Girl's Night Out

The Friday, which has been dubbed as "Topsy Turvy Day" was a blur, but also my final Friday of freedom. Fridays are usually my 'work coz nobody else will' day and I end up being quite tired afterwards. I may have mentioned this back in my old blog, but management at work know that I am the one who does the majority of the work while the others, particularly the older generation, do as little as possible and rely on the younger ppl to pick up the slack. Well now that I am leaving, the manager wants to 'train' the other ppl on how to be an all rounder like me, so the only way she can do that is to keep an eye on them and train them while she is there on shift. Usually she does the early shift and leaves just as the oldies get lazy, but for the first time, she is doing the late shift. So on Friday we swapped - I did her early and she did my late shift. It worked out well coz all the cool ppl did the early and mid shift and the rapport between us all was fabulous. It also helped that it was my friend's last shift before going overseas for 2 months and there was added buzz in the air. The shift was very easy because of the Jewish holiday - everybody stayed at home. I had a great time.

A funny work tragedy was narrowly avoided: My friend Jenny lives just 5 minutes from my place and we both started at 7am on Friday. She had offered to drive by my place and give me a lift to work instead of me taking public transport in the morning. I said no coz I wanted to go for a morning workout and wanted to take my time (the workout never happened, but the point is I didn't accept Jenny's offer!!). Jenny was using a rental car that her insurance company gave as a courtesy car while her car was being fixed up. She got into the car at 6:30am and it wouldn't start. She tried everything - couldn't even get the gears or change them, it was stuck. She had to call a taxi and hoof it down to work - thankfully the owner paid for her taxi fare, coz she said she was catching the train and the owner said, "But you have to do the special orders....take a taxi and I'll pay". She was 30 minutes late. The near drama was that if Jenny had to pick me up, I would have been late as well and there would have only been 2 people opening up the shop instead of the normal 4 people - on a Friday of all days, the busiest day of the week!!

Now the reason why this was going to be my last Friday of freedom was because I was asked to be in charge of the coffee section up until I leave. Now coffee is a breeze if you're just covering for someone coz the most time you'll be covering a coffee section is 40 minutes. If you're in charge, you're doing coffee for 8 hours. To be in charge of the whole section is a little more challenging coz not only are you making drinks, but you're juggling the hot food section making sure there's enough, doing the washing of everything and making stuff for the owners, the girls and the boys at the back - not to mention the customers themselves. On any other day it's fine, but I've mainly been rostered for coffees on Fridays - the BUSIEST day of the week. Add to that that I have never closed down the coffee section and there are a million things to do and only 30 minutes to clean up, you can't blame me for being a bit apprehensive. At work, you know you have 'made it' when you are put in charge of the coffee section - I have made it! It's the equivalent of getting a promotion. After 2 years! And I am leaving in 3 week's time! Ever since I started I wanted to 'make it' - and now I have, and it's taken me leaving to 'make it'! Quite funny. Not ha ha funny, just odd funny! But there are a few reasons why I'm on coffee:

1: Coz they trust me - I MADE IT! I am management's favourite after all (supposedly!)
2: When you are on coffee, you don't have to worry about the rest of the shop, you just worry about your section and nothing else. Now because in the past I've been in charge of the rest of the shop, I am the one who has taken responsibility for the maintenance of it. Management want to spy on the others and see how they cope when I'm not there anymore - it's part of her training them to be all rounders and not lazy! So me being promoted to coffee benefits us all.
3: This kind of links with the above one: there is one lady who has been there for 18 years doing coffees on Fridays and she is going on holidays for a week and needs someone to cover her coffee shift. Now I would supposedly only have to do 1 shift in order to cover her, not all of the ones I'm being asked to do, which validates the spying theory. Everybody thinks I'm coo coo for suggesting reason number 2, but it's actually true. The others don't like the idea of being spied on and were hoping I would be wrong. But when we all asked individually why I was doing coffees on certain days and why the manager is all of a sudden doing the late shifts, the manager went weird (and she is the one who is the most honest of the lot - you can tell with her when she's lying and covering up). I just put 2 and 2 together - not that hard! I guess they were all not used to thinking suspiciously like me. Suspicious may be the wrong word, just good at reading ppl. And coz I knew something had to be done in regards to ppl's laziness, because 2 of the hardest working ppl in the shop leaving just one month apart from one another spells trouble for management, especially right before the busy Christmas period (my friend left at the end of September and I'm leaving at the end of October).

Well that was more work politics stuff than I had imagined... back to Friday. I finished at 4 and went home to get changed and go to meet Sam at her new gym that she's working at. I had a cardio workout for the first time in weeks and it was just what I needed. We then went for dinner at a cool bistro in her area called "Natalia's" (I'll take you there one day bro!) Best food ever (Better than Romeo's dude - and you know how good their stuff is. Romeo's is my fave restaurant folks)! The entree size looks like a bloody main. Usually I'd struggle to get through it all, but as I had only eaten a banana for breakfast and had skipped lunch - and on top of that had a workout - I was famished. So I downed all of mine, ate Sam's leftovers and ate half a pizza all to myself! That pizza was meant for her boyfriend James, so I must apologise for eating his dinner! It was another fantastic night full of laughs over the most stupid things like roundabouts, stretches and 911. Don't ask how we linked them all together, but it worked! We went back to her place and stayed up and watched a DVD - she and I have completely different tastes in movies. I tried liking this romantic comedy she put on but I just didn't. I'm impatient with movies anyway, so it wasn't anybody's fault.

Spent the night at her joint so we could wake up early enough to go back to the gym for a joint workout. I did 20 minutes of cardio - if I continue with my cardio fitness everyday, it's going to go back up to the way that it was. I was amazed at how quickly I got back into the swing of my cardio endurance - after just one day. While I did Combat, she did a weights session. I struggled big time to keep up. It's just my lack of endurance training, which I hope to get back now when I'm on holidays and before I depart as well. We're gonna catch up again before I leave.

Caught the train home. I wanted to get off but this guy was blocking the way with his legs. I said, "Excuse me" and he didn't move. I stood there for around 5 seconds waiting for his legs to move so he could clear the way for me, but he just stayed put reading his newspaper. So in front of a crowded train, I kicked him. Only after 2 seconds after I kicked him, he moved and was waiting for me to apologise. I gave the most sarcastic "Sorry" and walked off the train. And I wasn't even pre menstrual. It was great! I don't condone that behaviour, but I'm no shrinking violet either. Got home at 11am and spent the rest of the day on here and bumming. I didn't sleep particularly well, but I knew I was just going to bum around at home all day, so it wasn't a total loss. Spent a good old time chatting to Chris. I've got nothing else planned for the rest of the night - hopefully get a chance to catch up with you lot again soon!

Tomorrow I'm going out for my farewell lunch at a family friend's place. Then I've got nothing. I'll be working more in the next fortnight before my last week of nothingness.

So now I'm up to date. I'm so in love with blogger. I discovered how to post photos with blogs (see last blog). BRILLIANT! Come and chat to me when you wake up, I'll be here. See ya!!