Gah

So yesterday I was supposed to go in and work my usual morning hours at the salad bar until Deb called and begged me to close instead because she couldn't find another closer. So I got there at 2:00 and the room was full of women cutting fruit. At noon someone had called in an order for eight of our 18" fruit trays to be ready the next morning. The next morning! (People, please take note. If you are ever going to order something that huge, be kind to the people who have to make it and order several days in advance. We like warning on such things.) They didn't get done filling the orer until about 3:00, at which point they could all finally leave. None of their shifts were supposed to last that long. One of them wasn't even from our department, she was just called in to help cut up melon. Because they all had to work on that order, and three others, none of the usual morning prep work was done. The bar was up but the cases needed work and no product had been made. So, in essence, my job last night was to open and close at the same time. Yeah right. I did as much as I could, but there's a limit to what one person can accomplish in just a few hours. Oh, and I relearned the very important rule that it is never safe to go to the bathroom when one is working alone. I had already hung my apron on the hook outside the bathroom door when I heard them call Donovan to the salad bar. Now, that's not normal. Donovan works in produce, which is closely affiliated with salad bar, since we get almost all of our stuff from them, but, anyway. Then a second later they called for salad bar on the intercom, so I put my apron back on and went back to the prep room to find one of the upper level managers on the phone waiting for me and three produce boys looking through my fridge. Apparently a customer wanted some fruit did and none of them could find it. Probably because we didn't have any ready right then. So I got some out and dealt with it, but man, that involved way more people than it should have. I mean, there were three produce boys in my fridge! Anyways, after thet I tried to stay in the room as much as possible, but nobody needed anything else. Figures. I did venture out at one point so that the salad bar could purchase some better dishwashing gloves. And by salad bar, I mean me. Though the department paid for it. Deb said I could do that sometime to keep my hands from breaking out when I wash dishes. It seemed to help. Oh, and I saw Andrew at work. (Thanks for the ID, Christa, though I relearned his first name last night) He was having dinner at the salad bar with Dan Stratton, which is unfortunate. Not that there's anything wrong with Dan. I mean, he first introduced me to DDR. But he's got a big head and can be rather annoying to be around. Anyways, he recognized me in spite of my frumpy work uniform and salad bar hat. (I hate the hat because it always slips down over my eyes. It's because of my hair and the fact that it's too short to put up.) I know he did because he smiled at me. I smiled back but couldn't stop to talk, as I had work to do. Although, if he hadn't been there the bar would have been messier at the end because that's the time when we usually just let it run itself until close. But I figured I would take good care of it since I had an "audience." ;) Oh, and closing was a pain. You see, I finally know how to close properly. (that's right, the first three times I closed they never trained me. They just gave me a list of things that had to be done and didn't say a word about the best way to do them. So it took until 4th of July weekend, when I closed with Amanda and Cody, for me to learn how to do it the fast way.) But I couln't do it that way, because Deb had stacked our giant order on the rack that we're supposed to use for putting the bar up and taking it down. So I had to use carts, which was rather more awkward and took longer. Then when I got home we watehed Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban in honor of the book release. And I did buy the book this morning but I haven't started it yet because I have to go to work in about 20 minutes. speaking of which, I should go get ready.

-Kim