"You can do it. And we can help"
June 07, 2006 | 12:28 A.M.

I decided to go with a new design. I loved the other one because of its theme but it was hard for even myself to read it so I decided to change it. This one will probably be a work-in-progress but it's cleaner and easier to read to me for now.

I have been working on a massive update regard the weekend that we moved from Philly to the new apartment and my birthday weekend but it has been taking too long and there were too many other things that I wanted to post about. But I will work on finishing it up and posting it as soon as I can.

The new apartment is quite sweet! A balcony of the livingroom with a sliding glass door. One and a half bath. And what's better is both of our toilets work without clogging whereas the one in Philly couldn't pull even that off. And our shower ACTUALLY DRAINS! The dishwasher here actually works as well which is immensly great as well! Just found that out tonight as I washed our first load of dishes in it. We were still doing them by hand up until tonight but it was hard to keep up with our current schedules and the other stuff that we have to do around the apartment. The complex also has a pool but we've been a little too busy to take advantage of that as well. But we sure will before too long as I am sure that it will get way too hot to not use it. And Chad will be able to swim here for $5/day that he wants to swim here as well so that's pretty sweet. I can't wait to take pictures to post but there are many empty boxes from stuff that we have unpacked that I still have to break down and remove but they will come as soon we can get this place to the point where it's ready to be photographed. And oh yes, that reminds me...in the city we had to keep our trash in our apartment until that one night of the week (Wednesday nights) when we were allowed to put our trash out. So there'd be times where there are bags and bags of trash taking up room in the kitchen until the night that they could be taken out. We have dumpsters here which I can dump our trash off any time I freakin' want to! Hell yeah!

Well Chad describes the shit we're going through at our jobs. Which is the same exact job for the same exact company. New policy changes were made today which will seem to be the final straw for several of us working there. We were all thinking of finding other jobs..this lit a fire under our asses and I have a feeling that quite a few people will be leaving after this. Don't get me wrong..YES..I am making the second most at a job per hour that I've ever made. And I deeply appreciate whatever everyone has done to provide me with this opportunity. But there have been atleast 12 policy changes in the nearly two months that I have been there. And none of the reps from other companies, who do the same things that we do but in their own departments, have all of the restrictions we do. Now, thanks to today's changes, no matter how hot it gets out we will not be allowed to wear shorts. I went out and bought 2 pairs of shorts last night to prepare for the heat we'll be dealing with. The stores are incredibly dusty and they do not run the AC nearly enough and it becomes nearly unbearably warm in there and so many people, including customers, complain about the heat and humidity in the building itself. I've already been drinking atleast a 1.5 liter bottle of water per day (and generally it gets refilled and nearly finished a second time). All the reps from the other companies can wear shorts as can the actual Home Depot employees (although not ALL of them can) and yet our company suddenly won't let us only a short time after we were told that we could. There were other changes but they did not affect me..but the "no shorts" and the "your shirts must always be tucked in" changes are a huge pain to me. Sometimes keeping my shirt untucked is all that keeps me from passing out from the head/humidity in the building as I am running all over the department/store as well as climbling ladders repeatedly/hurriedly and lifting a lot. Pants and tucked in shirt will probably lead to a couple near-passing out experiences. Yummm lawsuit after I passout and get hurt.

I got home from work today and went to a pretty decent employment search site. I applied for 3 different lower management jobs in an attempt to keep roughly the same pay somewhere else as the money is now necessary to afford this apartment and what we'll be paying to do laundry and other stuff. One of those places is one of the other 7-11's in Lansdale. Yes, a glutton for punishment. But I was already a manager for one of their stores so I think that may give me a better shot. I also tried for an assistant manager position at the Boston Market in our town (their food is incredibly in my opinion) as well as (oh dear god help me) an hourly manager position at the McDonalds across the street from the Hess station where I had been working. Chad told me that our boss from Hess wants me back but I really need to earn more what I can make there. But it very well may be something to fall back upon if something that pays higher doesn't come along soon because I am not going to last here. And I think our company will be amazed by how many more people they are going to lose. Very good people. But as I explained before, we are literally on a sinking ship of a company and our friend that got us the job and has been with the company for JUST under 8 months is dying to get out as well.

Anyway... that's it for now. I must get some sleep. But I will post again and much more frequently as we're getting settled in here.

Have a great night!