Dude, I'm totally stoked to be here...

Oh dude. I was totally shredin' on the board, and when it got squirly on me I just fell flat on my ass. Yes that's right. I went SNOWBOARDING! It was hard. I ache all over. I fell about 50 times. It was snowing pretty hard at Lee Canyon though, so we had some padding to land on. Not to mention the padding on my fat ass. I had ghetto-ass overalls. Brandon talked me out of buying new ones at Sport Chalet last night, but they SUCK. They don't keep my ass dry, holes exist in many places leaving the white inside non-waterpoof exposed, and I have to use safety pins to keep them up because the zipper is totally broken. Not to mention that they are at least one size too big. It sort of reminded me of when I was in high school and all the cool kids had all the really nice clothes. Designer jeans (like Esprit, Guess, Mossimo, Gasoline - remember those guys?) and all I had was levis. Levis were sort of cool too, but not nearly as cool as those ones previously mentioned. Needless to say... when I get my tax return this week, I will be heading to a sports store where I will be buying goggles, a new touque, new snow pants and possible a new winter jacket. Back to the actual sport.... Brandon and his brother(Damian) were really good at it. They went on the big hill, while me and Pam (Damian's friend) sucked. Well no, we didn't suck but we both were better on skis. She used to figure skate and she roller skates all the time now, so I can kind of tell why we're both better at skiing. The boots for showboarding are much more comfy. Oops. Gotta go study. I have two tests in the next two days.

"Mind Blowing" Party

So most of the marketing people from the Aladdin and all of the other casinos on the strip were invited to a private party at Steve Wyrick's house last Tuesday. Open bar, food and lots of people. There was a chocolate fountain. That's right, a chocolate fountain. It was surrounded by pretzles, strawberries, and various other delightful things that people like to dip in chololate and you just ran it under the fountain, waited for it to dry for a couple of seconds and then you had chocolate covered something. That was pretty cool. I'm pretty easily amused, hey? So we got the whole run of his house. We were allowed to go anywhere. He only had a two bedroom house in a "Country Club" sort of place, no pool, no hot tub. But he had a killer bathroom in the master bedroom. His shower was as big as the bathroom in my bedroom. He had a jacuzzi tub in the center of his bathroom with dual sinks on both sides. Decorated very plainly but he may have just put stuff away so that creeps like us didn't steal anything. It was fun. He had an amazing view as well. It overlooked the golf course, and the Strip. I can only hope to be able to afford something like that in my life.

I got summoned for jury duty again. This time it's Federal Court. DA DA DA! Maybe I'll get the Sandy Murphy trail. You know, the one who supposedly killed her husband and billionaire Ted Binion. I doubt it.

I'm going to balance my check book now. WHEEEEE

I'm done.

You know, at every job that i've been at, i've always had a decent time until something triggers the inevitable moment where I realize that I'm done. This moment is one of severe frustration mixed with total indifference, then add a pinch of helplessness and anxiety and voila! I had that moment at work today. I was surprised that it actually took this long to happen. When I was working at Star Trek, that moment came about 8 months after I started working there. I've been at the Aladdin for just over a year. I'm going to explain the situation just because I have to vent.

So, this all started a couple weeks ago when I was interviewing for a new job within the department that I'm currently working in. It was higher pay, less "customer service" kind of job. I would have my own cubicle and would get to work with Excel and Word all day long. The perfect sort of job where I'd have something to do with my day. Anyhoo, I was having my second interview which I think I mentioned in a previos post and my boss was surprised and slightly appalled that I had never been to the Aladdin's Orientation.

*flashback to 1 year ago*
Not only did they forget about me at the job fair (they locked me in the Aladdin Theater for the Performing Arts) after getting me ready for the second interview for the Slot Promotions Representative, but They also forgot to schedule me for orientation. I mentioned it to my supervisor, and she said that she'd take care of it. When I wasn't ever told about it again, I didn't figure it was that big of a deal. I figured that HR would give me a call if Orientation was really a life or death situation.

*flashback to present*
So my interview with the Director is now focused on the fact that I never went to Orientation.

"Did you tell anyone?" He asked.
"Of course I did," I said, "I told [the supervisor] about it a week after my probationary period."
"And what did she say?" He asked.
"She said that 'she would take care of it'" I said.
"And did she?" He asked.
WELL OBVIOUSLY NOT YOU FUCKING MORON, OR ELSE WE WOULDN'T BE HAVING THIS FUCKING CONVERSATION.
"Um, no, I didn't go to orientation." I said, trying to leave the sarcasm out of my voice.
At this point, I started to feel the job slip from my grasp. I also started to feel the conversation start to go in circles.
"Did you know that as an Aladdin employee, it is required that you attend orientation?"
"Well, I just figured that if it were that big of a deal, and I missed it, that HR would contact me to make another appointment." I said.
"So how come you didn't come directly to me if [your supervisor] failed to do something about it?" He asked.
I really wanted to tell him that in my first month of being at a job, going over your supervisor's head was something that you just didn't do. I also wanted to tell him that I really wasn't being paid to be a supervisor watchdog either. So I said, "I really didn't think It was that big of a deal for the director of Marketing to become involved."
"Orientation is a very important part of being an employee here at the Aladdin." He said.
"Ok," I said, "So will you help me arrange another orientation?"
"FOR SURE." He said. Emphasis mine.
"You won't forget?" I asked.
"Oh no, we'll most definately get this taken care of right away." He promised.

That was three weeks ago, and yep, you guessed it. NO ORIENTATION. And I'm not going to look into it. I'm not going to fucking chase down the people of HR and demand that they let me into their next orientation session or else I'm not a whole person. I DON'T CARE.

So today, this new guy gets called down into the directors office and gets yelled at for not attending orientation. He wasn't made aware that his orientation was even scheduled, and when he came back upstairs, he looked at the calender and realized that the orientation was actually for next Thursday, not yesterday. SO he was yelled at for no reason. For something that's "So Important" but not necessarily important enough to "...get this taken care of right away." I know this seems really small, but then it snowballed. I started thinking about how bad sales have been lately, how bad morale among our crew is and how no one really cares what happens with our department. It just seemed like our Director was in a bad mood and wanted to personally intimidate someone who was new so that he could feel better about this whole Superbowl mess. Deflecting his anger. That's great. So it's a perpetual cycle where he gets mad that our sales aren't up, and yells at the leads and supervisors. They in turn get down our throats and we all hate them. Then we don't care about how business does, because all our Director cares about is the numbers. Then you start to feel like a cog in the big giant corporate machine and voila! Back to the beginging of this whole rant. You know what my lead said when I told her exacly what I was thinking and that we should all have a meeting with our Director? She said, "It's the same everywhere, so you'll just have to stop whining and just live with it." What a sad state. Do we really live in a country where if something is not right that we just bend over and take it up the ass? That's exactly what it looks like. So now, I walk into the Aladdin without care or motivation to do anything beyond what my job entails. If they want me to be "pretend lead" and close when one of their leads is sick or has time off, but not pay me extra? Sorry, no. Above and beyond the call of duty? Hell no. Fuck the Aladdin.

Next Post: Steve Wyrick's party. "With Mind Blowing Magic!" (not really)

I'm a stalker

Sometimes, I really do feel like a stalker. That is all.