— पाच हजार सत्तानवे —
Work is beginning to annoy me. I could get this backlog of shit done more quickly if I didn't get constant interruptions from some store or another about an issue that needs my more immediate attention. This is just one reason, among many, that I resent our rapid expansion of store numbers since 2014. That year was now seven years ago, and we have had eight store openings since then. Two of those replaced an old store in the same neighborhood (Seward Park replaced by Columbia City in 2015; the new West Seattle store in the exact same location after redevelopment of the site in 2019), but they still count as store openings. And even if they didn’t that would still be six new stores in seven years. And we have a new Kirkland store (replacing the old one) opening and the Downtown store, both set for about six weeks apart early next year. That'll make
ten store openings in
eight years, seven of those entirely new neighborhood locations within the same span of time.
The point is, it's been way too fucking much way too fucking often. Back before Cate was CEO and we still had Tracy, who was admittedly psychotic, but he was adamant about being conservative with expansion and only opening a new store when we had enough money in the bank to pay for it. A medium between these two extremes probably would have been better, but whatever the case, at the beginning of 2014 I worked in support of eight stores, and today I support 15 of them, which is nearly double—and by next spring it will be more than double. Without any real change in the work I do. I just have to field steady emails from either POS or Grocery staff at way more stores. This shit takes up a significant amount more of my time than it used to, and it's getting a little crazy making.
Scott is talking about maybe finally getting another office staff member to work on Grocery stuff, but at best we're talking about something we won't see come to fruition for months, and at worst (and possibly more likely) it's a pipe dream. Whatever the case, I still refuse to let my work load make me feel obligated to work more than 8 hour days (by some measures I work 8.5) or more than standard 40-hour work weeks, or take my work home.
— पाच हजार सत्तानवे —
— पाच हजार सत्तानवे —
Now that we're on to Tuesday and I don't need to spend time updating you on everything I did over the weekend, I can tell you I left work 20 minutes early yesterday so I could make it to AMC at Pacific Place and see the 4:30 showing of
West Side Story, which I thoroughly enjoyed and genuinely feel is an effective modernization, if not outright improvement, on the original. The review I wrote is a bit longer than average, at around 1300 words. It has its own problematic issue, but at least it's not as glaring onscreen as "brownface" bronzer on so many of the characters in the original was.
I kind of barely managed to catch a #11 bus home after the movie, thanks to it being a few minutes delayed. This was why I wanted to catch the 4:30 showing, as the movie is two and a half hours long and adding the trailers would have made it three hours. I got home and made myself a bagel sandwich for dinner, then was less than halfway through the review when Shobhit got home from work at maybe 8:35 or so. It was 9:43 by the time I had it posted and could share the link on social media, so I basically had to get ready for bed right after that.
Shobhit works later into the evening again tonight, but I'm not seeing a movie today. I should be able to spend some time this evening working on end-of-the-year projects. Hell, I still need to do some gift wrapping.
I did get distracted for about half an hour right before leaving work yesterday, because Michelle from IT, a lady I really like, happened to be in the office, and we got to talking and chatted in the Grocery pantry area for quite a while, some of it about work, a lot of it about the rules of local mask mandates (she was unaware that as a vaccinated person she was not required to wear a mask in the office—we've both had our booster shots, in fact), and a fait bit about movies. She asked me to let her know what I thought of
West Side Story and so I sent her the link this morning.
— पाच हजार सत्तानवे —
[posted 12:26 pm]
