Why?

So this week I haven’t worked all that much, I only worked Wednesday night. I haven’t worked because on Saturday morning my grandparents and I got a call telling us that my great grandpa was rushed to the emergency room. We didn’t know what happened so just my grandpa went to the hospital. My cousin called and told me that it wasn’t good news so my grandma and i should get out there soon, so I called my grandma at work and she came home and got me. We found out that he had had a stroke. He was bleeding from his brain and there was nothing that they could do. The best that they could was to keep him comfortable until he passed on. So every night this week I have been at the hospital sitting with him, my great grandma, my grandparents, and my 5 other great aunts and uncles. When we asked my grandma what happened, she said that he had been fine, he woke up took a shower, had a cigarette and was playing solitaire on the computer. He heard him start to gag so she went to help him and ended up calling 911. We are not sure when he will pass on, but we know that he will. It has been really hard to keep going to my classes, but I know if I don’t go I will fall behind, and I don’t want to miss if I can keep myself together. My family also nominated me to pick out the music for his funeral and the wake the night before. My great grandpa means a lot to me, especially because I am super proud that he served his country in the United States Army, for about 5 years.

Where did my week go?

On Sunday when I looked at the schedule for this week, I only worked Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Sunday. That is a light week for me, so I was excited. Monday passed and it was great, I got all of my homework done, so I had nothing to worry about until Wednesday. On Tuesday, at about 12, I got a text from my friend from work. She told me she had a sore throat, and wanted to know if I could work for her. I told her that it was not a problem, and that I would call my boss to let him know. She told me that she would work for me on Thursday since I was working for her that night. I went to work and it was uneventful, as it usually has been. On Wednesday the delivery driver that was working was my friend's dad. He came back from a delivery at around 8, he told me that she was still sick. They thought she had swine flu.

She cannot do anything until her fever breaks for a whole day. Now since she was supposed to work for me tonight, I have to go into work. My friend's step mom is going to have a baby on Friday, and because she is sick she cannot be there. She also has to work on Saturday, but she can't even leave her house until Monday. So I am waiting for my boss to ask me to work for her, since there are only four people working on Saturday, and that is usually our busiest night. He has not asked me yet, so hopefully he won't so I can have a nice quite Saturday.

Monday Night Football

As usual I had to work Monday night. Which as everyone knows was the Packer Viking game. I wasnt really sure how busy we were going to be since there were a lot of bars having deals for the game. We had one order for seven O'Clock, that was six pizzas and 50 wings. We really didnt have many orders, so we thought that doing the big order was going to be no problem. At about 6:30 when we were going to start the order, the phones started ringing off the hook. Everyone was answering the phones along with trying to get everything else done. We had to call my boss in to help, so we could get the big order in and still complete every other order in a timely fasion. Everyone was running around trying to get everything done. Finaly the phones stopd ringing and it slowed down. We have a T.V. in the front of the building, so the employees can watch the games. I was really looking forward to watching the game, but first I had to fininsh dishes. Once those were done I had my boss's son take out the garbage, I was pickigng up in back when I hit my head on the sink, I have a bump. I finished cleaning then went up front to watch the game. I was standing there and when ever anything good or bad happened, you could hear my boss yell or cheer from the back room. After seeing the outcome of the game I do not think my boss was very happy. Since I did not have to close, I don't know for sure, but I have been there four years, so I know him pretty well.

Oktoberfest Weekend

As everyone in La Crosse knows when Oktoberfest comes around everything is going to get crazy. There is no exception when it comes to working in a pizza place. This year as usual we recieved phone calls to have pizzas delivered on the parade route. There usualy many people who call and order, but this year we only had one person who call Thursday and Friday night. Thats right this crazy person was sitting in the rain waiting for the parade on Thursday night, when the parade itself is not until 10 a.m. on Saturday. Friday night was suprizling slow, but Saturday night was crazy busy. We had tons of orders starting at 5 o'clock and not slowing down until 9 o'clock. Many of these people had been drinking, you could tell by their slurred speach, and lack of ability to recall their own address. Many of these people did not cause a problem. There was one person who had a pizza delivered to the Stoney Creek Inn, our delivery driver knocked on his door for 5 minutes, went down to the front desk and called his room, and the bar and he still did not answer. Our driver called us and wanted to know what he wanted us to do. There wasn't much we could do, so we just told the driver to come back. About five to ten minutes later the phone rang, like it had all night, it was the guy from the Stoney Creek Inn. He wanted to know where his pizza was. I told him how our driver had knocked on his door and even called his room and the bar and he had not been their. He still wanted his pizza, so when our driver came back, we had to send him all the way back out there. He was not a happy camper, so we gave him a few more deliveries to take with the one back to Stoney. That guys was our only issue over the weekend. Well besides the fact that my boss's son's girlfriend had their baby on Sunday. So my boss's wife did not work on that day so I had to come in and work, which was no big deal, it was all worth is when I got to hold him on Wednesday night.

Just Another Day

This past Friday at work, my boss decided to go to the Logan football game for parent's night. Working was myself, a employee that has been there as long as myself, a fairly new employee, a delivery drive, and a person who worked when I first started. Everything was going well when a customer came in with his wife and son. He went in back to use the restroom and when he came back to the front to have his order taken, he proceeded to yell profanities at his wife. An employee asked him to watch his language because it is a family establishment. He then repeatedly asked what he was doing that was so bad. We took his order and made it as quickly as possible. I was helping make an order in back I could hear him continuing to yell at his wife. The driver that was working inside came back to me and the other employee and asked us if we thought we should call the police; we told him to wait and we would just get him out of the restaurant as soon as possible, but if it continued we might have to call the police. While his order was being taken he wanted to pay, he asked me three times what it was, I told him his total all of those times. He paid and we got him out of there. This guy is a normal customer and has never acted that way before, I don't know what got into him that night. Tonight there was 30 pizzas for Logan High School football team meal. Working was myself, the owner, his wife, and two another employees. The owners wife has to go hand out the pizzas so she would not be working long. One of the other employees is sick, and the other is leaving at 6:30, which leaves myself and my boss to work the whole night. Or so I thought two of my boss's sons came in to help and another newer employee. It went as good as it possibly could. My boss and I closed up a little early, but nobody noticed. Well his wife did when she call and left a message on the answering machine.

Big Order

Last week my boss had mentioned that there was going to be a big order, in the next few weeks. I brushed it off as him just being optimistic. To my disappointment on Tuesday night a call came in from Logan High School, the teachers wanted 20 extra-large pizzas. The order was for the next night at 6:30. I was at my house Tuesday night when my coworker texted me to warn me about the big pizza order, since I had to work Wednesday night. There were only four people that were going to be working that night: my boss, his wife, his son, who is 13, and I. My boss and I were the only ones there with enough experience to complete the entire order. He had to make the pizzas, while I had to roll out the dough, take the pizzas out of the oven, and cut and wrap them to be sent to the teachers. My boss's son was trying to be helpful, by opening the boxes I had to place the pizzas in. In his attempt to help he ended up getting in my way. While cutting the pizzas I sprayed hot pizza sauce all over my hand. In the attempted to rinse off my hand I yelled at him to move. I felt bad, apologized and told him that I did not want him to burn himself too. The pizzas kept coming out of the oven, two at a time. The order had to be stacked on top of the oven. To make matters worse I did not have any room for the other orders we had received from other customers. As the final pizzas came out of the oven I had to start stacking the 20 pizza order next to the oven, because there was no more room on top. When our delivery driver came back, from his other deliveries, he was given the large order and had to take it to a shelter Myric Park. The rest of the night we did not have many orders. After I had everything cleaned up, put away, and the dish were done for the night I was able to check out at 9 o'clock.

Misunderstandings

When I am not at school or my house doing homework I am at work. I have worked at T-Jo’s Pizza and Sandwich Shop for almost four years. A lot of things seem to happen or go wrong in my work place. Recently there were two young girls hired, and being the most senior employee it was my job to train them and they both trained well. One of my jobs is rotating who does the dishes, sweeps the backroom or cleans the bathrooms. This list is made by seniority, and no one does the same thing for two consecutive work days. My jobs usually is to take the pizzas out of the oven, so I rarely do the dishes. On that week she did the dishes one day, and because she does not like to do the dishes, she thought the list was made that way because I do not like her. When that is not the case. The list need to be made again and I was not scheduled to work on that day. She asked the boss’s wife if she could make the list. The boss’s wife told her she could, but her son would help her. The next day upon looking at the list I discovered that I was to do the dish one day. I have no problem doing the dishes, it is just difficult to get away from the ovens to do them. When I asked who made the list, she told me and a fellow employee that it was the boss’s youngest son, he is 13, and my boss. We found out later that she had made the list and told my boss’s son that she did not feel like we like her. All of this could have been solved had she just come and talked with me, so I could explain that it has nothing to do with how I feel about a fellow employee, it is solely based on who has been there longer and who has more responsibility.