Sick. And Tired. And did I mention sick?

Is this work week over yet?


I'm exhausted despite the fact I've only worked 14 hours thus far (12 of em yesterday).

I'm catching whatever the boyfriend has that's making him hack his brains out because I have a ridiculous sore throat and half-assed stuffy nose, which is sapping my energy and not making today (another 12 hour day) any easier.

Also making this week le suck is having to enter orders for a home we start servicing officially on the 1st. Normally, I'd be thrilled to death that the boss essentially said "fuck admissions, the homes can hand write them", but the alternative is so mind numbingly repetitive that it makes no difference. Now, with the exception of Rhode Island, which demands we do admissions for them, I have to enter the same 12 orders for the next 10 friggin hours. Kill me now please.

All I want to do is go home and curl up in bed and take a nap...and all I'm gonna do when I do finally get home at 9:00 tonight is curl up in bed and pass the eff out.

Seriously, some days I would rather get beat on by the deranged elderly again rather than this crap...at least in patient care there is never a dull moment.

My Favorite Holiday Drink

Actual pic of my first one of the season.

Starbucks White Peppermint Mocha. I know it's absolutely god awful for you, and blame Starbucks' corporate saturation, but it is not the holiday season to me until I have one of these.

Hey Walgreens, SUCK IT.

Blizzard conditions: Guess what, Walgreens was open.

As I wrote yesterday, this area was being pounded with a blizzard last night. I also briefly mentioned how Walgreens would not close their store even if nuclear holocaust were happening, and unsurprisingly, they stayed open until the normally scheduled closing time of 10pm in the blizzard.

The boyfriend reports they had maybe a whole 10 customers all evening and easily spent more paying to staff the store than they took in through sales. Every other surrounding business closed by 8:00pm. NOT WALGREENS. Even in spite of the Governor issuing a statement for people to stay home unless it was a dire emergency (and the operations of a Walgreens do not constitute an emergency...you are not a hospital, nursing home, fire department, police department, or ambulance service)


When the store closed, we were experiencing probably some of the most brutal parts of the storm. The boyfriend decided to be nice and bring one of his coworkers home because even though she lives less than a quarter mile away, who wants to let someone walk home in shin-deep snow and nearly hurricane-force wind gusts? As per usual, the city of Torrington did a less than spectacular job plowing, and the road this girl lives on was unplowed (When I lived in Torrington, I lived on a dead-end road and we saw a plow once during any snow event...whether it be 2 inches or 2 feet, and we were always one of the last to be plowed) as they usually neglect to do to barely trafficked side-roads, and after he dropped her off, he got stuck. He called 911, and they came to help. They called AAA and the local tow company that would respond was closed due to the holiday. The next closest company that accepts AAA was 15 miles away in Watertown and they refused to come because of the distance and conditions. Newsflash: When AAA refuses to help, you're pretty much shit out of luck. The police offered to send a non-AAA tow truck, but he didn't have the money to pay them so he told them "Don't bother, I'll dig myself out", which he did, after having to knock on doors at nearly midnight to solicit a shovel.

When he finally got home, the boyfriend was cold, shivering and pissed off beyond words. He wanted to call the corporate compliance line, but I stole the phone out of his hand because the poor sap stuck staffing this thing was going to get an earful of profanities otherwise. I basically told the chick who answered that I was not complaining about the store in particular, but I wanted the complaint routed to whomever handles the decision of closing the store in lousy weather. I told her what happened and I told her that last night, the company demonstrated that they are more interested in the almighty freakin dollar than their employees' personal safety.

This morning with the roads still atrocious, our driveway still buried, and the boyfriend still absolutely pissed about last night's ordeal called his store this morning and told his boss that he was not going to be in this afternoon. His boss got angry and told him very condescendingly that "I drove 40 miles to get here, you have no excuse to not be here this afternoon" and how it's unacceptable he was trying to call out. Correct me if I'm wrong, but if you manage a store, wouldn't you appreciate an employee calling out with sufficient advance notice for you to locate a replacement if need be, rather than calling out a half-hour before he's supposed to be there? Not this jerk. Newsflash: Nobody cares if you were dumb enough to brave the poorly plowed roads and drive 40 miles. If your employee does not feel safe coming to work in crappy conditions, who the hell are you to tell him too bad? It's not even like the boyfriend routinely calls out. He calls out once in a blue moon, and even if he's legitimately sick, this asshole manager still gives him a hard time and tells him he has to come in, while other people can call out at least once a week for less than legitimate reasons and still keep their jobs.

After snowblowing and shoveling, the boyfriend went to work - after not being able to get out of our driveway for a good 10 minutes because the part where it meets the road is on a fairly steep incline. He walked into work and the district manager apologized to him because apparently calling yesterday night lit a fire under someone's ass and had the complaint directed to the appropriate person. His excuse for keeping the store open was that they provide healthcare services. WEAK. One, the pharmacy closes at 6:00pm on Sundays. They should have closed the entire store at that time. Two, the healthcare services they provide are not emergency care. They are not a hospital, they are not a nursing home, nor are they an ambulance service. Those sorts of things are the only healthcare facilities that have any business being open during a blizzard. I could see if they delivered drugs to patient homes, but they don't. I mean, I work at a pharmacy, but it's not a retail pharmacy. I'll tell you what...when the weather sucks, we have a protocol. They can't close because unlike Walgreens, we provide IV's and stuff like that, and we are the sole means of nursing home patients getting their drugs, but I'll tell you what...they don't operate at full capacity when the weather sucks. They cut down delivery runs and tell the nursing homes if you don't fax us your order by X time, it is not going to be on the one run going out at night, and if you miss the deadline, too bad, you're gonna have to wait until the next day.

The actions exhibited by the district management last night, and store management this morning paint them as a company who puts their bottom line over employee safety. Once the pharmacy closed, the entire store should have closed. People can deal without 1 hour photo until the next day in a friggin snowstorm.

Seriously, get it together. I'm glad that calling the loss prevention/compliance hotline actually got a timely response and an apology to a wronged employee, but the fact of the matter is, they need to reconsider their policies. Any lost revenue by closing early is worth less than an employee potentially dying because of their stupidity, not to mention then they'd have to find someone new to replace the person. They also need to give store managers a course on how not to be condescending jerks, because this manager has been complained about on several occasions for being a condescending prick to his employees. He changes for like a week, and then it's back to the same old behavior again.

Snowpocalypse 2010...or whatever.

Guess where I am...right between Waterbury & Winsted in the brown part!

Snowpocalypse has arrived. Or the blizzard of 2010, if you insist...as there are blizzard conditions throughout the state of Connecticut right now. TV Meteorologist wonderboy extraordinaire Geoff Fox from WTNH put together the snow map over there. Needless to say, the whole state is getting a dumping, but as usual, the northwest corner of Connecticut is getting the jackpot.

I've been sitting at home all day since getting home from a pre-storm jaunt to the Waterbury mall to get a stupid ink tag removed from the Tom Brady Patriots jersey I got for the boyfriend for Christmas. I've been having myself a grand old time watching the first two seasons of Grey's Anatomy and getting snowed in. I have no intention of going to work tomorrow...and I'm pretty sure my boss probably already doesn't plan on me coming in (having one of the longest commutes of anyone in our department has its perks...as does my coworkers' beliefs that anything north of Waterbury is the sticks...so they assume I'll be snowed in for days.) I still have to wake up at 6:30 tomorrow morning and call my boss and tell her I'm not coming, but it won't be a shock to her...the only thing that sucks is I have to work late the rest of the week. Oh well.

I wish I could be getting snowed in with the boyfriend, but Walgreens is too money grubbing to close early...everything else is closing, and the streets are deserted (or so I hear on Twitter, because I am far too cozy to venture outside into the blizzard to even get a picture) and I'm sure that Walgreens has had all of three customers since about 3pm, but come hell or high water, they'll stay open until 10 tonight. Under normal circumstances, he probably would have just been like "forget work", but if he missed today, he would have screwed himself out of getting paid for yesterday's holiday. Plus, after having been stationed in Montana whilst he was in the Air Force, snow driving doesn't phase him, even if it is a blizzard. I know he'll be home safe, but I'd rather have him home and be watching movies with him.

Edit: This snowpocalypse picture is from the boyfriend. Apparently this is what the top of East Main St. in Torrington is looking like right about now...and apparently the plow just came by. (He's at work which explains the poorly cleared part in the foreground)

Blog Changes

If you actually read this thing on some semblance of a regular basis, you've noticed a drastic decrease in the amount of posts I've done lately.

I've debated just getting rid of this thing and going to either Tumblr for everything (if you have one, add me there)  or some other platform entirely...which basically means WordPress. I decided to keep this because Tumblr seems to be binary vomit (excuse the mental image I just placed in your head) and legitimate, actual text posts seem to be lost in the shuffle there amongst all the random photo memes and other miscellaneous crap that gets posted. I'm going to keep my Tumblr though because then my random things I find while abusing the StumbleUpon button have a home.

In my boredom today, I decided to retool my blog. I got rid of all of the whiny bitch posts...and a vast majority of the rest...and kept the gems. I also decided to go straight black with a template instead of purple...just because although I loved the old design, not everyone has an affinity for purple like I do.

Here's to new beginnings.

Edit: I also had to get rid of the pertinent post suggestions at the bottom of the posts because it's still recommending old posts I erased. I'm going to see if I can fix it soon, because I liked that feature!

Review: Jake's Wayback Burgers - Torrington, CT

Sign on the road.

On Friday, a new burger joint opened in town 10 minutes up the highway in the next town over. It's called "Jake's Wayback Burgers". Apparently they have been around for a while...but this is the first local franchise of the chain. Being that Torrington has some pretty boring (in my opinion) chain dining options...this place is a welcome breath of fresh air. They operate in the vein of Five Guys (which up until 2 months ago I'd never had either) with fresh-cooked burgers that are definitely higher caliber than the standard crap found at McDonald's and the like.

Web banner for the burgers I got

I had been nagging the boyfriend for us to try the place last weekend, but between me having to work & stuff like that, I ended up going today and picking up some food  to take home.

Line was back to the door.

When you walk in, the place is definitely reminiscent of Five Guys...minus the 50 pound sacks of potatoes and boxes of peanuts everywhere...(and the ensuing peanut allergy warning stickers). It was 12:30 on a Wednesday afternoon and I found the place to be a complete zoo...like Saturday afternoon at Five Guys caliber crowd. I supposed it was to be expected considering they've been open a whole five days. You line up...order your stuff...sit down and wait for your name to be called. For people who were dining in, they seemed to be bringing the food to your table, but I just sat at a bar type counter along the window facing the packed parking lot and waited for my name to be called since I was taking our grub home. I ordered a crunchy peppercorn burger for both the boyfriend and myself...the second I saw it had potato chips on the burger, I knew I would be getting it for the boy at least...he's one of those people who insists on putting chips on his sandwiches to give them crunch. I also got a regular (which was the largest size) fry and chili cheese fries for us to split. The total came to $17 and change...and that didn't include drinks. Obviously more than, say, Burger King up the road, but again, expected.

Milkshake making: not a 2 person job

Crunchy Peppercorn Burger

While I was waiting for our food, the boyfriend called me. His dad had been reading people's impromptu reviews about the place on the local newspaper's website and I guess a lot of people complained about the wait -- some people having to wait upwards of 45 minutes. After that, I had an FML moment. The place couldn't be more packed, and I, who jumps to the worst conclusions about EVERYTHING EVER, immediately thought I'd be stuck there that long as well. I was just starting to get mildly impatient, especially since 3 people who ordered after me had received their food) when they called my name. I'd say it was fifteen minutes...maybe twenty. Not spectacular, but I had time to observe the way the workers were operating while I sat there. Being that the place had only been open 5 days, they were pretty harried and disorganized...and basically tripping over each other. When I go again in a few weeks probably, I anticipate that problem to be improved, since I would hope they'll have gotten their game down and figured out what works and what doesn't.

Overall, it was a decent service experience. I didn't expect sparkling service, just as nobody really should within the first 3 weeks someplace is open. I headed home and was grateful I had a 5 minute jaunt down Route 8 and another 5 up the hill. The food smelled awesome. As soon as I got home, we dug in. The food was not exactly optimal temp, but if we ate there, I'm sure that wouldn't have been a problem, so I can't penalize them for that. The burgers were juicy and delicious, not quite as "OMG WTFRIGGINAMAZING" as I found Five Guys to be when I first had it, but still awesome in their own right. I only got ketchup and grilled onions on them...they were apparently out of pickles. Definitely not a bad thing though because it allowed you to taste the burger for what it was and not have it masked by all sorts of extra crap. I'm not convinced I tasted the peppercorn sauce, but the burger was still delish. The boyfriend suggested I get bacon on them next time...and I certainly will. The regular fries, I thought were nothing to write home about. They were just kind of meh Wendy's-esque (Before Wendy's recently revamped their fries) french fries. They were crisp enough and weren't overly salted, which was excellent...I just didn't find them to be particularly amazing. However, the chili cheese fries...which were the regular fries topped with chili and cheese were delicious. My only regret, the portion should have been a bit bigger...I think I paid almost $4 for them...and I think the regular-sized fry (which was the largest they had) had more fries. Oh well, I bought them to split anyway.

Overall, I think Jake's is an excellent addition to the Torrington area...in a pinch it will replace Five Guys when we don't feel like driving to Avon, Plainville, or Brookfield, and it certainly is not the same old same old we have in an over-saturated fast food scene around here. Once they figure out how to run the place like a well-oiled machine, they'll be fine.

Hilary Duff: The Unscathed Disney Princess.

I had my iPod on shuffle this morning on my ride to work. "The Math", a shallow pop gem about a guy needing to meet the mark or gtfo by Hilary Duff came up. You know, right after Lizzie McGuire ended she decided she wanted to be a pop star? Her CD "Metamorphosis" kind of provided the soundtrack to the first half of my freshman year of high school...but anyhoo...it got me to thinking:

Everyone goes on about Disney girls gone wrong: Lindsay Lohan and her cokehead, pillpopping ways, Miley Cyrus becoming a little skank, drinking Coronas in a Madrid bar and taking bong rips of salvia (or weed...I've heard it actually was weed) and Demi Lovato cutting herself and decking a dancer in the face...but you know who you never hear about? Hilary Duff. What's the most scandalous thing she's done? Gotten veneers on her teeth? Dated Joel Madden? Looked a little too skinny at one point? Girl is drama free and married to a filthy rich...and ridiculously hot hockey player, Mike Comrie.
Demi, Miley, Lindsay, and Selena take note: (even though Selena's kept her nose clean too)
Hilary Duff is proof that Disney won't completely fuck you up...or over. She's happy, she's healthy, and they should take an example from her book