wow, it's been a long time. my laptop is broken. i dropped it on it's charging port. very sad about that. it is going to take $500 to fix it. i am using another computer right now. what a week! what a month!

i signed up to go to mexico with my church during spring break 2010 to build houses. i am totally stoked. i have never been on a mission. i want to meet little mexican children and paint their nails. the first significant emotions i have had about mexico are curious. when pastor steve first mentioned it, i had a weird curiosity, drawn to the trip. that was 2 years ago when i was new to victoria. the second significant time was a negative emotion. pastor chris said that there was a gentleman in mexico that they wanted to send to university so he could help his family. i felt guilty for wondering why we should help another person in a different country when so many people in this country have student debt, including me. i was actually angry. can you believe it? then i realized i wasn't angry at this mexican guy or at my church or pastor chris. i was angry at my parents, or at my situation. it didn't seem fair. then, after a while, i realized that God will outdo us in generosity. helping one person at a time like that? that's powerful. when a church comes together and helps out a family like that, they are taking them out of some sort of financial bondage. it's not karma or anything to look forward to for the people that give. it's just GIVING. makes the heart softer, more pliable. takes the shell off. the next time that pastor chris spoke about sending him to university, i gave and almost physically felt the shell breaking off a bit. so, now it's time to go myself.

there have been miracles that have happened since i have decided to go. for one, the money just seemed to appear! it has been easy to find the money. weird. doesn't usually happen that way for me. the other miracle is that i finally get my identity. i didn't have my birth certificate, passport, BCID expired. i sent off for my birth certificate and had to use my mother's. my mother learned to use her scanner and emailed it to me. i got to see her full mother's name, her full father's name and their birth places. it was a gift and now i am motivated to get everyone's birth certificate in a book for my mother. i went by my step father's last name for so long with no proper ID to match. it is so great to get my life in order. another miracle is one of my favorite girls from crave is going! we aren't supposed to have favorites, but i honestly can't help it.

sometimes when you are doing something in your life that you are supposed to do, there are negative forces that will try to stop you. i have that in my life. i am praying against it always, but it's tough. my boss is being a real jerk! we have had go arounds and now he is trying to infringe on my days off, trying to keep me from going to mexico meetings. he doesn't know that i am going to a mexico meeting, but he seems to always demand me to be present at work when i have a meeting. he texted me tonight that i am working tomorrow and make sure i am there. i don't think he is the devil or anything like that. he is actually very intelligent and does what he wants. but he has many downfalls.

i had a job interview recently and hope i get the job. it's a job i truly truly want. i was very impressed with them and everyone i spoke to and the environment. i find out monday or tuesday. i feel like walking off my job like, 5 times a week. oh wait, i work 5 days a week. what a coincidence! actually it's more like 6 days a week. that is my rant. i hope to get my laptop fixed sometime soon. gotta go for now. more later.

I don't like this part

K so this guy asked me to hang. You know the one. He's not gay, I think he is a Christian. But I don't like him. He is not for me. Finding a way to say no is difficult. There are many male customers who flirt with me and attempt to hit on me, but I bring it back to business or change the subject and they get the hint. I thought I could possibly like this guy, but he really isn't for me. So, I had to say no. It was awkward. I don't like getting to the stage where I have to say no. I need to suck it up buttercup, and say no, go and tell. Just the facts :

-I think you are truly legit, but I don't see myself marrying you and don't want to waste your time. We are just not a match.
-I am not attracted to you and your icky thoughts and don't appreciate your company. You're a big fat jerky jerk!
-I just see you as a friend. Thanks for playing.

I think the first one is the best.

I am what I am

I have been watching Popeye. A friend lent me the DVD and I have watched it 3 times now. I love this movie, but each time I watch it, I see something I didn't see before, like the fact that the guy is actually kicking his hat and that's why he can't grab it. Or that the father eats soup in a bun and calls it a burger. I remember laughing as a kid and now I think those same things are ridiculous. There is also quite a lot of double entendres. I also am amazed that I didn't notice that Popeye's upper arms are very skinny, but his forearms are quite muscley and hefty. Someone's either been playing a lot of Supermario, may go blind, or is opening a lot of spinach cans. Still a great movie.

Geeks

Geeky phone guy who is from my mall came to see me today. I have an extremely soft spot for geeky guys. We chatted for a while. He kinda reminds me of my ex. Ick. He is not compassionate (the geeky guy. And my ex too, come to think of it.) He is interested. Hinted at going for a beer after work. I don't drink beer. If he had said Earl Grey tea, I would have been all over it. I am not so good with hinting. I get all shy and can't talk because I know the guy wants me to ask. I just clam up, can't even say "oh that sounds nice." I just stand there like an idjeet. He is going to have to ask me directly. Lol! Is that asking for too much? I don't really think so. I am not playing games, I just need clear communication. And also, do guys drink tea?

What is hotter than a geeky tough guy drinking tea?

Oh wait,

a geeky tough guy bringing me a tea. That would be nice. And then if he did a push up or two in front of me, I would throw my teacup at a wall and rip my clothe....oh never mind, this is a blog, not a romance novel. And I don't know yet if he worships Jesus. I have a few things in my mind that he does that I don't like: how he wears his pants, he drinks beer, he hinted. Just be straight up buddy!

Funny thing about Virgin Mobile-this happens at least 3 times a week.

When a customer comes in and wants their phone repaired and it looks like it could be on the virgin mobile line up, and you ask them "Virgin?" and they say "yes" and then you proceed to log on to the virgin network and can't find their phone and ask them again what provider they are on and they say Bell and you ask them why they said Virgin and they get embarrassed, they may have just told you they are a virgin. AWKWARD. And a true story. I have even asked if it's a virgin phone, if it's on the virgin line up, virgin provider, Virgin Mobile. They are mostly young kids, sometimes it's a geeky guy who gets super embarrassed. Geeky can be so cute though. Unless they are my coworker. Then they just get bitter that they are not cool and have to wear lame glasses that look shady. Lol!

Hard Day yesterday

Ok so no more metaphors. Straight up nicknames. Everything else is being kept real.

Yesterday was the most difficult day ever at my job. It actually started the day before yesterday, Sunday. A customer called in, claiming that my co-worker damaged her phone. I saw the phone and it was not damaged at all. She wanted a verbal promise over the phone that I would replace it with a brand new one, free of charge. I declined and asked her to come into the store. She was talking to her husband, who I could hear in the background and he kept telling her what to say. She would be like, "Honey, the woman on the phone (me) says they are not going to replace it. What do I say?" Then I can hear him say "Tell her you are going to sue them if they don't." Then she says, "We are going to sue you if you don't." I tell her that there is no agreement and her phone was working just fine when she left. I can hear her repeat it to her husband and then he tells her what to say. It was straight up annoying! After a few times of this, I said, "If you want me to, I can speak to your husband myself?" She flipped out and starting swearing at me, telling me she isn't a little girl and doesn't need a father figure to figure things out. He got on the phone straightaway and said he was coming to the store to beat me up or shoot me with his gun and would be there in 5 minutes. I hung up on him and called security. They came and I explained the situation and asked them to hang around. Cell phones can be frustrating for people. Especially if they are crazy and unstable. In the meantime, there were so many customers waiting around.

I am currently training the new guy, scar head. He has many scars on his head, hence the name. Has a great attitude, lots of sales experience, is very intelligent, has nice writing and spells things correctly. Has two degrees: one in Theology and one is aeronautical engineering (or something like that). Went to school on scholarships. Downfalls? He is my manager's best friend and they live together. Which makes for a completely fair working environment - NOT! Also, my manager pressures him bigtime for sales. To make matters worse, I think I got top seller for the month for the island. Not conclusive but I am waiting for the numbers to be settled. I don't really care if I am Number 1 or not, as long as I get paid. The thing about Scarhead is that he feels the need to be Number 1, even though he is brand new. He keeps starting people on a sale and then getting me to help because he has NO CLUE what he is doing. It keeps me from actually getting sales because I am busy helping him. He's just so eager and controlling that he can't go slow, even though I told him he would be disciplined if he did this again. He told a family of 5 that we would set them up on the Fido network. They selected phones, gave him their information and went for lunch while he was going to set it all up. Thing is, there is no family plan on Fido!!!! He went through my paperwork, got my login codes and proceeded to complete a credit check for the customer. After activating the first phone, he realized that Fido doesn't have family plans and didn't know what to do. He was stuck. This is considered fraud because it was with my IDs and I didn't know about it. I got in trouble for not keeping them secret!!! Seriously? Are they kidding? He should have been fired, or at least a severe warning. I was so stressed that I started laughing maniacally. Which never leads to positive outcomes.

He apologized up and down and said that if the guy comes to the store to hurt me, he will kill him. I was like, great, but then you will be in jail and I won't be able to train you!
Next morning (yesterday), a couple was waiting outside the store at 9am. We don't open until 9:30 am. Whatever. Their phone was broken and I thought why not? Guess what??? Don't let people in early! And here's why:

Telus always opens late. 9:35am, sometimes the manager sleeps in and doesn't get their until 10am. They get fined $1000 for not opening on time. Telus always has customers waiting outside for them to open. Since we are directly across the hall from Telus, their waiting customers come into our store and ask a bunch of questions in order to compare in their heads between their current service and what they could potentially get from us. Super annoying, but sometimes leads to sales. So when I let the first couple in at 9am, the store suddenly filled up with 20 people, all grumpy and paying too much. Captive audience in one way, but really? they just want to find out how to get a lower price with Telus. You can tell it's an unhappy Telus customer when they start to ask you this kind of stuff:

"Do you think I am paying too much for my service?"
"Do you think $xxx.xx is too much for service for my cell phone?"
"Do you think this is a high quality phone?"
"Do you have any better phones than your competition?"
"Do you have a way of getting rid of extra costs? What should I say to my current provider to lower my costs? Is there a secret word?"
And my favorite: "Can you help me with my Telus phone? I don't want to go to the store, they aren't helpful at all."

Back to my morning. I have a line up of people. A very rude! man in army garb comes in, takes an iphone cover case off the wall and throws it at me, yelling me to put it on his phone. I tell him I am going to be 15 minutes. He freaks out and starts swearing. I tell him he can come back later if he wants to. He tells me to go F$#@ myself. I tell him to please leave. He comes right up to me and says "WHAT DID YOU SAY TO ME??" Again, I start laughing. Which wasn't good. I was petrified. So nervous. Dude, seriously, you are going to try to intimidate me? For no reason? Then he leaned in nice and close and yelled in my face, GO F$#@ YOURSELF. I leaned back and walked backwards, got a chair and put it between us, pulled my cell out and called security. The customers in the meantime had cleared out of the store and had contacted security. Security was out by Sears so by the time they got there, he was gone. Weird. I started praying. Hard.

My new co-worker comes in. Not scarhead. The other one. We'll call him Tbone for now. He had a weekend of partying in Vancouver and was coming down from it. He stood against the counter, not answering the phone, just staring at it. I was with customers and after the phone rang 15 times, I said "Can you grab the phone?" He answered it, but when he got off the phone wouldn't talk to me. I asked if he could hear me, he said no, so I asked what's going on? He screamed at me for about 10 minutes about how I am so bossy and rude and not polite and don't care about him. There were many swears in his yelling. I just let him get it all out. He was going red and purple and was so angry. When he was done, I was like, "ok, can we rewind? Cause I don't know what I said." I thought about it and confirmed with him about me asking him to get the phone. He said I should say please and thank you. I felt this was totally overreacting. Reason #4 to not do drugs. I wish I could take actions like this and televise it so kids won't do drugs. The old commercials used to show a frying egg. It made me feel icky cause I don't like eggs. If they really wanted to be effective, they should show how bad of a temper someone has, or how much money it costs and how the drug users are always stressed cause they don't have money. Or how they can't do simple tasks like answer the phone.

So, we talked it through. The whole time I was asking God "why?" I was so frustrated. Then, my other coworker rolls in. 2 hours late. He is also our manager's friend and doesn't get disciplined. There isn't much we can do about it. He doesn't clean, doesn't really do anything. But he gets paid. We will call him plaid, cause deep down he is really geeky but tries to be cool. He was not in a good mood and it was like sour milk for the day. Today was a little better. Here's the spiritual side of it:

My friend Singa says that the enemy tries to intimidate you when you are doing what you are supposed to be. I love my job. I love cell phones, love sales, love the atmosphere. I just don't like the drama. I feel like I am supposed to be here, doing this job. But it's hard. This morning when I opened, I had this idea that we should move the car to a different part of the store and move things around a bit. When the District Manager, Shazam! came in, he made us move the store around. When I came back from the bathroom, I thought I was imagining things because it was just what I had pictured. Odd. But cool. It was like a confirmation from God about my thoughts and stuff. I can't wait til Wednesday. Crave. Thursday off. Relax.