know. I ask for the receipt and he says his son lost it. I then go to ask him another question and he interrupts me again and tells me to stop stalling and to help him. I told I was trying to and asked how he paid, and he said cash. He then asked why I would let this happen. I told him this was not store policy and I would be starting to look into it but I needed information, only to be interrupted once again by him saying that I was trying to just to protect my employees and that I must approve of the practice of selling items to minors. I told him that was not the case and that we took every one seriously but I needed to do an internal investigation. He asked if I was calling him a liar, to which I was confused and said that I was correcting him on the statement that I do not approve and take the matter seriously.

He then started to demand his money for the game back. I told him I would do everything I could to take care of him but I needed to know some information. He told me that his son had bought it in September (different date now) and that he paid case so there was no way for me to look it up. I asked if his son had a loyalty card with us and he starts YELLING at me that his son was under age and that he was not old enough for a card. I informed him that you only have to be 13 to be a member and he heatedly told me that they did not have a membership. He then insisted that I give me the cash back for the game and that my employee fired.

Now, it has been 15 minutes on the phone. I have a line of customers waiting, a new person on the register wanting help, and a customer that I am in the middle of ringing up waiting patiently. I have been yelled at, called a liar, and told I have to do something because a customer wants it.

Did I mention that I had had a good vacation with no headaches?

So I proceed to tell the customer to bring in the game and I would see what I could do but that I needed more information to start an investigation. The customer told me that that was not good enough and that he want my employee down there, the employee to apologize, me to fire him, and have his money returned in cash. I told him the that I would have to look into the matter before I fired ANYONE. He then demanded his money back. I told him to bring the game back I would see what I could do. He then told me that was not good enough and that he wanted me to say that I would give him his money back. I told him that, Yes I would give him his money back. He then hung up.

Now for the rest of the night, I am stressed out. I am depressed and cannot focus well. My head starts to hurt me and I look at every person who comes in my door with fear in my eyes, waiting to be yelled at some more. At 9 o’clock we close and I start to think it really was a prank call. I think back at how I was torn down. I think about how horrible it is that someone wanted someone fired, and it was a “prank”. How time was wasted and energy spent and people hurt for what? A prank call.

And there are no repercussions.

People are horrible. I see them everyday. I weep for those around me. I rejoice at those who give me a smile because I know how rare that is.

Tonight, I will be clutching a pony for comfort. I will try and unwind and relax enough so my muscles don’t cause me grief tonight. I pray that I can relax enough to sleep. What is sad is I am now dreading tomorrow. I now look at it in fear of what will people say next. All that time off wasted.

Hug a pony my friends.

Attack on me.

/ Codefreak / 3 Comments

I cannot stand being called a liar, an idiot, stupid, and other derogatory remarks. Being told off by customers is never fun but is part of the job (of customer service) they say.

Why is it part of the job?

Who says its normal?

It is not normal to call someone names over the phone. It is not normal to threaten someone that you will get them fired because you feel slighted, even if you were!

Why do we accept it?

How come we just stand there and take it? Why do we let people attack us over and over and look at them with a forced smile and say “Hey a nice day” after it all is over?

People are terrible.

This comes about after I had this altercation with a customer today. I had someone calling to look for a new product for something that is over 20 years old. I told the customer that we do not carry said product, new or used, and that I know a store that possibly carries it. Before I can even tell the customer the name, he calls me a liar. He said he just saw the product being sold new a week ago. I told him I had not seen anything and that we still did not carry it. He then asked about accessories for the 20 year old product. I told we did not carry anything for the product and that he would have to find a retro store for it. He then asked for specific items and told me to look them up. After each item, I asked if it was for this same 20 year old product and he said yes. I told him after each one, including one that he couldn’t remember the specific name for, that we do not carry the product and I would not be able to assist him. He then asks for a made up item that has never been made before. I inform him that we would not be able to help him further and hung up on him.

He calls back several times while I am busy and I am unable to get to the phone until 15 minutes later. I answer with my company and my name. He asks me to repeat my name and tells me he just called me and I was extremely rude to him on the phone. He asks why I would hang up on him, and I inform him that I would not be able to assist him in finding items we do not carry. I told him repeatedly that we do not carry these items. He said I was the rudest person he has ever spoken to in his life. He said he was just looking for a not so hard to find product that we actually do carry that has all the stuff he wanted. I told him that I would be able to look that up, but he cuts me off and says that I was rude and an idiot and he didn’t want to talk to me anymore and he wanted the manager. I informed him I was the manager. He told me that my company were idiots to give me a store to run and he had no idea how I could be a manager. He wanted my district manager’s name and number. I told him my DM’s name but said I would have to take his phone number and have my DM call him. He said that wasn’t good enough and that I was refusing service. He asked for my customer service line and that he wanted a local number to call. I told him it was a 1 800 number and that there was no “local” area coded number. He told that I was being rude again and that he now had enough to get me fired. He then told me he would do what he could to get me fired. I told him if there was nothing more that I could do, that he could have a nice day and he hung up.

Now I know most of you would say “Hey, pony guy. This was just a harmless prank call.” I beg to differ.

I have handled my share of prank calls but this one was different. The person attacked me personally. He threatened me and said he wanted to take away my livelihood. I don’t care who you are, you just don’t do that.

So now I am at home, being fed a delicious sandwich by a loving wife who knows that bacon is one way to make me happy. I have my pony and coffee as well and am calming down. I still feel angry at the whole thing. And I know that people will be say I am too sensitive but I don’t understand why we accept this kind of behavior.

Hug a pony my friends. Feel better. I will try as well.