carrieadnett's Xanga

Sunday, April 08, 2007

Sun, 08 Apr 2007 20:42:24 GMT

happy easter!

i figured i should probably get at least one post in before second semester finals set in and i lose interest in my extreme annoyance towards patrons of an unnamed coffee shop (this has been building up for a while). for the record, i do realize that my posts tend to rotate between annoyance at school and annoyance at work, but with my upcoming graduation, you will be happy to take note of the fact that i will forthwith be devoting all of my xanga-related energy (which we all know is a lot) towards annoyance at work. i hope you understand.

anyway, i don't actually have too much to say other than two quasi-forceful requests for starbucks customers that have recently become something of an issue at my specific non-disclosed location:

1) please do not ask me to price check things with my mind. please especially do not ask me to price check things with my mind when i am very clearly in the middle of making 18,000 drinks. just because i happen to be the employee who is physically closest to you when the question first comes to your mind does not mean it is okay to lean over the counter, make me stop whatever time-sensitive thing i'm doing, and then get exasperated when your drink isn't ready four seconds later. furthermore, 98% of the time that this happens, the price is freaking ON the merchandise. seriously, let me just use my specially-honed starbucks skills of LOOKING at the price tag for you. i mean, come on, go-go gadget flip the mug over, people.

2) i understand that while you're busy trying to find the price tag on merchandise you're not going to buy, it's easy to lose track of whether or not your drink has been prepared yet. now, listen very closely to my advice: if you're not sure if the drink on the bar is yours, the proper course of action is not, i repeat, is NOT to perform a taste test. if you're going to drink out of a random cup on the counter, then you'd better as hell be prepared to drink the whole damn thing, because making a face and telling me i need to remake yours and the one you just drank out of and oh-by-the-way-how-much-is-that-coffee-maker-on-display is not going to make me want to not spit in your drink.*

well i feel better. see, the trouble with keeping a journal that you're only motivated to write in when you're supremely pissed off, is that it makes you sound like you're a supremely pissed off person all of the time. and i'm not. i'm only a moderately pissed off person all of the time.

SIX WEEKS TO GRADUATION!!! (expect to hear from me when the final final exams hit...)

*i never do that.

Friday, December 15, 2006

Fri, 15 Dec 2006 00:36:33 GMT

ugh, finals.

if there were some sort of smiley face that has a nervous breakdown and passes out on the floor, i would so be pasting that in here right about...now. it's funny, because you'd think that by senior year i'd have figured out how to take a few tests without losing my cool (shut up, i had cool to begin with), but apparently i have made very little progress on that front. so far all i can say in my defense is "well at least i go outside sometimes." that seems like more of an accomplishment when you take into consideration the fact that freshman year i stayed inside for two full days and lived off of cheerios and anxiety. i'm not even kidding.

anyway, i would like to take this time to give a brief public service announcement/reality check to some of my fellow bc students. okay, when you're in the library during study days--nay, any days--and have two bookshelves between you and 18,000 people studying, YOU ARE NOT INVISIBLE. nor do the two bookshelves act like a sound barrier between you and other people--just because we can't see you does not mean that we can't hear every precious, bumbling moment of your whiny cell phone conversation. i swear, if i hear one more person answer his/her phone (and don't get me started on the ring tone) with "hello? oh nothing." 'OH NOTHING' MY ASS! you're in the library! it's not "oh nothing, i'm just in the library" it's "actually i'm in the library, and the disgruntled senior i can't see two bookshelves away is about to stab me in the jugular, can i call you back?"

::sigh::

how's that for christmas spirit? two more days and i can start doing fun things again, like going to work at 4:30 in the morning, and writing my 100 page thesis...

Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Wed, 29 Nov 2006 04:01:56 GMT

and now, the forces of no motivation and transatlantic nagging combine to bring you this abridged version of "what i did over thanksgiving break":

you know how when you go to the airport with your parents and 23-year-old sister and the lady checking you in asks to see id from "just the adults" of the group, and then when you laugh and reach for your wallet she says "no, really, only those over 18"? awesome, right? next time i'm gonna check in with a bottle of tequila and a sign that says "i bought this."

anyway, once we were through airporst security, we began/continued the arduous process that is driving to new hampshire to fly to detroit to fly to milwaukee to drive to madison. i think by doing it this way we saved about $20 per person. and it's a good thing, too, because we had to buy about that much in magazines per person to make it through the trip. at one point, our flight from detroit to milwaukee sat at the gate for 45 minutes while they replaced a seat cushion (you don't want to know why. no, really you don't. no, for real. okay, it was vomit. see? i told you you didn't want to know). i would have been all worked up about the waste of time, but what was i going to say, "come on, hurry up, you guys, i want to go to milwaukee"? even i don't believe that.

but negativity aside, thanksgiving was actually pretty fabulous. we got to meet up with 18+ of our relatives (which is actually a downsize for us); try out deep-fried turkey (just when you thought they couldn't make thanksgiving any more american); and finally meet my four-and-a-half-year-old second cousin (inventor of the game "killer pain"). all in all, a success. i'd elaborate more about it, but at this point i've been back for three days, and don't really remember much other than being strangled by a four-year-old in a neck tie (damn killer pain...).

Monday, October 23, 2006

Mon, 23 Oct 2006 16:54:40 GMT

can we talk about how i tried to quit my job yesterday and damn near came out with a promotion? what. the hell. how can anyone be THAT unsuccessful at quitting something? seriously, i started out all "i can't work past january," and before i knew it was promising to let my manager know when i'm home so he an get me signed up to move to freaking seattle or something. this is not good. and the worst part is that for the first time ever i know EXACTLY what i want to do in this situation (which is NOT to work at starbucks for the rest of my life) but i couldn't even tell him that. i mean, how exactly does one say "i'm sorry, but i can't even imagine how empty my life would be if i devoted it to a company whose greatest aspiration is to make a really swell cup of coffee" without indirectly implying that the manager who HAS devoted himself to the "swell coffee" cause leads an empty and meaningless life? that's just not a very nice thing to say to your boss. so instead i settled for very subtle and reserved hints implying i would never say yes (which, interestingly enough, isn't the same thing as saying no). this, in turn, posed the problem of being TOO subtle and reserved to get the point across to a guy i've only met about four times before.

i told him my degree wasn't in management.

he told me i didn't even need a degree.

i wanted to point out that that is just about the last thing he should tell someone who's worked her ass off for the last four years in college. it's not exactly gonna make me want to move to seattle or anything.

anyway, it went on like this (with him having an answer to each of my half-assed attempts to say no) WAY past the limits of my attention span, until it got to the point where i'm not entirely clear on what i've agreed to, but i'm pretty sure it involves someone else owning my soul for a while. i love those types of meetings.

Sunday, October 01, 2006

Sun, 01 Oct 2006 21:16:33 GMT

oh. my. God. that’s all i have to say about this weekend. well, that and the following time-consuming rant:

so we begin with me leaving my dorm AN HOUR before i had to be at north station yesterday. i walked to the bc bus stop to get to cleveland circle, so I can get on the d line, which would pretty much guarantee me to get to north station in about 20 minutes. except that the bc bus sucks ass. they were only running two busses on that route even though the football game had just gotten out and EVERYBODY AND THEIR MOTHER was trying to get to cleveland circle. so when the bus finally did come 15 minutes later, the driver mouthed at us “too full” and drove right on by. fuck. now i only have 45 minutes to get to north station, and no choice but to take the b line (it was right there) which is pretty much just as effective as walking. backwards. very, very slowly. so i’m sitting on the train just STARING at my watch, practically biting my fingers off (and i don’t even chew my nails), physically SHAKING over the stress. it was at about this time that i notice that the specific train i was on was only going to go as far as government center, so i was going to have to get off there and change trains. fantastic. i called my mom, who thought outside the box for me and told me to just run from government center to north station. okaaaay…that makes it slightly better. i started to calm down and actually think i could make it, until the train pulls into kenmore AND JUST STOPS. for NO reason. the conductor actually came on the intercom and said “hi folks, we’re just gonna sit here for a few minutes.” oh really? cuz i couldn’t tell. i’m so glad you were able to shed some light on the situation. jackass. anyway, so the t starts up again (after “a few minutes”) and i decide i can’t even wait as long as government center, so i jump off at park street and start SPRINTING to north station (look at a map if you really want to know), with my heavy-ass bookbag, and heinous running style. i had seven minutes to get to north station. i made it in seven minutes and thirty seconds. i honestly thought i was gonna cry.

see, i had to get the 5:30 train so that i could get to acton by 6:30, so i could take chester out, who had been home alone since 10am (we were pushing it as it was, to be honest). but now i’m stuck at north station, the next train isn’t going to leave until 7:30, which means i wouldn’t get home until closer to nine, which meant that i would effectively be leaving an 11-year-old dog home for ELEVEN HOURS (and cleaning up the not-so-fun results awaiting me on the carpet). again, shit. so i get on my phone and spend the next twenty minutes calling ANYONE i can think of who lives in/around acton (all of whom are now dead to me) trying to get someone to pick me up at alewife. nope. three no answers, one “i don’t have a car” and one “just plain no” later, i’m STILL at north station, and am now just painfully aware of the fact that i have no friends. and then the bruins game let out. so now i’m stampeded by about 20,000 drunk hockey fans who don’t understand the meaning of “personal space,” with nothing but the prospect of cleaning up dog pee to get me through. oh, and it was about this time that i started coughing up my lung. ever since i had that problem in london with the air pollution (if you don’t know what i’m talking about, just run with it), i can’t do things like spontaneously sprint a mile in cold weather without sounding like i have tuberculosis. it’s a great party trick. also, FABULOUS for crowded train stations.

anyway, so i finally get to south acton, and have to walk home from the train station (because God knows i don’t have any friends who could drive me anywhere). naturally, all of the street lights are out on high street, so i’m walking up in the pitch black light literally afraid for my life (honestly not using sarcasm there, folks). so i do the only thing i can think of, which is to turn on my cell phone on and hold it in front of me so the oncoming traffic can see me (or, you know…my cell phone). i kept hitting the enter button to keep the screen lit, which worked fantastically until i got to my driveway, and find out that i had somehow enter-buttoned my way onto the internet. ::sigh:: so there’s an extra $4.95 surcharge cap on the evening. just cuz. now the good news was that after all of that there was, in fact, no dog pee on the floor (i'm just as amazed by this as you are). i was too busy checking the carpets to pay attention to how fast chester was eating (neglection brings that out in him), so just when i was breathing a sigh of relief that i didn’t have to clean up his pee, he starts throwing up his entire dinner. and then wants me to feed him again. which i did, because I CAN’T SAY NO TO PEOPLE (/dogs) (which, ironically is why i was coming home in the first place—damn me and my love of brownie points).

so in conclusion, saturday just about made me want to cry (and who’s to say that i didn’t). the best part was that i got to get up nice and early on sunday because during the course of my whole crisis-at-the-train-station, someone from work called and asked me to open for him, which meant that i would have to show up three hours earlier than i would have for my original shift. luckily, stress and sleep don’t go together very well, so i was up bright and early at 3:30 this morning, and able to work a UNGODLY HECTIC 8 hour shift on about two hours of sleep. naturally, all of the irate customers decided to come in and give me a hard time because i happened to be working with all of the incompetent new hires who prefer when i do my job AND theirs.

so basically i am really, really close to quitting my job right now, which will go along great with the fact that i'm about to fail out of college since i have two impossible midterms this week and i got ABSOLUTELY NO studying done this weekend (other than taking my books for a run on saturday) since NOBODY WOULD PICK ME UP AT THE TRAIN STATION and THE MBTA IS A GIANT, FLAMING DICK ON WHEELS.

Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Wed, 27 Sep 2006 20:58:43 GMT

so i was replaying one of my old german presentations in my head (no wonder i can't fit anything else up there), and it got me thinking about the time my german professor asked me to explain how to make mashed potatoes (stop me if you've heard this one before). it was one of those ridiculous tasks that forces you to use vocabulary you don't know and sentence structures that actual german people can't even figure out. anyway, in my attempt to get the exercise over with as quickly as possible (and also because i didn't know the verb "to peel") i neglected to put in the step about peeling the damn things (i basically went from potatoes to mashing in 60 seconds). my german professor gave me a really odd look, and asked "you don't peel the potatoes?" which for some reason i decided to respond to with "no. it tastes better that way," as if causing her to think i left that step out on purpose would get me an a (totally plausible). but my point is, i was the ONLY american in that class, and my "not where i come from" answer was TOTALLY accepted without any questions or follow-up discussions. it was awesome. and that would so never happen over here. so this got me thinking all nostalgically (as hindsight often makes me do) about my german class last year, and the crazy projects that it entailed. i eventually was able to track down the video copies of my web presentations on my hard drive (no wonder i can't fit anything else in there), which i then watched repeatedly. all because i let my mind wander while typing up study notes. it is now two hours later, and i am STILL not working, but TYPING about how i was not working earlier this afternoon. excellent. maybe later i'll meditate on the typing of the not working, and then try to find a video that pertains to something of that genre...

please can i just graduate now?

Monday, September 18, 2006

Mon, 18 Sep 2006 02:30:18 GMT

wow, okay, can i just say that the best part about working in retail is that EVERY other thing i do (ever) always seems so much better just because it's...not...working in retail.--and thus beginnith my (actually requested and totally not inspired by julie) rant on starbucks customers.

we begin with bob*. bob and cindy*. bob and cindy have been regular customers at our store for quite some time now, which always perplexes me, because bob and cindy HATE our store. bob and cindy also feel the need to remind me of the fact that they hate our store every time they come in. which is every day. thanks bob and cindy, we appreciate your business. my favorite part was when they came in on saturday, ordered some drinks, and then asked if we had chocolate brownies. i replied that unfortunately all we had was the mint chocolate brownies today, sorry. cindy got upset, said that we NEVER have the regular chocolate brownies, and then asked bob (super-audibly) if he wanted to "just go to concord." bob thought that was a good idea, so the two of them tried to guilt us by saying "you know what? just forget it. we're gonna to the concord store." ooooo-ooooooh. boy did they show us. it's a good thing i have NOTHING to do with the pastry order, or else i would stay up all night crying about how they went and took perfectly good starbucks business and brought it to...another store in the same corporation. boy did they show us. but wait, it gets better. bob and cindy showed up bright and early the next morning, ordered some drinks, and asked me for a chocolate brownie. i informed them that we, unfortunately, only had the mint brownies. bob heaved a sigh of the underprivelaged, and asked me (pretty snippishly) if anyone ever bought mint brownies. if by "anyone" he meant "him" then no, no anyone does not buy them. anyone shows up and complains about them to the 21-year-old college kid who really has no control (or interest) over the brownie situation. so shut the fuck up, bob. of course what i really said was "yeah, actually they're one of our best sellers." so there.

my next favorite person is tony*. tony is nuts--no really. he comes in on a semi-regular basis and gets a pretty memorable drink, which really isn't half as complicated as he thinks it is. this might be a good time to point out to ALL starbucks customers that no matter how "difficult" your drink is, a) we've probably made it about 857 times before and b) we do this for a living, people. so please, do not talk down to your barista like she's not going to be able to figure out how to make that decaf unless you repeat it four times reeeeeaaaaaaalllllyyyyy sssssllllloooooowwwwwwllllllyyyyyy, and then double-check twice more before you leave (because even though we say "here's your decaf latte" we might STILL have forgotten to make it decaf. better tell us one more time). anyway, yeah, so tony. tony comes in all difficult-like, IGNORES the fact that i'm asking him if he wants his drink made with almond and coconut (which he does), and procedes to repeat over and over again to the person at the register "you better finish what you're doing first. you better finish what you're doing. you need to concentrate for mine." (sidenote: what the register employee was doing was handing someone else a receipt. clearly she was unable to take other orders while still holding a peice of paper from a previous transaction). tony finally gets up to the register, has our undivided attention, and describes his drink (which i've made for him about eight times before) in painstaking detail, like i'm supposed to be surprised by each modification. it took all of my self-restraint to not say "so you want it how i asked you TWENTY minutes ago?"

and lastly we have janine*. janine comes in today, clearly a starbucks customer with a patented starbucks card, and asks for two large lattes. i tell the barista to make "two venti lattes." janine gets mad. she tells me that's not what she wants. i explain that venti IS our large (so far, this is pretty much a conversation that happens 6 1/2 times a day), but she wants to see our sizes. so i show her the cups, and she decides what she actually wants is a medium latte and a large latte (which would make it HER fault that we didn't get it right the first time, but who's counting). anyway, i'm still willing to treat this as a positive transaction, but then janine feels the need to add: "i'm one of those customers who refuses to learn your stupid names because they're so OBNOXIOUS." well that's great janine. am i going to have to go into the whole "just a college student who has nothing to do major corporate decisions, recipes, or product names" spiel again? because i really don't want to. plus, if you find our store so unbelievably "OBNOXIOUS," then why the hell do you keep coming back? why? is it so that you can TELL us we're obnoxious? because that's not cool. not cool, janine.

so there you have it. the three people who decided to show up and give me a hard time within quick succession of each other, and who are now providing the anger that will fuel my studying for the next two hours. thanks, guys.

*names are just wild guesses based on hair type.

Monday, September 11, 2006

Mon, 11 Sep 2006 02:26:45 GMT

boy, if i had a nickel for every time i’ve accidentally thought my credit card was stolen and sent angry letters to people in high places before i realize i’m just a confused, hyper-sensitive shopper who really should just keep her receipts, i’d have...whew, fifteen cents at least. for real, the next time you see me angrily typing up a “why did you charge me” email, please just whack me upside the head and tell me to think harder. this is getting to be embarrassing.

anyway, false accusations aside i’ve actually been quite busy settling into the life of a boston college senior-who-only-takes-four-classes-one-of-which-is-really-a-thesis-and-doesn’t-include-class-time-of-any-sort. life is hard. adrienne and i even took time out of our busy schedules (see, i say this all jokingly, but i should mention that while i don’t spend very much time in class, i do still spend a disproportionate amount of time WORRYING about class, so really it all works out in the end) to go to a free movie screening of zach braff’s simply fabulous new movie in boston (see, I say this all jokingly, but I should mention that it was a pretty good movie, and mr. braff himself made a simply fabulous appearance at the theatre ). the best part was when i sat down next to a girl who had just been forced to give up the seats she was saving for her friends by a power-crazed usher and some rabble-rousing teenagers. now by some strange and unfortunate turn of events, i actually ended up sitting IN one of the seats she gave up, BETWEEN her and the rabble-rousers. so basically i feared for my life. as soon as the usher left, the girl leaned over me to hiss at the other girls on my right “i just want to know—why did you all have to be such bitches about that?! what did i ever do to you?!” the other girls gave some half-assed, “just trying to be fair” answer, so anger-management mcgee over on my left flipped open her phone, called her friends and—i’m not making this up—made plans for beating up the teeny boppers after the film. she may or may not have been kidding, but i gotta tell ya, sitting next to her in a dark movie theatre for the next two hours was just loads of fun.

my other big event for the week was actually going to the football game yesterday (yes, inside the stadium and everything). i even pregamed at the mods (designated 21+ senior only trailer park-type dorms), where it is an unwritten rule that every guy must walk around with a can of beer in one hand and a burger-flipper in the other starting at 10am on game days. it’s kinda cute. anyway, the game was just about as exciting as any other football game that i’ve watched...unfortunately, i had to leave during halftime to emergency bake some cookies, so alas...i didn’t see the “good” part. i guess when i go to my next game in four years, i’ll have to stay for the whole thing.

until then, i’m gonna go eat some cookies.

Wednesday, August 02, 2006

Wed, 02 Aug 2006 21:34:38 GMT

remember when i lived in london and was somehow able to come up with something new and exciting to talk about each week? those were good times. i've been home for a month now, and all of my stories involve someone passing out in the bathroom or choking at the red sox game (sidenote: if you see someone choking, please for the love of pete do not run around yelling "oh my God he's choking, does anyone know cpr?!" because a) cpr is SO not what you need right now, and b) if the guy who was choking heard you say that, it'd probably just freak him out more ("why, do you think i'll need cpr?!"). plus, 'heimlich' is way more fun to say). but yeah...both choking man and bathroom guy were okay, in case you were wondering.

anyway, between being a bad luck charm and watching tv with my dog, the month of july just flew on by. pretty soon it's going to be september and i'm going to have to move back to bc and figure out what the hell i'm going to do with my life/start my senior thesis. watching tv with chester is starting to look pretty good about now.

right, well i wasn't kidding about the "not much to talk about" thing...to be honest i only updated because helen has been on my case about it, and i like to set a good example for the youngin's. maybe next time i'll open up the pandora's box that is ranting about starbucks customers, but in the meantime, i have a date with my dog...

Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Tue, 27 Jun 2006 16:33:39 GMT

i wanna quit the bank. i think i might have done it, but to be honest, i'm really not sure. i went in there today and spent about four hours waiting in line (well, technically it was a "queue"); telling various people that i wanted to close my account; fighting with their "you might want to move back here someday" reasoning; and generally wishing that i'd brought a book. in the end they confiscated my atm ("cashpoint") cards--so i can say goodbye to THAT part of my scrapbook--and gave me the £3.67 that was left in the account, which i promptly marched across the street and used to buy a latte. that wasn't even made correctly. it was not a good day. i mean, i didn't really have much use for my account BEFORE they took the cards and zeroed the balance, so now what am i supposed to do with it what with my no way to access it and living 3,000 miles away from the nearest branch? i was going to ask one of THEM that, but i think that would have required another queue, and i really didn't have it in me.

in other news, why is it that all of the really challenged tourists seem to be american? we were in the sherlock holmes museum yesterday, which is confusingly designed to look like holmes' "original" appartment at his "real" address on baker street. when you first walk in, there's this guy dressed up as sherlock holmes who welcomes you to "his house" and points out some of the exhibits. now this is where it gets a little tricky. it's easy enough to figure out that this guy isn't ACTUALLY sherlock holmes, but how much of the museum is made up of sherlock's personal belongings? luckily there was a confused american tourist there to spend the better part of fifteen minutes gesturing to different chairs and props, saying "now is this the original, or a recreation?" each time, he seemed slightly dissapointed when "sherlock" informed him that it was not, in fact, the original sofa sherlock holmes used to sit on. it got to the point where i almost said something to the guy along the lines of "they keep all of his REAL furniture locked up under whitehall along with elizabeth bennett's wardrobe, and harry potter's magical wand," but then the guy moved on to the next exhibit and looked a little too depressed to find out that sherlock holmes had been "addicted to cocaine" for me to mock him. in person, i mean. i'm not above mocking him in general.

anyway, i definitely saw some other tourists that made me come up with this broad overgeneralization in the first place, but i have since forgotten any and all details of their incompetence, so...

four days until i move back to america for good. five days until i alienate all of my friends by talking about england too much, and six days until i start wishing i had a british bank account to make moving back here a little easier. ::sigh:: ten months goes by too quickly.