Half-Way Through............

.........and loving it. That's my little stay-at-home vacation - or staycation as I have recently read people calling it. I don't have to go back to work until Tuesday morning. These 3 days off plus the weekend are just what the doctor that I never see ordered.
I'm liking it so much, I'm going to ask to do it again next either in September or October. I have enough hours saved up to take off a month's worth of work.

Today, I'm paying for yesterday's excursion to the water park. Sore muscles and generally not too interested in doing anything. Kyle - just showed up. He went with us yesterday and he's trashed from yesterday as well. Caleb is still in bed, lol. Kyle is a workaholic - he reminds me of myself when I was that age. I already had an extreme work ethic pounded into me by the time I was 10 years old. I worked to make money - my parents were poor and if there were even any allowances, they were extremely small. I made money doing odd jobs and newspaper routes.

Anyway, I just showed Kyle what I want done out there - ALL of what I want done. There's a lot in just digging the trenches. He wanted to make some extra money, he's here. He asked my to hurry up and get out there and show him what to do (in a polite way) because he said if he sat down, he was going to crash out all over again. Funny how much energy you can exert at a place like a water park and not even realize it until AFTER it's over.

The high temp today is going to be much lower than it has been - 105. That may sound hot, but it's nothing compared to the 114 highs we've been experiencing. It's only 81 degrees right now - last week at this time of day it was well into the 90's. This week's forecasted high are up there - but not AS high - which is good for lowering electric consumption.

Just because of the way I'm feeling, I'm debated whether to go out there and do this water pipe install. It might be a little more motivating seeing that someone else is out there working as well. Guess I'd better make up my mind before it gets too hot - that setup is sitting in the direct sunlight right now and will be for most of the day.

Hmmmph. I just checked my checking account - a thing I do daily. The little girl at the register we checked out at when buying lunch double charged my account for the lunch we had. At $31.35, that was an expensive lunch considering. This girl ran my debit card once - said it didn't go through (I watched the computer screen and had my doubts about THAT statement), said she needed to run it again. I let her do it, but - that's also why I checked my account today. Yes, I just got off the phone with them, they will be transferring the second charge back to my account.

Oh, well, I didn't say anything about our trip through the food section yesterday, did I? Well, their prices were, of course and expectedly, quite outrageous. A salad - albeit a nice salad - for $8.99. Hamburgers were $5.00 - JUST the hamburger and a slice of pepperoni pizza, also $5.00. Caleb and Kyle each got a slice of pepperoni. The slice the girl gave Caleb was MUCH smaller than the slice given to Kyle. Caleb wanted a different slice as ALL of the rest of the slices on that particular pie were all considerably larger than the one Caleb got. The girl just threw up her hands and said: "Well I HAVE to get rid of all of it".

When I say girl, I'm talking the people working at this place were 16 and 17 years old. I ignored her. When I got to the cash register, I asked for a discount on the smaller slice. This girl - again, 16 or 17 at most - said no, can't do that, but you can go back and get a different slice if you are unhappy. Well, we already TRIED to do that. I just sent Caleb back - the girl was unhappy with him I could tell from the 30 feet away I was standing. I asked for management.

This girl told me there IS no management there! LOL!!!! As always, when customer service goes south and sour, I immediately ask for management. We were not being rude and were being very polite, so that takes care of our end of the deal. She said there's a building somewhere else on the property where I would have to go to speak to a manager. Well, what was I going to do? I figured I would eat lunch, finish the day's fun festivities and visit management on the way out.

Instead, another guy - he MIGHT have been 18 - came up to the table and spoke to me about my desire to speak to a manager. Yes, I replied, that's exactly what I intend on doing. I was pretty much shrugging all of this off - we just sat down, started eating and let it go until later. Is there anything I can do to help? No, sir, I intend on going over to whatever building it is where the manager is later on and discussing this situation with that individiual.

This guy leaves. Several minutes later, the REAL manager came up. This was definitely not low-level management. I politely recounted the situation, saying that if I was going to pay $31 for this - pointing at the incredibly small amount of food on the table - I wanted full portions. That was all. The guy looks at me incredulously - WHO told you that there is no management here? I pointed at the girl at the register. His offering - without my asking - was a second slice of pizza for each of the boys. We accepted. He went and got them, handed them to us, bid our adoos. He then walked over to the girl at the register and - was obviously not being very pleasant with her. He also went over to the other girl that had refused to give a different slice of pizza - didn't hear that either, didn't really want to. The manager made it right, that's all I cared about. The boys scarfed down the second slice of pizza while I finished my - well it was a pretty good tasting salad and the pizza the boys said was good too - so no complaints about the taste or quality of the food.

I then went and got my free t-shirt. It's a daily special there - if you spend over $30 on food, you get a free t-shirt. This one, of course, says Wet 'N Wild all over it and I think it was a $15 - so I thought we got a good ending out of it.
Look, I just don't put up with bad customer service. I KNEW the prices were going to be high, THAT was not my issue. I am IN customer service and I treat my customers VERY well, even if they are angry about something - which happens more often-than-not because of salesmen making promises they knew couldn't be kept when they made them. Nothing I can do but apologize, start making phones calls if necessary to find out when a product that these people I'm with need right now - and get the ball rolling. There are also often times when I arrive at a jobsite and the people had been told I would be there - like hours and hours ago. The people making those promises didn't bother to either ask me or my boss - they were just trying to appease their customer. When you do that - you make it worse because - customers aren't stupid, they figure out that they were told one thing when that person telling them it KNEW it would be otherwise. Fortunately for me, they realize this and dump the load of anger and discontent onto THEM, well, not always, but a good portion of the time.

Anyway, it didn't ruin our day and Kyle was impressed. Lol. I wasn't trying to impress him - but he was like - wow, you handled that incredibly well. He was mainly happy for the second slice of pie - growing teenagers have bottomless pits for stomachs.

Kyle just gave up. He's wayyyyy too tired to do the job and he's complaining of the heat out there. I just said he didn't HAVE to do the job. I also offered he could do it this evening or even tonight - standing in direct sunlight is definitely going to fry your brains out while trying to dig a trench - been there done that. So, he says he'll come back later. He's going to his grandpa's house - 3 houses down from me - to crash out.

I'm amazed that I could outlast teenagers that have boundless energy. I'm feeling my oats today, too, but I'm awake and they are all asleep. I'm going to start my weekend cleaning rituals here pretty soon since everyone is either gone or sleeping - it's much easier to get things done without a lot of people around to get in the way.

Have a great day!
ben