Blog #100 and the journey continues.

Last night on my jaunt through Rainbow Foods I decided that my diet doesn't have enough fruits and vegatables and why not try some of this new pomergranent /Blueberry V-8 Fusion?
Blueberries are supposed to be good for you and I like them in PIE and POM juice seems to be EVERYWHERE - I've never had a pommergranet but I've seen them on tv.

Well, it's not exactly the tastiest of combinations. Maybe it's the carrot-blueberry combo but boy it needs a lot less of something. Probably can't add anything to it - it's got way too many flavors going on already...maybe some ice?

Ah well...which also leads me to wonder if anyone actually owns one of those jack lelane juicers on tv where you just throw the whole vegatable in and out comes this fabulous juice...supposedly. I'm more of a fruit person...apple cranberry...start getting into tomatoes and celery and blech...

That's also the thing about being an adult and having no money, you kind of hate to waste it on something crummy and then you have to drink it anyhow - maybe out of guilt for spending $3.00 on a bottle of juice. The other thing I wondered is what other juice combinations didn't make the cut and can you just imagine the testers at the V-8 place?

You've got to really enjoy fruit and veggies to work there I imagine.

It's sometimes bad enough when testing season happens at work. The worst was the time we were testing a lotion soap and John handed a bottle to me and asked me to go wash my hands. Upon return he asks me to smell my hands and tell him what they smelled like. Well...to put it kindly, it smelled like urine. And he looked at me with a straight face and said "yes, that's what we were afraid of". Needless to say since that day I always try and ask if it's something bad they are testing for or claim to have a skin allergy :) For my friend Scott, apparently he or a friend of his was a field test coordinator for urinal blocks (the little cakes that apparently sit in urinals.) He had to sit in public restrooms in St. Paul and measure the "melting" properties of the cakes.

Yep, another reason to be utterly thankful I have the job that I have.

I've been pretty lucky so far with my employment....although there have been a few exceptions:
I was "Linda" from August Max Woman "is the lady of the house at home" for an entire summer. Ah telemarketing during college was okay but I just really wondered at the adults who made this their career aspiration. It was also amazing how many transvestites shopped at that store. I've got stories.

I was a tool picker at a large tool warehouse (thanks dad for landing me that job) Amazing amounts of grease drill bits are stored in and for someone who doesn't know a phillips head screwdriver from a regular screwdriver - it was an interesting learning experience. Actually I was supposed to have been working in their office but my first day I somehow broke their brand new copy machine/collater/mail sorter so I was banished to the back. It actually was a whole lot more fun back there - a lone woman among the guys. I also played catcher on their softball team.

I also volunteer/worked one day at Valley Fair at the taco stand to earn money for the Forensics Team. I ran the cash register and served about 8,000 tacos that day. It was hot, I was terrible at making change and I learned a new respect for fast food workers.

You'd think that after learning my lesson there I'd have remembered, but God bless Rick Thiesse for his patience and for getting me a job at Hardee's in Winona. I fondly remember the one day I worked there, the stench of ketchup, the grease, the drunks and walking home at 3 a.m. It's a wonder I lasted the entire shift. I actually don't recall if I even came back to pick up my paycheck for that night. I think Rick delivered it.

I was a card/sorter clerk at Factory Card Outlet in high school. The best part about working at this mall was that every one of my friends also worked there too...at different stores...Steve at the shoe store right across the hall, Kim worked at the jewelry store (one of 8-zillion jobs she had which to this day will not allow me to eat pickles at Burger King.) Laura at the candy store, Kathy and Jennifer worked at the book store or did Kathy work at the candy store and Alaina at the book store? Ah old age, is such a grand thing...anyhow...doesn't really matter. We earned minimum wage and free candy :)

Filene's Basement. Started in the Men's Department. It's where I came to a close understanding of ROYGBIV and the unbelievable amount of hoops you have to jump through to get ahead in retail managment. There I progressed to become Assistant Customer Service Manager. I also worked in their Cash Office. Quite sincerely sort of scarey for a math phobic to work with numbers and balancing cash registers. I also was one of the people called to other stores when their cash offices were completely in disarray. But seriously, who wants to work every christmas eve and day after christmas for the rest of their dying day? Also the stories I heard from people returning their merchandise were just heartbreaking to me. Although they did make grand newsletter material for the customer service newsletter I started to help motivate the associat-um prisioners of the mall.

After that I had my favorite job. It's funny but if money weren't important and I could keep a roof over my head I'd be quite content being a receptionist. I enjoy answering the phone. Talking over the loudspeaker - "Dieter you have a call holding on line 8." Juggling a bunch of projects and in particular caring for the workdays of a few people that I admire. Nelson Stevens was/is a kind man who ran a small machine distributing company in Illinois. We mfg. repped several european machines. He loved/loves Minnesota as much as I do. I moved around his company as well and eventually grew to hate it...more because a few people than the actual work. It's also amazing to me to look back then and see how completely antiquated our systems were back then. We didn't have e-mail, we didn't use powerpoint, we used this system called ACT to generate 1,000's of mailings which we hand stickered envelopes...it was all rather tedious.

Actually even at Eco-vill, John and I actually laugh about that sometimes. We printed out overhead slides and put them into these insane flippy frames for every meeting. Sometimes having to redo the transparencies three or four times.

Which reminds me, today I met on the street outside of Dunn Brothers Yvonne, who trained me in at Eco-ville. She's now an office manager for one of the building mgmt companies in st. paul. her boys who were 6 and 8 years old back then are 16 and 14...which just somewhat blows my mind.

Yikes I've babbled on a lot tonight...must be the excitment of 100. Or just being over tired from work and not anxious to continue the project well into tonight....