penguinpride

I’m wrapping up my time at Chick-fil-A. I’ll hopefully make it through the rest of the summer, then come back over winter break. But that will be the end. I’m done with CFA. It is a dead end job.

I’m not going to get another raise. I’m never going to be a team leader. I have accepted these as facts, just like I readily accepted the fact that I would never see my dad’s new SUV anymore, because last night he crashed it.

I wish the managers would be straight with me. Instead, they say nice things to make me shut up and I never know what’s going on. For example, Brian said he’d “think about” making me a team leader. This means no. Also, Jen told me that I should be a team leader, because I had so many good qualities. She also breezed over a few minor things I could do to improve her performance, but I left that meeting thinking it was a done deal. Turns out, she knew I wasn’t going to be a team leader anytime soon. I took a look at my file and she wrote “Needs improvement to become a team leader.”

I feel bad now for siding with her when she got in fights with Tina. It turns out Tina was right all along. Maybe I just find Tina a better manager now due to my new attitude towards work. Now that I’m not busting my ass anymore, Tina’s approach has really looked good. Jen very rarely talks “bad” about customers; Tina does it all the time. I put “bad” in quotations because if the customers weren’t to retarded to begin with, we wouldn’t have anything bad to say.

Interestingly, talking “bad” about customers was one of the three “areas of improvement” Jen told me about. So this is one of the reasons I can’t be a team leader? Oh I forgot, only everyone else is allowed to do that. For me, it’s just unacceptable. (The other two things were sarcasm and “lack of a sense of urgency.” WTF @ the last one BTW.)

This is one of the reasons I have come to the conclusion that they weren’t going to make me a team leader even if I weren’t going back to school next month. The fact that they listed “talking bad” as one of my improvement areas means they were scratching the bottom of the barrel to find reasons I shouldn’t be TL.

Another reason is that even me going to school isn’t a totally valid reason. They promoted Megan, Sean, and Brian Wain shortly before they left, why couldn’t they have promoted me?

Last Sunday (obviously not this past Sunday, the one before that) I hung out with Randy all day. Randy is another fellow who has been unfairly treated by the management. There’s really no reason he shouldn’t be a team leader. He’s only worked at Burger King for a month now (as a second job) and they have already reccommended him to the manager program. I asked Jen (back when we were cool) why he isn’t a team leader, and she told me it was something about attitude and how nobody would reaspect him. I had accepted that answer, but now I realize it was just bullshit.

Just like when I asked Brian for a raise, he told me no because he wanted to “preserve the structure of things.” The structure of things where people who can’t even work drive-thru yet make more than I do. Me, his best DT register and headset.

The lesson learned is to not be naive. Maybe if my mom hadn’t kept me in a box until I was old enough to move out, I would have known that perception is everything. What the fuck does that mean? Well it means that you can’t expect to work hard and get promoted. You also have to do a tremendous amount of sucking up. If you need an example just look at the two extremes. The reason Randy isn’t a TL is because the managers don’t like him. His file was almost an entire page full of managers nit-picking at every little thing over 2 1/2 years. Randy has spent 2 1/2 years trying to show that with hard work, anyone can rise up. This is totally false. It’s all about perception. Kyle Hunter, for example. Worked at CFA for 6 months. Promoted. Why? Because the managers (mainly Nick, Eric, and Tina) love him. He doesn’t do much work. He actually hardly ever works. When he is at work, he usually just talks. In the old days (back around the time when I started) this would have meant that Rohan would have been a TL for sure.

This week I worked 49.5 hours. Brian Smith is probably going to yell at me when I finds out. I will feel bad if I tell him that when I asked Tina if I should talk to Brian about my excessive overtime hours, she said no. I like Tina. That’s something I would have never dreamed of saying a year and a half ago.

Lately, a lot of the old people are dropping away. Amelya got fired last week. Drew quit. Colleen tried to quit and got fired. Megan Bristow put in her 2 weeks notice.

I can’t help comparing CFA to PoFo. The mods are just the TL’s though, and the admins are the managers. The difference is, on PoFo, I eventually became a mod (after 2 years).

Can I take lessons from this situation? Absolutely. At my next job that I will get next spring/summer, I will definitely suck up a lot more. I want management experience.

Today, I worked 8am-10:30pm. Fourteen and a half hours. After I got off, I talked to Tim in the parking lot. He’s a really cool guy. I think he might be my favorite person to work with, now that Megan’s a TL (plus she’s leaving soon). We stayed until 1:30. That was insanity. But we did get to discuss how much CFA sucks, how much ornery customers suck, who the hot girls are at work, and Guitar Hero. I believe he is slightly better than me. He can’t play the intro to “Through the Fire and Flames” but at least he can finish the song after that part. I can do the intro but fail at Herman’s solo. Plus, he can beat Raining Blood on expert. I still can’t beat it on hard.   :(

So work sucks. But I like money, so I spend much of my life at Chick-fil-A.

So I am well aware that the old Free After 5 website no longer works. This might explain why I HAVE HAD THE SIDE LINK UPDATED FOR THREE MONTHS, ASSHATS.

Sorry, that part was just for the people who have been e-mailing me about FA5. John Dandrea’s new site is right here. It’s much better than the old one, in my opinion.

So I was deleting old crap off my computer and came across some old football predictions from 3 years ago. Thought I’d post them. Basically they’re all here. Apparently I was a great blogger then, but slacked off last year. Some rather important/pivitol days last spring have no mention at all.

April 11 – Schweffy cheats on me

April 14 – Schweffy tells me she cheated on me, we break up (why the HELL is that not on there at all?!)

April 21 – Schweffy and I get back together. Mistake.

May 11 – We break up for good. I talk about the weather.

In any case I’m WELL over her. She doesn’t even talk to me anymore. All my texts go unanswered…sounds like last summer. Except this time I don’t have to put up with the bullshit because I’ve got Kait.

And apparantly Maggie thinks I should be thanking her for setting us up!! HAHAHA

In other news, my roommate pwned his hand on my closet door.

But wait. There’s more. Check out my dad’s new website at http://www.johndandrea.com/. Do it now. And try not to get creeped out.

Almost Christmas! I’d say I’m mostly ready for it. I’ve finished buying gifts and wrapping and such.

But we won’t have any present-opening until Saturday. This is stupid, my dad’s basically forcing us all to wait until Saturday to open presents just so his girlfriend can open with us. I’d personally rather open gifts tomorrow with my actual mom. But whatever…

Me and my dad had an argument/debate today about the direction of America. Of all the retarded things to argue about right before Christmas. Basically he’s obsessed with Chuck Norris’ new book Black Belt Patriotism, which says America needs to go back to the way “the founders intended” (as if Chuck Norris were the expert on our Founding Fathers), which apparently includes reinstituting prayer in schools and other “Christian” values. Basically chucking separation of church and state out the window.

This coming from my dad, who voted for Obama last month. Now he’s a huge reactionary out of nowhere. The man’s confused.

In other news, I took the 43things personality quiz today:

I took the 43 Things Personality Quiz and found out I’m a Self-Improving Extroverted Builder

So I turned 18 today. Woo happy birthday to me!

To demonstrate how cool I am, I created this chart which shows normal, boring parties vs. my party.

All it really means to me is that I can do everything I’ve been doing for the past 5 years legally. Woo Hoo.  A few days ago I was turned out of a cigar shop. Now I can return and spit upon the man. I will spit on him, using my spit. It’ll be some good spit too. I’ll drink lots of lemonade so that gross lemony-stringy stuff stays in my throat and I’ll spit that at him.

In other news, I no longer live with my mother. I took advantage of the fact that the portion of the custody agreement pertaining to me is null and void to promptly move into my dad’s house. Also this week: I shall apply for a loan. Hopefully I can get a car very soonly!

I had three things I’ve wanted so badly for a long time:

1. Internet access: unlimited, unrestricted.
2. A laptop, with Internet access and a webcam.
3. A car.

Well today I moved into my dad’s house, where there is, in fact, Internet access, both unlimited AND unrestricted. WOW. Don’t even tell me that you’ve had this since you were like six years old. Just shut up and stop raining on my parade. kthxbai

As for number 2, my laptop, that was a graduation present from my dad.  :)     Which I got today. And now I might finally be able to get my car!!   :D

O also one last thing. I made my first lol today… it’s pretty awesome I know, I know:

My dad has apparently seen it unfit to continue through his musical career past this point as a mere solo artist; he has now appointed himself the sole member of a snazzy new band.

Songs? Of the same quality. Well, that’s my opinion. Perhaps you’ll like them? Check it out: Free After 5