This is disturbing

A friend sent me this and I wanted to share. It is disturbing. It is a video detailing a rally by the National Socialist Movement. It is scary to think that there are people out there who believe in this, who are so narrow-minded. Anyway, here's the LINK.

EDIT: The first few frames of the video are in Hebrew. Sorry, I can't tell you what it says, as I don't know any. Just be patient through that part.

Pics

Dixie, the Red-Lored Amazon.





















The piggies' new cage! That's Montgomery you see. He's thinking about stealing Mortimer's carrot. Mortimer is hiding behind the ramp. Yesterday Monty went and explored the second level! Yay!! Of course, I help encourage that by putting the greens up there!

weekendy stuff

So, Friday the DM came in and we talked about the "plans" for Ann Arbor and Laurel Park. I'm still not satisfied with the answers, but we'll see how everything plays out. Two of her reasons for giving LP to Dominique instead of me are BS, in my opinion: 1) Dom wanted out of Ann Arbor, it's too far for her to drive; and 2) I'm not organized enough. 1) Wah. Wah. Fucking Wah. I drove from Farmington Hills to A2 the first 6 months I started working here. Don't like the drive? Then you shouldn't have accepted a position in Ann Arbor. Suck it up. Or move. 2) Ok, those of you who know me personally, say, yeah, Naarah's not all that organized. That's true. At home, I'm a mess. But when it comes to work, I'm very organized. I have a calendar for work, a folder for all my work stuff at home (which I carry with me), and at work everything has a place. If I find something out of place, I find out who didn't put it back and give them hell. She used the backroom as an example: that it's better, but there's still stuff on the table. She didn't have anything to say to me, though, after I explained to her that stuff on the table were training materials and photography magazines. So :-P As Dustin said, if you want me to be more organized, buy me a desk!
Ok, so what about your store, Naarah? Well, the lease is up in November! Fuckin' A! That soon. Shit. She's been told that we're looking at moving to the ArborLand area. Ok, that could be good, that could suck donkey balls.

Good:
-Potentially high traffic.
-A move means a Frontier (digital lab).
-A move to a higher traffic area may mean higher levels and more cameras.
-The store won't close and we won't all be out of jobs.

Bad:
-Where exactly in the ArborLand area? In ArborLand? By Whole Foods? Where? Because if it's across the street, then you can cross it off your list now! Unh-uh! No way. Across the street are ghetto stores! It would suck to be there! We'd be better off sticking it out where we are now and see how traffic improves once the changes to our center are made!
-Adray and Circuit City would be immediate competition! Ok, so we've got CC beat on knowledge and Adray beat on customer service, but they've both got my store beat on selection. So, unless you make my store a mini-ultra and make sure I have all the stock, fuggedaboutit.
-Moving in November would suck donkey balls. Right during the Christmas rush. Oy. Now that'll be fun.

So, that was Friday.

Saturday, Rob and I were considering going to the jewelry show in Novi and taking my mom. However, mom's latest medications were making her the bitch from hell (even she admitted to picking unnecessary fights and being unreasonable!). And Rob and I really wanted nothing to do with that. Besides, she didn't feel like going. So, we didn't! Ok, so I missed out on getting some jewelry. Eh. The show will be around again. Rob and I had a nice, relaxing day. We went to the Ann Arbor farmer's market and got lots of fresh goodies: organic greens and carrots (for the piggies), snow peas, shelling peas, strawberries (the real kind of strawberries, not the overgrown, on-steroids kind from the supermarket), and some lamb (yup, they have meat there too). Rob has decided he wants to be a "Greek vegetarian:" eating fish and lamb.* ;) Then we had pizza and gelato for lunch, came home and relaxed. It was nice. Later that evening we built the piggie's larger cage and watched In Good Company.

Sunday was a bit more hectic. We went up to Grand Rapids for a bird trade for my mother. 16 lovebirds for a red-lored Amazon. All I can say is hallelujah! Less lovebirds. The Amazon's name is Dixie, and she's very sweet. We stopped and got a carry-out of Pietros to take home. The. Best. Italian. Food. Ever. By the time we got home it was 9:00 and we were exhausted.

*Reference from My Big Fat Greek Wedding.

PARTY!

Hey everyone! Come celebrate with me and Tammy on July 8th! We're celebrating our birthdays! I'm not ashamed to say I'll be 29 (for the FIRST time, thank you very much!)

Place: Tammy's
Time: 2:00ish -- until everyone leaves and/or gets kicked out

There'll be friends, food, alcohol, and fun! If there's sun, we might even put the volleyball net up!

Please join us!

(Maps and directions will be forthcoming via e-mail)

Monday, Bleh!

This past week has just been one big fat reminder as to why I hated managing for Ritz Camera in the first place. I got a "bonus" for reaching store goals last month, but you'd never know it by looking at my check. You see, they pay us such crap that they had to set up a "guaranteed rate" for all managers. This only affects managers who make below a certain amount. Me, being in one of Ritz's shit stores (we're like the black foster child -- nobody wants us, nobody gives a fuck about us. I know that is sooooooo not politically correct. But we are way beyond being the red-headed stepchild!), I make below this amount. So, they add money to each paycheck to guarantee that I'm at their "minimum." The problem with this is that this money is a loan. Yup. So, when I make a bonus, like I did for May, I have to pay Ritz back. So, my bonus goes bye-bye. If they have to keep "loaning" me money, then at the end of the year, they'll just take it all back out of my Christmas bonus. Mother-fuckers. I think that they want to guarantee our rates is great (but in my opinion, it should be a hell of a lot more than it is!). But don't rape my bonuses! How fucking hard is it to pay us what we're worth?!? Hell, half of what we're worth. It's still more than you're paying us! This is one reason I'm livid about the Laurel Park store. I'd be making enough there that this rapage of my paychecks wouldn't happen. Our pay is partially based on our sales (commissions) and the money the store brings in. Laurel Park is a high-traffic store that has more product than my store! I'd be making more money! I wouldn't have to drive around with no air conditioning in my car because I can't afford $200 to fix it! Want to know what to give me for my birthday? Money. I need to fix my car. Feh. And now I have to go and get dressed and drag my miserable ass to my miserable job.

In the news....

The Ann Arbor News recently did an article on how the Cranbrook Village Shopping Center (where my store is located) has, well, died, and how the loss of Mervyn's is affecting the retailers left there. If anyone is interested, here it is. If the plans go through for the center -- a bookstore, rumored to be Borders, and a speciality grocer -- then the center has a chance. Right now, though, it has a 50% occupency. Most of our business is destination traffic. We don't get a lot of browsers or potential traffic. There's no reason to come to the center -- there's no stores. I'll believe it all when I see it. Mervyn's has been closed for 5 months and there's no activity going on at the other end of the center. So we'll see.

Wicked

Yesterday a whole big group of us (me, Rob, Joel, Barry, Mel, Shannon, Tammy, and Paul) went to see Wicked at the Masonic Temple. I really enjoyed it. It was a HUGE rewrite of the book by Gregory Maquire (which, if you haven't read yet, I so extremely, highly recommend doing so!) When I first heard that they were turning the book into a musical, I couldn't see how. The book is so dark. And musicals, by their very nature, are not. So, they gave it a makeover. And surprisingly, I'm ok with it. It worked. We had an understudy in the main lead, Elphaba (aka "The Wicked Witch of the West") and she was amazing! If only I had such a voice! Wow. My review is a big thumbs up. If you can still get tickets, go see it.

Bend over and prepare to get fucked!

So, today was a manager's meeting. Here's how it went:

Al, the store manager of Michigan's only ultra store is moving. Clarence, the manager of the Laurel Park store is taking over his store. Oh? Really? Then who is taking Laurel Park? Dominique. What? What the Fuck? Excuse me mother-fucker? That's right folks, you heard it, just hours after I heard it for the first time. Our delightful DM did not bother to tell any of us that 1) the biggest mother-fucking Ritz in the state has an opening for a manager and that 2) a high-traffic mall store has an opening for a manager. No, her current managers were not given the option to bid on a bigger, better store. No, she made her choice like an elitist country club and fucked us over.