The Memorial Weekend Begins

So, here we are on Saturday morning, the first day of a three day weekend, a holiday weekend, and our outside temp is 49 (F), and we have a steady rain.  Folks, I don't want to be the bearer of bad news, but here in Central PA, it ain't gonna get much better.  Our high temp might be in the low 60s (F).  I'm not talking about a patch of rain, nor a swath of rain, I'm talking about an enormous sheet of rain covering almost the entire northeast of the country.  The skies are not going to start clearing up until sometime on Monday.   Tuesday's going to be nice.  That's a good thing.  I don't work on Tuesdays and I am definitely going to have to mow the lawn.

Yesterday was sort of busy.  I didn't cook anything special.  Dinner was ham salad.  That was the last of the Easter ham.  I did some grocery shopping.  I bought a ham hock so perhaps on Tuesday I'll make bean soup.  I have tons of dried beans, some wrinkly old potatoes, so I'll probably stop off at the supermarket on my way home from work tomorrow and pick up a carrot or two.  

I am scheduled to work this afternoon.  I'm not expecting it to be busy.  It is the holiday weekend.  Those who do show up will only be doing so because they're looking for the Memorial Day sales.  In the flooring department, we're doing a free install on specialty carpet.  Up until about 8 months ago, all of our carpet installs were free.  Then they began charging so could see an install charge on their quote, however, to offset this they lowered all of the carpet prices.  Then, 3 months ago, they repriced carpet according to density and... if you guessed that 70% of our carpets went up in price you'd be right.  And that increase was more than the amount they deducted to offset the install charge.  Remember, it's all about insuring that the customer pays as much as possible. It's all about greed.

And here's another picture of some of my roses.

What about Tulsi Gabbard quitting?  She's always been seen as a Russian asset, so I'm suspecting Putin has more important issues for her to attend.  I'm suspecting that perhaps her resignation was a mutual decision by both her and Orangie.  In his mind women are good for one thing, and one thing only, and diplomacy is not that one thing.  I also suspect that Orangie's blow bro Vlad is not too happy with Orangie's performance.  One of his main objectives, after all, was to insure that Ukraine capitulated.  Now that Ukraine is kicking Vlad's booty boy ass in so many Russian cities, it must be obvious to Vlad that Orangie is too untethered to be any use at all to him.  Even the real estate goons, Witkoff and Kushner seem to have disappeared form the negotiating stage, and both had some serious ties to Vlad.  I'm suspecting that Orangie's abysmal approval ratings have turned him into the biggest political anchor the world has ever seen.

Cycles of Painting

Well, it's Saturday... a little after 0700 in the morning, the temp is around 70 F with a dew point around 66 - it's going to be a warm, humid day in the store.  Spotty thunderstorms are forecast, sporadic and spread out - this means we'll get a warning and the storm will miss us by about 5 miles.  Tonight I get to close the store and I'm scheduled back at work 10.5 hours later, because we have a paint sale (rebate) going on, you know?  My sales figures are okay, they're not great.  Three years ago there was the equivalent of a feeding frenzy in paint - I beat my yearly goal by over half a million dollars.  Corporate thought paint sales would continue to trend upwards for years to come.... they didn't.  People don't paint every year.  Sure, it's the easiest way to refresh a room, but paint is also laborious.  You need to move furniture, and cover furniture, and tape off, and cut in - painting a room is not a 2 or 3 hour project, and not everybody wants to do it every 3 or 4 years.  While there are those who feel the need to change the color pallet of their rooms on a regular basis, many, many more don't know this urge.  They will chose a color and stick with it for a long, long time.  I know this because people will come with paint cans 10 - 15 years old and say "I need this color to touch up."

An interesting pattern in a can I tinted last evening

I'm in the latter group.  I'm thinking of repainting my bedroom.  I needed to put in a new ceiling fan because Big Seig chewed up the remote for the old one (he thinks anything made of plastic is a chew toy).  And the last time I painted the bedroom was... about 15 years ago.  So, I'm thinking of freshening things up.  Of course, this means a lot of work (sigh), but on the bright side, I probably won't feel the need to repaint for another 15 years.

Memorial Day Blues

Well, the Memorial Day weekend is upon us and I, as usual, am working.  This is one of the limitations of retail; holidays cease to exist.  Except for Thanksgiving and Christmas, I work every holiday.  Is there any better time to have a sale?  Are you kidding me?  Especially the Memorial Day weekend, which makes Black Friday look rather limpid.  This is the beginning of "cook out" season, and you can't have an old grill if you're going to have guests over for burgers and dogs, and you can't have them sitting on last year's faded patio furniture, and if everything isn't in bloom it needs to have been freshly planted.  Those shutters hanging around your windows?  They're looking a bit drab, aren't they, why not spruce them up with a fresh coat of paint, something to give your curb appeal a little extra pop.  And don't forget the deck, if you have one, won't your friends think it looks resplendent in a new coat of stain?  Last year the popular shade was Padre Brown, this year it seems to be Russet, yeah, like in the potato.

As always happens, sales bring in lots of customers hunting for that great deal.  There's usually a rebate on paints and stains, so many wait until this holiday to buy.  This means the paint desk gets very, very busy.  It was over the Memorial Day weekend last year a customer told me I ought be fired because I wasn't fast enough.  You see I was back in the primer aisle answering another customer's questions about primer, which meant I couldn't be out front helping the other associates tint stains, and there was a line.  Every customer gets treated the same, no preferential treatment, that's unfair.  Anyway, this customer was upset because she felt she shouldn't have to wait.  The first thing she said to me was "I hope yesterday was your first day on the job," and of course things only got worse.  The inexpensive stain she and her husband had bought two years ago was no longer available, and the inexpensive stain we did carry was not covered by the rebate because it was already cheap.  And, of course, the Padre Brown she wanted tinted lighter then the Padre Brown she wanted, which was when she grabbed a Head Cashier, thinking he was management, and told him "This man needs to be fired.  He's terrible.  You need to fire this man."  So I turned her over to a very capable associate who has a knack for fixing stains.  At that  point the customer said "you have twenty seconds to fix this."  I really wanted to grab a 2 x 4 and wait for her out in the parking lot, but I didn't.  I remained cordial and polite through out the whole episode.  They cut the price of the stain in half to shut her up, or at least get her to tone down her volume, which is the only thing she accomplished.  You know I don't believe she actually understood how embarrassing she was to herself, that people were not behind her but were, instead, walking away.
We get at least one customer like this every Memorial Day.

Ironically, this weekend is a holiday which commemorates the service of our armed forces.  It's supposed to be a time to thank them for their service, and I, who am a war Veteran, am always scheduled to work.  Not only that, now and then I have to deal with customers who just don't care.