The first order of business is probably going to be cleaning. After a week of solid work, followed by 48 hours of hating everything, my apartment is kind of a scary place. There were little kitty footprints around the rim of the toilet. What exactly were they stepping in? Why didn't I notice it till after I'd finished sitting down in whatever it was?

These are alarming questions. I probably don't want answers. I just want to not have to ask those kinds of questions anymore. This is deeply philosophical! It's probably a telling metaphor of some kind as well! Oooh. Not only am I enjoying perfect health, but I'm leaping right back into the deeper questions of the universe. Goooo, me!

(I missed you so much, coffee. I know I drank you, because I didn't want the withdrawal headaches on top of all my other troubles, but today is the first day I'm really feeling you work your caffeinated magic. Coffeecoffeecoffee! Hooray!!)
***
OK, that's just about enough of that. What else is new?

As I may have mentioned, there was an eight-day stretch when I worked every single day. The General Manager is on semipermanent loan to the Oshkosh Fazuul, helping them get certified. We see him in J-ville maybe once a week lately. The Lead Restaurant Manager went on vacation. That mean I was basically In Charge for those eight days. It was an uneventful week, overall, but it was exhausting.

Part of the problem was that the previous week, we had been very Bad With Labor. Mr. J had said, while passing through the store one day on his way to somewhere else, that one way to fix labor is to make salaried people come in on their days off. I really didn't want to do that, so I fixed labor the other way.

Every damn day in the eight-day stretch, I sent most of my lunch staff home early and did the work of two or three people myself for the long afternoon. Dinner staff got a break, because they were scheduled for four hours, and then were sent home after only three hours anyway. (The dinner staff are by necessity high schoolers, and they thought I was teh awesome. You mean I get a break, AND I get to go home early? You betcha, kiddo. Don't forget to clock out! Who's the bestest manager ever?)

It worked. When the Hell week started, we were 25 hours in the hole for the month. After one week of Sucks To Be Jen, we were one hour ahead of the game. Mr. J congratulated me. (OK, technically, his e-mail said "thanks to all of you" but I was the one making the decisions. The AM's wouldn't have done that, at least not to the suicidal extremes that I did, if I hadn't been in the corner, rocking back and forth, a deranged glint in my eye, muttering, "LAAA-BOOOOR! JEN NEEEEDS MORE LABOR!!")
***
I think I've had my fill of coffee for at least a little while now, so it's time to start cleaning.

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