My family moved to New Hampshire. There I learned exciting things, like how to splice the letter 'R' into every other word and how to take that same letter out of the words that it should be in. Apparently there is a high level of radiatoin in New England that mutates every letter 'R' into an 'H'. Car become Cah, Park becomes Pahk and so forth. As far as I have been able to prove, the accident at Three Mile Island caused radioactive material to enter the atmosphere and land over New England. The epicenter of the landing must have been in northern Rhode Island as more 'R's have been mutated there than anywhere else.
Also, I started saying the phrase 'wicked'. I never thought about it until someone in Washington pointed it out, but apparently I was calling everything evil as if it was good trait.
Speaking of wicked and Washington, Washington was a wicked place. I don't mean this in the cool sense that I just made reference to, I mean it was pretty much an evil place. I am sure that there are lots of nice places in Washington, just that I didnt think I was in one. I can't really say why I didn't like Washingotn, mainly because I don't remember much of it. I dont remember my house number, phone number, area code, teacher's names, street name, or layout of the area. I do remember a few of my friends names...but I have pretty much forgotten what they looked like (I have a bad memory for faces to begin with).
Some psychologists would like to say that I have repressed all of those memories. I would have to completely agree with the psychologists in this case. For the uninitiated, when an individual has a particularly traumatic experience they will intentionally forget or distort what has happened so that life is easier to deal with. I dont remember much abotu Washington and the parts I do remember I don't particularly care for...you make the call to see if I have repressed lots of crap.
Then I moved here (virginia). To a nice place called Yorktown. Despite this being one of the foremost battlegrounds of the revolutionary war, no one really seems to know or care where it is. Can't say I really knew or cared where Yorktown was before I moved here, but then again I did live in Washingotn and NH. Those places arent exactly close by. Still, when I am at ODU and say, "I commute from Yorktown everyday" relatively few people know what the hell I am talking about.
During the second semester of my first college year, I almost dated Heather Howell. I thought things were good, but apparently she is a flirt and almost dates quite a few people. So it was no dice for me once again. Now she goes to my college and we are pretty cool.
At the end of my first semester of my second year, I met Kimberly Fish. Actually I had met her a while before, but this time I actually got to talk to her. We only talked about gummy bears, but the point was that I liked her now. So I got her e-mail from one of my co-workers that she is friends with and talked to her online. After a few days I asked her out online (yes it sounds geeky but I did not know her number and I was not going to see her again for a long time if I did not take a chance, so stop laughing). The abridged conversation was a little like this.
Me: Kim, I have a question.
Her: Okay, what?
Me: I know this sounds creepy since you do not know me all that well, but how about a date?
Her: Yes, that is creepy, but since you admit it, sure
Me: Wow, that was easy.
So we went on our first date on December 13th and saw Love, Actually. The date went well and we ended up seeing each other for about 5 or 6 months.
On May 5th we broke up, and I think I can say with little guilt that the was entirely both out faults, but more hers. It started with some miscommunication between us and comtinued like that for a while. Add in the fact that I was working at blockbuster for a good 15 hours a week and had a nasty schedule at ODU, and we didnt get to see each other too much. I think the problem with the relationship was that although we were both really nice and generally good people...we were still very different and basically incompatable. I am a pretty emotionally level guy who lets stupid things slide. Kim was very emotional and gets upset over little things. Example: one time her half-brother threw some uncooked beef on her and it made her cry. No offense, but give me a break. I am not the kind of nurturing person that will sit around and try to make you feel better because someone threw some uncooked beef at you. I am the kind of person that would say, "What are you crying over, it was freaking uncooked beef and your half-brother is a asshole!!". However, I did manage to try to be the nurturing guy in that situation, bu tI am sure it looked phoney.
On to how our relationship ended. I think it started when I was having a really miserable day and Kim wanted to be around me. We tried to do stuff, but I was being an ass (like I said I was having a miserable day, but in my defense I told Kim I was having a bad day prior to going off with her). I think she hadnt seen this side of me before and didnt like it so she decided to end the relationship the 'nice' way. The 'nice' way being the guilt free way for her. That way consists of being physically seperate and naggy to the point that I break up with her. How do I know it was a plan: I dont, but I have evidence. When we first started dating she once asked me how long I would stick around with someone if there was no kissing, etc. I told her a week or two (I was joking...I dated Steph for a while and that stuff was very limited(see earlier section in dating for more details)). So about three weeks after instituting the automatic shut off on our relationship Kim brought up the fact that we seemed to be distant and we both decided to break up.
So I left Jim Allen's place and started applying to stores all around. Like a fool I decided to start job hunting in July, when all of the Summer jobs have just been filled and no one is looking for a kid with no work experience. I applied all over the place, or so I made it seem. In reality I applied to only six or seven stores. I did not even get an interview for 3 and a half months. I happened to be driving by a Blockbuster when I decided, "hey, I like movies, I can work there." So I walked inside and waited 45 minutes for the freaking application machine to become available. Since I was hanging around int he games section for so long, I think looking back on it that I may have arroused some suspicion in my intentions for being there. This belief is almost proven by the amount of games stolen from the Blockbuster I work at.
After applying to Blockbuster, it was not long before I got a call from Antoine, the store manager at the Poquoson Blockbuster. I came in and did a pseudo-interview with him. I call it a pseudo interview because he was the only one there, so the questions he asked me were spaced in between customers he was helping. I thought I really impressed him at the time, because I was hired almost on the spot. However, I now know it is almost Blockbuster practice to hire people based on their applications, and that hiring is almost a given if you get asked to an interview.
I ended up working at blockbuster for the better part of 2 years. And in doing so I met an interesting rotating cast of coworkers. In saying rotating cast of coworkers, I really mean HOLY SHIT BLOCKBUSTER HAS A HIGH EMPLOYEE TURNOVER RATE. There were people that did not last 2 months working there. You would think with all the applications that blockbuster gets they would be able to get some quality employees. Instead, they got some quality employees and some people that I am not really trying to remember. Here are some of the people that I had to work with. Starting with the good: Jason was a really cool guy. Kinda spastic and uneven at times, but over all good. Allison is one of the sweetest people I ever met, also one of the shortest. Her and Jason had their little semi-relationship issues for a really long time. They are dating now (or at least last I heard) which is good for both of them. Paula was one of the better managers that I got to work with. She was married to a manager at another store and is really sweet. Theresa was also a really cool manager, but she switched stores because of her relationship with Wes. Now on to the mid-range coworkers. Some I never really knew that well...other were just mid-range. Melissa I didnt get to know too well, but she is at ODU now and I see her sometimes. Kelly was a really nice, but flirtatious manager that had her life revolve around her relationships. Antoine was the best SM I ever got to work for, but he was replaced after a few months of hiring me. He left to go to police training, but later came back to work for Blockbuster Inc. again. Brandon and some other girl that was hired at the same time quit after a month. Good job guys, way to stick with it. Then there were the people that I did not particularly like. Jess is one of the people that was both really good and really not good. She is one of the nicest people that I ever met, but she is not a very good SM. One of the things that stuck with me was that my employee evaluation under her was all meets expectations and a couple fails to meet expectations. I WAS A GREAT EMPLOYEE, I feel it was almost common knowledge that I was the best CSR at the store. Apparently nothing I did (in like 40 categories)warrented a exceeds expectations. Also she gave me a does not meet expectations in organization when Jess herself is the most disorganized person I have ever met. Jamie was hired the same time as me and was a druggie. Something that kinda freaked me out was when she told me she took some drugs and did not remember what happened for a few days, but ended up in Virginia Beach. Wes took advantage of the system as best he could. I remember him going off on a dinner break and not coming back for 90 minutes (it was a 15 minute dinner break). Come on WTF? He also stalked Theresa after they broke up. Next there was Sam, she had a kid and used it as an excuse for all sorts of stuff. She would call in half that time saying she couldnt get a sitter, when she only got this job because a gov. program convinced Blockbuster to give single moms a chance. Then she quit and came back and got fired and came back and quit after that.
Here is a rant. I can divide my time at blockbuster into three phases: Early, Wall and Active Seller. In the early phase I was learning everything and had alot of fun doing what I was doing. I enjoyed going to work every day and liked the movies that I saw (got 5 free a week). Eventually I got to do the wall every week. On Tuesdays new videos come out, so on Mondays there has to be room on the walls for them. My job was to go around and shift the videos so that there would be room. I could shift those movies and make hole for them in 1/3 the time it took any one else. The best part was that it was fun. It was like a big puzzle that needed to be solved, and I got to work with Jason and Allison, my favorite coworker duo. However, all that is good does not last. Since the managers heard how fast I was I started to get other duties to do on Monday night. I was no longer responsible for just making room on the wall, but also for breaking down the cover boxes of everything I took down. This wasnt a problem. As the rule goes, "Work will flow to the compitent man until he submerges" I got more and more work. Not only was I supposed to break down the cover boxes, but also I was supposed to alphabatize them and sort them into the master file of all the coverboxes that we had. I was supposed to have all this done in time to do closing duties (which almost never happened) and then once the store closed I was supposed to put all the movies that were going to come out the next day on the wall. This meant that I would work my ass off (I am normally a fast worker, but I was going extra fast to get all this done). And on my employee review I ended up getting does not meet expectations because I was not always able to do all the work they piled on me during that shift. Also I couldnt spend much time chatting with Jason or Allison because I was working my hump off the entire time. The third phase was the one that made me semi-glad to leave blockbuster. I got the distinct 'honor and priveledge' to be the active seller every freaking weekend. Here is what the active seller does: walk around and talk to customers. It is always the exact same conversation and always dull. I did a good job the first time (I try to do a good job at wahtever I do) and ended up getting stuck with it. The reason: everyone else hated being active seller and intentionally did a crumby job so they would not get scheduled to do it. Despite repeated promises to get other peopel on the floor, I was still out there at least once every weekend. Speaking of broken promises, here is a nice one about me becoming a manager. I was told there was going to be a mangerial spot opening and since I was a good CSR they wanted to promote me. That is nice and I said sure. First though, I had to complete my books. Here is the catch. My shifts for the most part were weekend active seller shifts, weekend swing (4-8 (very busy time)) or wall. This meant that I had not ime to do my books while I was scheduled to work. However, I was not allowed to come in and read them during my off time. AND I was not allowed to take them home to do, which I volunteered. So they wanted to promote me and asked me if I would, but then did not give me the oppertunity to do those requirements.
