Saturday, December 11, 2010

Wellll, today was probably the single best day ever. It began with a bit of a hangover and an early work shift, which is sort of alright, I suppose, but when I did get into work, I was greeted by my manager, who watched me open the doors AT 10 (we open at 10am, and I’m supposed to be there a bit early, but…well…I wasn’t) and proceeded to simply stand about, watching me scramble around the store with a limp from messing up my ankle the night prior, for THREE HOURS. Now, I’m not saying that I was completely devoid of blame, as getting there late was 100% my fault, but I was helping between 2 and 6 customers at a time for the entire duration of those three hours, and trying to turn machines on, run jobs, and change into my uniform at the same time, and through all of this, not ONE customer was helped by him. Not one. That is unacceptable behavior, as far as I am concerned, because regardless of my lack of punctuality, the customers still need to be treated as our absolute number 1 priority, and he was already there, and is paid a salary, so it’s not as if he had to clock in or influence our payroll budget at all by greeting people or making copies.

Anyway, after all of that madness, I decided that enough was enough, and that my time at my job was coming to an end, so I wrote my letter of resignation. I have never quit a job before, at least not one that mattered at all, and the whole thing began as somewhat terrifying, and became rather exhilarating as I realized that in the coming months and years, my life would continue without any of the bitterness or resentment I’d been developing towards weekends (those are the only shifts I work as of right now). I was in a rather good mood, which did WONDERS for the Improv show I had to perform in immediately after work with members of Nuthouse in Pullman, as well as guests from GUTS, a Theater sports-style group from Gonzaga University. The cast included 10 people, and they were all incredible. The show was not perfect by any means, but it was certainly the most fun and most energetic one I’d done in quite some time, which led to a pretty fantastic experience from the audience, if their applause and cheers were any indicator.

After the show, I went back to Moscow, met up with some guys from the house for a few minutes, to celebrate one of them graduating, as well as the end of my 5 years of working, but I was very quickly regretting my decision to not go to the show’s after-party in Pullman. So, I called up one of the guys from the show, we got in my car, and we went. This…was a fantastic decision. Saw all of the Nuthouse players from the evening there, as well as some of the members of the audience, who could not stop talking about how great the show was, and how White Tie and GUTS were so new and exciting for them to watch, which made me feel pretty good about things. Also met a girl who OPENED our conversation like so:

Girl: “You’re Richard, from White Tie, right?”

Me: “Umm….yes….?”

Girl: “I just want you to know, I could listen to your voice all night long.”

Between that and the night prior, my confidence has never been higher. Ever. After discovering much later that she has a boyfriend of 3 years, I found new people to chat with. I met one girl who swore like a sailor, drank like a fish, and had a wit like a razor. I was in love. Ended up swapping stories and bullshitting with her and whoever else happened to come into the room for a couple of hours, and made a ton of new friends. Went home, and slept the best sleep I’ve had in as long as I can remember.

Like I said, best day ever.

QOTD:

"If you like a man's laugh before you know anything of him, you may say with confidence that he is a good man."
-Fyodor Dostoevsky

PS - http://www.youtube.com/user/GUTheaterSports#p/u/15/b-VG7CRIZY0 for the show! Found it on youtube!