Bad mood post

I've been at work since lunch-time come home and all the Fat Bastard wants to do is talk.

He has this incredible knack of waiting until I've come to the conclusion that he's finished droning on, and turned to something more interesting (growing grass, drying paint), before starting up again in this voice which brooks no shutting out... And despite the fact that he's monopolised my attention for half an hour I couldn't tell you a damned thing he said at me.

Work was a complete bitch today; so much so I hardly know where to start. I have a menu of:

• deficient software and technology which supposedly were introduced (possibly last century, more probably during the one before) to, um, make our lives easier and the business more efficient and effective;
• 'big corporate' inability to run a business; any business;
• the fecklessness (indolence, incivility and illiteracy) of so many of the people who turn to us for employment
• the system which makes it worth someone's while declining more than 15 hours per week - because the Job Seekers Allowance pays better than we do;
• customers.

The saddest thing though is that even if I could get a baby sitter tonight I couldn't be bothered getting dressed up and heading out for a night on what tiles this town has to offer.

Our software is chronically and possibly terminally ill. This morning we struggled for a prolonged period to process credit / debit card transactions. The only mercy for us was that the supplier did finally get around to filling the ATM outside and so some customers could withdraw cash to cover their transaction. This evening one of the check-outs 'fell off the system' which meant that I couldn't process the back off financials properly. The checkout that fell off the system isn't the same one that was falling off a month or so ago, but it will need an engineer to come out and coax some life into it.

That might happen tomorrow, but tomorrow is Sunday.

I'm not even going to start tonight on the inability of corporations to run businesses ... something I read last night got me thinking but I made no notes and will come back to that later when I'm in a more suitable frame of mind.

Tom Tom the senior clerk's son decided to hand in his notice because he couldn't change his weekend shifts so as to give himself free time to play football, with the particular team he wants to play with. Like all general assistant staff he's expected to work his notice period which is one whole week. That week ended today for him with a 5-9 shift. He didn't turn up but I had to endure a conversation with his mother who went on and on and on about how difficult it is to get a 16 year old to do what he's told.

When I was sixteen I went to school, I came home, I practiced tennis/violin, I ate, I washed up, I did my homework and then I went to bed. That was it. Five nights a week. Then I did lots of tennis and music practice and housework on the weekends. I wasn't expected to go out to work but on the other hand I wasn't treated an adult in any other way. My reading, music, tv, movies and friends were subject to scrutiny and my mother held the power of veto.

The message was really simple. When you're an adult and you have a place of your own you can do what you like. Until you're an adult, and so long as I'm responsible for you, you will do as you are told; this is not your house and you may not do as you please within it.

I've long since come to the conclusion that we (my generation) have fucked our children up good and proper and the only thing that remains unclear is who will pay the heaviest price. I suspect the answer might actually be an as yet unborn generation. What we seem to have don is treat them as adults part of the time - and then we do nothing more effective than scratch our heads when they won't behave like kids when we want them to.

As for the Job Seekers Allowance and how it acts as a block to perfectly employable individuals seeking full time employment, I could say lots and lots of complex stuff but what that boils down to is 'scrap the social welfare system as it exists and starts again'. Each successive administration since the end of WWII has added a layer of administrative complexity until we've reached the point at which nothing short of the 'nuclear' option could eliminate the faults and failings in the system. I'm not sure what should be built over the ashes of Nye Bevin's dream but it sure isn't a cradle to grave, free at the point of consumption type welfare system such as that in place now.

As for the jackass who walked out leaving his paper and 2 pints of milk behind I have three words: "Go to Safeway". At the time I was short staffed and struggling to nurse the check-out software through its nineteenth nervous breakdown. Safeway, as far as I'm aware, are no long trading in this country (at least under that name) and to the best of my knowledge the nearest ex-Safeway store is a good 25 minute drive from us. I think that even in the worst case scenario waiting at the checkout would have taken less time. Damned fool. Damned fool me for putting myself through this for a pittance.

It's a shame he didn't realise he was tangling with a fifty foot Greek Goddess who is rather unpleasant at the best of times. I might just take it out on Mrs Jackass next time I see here but then she'd be poor sport. I suppose she and her husband have reached an amicable accommodation and she's found some kind of tolerance for his notoriety, but from the outside she looks like just another fool - and yes, it takes one to know one. Sorry that's cryptic but it is someone else's life.

The fact that I had to drag myself out from under a check-out to have what little conversation we had (words flung at me as he stalked out) should have served as some indication that we had what might be termed technical difficulties to resolve.

The fact that we had an insufficiency of tills open ought to have been taken as an indicator of short-staffing. Does anyone out there seriously think that store managers deliberately run their stores ineptly, with insufficient staff thereby creating frustration in customers who might well go elsewhere in future?

Now I know I married the Fat Bastard, but I'm not that stupid.