Yellow finch

Yellow finch
Originally uploaded by BayRoadPhoto/Laura.

I've been watching the birdies again... These guys are really bossy... they rule the feeder with an iron claw... kind of like me with the Wally world fitting room... The girl that trained me has moved on to a new job so that gives me seniority over the fitting room and phones.. yup.. that's right.. after a full 2 months of work, I'm the old hand on the farm... nice... They have hired a couple new girls... one I've yet to meet, but I spent all last weekend training the other one... and well.. it's not going so hot... You know.. sometimes it's hard to tell how your doing with some things, but I got a pretty good indicator after having the following conversation with the new girl... We'll call her "Guapo" to protect the "dumb as a post":

Guapo: (paging thruout the store) PAGING... (yes.. I'm using all caps here cause she was YELLING at the top of her lungs into the phone)... SOMEONE IN..... (yes.. I'm using elipses to indicate a pause in her page.. the more periods.. the longer the pause)... GROCERY................. YOU'VE GOT A PHONE CALL....... ON LINE.................... LINE................ (then she looks at me to tell her which button on the phone which is right in front of her is flashing repeatedly)

Me: (waves 2 fingers at her)

Guapo: LINE TWO................................................................
..........................................................................................

Me: (waiting for her to repeat her lousy page)

Guapo: (turning to me while still holding the phone)............... HOW WAS THAT?

Me: (launching myself over the counter to hang up the page to keep anything else she's gonna say to me from being broadcast across the store..) Guapo.... you have to hang up the page or anything you say will be broadcast across the store....

Guapo: (laughing)... OH gee... How did you figure that out? Did someone tell you, or did it happen to you too?

Me: (completely horrified) GUAPO.... IT'S A PHONE... IF YOU DON'T HANG UP A PHONE THE RECEIVER STAYS LIVE....

GGGAAAAHHH!!!!!!!

Now... keep in mind this conversation took place after over 3 hours of training and having her listen to me page at least 50 times, well... and we won't even go into the fact that she is a 50 something year old American woman that apparently has never used a phone before....

I eventually gave up trying to just tell her how to page properly and wrote out the spiel word for word and taped it to the desk in front of the phone... and yup... she still was just making it up off the top of her head..... **sigh****

I left work that nite with my blood pressure thru the roof... so much for my nice stress-free job.... it was so bad I actually got ahold of my boss the next day and sat down and talked to her about Guapo...

The boss: Well... I know you have alot of experience Laura, but you have to realize that not everyone is going to have as much experience as you and will take more training....

Me: I understand that boss Lady, but let me give you a couple of examples... (relay the above story... relay a couple of other stories)

The boss: ................................... (tries to readjust her eyes from the huge holes in her head that they had become..) ....................................... (attempts to pick up her jaw from off the floor)................................... (finally manages to speak)................................ Well....... (attempts to not laugh)........................................ Thank you for sharing that with me.................... Sometimes it's hard to tell what's happening out on the floor unless one of you guys comes to me and lets me know..................... I'll write up some phone etiquette for her before next weekend.......

Me: Thanks so much....

I suspect it's not gonna make much difference...

Later...