Entry 821 – “Hi, Mom! This Is A Porno!”

LOL.  I know Rob’s probably gonna pass out when he sees this title.  No, for all you dirty minded people, we have not, I repeat NOT done something like that!!!

It was a line that Dolly said a long time ago, the summer between my junior and senior years.  I was videotaping and she and Mike were on screen and she juts randomly said, "Hi, Mom!  This is a Porno!"  And then I stopped rolling and when I turned the camera back on, she’d fallen on Mike somehow, so yeah, that made it look worse . . .  Lol.

Okay, recap of the second half of the week:  When Rob and I hung out on Wednesday night after he got off work, we actually did go skating.  He was in a remarkably good mood, too, and I kept asking him, "Okay, what’s wrong?  Cuz you’re unusually hyper and happy."  But we did go skating and except for a purposeful fall when we were hugging because he knew that I’d catch him, he didn’t fall once!  (Lol, we were hugging, and he let his feet slip forward so that he was falling backwards.  I don’t know, somehow, he was just that confident that I would catch him.  I have no idea how, but my feet didn’t slip out from under me and I pretty much just set him on the ground and went to my knees in front of him.  ::Yay, I’m Tank Girl!::  I did say, though, that if I hadn’t been able to slow his descent and had fallen on top of him, well . . .  let’s just say he wouldn’t have been able to get up ::in either sense:: for a good long while.)

Anyway, at one point while I was watching him, he slipped, but caught himself and after that I figured ‘you know what?  He hasn’t fallen, let’s not press our luck.’  Cuz he did show me the bruise on his leg not too long ago and I gotta admit, that’s one nasty looking bruise!

So yeah, that was Wednesday night.  Oh, not to mention he was being all encouraging about the receptionist job that I was intereviewing for on Thursday.  Well, Thursday comes.  I woke up around a bit after eleven so I could take a shower, get all made up and whatnot, and go.  I got there and here were several other girls in the room.  My first thought?  "Oh, great.  They’re all here for the receptionist job."  Well, I was there for a bout ten minutes and filled out this sheet of general info, name, address, phone number, etc., when a woman walked out, apologized because they were running a bit behind that day, and said it would probaby be easier if she talked to us all at once and then asked us some individual questions.  So we all followed her into an office room and sat down in front of her desk.  She told us of two positions available.  One was the receptionist job that they were only hiring one or two people for and one was a branch manager job that they were looking for ten or twelve people for.  She did a brief run-through of the management job, cuz I guess the other three girls were all looking for a management type position, that was the add they saw and answered.  So, she talked about how none of us needed to have management experience, it was all taught there, because their company found it just as easy to teach someone the stuff for the first time as to retrain someone to their specifications.  Which, admittedly, made me happy, because I have no job-wise managerial experience whatsoever.  Then she asked us some questions about ourselves and ended with what did we feel our best quality was.  I said stubborness for mine. 

She told us that whether or not they were interested in bringing us back for a second interview, we would be called and told of their decision.  She said to expect a call between five and five-thirty.

I came back, feeling rather good about the entire thing, wondering if maybe I could manage to handle being a manager.  It wasn’t work experience I’ve ever had before.  I stopped over at Rob’s, since I would pass his house on the way back anyway.  We hung out there for a bit and then I drove him to work.  I wasn’t home for more than fifteen minutes when he called me and said he’d been sent on his break.  So we met up at McDonald’s, ate there, and I came back home to sit around and be nervous.

I was watching the Discovery Health Channel, watching a program that was really rather interesting.  It was about mothers who had different scares and risks with their pregnancies.  One woman was epileptic, (which can really screw with pregnancy.  The medications themselves can cause birth defects, but if the woman isn’t taking medication and has a seizure, that can kill the baby,) one was perfectly healthy except for the fact that her blood pressure was unusually high, and I don’t remember what the other two were.  Anyway, twice, the phone rang before five-thirty and twice I jumped up to answer it and twice it turned out to be my mom.

Argh.

Well, I started getting hopeless, figuring that no one was gonna call, I might as well go back to the drawing board, all that stuff.  So, I started washing the dishes in the sink and listening to Wicked.  I put on Dancing Through Life and hadn’t been listening to more than a minute of that when I heard the phone ring again.  I answered it and it was them!  They were interested in me for a second interview for the management position!  So I wrote down what I needed to, that it would take place on Saturday at one pm, I had to dress sharp, bring a notebook and pen, and be prepared to be there for 2 1/2 to 3 hours.  I repeated that back to her just to make sure I’d gotten it all, and we hung up.  Then I started spazzing.

Friday, Mike asked if I would drive him down to Eatontown so he could take his permit test.  And about the time he wanted to leave was when I was gonna go pick up Rob.  So I picked Rob up and the three of us stopped at FunTime really quick to play DDR.  Well, me and Mike played DDR.  Rob watched.  He also watched me and Mike play air hockey.  Freakin’ . . .  I lost, five to seven.  Damnit.

Anyway, we went down there, dropped Mike off, and went to the Monmouth Mall since we didn’t know how long Mike would be.  We only got to go into Borders cuz Mike took the test and got out rather quickly.  It turns out he passed, so dear God, help us all, Mike’s gonna be on the road.

On the way back, we stopped at the Bird Jungle and saw all the cute little birds, including a baby macaw that could barely stand up.  (When they’re that young, they aren’t able to support the weight of their feathers.)  After that, we wanted to get food, so we stopped at the Pizza Hut on 35.  I’m not going there for a long time.  I can see how we came at a semi-bad time, cuz we got there at about five thirty.  You know, when everyone’s usually coming for dinner?  It wasn’t that crowded there when we were seated, though.  But it was a good hour before we got our food and even then, we didn’t get it at the same time.  Heck, Rob ordered one of those little personal pan pizzas and he got his last!!!  And the waitress didn’t even stop by our table to apologize for it taking so long or anything.  She didn’t even stop by to see if we wanted refills on our drinks!  T

hen, when we got the bill, it was about three bucks more than it should have been.  So Mike went up to take care of that while Rob finished a slice of his pie and we gathered up the food we were bringing with us.  (Most of my pizza and Mike’s dessert pizza.)  Needless to say, we didn’t leave a tip.  We walked up to the counter and Mike was talking to the guy, who was insisting that no, the price was correct.  After a couple minutes there, Mike just says, "You know what, it’s not worth it," and pulls more money out of his pockets.

Honestly, that was just stupid.  And both me and Rob were saying how we wouldn’t have done that, they overcharged us, and we would have stayed and proved that.  Cuz it’s called getting a piece of paper out and doing the math on that, instead of relying on your heads, you know?  But of course, Mike says his whole "level of aggravation as opposed to the amount of money you’d get back" BS.  Honestly, they gave us horrible service, couldn’t be bothered telling us what the holdup was, had us waiting over an hour to actually get one of three meals, and then cheated him out of three bucks.  I’d say that we should have gotten a percentage taken off of what we were billed, considering all that, rather than him being dumb enough to not even stand his ground and say, "No, I’m not paying for this when you overcharged me."

But no, because he is apparently "the Great and All Knowing Mike" now, he deemed it too unworthy to listen to us.  Honestly, yes, I admit, I’ve done some pretty bad things to Mike.  But you know what?  He’s done some pretty bad things to me, too.  Honestly, as far as what’s been done to the other, I’d say we’re pretty evenly matched.  But he seems determined to make me feel as insignificant as possible, compared to his "ever growing knowledge of the world," or some such like that.  At least that’s what it feels like.  It’s like, automatically if I don’t support a decision of his, then I’m not worth listening to about it and I have to "just drop it."  I mean, seriously, what does him just accepting their mistake and paying more money out prove?  Hmm, how about that he’s a coward with no backbone who doesn’t want to fight for money he should still have in his pocket?  I mean, I saw his entry with the whole BS about "collared dog verses collared wolf."  And you know what?  He’s still a "collared dog," because he can’t even stand up to some idiot at a pizza place!

Honestly, even though I think he has no feesible way of managing it, considering his major lack of funds and major lack of ability to save said funds, I can’t wait till he moves out.  I want him out of my house and the sooner, the better.  I can’t wait till he just drifts off to some other part of the state, country, whatever, and we can just peacefully coexist.  Not talking, not seeing one another, just existing on the same planet.  Cuz even more than before, where I felt we would lose contact after he moved out, now I know we will, and I truly want that to happen.  Hell, I wouldn’t mind losing contact with his entire family!  (Excluding Joey, but the he’s not biologically related, so there.  )

Anyway.  Back on subject.  Saturday, yesterday, was the second interview.  There were nine of us there, dressed sharp and all that, and we were brought into this room with two lines of chairs set up.  We all took seats and a woman named Holly talked to us for a little bit and then a guy named Donny came in.  He talked about the training program, told a lot of funny stories, and told us what he was looking for in the branch manager position, which is what this second interview is for.

At the end, he asked us some questions, then called two of the other people out, then two more, so that there were five of us left in the room.  He said he didn;t have the patience to send us out two at a time anymore, so did we want the good news or the bad news.  I believe he said that the bad news was that he wasn’t accepting all of us.  The good news was that the five of us sitting in front of him were the ones he chose to accept in the training prgram!

It’s a six to eight week program that we’re paid to go through, then after that, we’re put into our own office and we have two different choices to take as far as payment.  We can do a contract where we get paid thirty thousand dollars a year, or we can do a P.O.A.  Piece of the Action.  Which basically means that our office makes more than thirty thousand, we get the difference instead of it going to the company.  It makes less, we get less.

We’re not expected to make that decision yet, though.  He doesn’t feel any of us are informed enough to make a decision like that, but he’ll ask us about it roundabouts of halfway through training.

So tomorrow’s orientation where they’re gonna do a screening to make sure we’ve never been in jail and all that stuff and we get to take more notes, (oh, joy.)  Then Tuesday is when we actually start training.

I’m kind of overwhlemed when I think about it.  I still wonder if I’m cut out for this, if it’s really someting I can do.  But then, if I get comfortable with it, I think I can manage it.

I hope I can.  Because the idea of that much money a year . . .  I mean, I could move out.  I’d be able to easily afford an apartment, I can pay off what I owe my parents in about two months . . .  This is gonna be big.

All I have to do is manage it. 

Wish me luck!