Cup of Coffee

June 30, 2011: Goodbye, Blue

130 Comments

Today's the last day I work for The Man. It's been seven years, so some purging is in order. After the jump are some real people I met in my days with the company.

*A woman who came in regularly to try to convert employees to her religion
*Endless streams of people (men, mostly) getting pissed at me because we'd sold out of a popular item they wanted to buy on December 24th
*A very special man who came in twice a week to see if any new Godzilla movies had been made
*A man who yelled at me because he just knew I was hiding the PS2 he wanted in the back
*A co-worker who wanted to pretend she was going to throw a movie at my eye who then accidentally threw a movie at my eye, hitting a sweet spot that gushed blood
*Two managers who spent most of their time harping on internal theft who were eventually fired for internal theft
*A woman who wanted one movie for four dollars when the ad clearly stated it was a five for twenty deal, and yelled *"FALSE ADVERTISING! FALSE ADVERTISING!" over and over; the movie she wanted was five dollars regularly
*A drunk customer who claimed I was looking at him in the bathroom, and he knew I was gay because I wear earrings
*A woman who yelled obscenities at me on the phone because I didn't know enough about Astrology
*A creepy teenager who came in and asked employees to buy him things with a weird, blank, violent look in his eyes
*An employee of mine who was putting away a John Wayne DVD and said "Hey, I think I've heard of this guy."
*An employee of mine who saw a Harry Connick Jr. CD and said "Oh, he thinks he's a singer now?" (Same employee, actually. She added nothing)
*A general manager(!) who didn't trust a black customer because he was looking at rock CDs and there was nothing he would want over there
*Customers who called me to ask how to get past an area in a video game, as if I was a tip hotline
*An employee who simply couldn't understand that Minnie Driver was an actress, not something the customer wanted for his computer
*A man who attempted to return his lightsaber replica because it didn't work

People are strange.

130 thoughts on “June 30, 2011: Goodbye, Blue”

  2. the Twins are 5-2 in games in which the score is 1-0 this year. 3 of the 1-0 wins have happened in the last 2 weeks

    1. There was a year a while back (2007?) (2005?) where the Twins lost an incredible number of 2-1 games. I want to say it was more than 10.

      1. In 2005, the Twins were 3-11 in three-run games with a one-run margin.
        Over the Gardy Years, The Twins are 28-30 in 2-1 games and 14-17 in 1-0 games.

      1. I didnt watch the whole game yesterday so I didnt know the tv guys talked about it.

  3. Many of those made me laugh in sympathy. I wish I had put together a list like this when I left Dairy Queen after 8 years.

    1. The only real retail I've done was a stint one summer during college working at a fireworks stand in Fargo. And the only customers I remember were the 6.38e9 who quietly asked, "Do you have any M-80s or cherry bombs?"

        1. I believe he is using an incredibly large number to state that everyone who came into the fireworks store asked about M-80's or cherry bombs. I think the number was random.

          1. Yeah, I should have said 6.38e9 people. The number isn't so much random as it is a rough estimate from a time way back before some of you were born *looks towards Magoo*

          2. I don't know. e is only ~2.71828, so e9 is just ~8103 and 6.38e9 is ~51697.7. Certainly a lot of people asking, but not that many. I assume the .7 is due to kids asking as well.

            1. *Checks the United States Constitution for possible answer to .7 issue*

              *Hangs head in shame at the callousness of the founding fathers*

              1. Well, in your defense, I knew what you were saying. (although I haven't used much scientific notation in years, either, so take that as you will.)

                1. That would be a little more standard use of the notation. I hate the "E" notation, but the point of it is that you use it when you can't use a superscript. If you can use a superscript, it makes more sense to explicitly put 10 in there. [/I've graded too many papers]

    1. For some reason this doesn't pass the smell test to me. Granted, I know nothing about steroid use but wouldn't it take longer than 6 to 8 weeks of steroid use, especially if training was limited to drugs (ie no weightlifting), to increase your fastball 6mph?

      Again, I am not a doctor, a trainer, or a movie star, but this sounds to me like a dude who had the spot light on him pretty intensely for a couple of weeks, saw it fade away, and is now doing everything possible to have people look his way again.

      1. Me too. I have a hard time believing that he could throw 85 mph, unless it was because he was on board a vehicle traveling 30 mph toward the plate.

    3. Speaking of steroids, I've been wondering a lot lately about how the ban may be contributing to what seems like an increase in injuries, especially muscle and other tissue injuries. And recovery times from such injuries seem to be taking longer than it used to. Purely speculation, of course, as I don't have any data to really base it on, just casual observation, and of course there could be any number of other factors involved.

  5. Quick Poll:

    For those who read the MMM, would you rather it go up Monday as scheduled or wait until Tuesday because of the holiday?

    1. I would be fine with Monday as I am sure I will still be stopping by the WGOM. While on the topic of soccer, check out this story of a Buffalo team getting to play a friendly against a club from England last night.

      1. For both issues, I plan to not do much useful on Monday, so I am good with book and soccer discussions that day.

    3. I'm moving this weekend, so I don't expect to be near a computer. I'll likely look through the older posts for MMM if it goes up on Monday and I don't look for it until Tuesday.

      1. Sometimes I actually miss the old Pilots hats with the scrambled eggs on the bill. Nothing said ugly like those suckers.

  7. I recently made a career change myself. Conversely I went from the small business world to a huge-corporate-mega-super power. After spending the first three days getting to know the company I will now spend the next 12 weeks training. I've gotta be honest, at my last job we didn't do 12 weeks of training.

    Then again, my last job didn't pay for my health insurance or contribute to my 401K either so I think it is a fair trade off.

    1. Well, congrats on the new job and welcome to the drudgery of the corporate world.

      [TomSmykowski.jpg]

      3. I had a whole summer of training in my Insurance programming job. Probably more like 15 weeks. That's directly after completing a 4-year computer science degree.

        After I left I realized it was all to strip the group down to a very basic level and send them out to do old-school programming. The (impossible) goal was to make everyone interchangeable.

      1. Negative. The new career is so easy the Hitman could do it, if you catch my drift.

        2. Is it a pro baseball player?
          Nothing seems better suited for the "Hitman."
          (Unless it's an assassin.)

    1. It looks like the player on the right is trying to choreograph whatever it is the other two guys are doing.

      1. In the video, I liked how the pitcher pointed straight above himself at the ball, and then ran the hell away from it. I really don't know why the third baseman was the one who ended up muffing it- shouldn't that have been the SS calling everyone else off? Or the second baseman, at least. Third and first should've been doing what the pitcher did, just stay out of the way.

        1. I didn't study much at all before the mock exam. I treated it as a baseline (*120 of 200 on the multiple choice without studying!!!*) to figure out how much studying I had to do.

        1. I suppose I really can't, now that there's evidence that hj is the smitten one.

          1. Yeah, he should be house shopping in Minneapolis if my memory serves me correctly.

            1. I'm sick of refreshing over and over and over. I want to suggest a page with the headers on it.

                  1. I'd like to note that anytime I get the Tolberting Tolbert banner, I immediately refresh to get a different one. Nothing against the artist, it's all about the subject matter. Although as a symbol of the half-baked nature of this site, maybe it is somehow appropriate.

                  2. I had it rotating for a bit, but it doesn't rotate properly. Since the banners are of all different sizes, they start to stack. Instead, I switched from "shuffle" to "sort". Hopefully, now it will iterate through all of the banners when you refresh quickly.

  12. Tonight is the last day of "arts camp", and my "choir" of ~20 pre-schoolers will perform a song for their parents. It's been a long week, and I'm looking forward to having my evenings back. I usually have K-1 kids, so this week has helped me appreciate what the extra couple years means re: attention span (barely vs. a little)

    1. he was at the 20th percentile in brain function? Isn't that a vegetative state or thereabouts???

    2. Huh, so the Twins need to win 100 games to take the division, eh? Might be time to hang up the abacus, Sid.

    3. They need to play at .800? They certainly need to play much better to have a chance, but .800 would give them 100 wins and probably the best record in baseball.

    4. Even I'm not that pessimistic, and I thought at the start of the season that the Twins wouldn't make the playoffs. I still don't think they will, but I can't say there's absolutely no hope of it.

    5. Sid, c'mon, that japanese guy? Really!? Really? I have fond memories of listening to sid while I was growing up, but when you can't remember the names of the players it may be time to hang up the notepad.

      1. There might be something else at work there. I've heard Twins fans about Sid's age comment that Nishioka's grandfather probably participated in the attack on Pearl Harbor.

  15. Newest offering from Over the Baggy

    Unfortunately, as I found out at the KC meetup, my "Thome is my Homey" tshirt has shrunk/I've actually bulked up. I might have to get a new one. I'd be up for sending the now too small one to someone in the Nation who it would fit and would appreciate it, maybe one of y'all with a kid or something.

  16. Can of Corn:
    Rather than bury it in yesterday's posts, might I suggest your wife's nom de blog be "Cornsilk" rather than just "Silk".

        1. gaaah!

          I was playing with my new phone and didn't move fast enough. I can now go mobile to the WGOM! (next, gotta get my login for mlb.com entered so I can listen to games while driving home. Can you say "grandfathered in unlimited data plan with Verizon?!!!111one111!!!)

            1. Droid Incredible 2. The touchscreen takes some getting used to (no shift key? WTF?), but the Internet is a billion times better than my Crackberry. The phone part seems ok. I am not all that excited about having to carry the thing around, as opposed to holstering the Blackberry. But, woe is me, I will manage.

  17. The good Dr. and I have finally been notified that we will not be moving this year. The job in question was in Louisiana, not really my first choice of states to move to, but on the other hand it's not texas. I can't muster much enthusiasm for living here another year, and as the job market stands I don't think that there is much hope for employment next year. We're pretty miserable living on this rock in West Tejas, but I suppose that we should be happy that we've got one stable income source. The feeling of isolation is what really hits home here. We're separated from our families, and haven't made any good friends here (really, the options are hanging with a borderline drunk or the ps3). The social and cultural options here are to drive to dallas, san antonio, or austin, and at 3.59$ gallon we don't have the cheddar to do that too often. Mostly, I'm disappointed that I can't find employment here because a) I'm over educated or b) I don't have enough experience maintaining oil rigs, installing HVAC, coaching football, or handling a ranch. /rant/

    1. That's rough meat, sorry to hear that.

      Would an ipa, triple, and rye brown ale help any?

      1. meat, how far are you from Lubbock? One of my former grad students (and a nice Minnesota boy from Fargo, err, Moorhead) is on the faculty at Texas Tech. I suspect you and the Chop would get on well with him and his wife (and young son).

        1. Lubbock is a good 3.5 hours. We live in a geographical oddity, 3.5 hours form everywhere.

          [dapper dan.jpg]

    2. Hang tough, brother. I sense some powerful work coming from this desolation isolation.

      (And I feel for you, man. I'm presently reading Friday Night Lights, and dear lord, does West Texas not sound like the place for a man of culture.)

      1. My impression of West Texas is much the same, going on what I've read by Larry McMurtry.

        Dostoevsky's best work came after his exile in Siberia, so I'll second Bootsy's inclination that this time will enrich your work. Hang in there, meat.

        1. yea, my knowledge of west Texas largely fictional, through Elmer Kelton's The Time It Never Rained and McMurtry's Lonesome Dove.

          1. Kelton's description of W. texas is pretty much spot on. The people who stole settled W. Texas were living on the edge of survival due to terrain and weather, but that all changed with the discovery of oil. Now we're so rich we can import beers from as far away as Colorado.

    3. We drove the kids down to Big Bend National Park in SW Texas a year-and-a-half ago. We planned out stops in Des Moines, KC, etc. all the way down. Once we got into Texas, there was nothing. Just oil rigs and tumbleweeds.

      BIg Bend National Park is actually pretty cool but I'm sure you're a long way from it.

  18. TJ's greatest hits on this date:

    From 2009: "If the Royals gave away shots of bourbon after winning seasons, they'd be a baseball version of AA."

    From 2006: "Trading for [Pavel] Demitra all but assures that the Wild will be able to keep [Marian] Gaborik . . . ." (WHOOPS!!!)

    From 2004 (and, no, I don't understand the analogies either): "If Kenny Williams were an actor, he'd be Jim Carrey. If he were a basketball player, he'd be Mark (Mad Dog) Madsen. If he were a film, he'd be 'The Day After Tomorrow, because that's when he's going to try to make his next deal."

    1. Well, they kept him for three more seasons, anyway. I don't really want to go look and see if his context suggests he meant "keep him forever".

          1. I think it works under DK's as well in regards to Gaborik. He probably would have been more useful to the Wild as a poor quality CGI wolf after 2006, anyway.

    4. I just want it to be known that I really like this feature.

  19. If there's one organization that is hoping for an NBA lockout, it would have to be the NHL. I planned to get NBA league pass next winter when I moved to South Carolina so that I could follow my beloved puppies, but with the season possibly in jeopardy, I might have to renew my interest in hockey.

        1. Congrats.

          On the plus side, you can tell the cadets "down and give me 20" when they don't do their homework.

  21. Oh, Jeebus. I just got the Rubio banner for the first time and thought I'd logged into TigerBeat.com.

  22. Greetings from the Motel 6 in Big Springs, Nebraska. Not exactly an ideal vacation spot, but we're just crashing here for the night on our way to Maple Grove tomorrow. It's been a somewhat frustrating start to the vacation. We initially were going to spend a couple days at a resort in Brian Head, Utah, but it is at an elevation of nearly 10,000 feet and I didn't realize that it would aggravate my sleep apnea. I normally have no problem with it, I just sleep on my side instead of my back and rarely have a problem. However, at the high altitude, I would wake up gasping for breath within a few minutes of falling asleep all night long, so we left a day early and arrived at Big Springs this evening. We also had to deal with rain and even some slushy roads near Vail, Colorado. The Vail pass is over 10,000 feet and as we neared the elevation, I got a sinus headache, which wasn't unexpected but still not pleasant. Needless to say, I'm not much of a skier.

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