i've had a baaaaad day. woke up at ten, showered and dressed, ate a brekkast of melon, eggs and mushrooms before driving to work. my shift began at noon. it was slammed. now, for those of you that have worked retail, getting slammed feels like hell. for service departments such as electronics or shoes, it's worse. helping customers. ringing up customers. cleaning up after customers. trying to run frieght besides. a woman screaming at me because i stopped to ring someone up before finding her shoe (note: i was the only person on the floor at the time). she tried on at least 12 pairs of shoes and bought NOTHING, not to mention leaving paper everywhere and her three children running around screaming. so, finally, five'o'clock rolls around, lee arrives, and i can take my lunchbreak. i clock out, get my food, then.... lauren pedersen, please dial 1268, lauren pedersen, please dial 1268. lee's eight-year-old son had been hit by a car in the parking lot. she went home. the other girl (harmony) worked three hours additional (from nine am to nine pm) and i worked an additional two and a half (from noon to 11:30 pm). i like getting more hours, but this is ridiculous. the department is down to six people from the standard seven; one person (lee) is undependable and treats the department like crap. if anyone gets seriously ill (other than lee, who will be fired if she calls in sick one more time) the department's going down, and no vacations until another person gets hired, which probably won't be until after christmas if ever. which means: if i don't find a solution soon, no montana, no sorabjifest (chances are slim to nil for that anyway) and no leaving home. i'd like to say that money doesn't matter to me and fuck work, but i feel so insecure about everything that i don't know what to do. i'm thinking about speaking to the union about this; i'm not the only person that feels this way and running on stress-induced adreniline is no way to keep any store, particularly one with 300+ employees, running. that's it. i'm done for the night (or morning, if you will). pez has left the building.

Damn straight you'd bettter speak to the union. What union lets that shit slide? Do you make overtime at least? What's in the contract about vacations?

i'm getting two and a half hours of overtime. but this is awful, the general conditions that kroger (evil evil satan satan die die) has forced the store to be in, staffwise. kroger has forced all departments to cut hours so we can't provide the customer service that the chain is known for. if you do overtime, hours are cut further. i'm not the only one who wants time off. there are two other people who want their vacations who have more seniority than me. i'm talking with the managers of the apparel department to see if i might be allowed to change departments so i can get my vacation and jim (my boss) will be forced to hire another. really, this is too strange to speak. i'd probably not mind so much if i were working full time, or at least 30 hours, but no. i have no problems with my boss or store. it's kroger who is at fault for the most part. i'm due one week of paid vacation after one year of work, and i'm taking my vacation.

Go to your union, thats what they are for, thats what you paid your union dues for. Fuck Kroger or whatever his name is. You deserve your vacation and god damnit make the union have them give it to you, I mean fuck you pay them right? I don't get paid vacation time till I'm here a year, but I'm taking sorabjifest off reguardless, its only going to be 2 days off, and I feel weird asking for it with the way things have been going lately with my bosses. But fuck if I'm not going.

Kroger the grocery chain? I thought you sold shoes. Leave the shoe place pez. Retail jobs are a dime a dozen. You might find you can make more money waiting tables. I have some good friends who have waited tables for years....moved up from the basic joint slike Applebee's, Chili's etc....to five star Manhatten joints where the average bill for two is $200-300, in which you have someone who runs the food, runs the beverages, and all you do is take their order, tell them about the specials and see to their other needs. Tips range anywhere from $20 to $150. Imagine having 8-12 tables like that a night. But then again, people get "in the weeds" waiting tables too.

i used to love my job, up until a couple months ago. kroger purchased the chain in april, i think, and began cutting hours like crazy in june. at this rate, by the time december rolls around, the entire store will be u-scan units and security, with all the items on the floor.

i work for fred mey, but kroger owns fred meyer. fred meyer stood for customer service. kroger stands for profits. since kroger purchased fred meyer, the store has gone to hell in the following ways: 1) they stopped cleaning the employee restrooms. 2) they stopped filling the employee soda machines. 3) they've cut hours by at least 25-50% in every department. 4) they've encouraged the buyers to find cheaper items that they can sell for greater profits. this asshole who used to sell makeup and jewelry (a man) who went into management was at the store yesterday. bought wooden dowels and dog food in my department. swaggering around the place like he owns it, he asks how it's going. i was honest. it was hectic because we're not getting enough hours to run it smoothly. his comment was that sales were down. they're reasons for that. 1) there's a new winco foods across the street. 2) there's a new strip mall (including a new qfc) two miles away. 3) a new fred meyer two miles away, next to the dog track. 4) the unemployment rate of the area is the highest it's been in over four years. 5) the local economy is down. besides, no company should use the excuse that "sales are down" to treat their employees like shit. i wanted to slap him across the face. i didn't, but if he comes in and acts like that to me again, i'll do it. dammit, condescending brownnosing asshole.

tell him his unemployment rate is up. walk. you live at home pez....for a very rare moment in your life....you may not have to have another job lined up before you leave one. it only gets harder to leave a job, once you are on your own....assuming you ever leave home.

i'm working on a lot right now.... the reason that i'm not leaving this job immediately is that i want to move. soon. i'll be taking very few classes this term, maybe a total of five credits... all on audit. i need to get away from this city. period. everything i know is here, but that's half the problem. as long as i stay close, my parents will try and control everything i do, no matter what they say. so i'm hoping that i'll be moving either before or during winter break. it'll be difficult because i'll no longer have a car or regular computer access, but i'll be free to do as i like. free. and nobody can stop me. not kroger, not my parents. i'm the only one really holding me back, and i want to go all sorts of places. it's time.

WOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! YEAH! THATS THE SPIRIT!!!!

CHUPACABRA!

rrrrRRRRRRrrrrRRRRRRrrrrRRRRRRR

chupa?

ahhh, yes. i need to listen to imani coppola again. but now is time for resist & exist. strain against the chain. long live the sparklies and punk rock. live. liiiiiiiiiiiiiiive. ever inch i'm pushed closer to the edge gives me one more reason to think for myself. plain and simple. every day i can, i'm devoting at least an hour to work towards my goals. to escape into reality, to escape intact. and so the story begins.

rrr!

Hatebreeders whoaaaa ohhhh whoa ohhhh. Spread the hate right into your fucking bones, HateBreeders whoa.

sayWHAT?????? i got two new cds today for free. one has a raver version of "tainted love" my god it's funny strange. i need to go through my things and figure out what i did today.

Well, I turned into a martian, whoah ooh ooh! Can't even recall my name, whoah ooh ohh!

Hatebreeders is a Misfits song... A friend of mine use to have the words "Spread the Hate Right into your Fucking Bones." engraved on his Zippo. He was the most hardcore Misfits fan I've ever met.

I guess the Misfits are coming to play here soon. I may go just to see what's up with them now. I hope I can go see Tool the 14th and Rollins Band the 21st, but travel may put that out of the picture.

i heard Rollins on Howard this am.

Tool and The Rollins band will be worth your money as for the Misfits, save it. When Glen Dansig left the band they started to suck. On the other hand if you ever want to see an exceptional Band see AFI.

resist & exist is fucking cool even if i'm the only one who seems to know who they are. way too much weird stuff happened to me yesterday. i swear. like four black men (including a street vendor selling newspapers) decided that i was hot and that they needed to hit on me within an hour. in front of the central library for heaven's sake. one of them i'm not sure was even real, he said a bunch of stuff about my aura and had the strangest name... exadrian or something like that. he told me that i was an alien in a human body because i wore jeans with holes in the knees. weird.

welcome to the world. I know who Refuse and Resist is. I worked for those misguided fucks for a stint. Thats how i got into Lollapalooza for free one year.

Its a sign Pez.... A sign from above, heed the warnings of your power animal, smoke some peyote, meditate with a cactus, let your chi become one with you, and worship some tofu. Then all will be ok.

Refuse & resist annoy the hell out of me. Well, let me qualify that: everyone I've met invovled with R&R have been egotistical maniacs or complete phoneys.

i learned that early on sem. bunch of crackpots.

holy shit, pez... not black men!

NOT refuse and resist. resist & exist. i'm not saying that they're black because it bothered me, but because it was weird. portland is one of the whitest major cities in the u.s. and there were maybe two white guys hitting on me too. it was a weird day in general. i don't think i'm racist or anything, but there was maybe one black kid in the elementary school i went to, none in my middle school, one close knit-group in high school and very few in my year of community college so far. i don't deal with people coming from minority races on a daily basis every day. so one guy selling copies of street roots asks me out, another attempts to figure out my eye color (he thought they were green), a third guy (from dreamland or dreamforest or something) tells me that i'm an alien and he's read my aura, and a forth tells me i'm hot and kisses my hand. no makeup, holey jeans, uncombed hair in a bun. weird. guess i'm freaking out a little.

why pez??? christ. guys will always hit on girls. thats how it happens. some are more direct than others. it will only increase as you get out of your parents house more and more. guys are not fooled by make up, clothes or hairdoos.

"guys are not fooled by make up, clothes or hairdoos." huh?

oh well. i didn't mind that i was hit on so much as the fact that i felt as if i'd hallucinated later. no drugs. i've been getting my feet wet, by going into the city alone, talking to strangers and entertaining myself. being alone is not as bad as most people think, as long as i play it safe. my body can go through a lot of shit. i'm prolly more violent to myself than anyone else will ever be (without being self-destructive). i am little girl pez, but nothing really bothers me until someone plays with my head. so i don't really mind them hitting on me, i rather like the attention as long as they're nice and don't openly stare. i'm vain, really, and love tobe told that i'm not ugly, because i've never really believed myself when i've said it in the past. but the one guy, an older man wearing sunglasses, exandrian or something.... he was either nuts, psychic or a hallucination. and that bothered me, not because i was afraid he'd try to rape me or something, but that if he can figure out so much about me and not know me at all, how can i remain in peaceful anonymotity for long? undergone so many mental battles already in my 19, nearly 20 years, and then another jumps into my life. what to believe, once again. attention good. head games bad, although mental stimulation is intruging. eek. glad that people care. it used to be i never knew who cared.

ant.....nitwit she said she didnt have her hair fixed, make up on, and had jeans with a hole in them. i was telling her guys see through those kinds of things. you are beautiful whether you have make on or not. the thing is pez....how much creedence are you REALLY going to give some dude on a street corner who is hitting on you...who claims to be psychic? "if he can figure out so much about me" did he? or did he just bullshit his way? Generalizations are easy to make....especially to a suburb girl. what do you mean violent to yourself? you don't cut yourself do you?

No she skateboards off the house and shit, Jumps from trampolines to small kiddie pools. Somehow from what I know about pez, it would be extreamly difficult for someone to assume they are going to get away with hurting her raping her or any of the above without getting hurt severely in the process. Folks, yes we may know pez as the cute little sorabjite girl, who just happens to be young and from the suburbs. BUT Pez is anything but little. I'm 5'7" I'm short stocky, people see me as easy targets for fights, thus steel plates in my head. Pez is 6', and I didn't ask how much she weighed because thats rude, but I have seen picutres. She's an amazon folks, I'd be afraid to make fun of her because I'd fear she'd hurt me. Pez, you are pretty, yes the creepy city folks were hitting on you, no the guy wasn't psychic, probably on meth or acid. Welcome to the world Pez, for you the Tall Amazonian Sorabjite shall do fine.

damn i wanna see a pic i need to see

She posted one or two here once. She has a cute grandpa, if I recall correctly. How's he doing, Pez?

Yup, she did. If I wasn't so damn lazy, I'd find 'em.

TBone already did the links are dead. Ask her, its the only refuse one has to see the mighty amazonian pez.

Uh, do you mean "recuse"?

Uh, that wouldn't make any sense. refuge? recluse? fuselage? effluvium?

I don't fucking know.

recourse?

opportunity?

YES!!! Spider, thank you.

yesyes, i have cute pictures, none of which show my full face and are all over six months old. (the better ones that aren't so goofy are three years old). grampa ted is getting really old. he's 89, haRD of hearing, and is losing his mind to alzheimers. i'm hoping he'll see his 90th birthday, a scant 10 days after mine. he doesn't even walk anymore; he took his walks every day he could since before i remember, maybe his entire life since ww2. next week i'll try and get a pic of him to my email. but anyway, email now and i'll send two old pictures and a bonus of ms. sylvia plath!

We await them...

you've gotten them before.... d'ya want MORE? answer the email, dangit mon!

I did.

you cat looks almost as evil as agatha's and is that the bunny that your dad toasted?

no. that bunny belongs to a friend of my sister. ms. sylvia plath is GOING TO HELL IN A HANDBASKET. she's an incredibly cool cat, superprotective of me. and she's small.

marching band?

marching band. sophmore year was saxamaphone. junior year was piccolo. senior year was MASCOT. i love wearing the bear suit. unfortunately i don't have any pics of being in that bear suit. and i tell band camp stories.

band camp stories, eh. so... you switched to piccolo because the sax was too... big?

the sax was way too heavy... but i was playing the picc because if i didn't use it, someone else would, and there'd be no guarantee i'd get it back before the summer and going on the trip to the uk. but the sax was incredibly heavy. it was a buffet, the heaviest tenor sax the school owned. and my buzbee was a little too big, the strap a little too small, and everytime i opened my mouth so i could suck on the mouthpiece and PLAY, down comes the buzbee and i can't see to march. very bad marcher am i.

heh heh heh....

ya got sumthin' ta say, mista?

and my buzbee was a little too big, the strap a little too small, and everytime i opened my mouth so i could suck on the mouthpiece and PLAY, down comes the buzbee and i can't see to march. heh heh heh...

what? the buzbee is the hat. c'est fin.

and everytime i opened my mouth so i could suck on the mouthpiece and PLAY

fuck you! i know i don't always get the joke. grrrrrrr. damn saxamaphone. you try being all cute and stuff and getting all the jokes too.

*Sniff* *Sniff*

no no no no no! i don't want to hurt you hal... i was just a little mad at myself for being thickheaded. damn. *runs to go band head on wall*

he wasn't hurt, he was sniffing your butt.

I work at Kroger too. It is that bad at all the stores I've worked for Kroger for 4 years and I hate it more everyday. I'm paying for school and trying to keep my sanity. They give me crappy hours and the boss didn't turn the heat on untill the middle of Jan. I live in Ohio, it gets cold. The customers make it worse with their stupidity and anger that they take out on the employees. I just thought I would tell you I share your pain.

Hee hee hee! I'd forgotten that Spider thinks my grandpa was cute.