Saturday, April 11, 2009

My Futurography

Someone I know was actually required to do the following in a 500 word essay. Note that the word "futurogoraphy" is made up and not actually a synonym of the word autobiography at all. Mind you, I have no problem with making up words. If you do, though, (and this is a major rule in Sniglet Scrabble), the context has to coincide with your made-up word not be the antonym or completely out of context.

You may have written your autobiography, which

included how you would like your future story to be. We will call this


your futurography. The purpose of this therapy project is to write


your futurography in more detail.



OBJECTIVES


Making future plans.


Stating the kind of person you would like to be.


Thinking about what skills you will need in the future.


Write your futurography.


My Futurography (few-toro-graf-ee):

Hello, Wendy from the past. This is your autobiography from the future, your "futurography," if you will. I know how much you like milk so I've brought you a nice cold glass of of 6.75% milk from the future for you to enjoy while I tell you what you're all about...in the future. (I will just use "I" to refer to you since we are the same person but just in the future. That way we will avoid mixups. Sidebar: I love your vintage outfit!)

The good news is that the spoken word project has taken off! The Talkies and The Green Typewriters constantly perform together and last year (my time, which is like 6 years from now) I got married to Andrew Bird in a very small ceremony (I met him when I convinced Ryan to make him a door necklace to give to him, despite his widely known social anxiety-Andrew's, not Ryan's. We'll do Ryan's futurography later if he wants and talk about that.) Andrew came to a Talkies/Green Typewriters show and that's how everything happened. The rest is history. Or it is to me. For the past me it's futuristory? Anyhoo, so I'm very good at the guitar now and I also play the violin. It's coming along. I have an excellent teacher. It helps if you're sleeping with him! Sorry, you're the only one who hasn't heard that joke a million times.

Oh! I also finally finished my book. I'm working on sending out the manuscripts but I'm still a procrastinator. Plus, I just found this great burrito recipe everyone likes so we have burrito night every Wednesday. So, while that's going kind of slow, it's still going.

I finally have twenty-two pairs of prescription glasses and can match them with any outfit! Goal reached! I don't think I had a specific number in mind but I am happy with what I have.

For my birthday this year, Ryan and Anthony chipped in and bought me a Driver's Education class. At first, I was kind of pissed off because I still insist I'm not a horrible driver but I actually learned some things. For instance, there was an ice driving course involved. That was really helpful! Also I was allowed to drive my car around on the ice between cones and well, that's always awesome. At the end, they let me do a couple victory donuts on the ice.

How could I forget? I finally learned how to change a tire. Although, I tell you, these days it's a bit easier. I'll leave that one surprise for you. Enjoy your futurography! Oh, by the way. Don't eat the Jell-O at Dad's funeral just to be polite and really don't sign the guestbook. Bad decisions on both accounts.

Dialogue Project #1 "The Stain"

"Don't scribble that out."

"What? The stain? I'm just taking this...number," she said, lifting her eyebrows and moving the pen spastically over it, "and getting rid of it."

"Don't touch the stain!" I said emphatically, admiring the curve of the stain left on the last page of the tablet from a tea cup leftover from the previous evening.

"This?" she said, marking in the area where the stain was and coyly smiling as I recoiled in horror.

She lifted the tablet off the table so I could see it and revealed a whimsical face where once a tea stain was.

"Ha!" I shouted and clapped my hands against my cheeks in delight.

"Trainee Coffee"

Here's a little life lesson (for those who already know it, feel free to stop reading or just have a refresher.) I'm combining two into one so just bear with me.

Don't be an asshole and don't fuck with the people who handle your food and/or beverages.

You would think this would be a given on both accounts, that no one would have to say it. However, there are people wandering the earth who are under the impression that their asshole behavior is entirely justified and furthermore they take it to another level and direct it toward people who handle their food and/or beverages, which just is not smart.

Let's address just the asshole part first. A certain person writing this blog, who shall remain nameless unless you look above her picture, lost the job she'd just gotten after four days of 3 1/2 hour shifts. It took her 4 months of job searching to get said job. This person got a job in a coffee shop and has worked in other coffee shops before, including the mighty Starbucks (the drive-thru in a college town even!) While working at Starbucks, she was also working another full-time job which kept her on her toes in a different way. Basically, working with the elderly who had memory disorders, which isn't all glitter projects and gin rummy. These people are slippery and will be down the road in about two seconds if you don't watch them. But I digress. My point being that said person lost the coffee shop job after just under 14 hours on the job, being fired over the phone at work by the owner who was in Salt Lake City after having had knee surgery. She apparently, after just under 14 hours, several of which not being around the owner, had come to fit the profile of past baristas who, after four months or so, just didn't work out. They, ("they" being the two people who had trained said person so far, one of which was just promoted to manager and "still unsure in her position" and the other being a Jehovah's witness who happened to show up at her house on her day off and then make a snide remark the day I she was fired about her laptop) all came to a concensus that said person fit this profile, despite praising her extensively and saying, "Good Job!" and "You're doing great!" at the end of each shift. The big characteristic of this profile? Not being able to keep with the busy pace of the summer crowds.

Yes. That's right.

Okay. If you haven't figured it out, said person is me. At this point, you can imagine it's probably best the owner is not standing in front of me. After telling her how ridiculous everything she is saying is and that she's giving me the shaft and that "the person she interviewed and the person she hired are not the same person" is a bunch crap because it takes more than 4 days of 3 1/2 hours to get used to a new environment and the people in it, who were less than welcoming, by the by. Trying to crack into this circle of people was akin to the time I had the grand idea to become popular in school by trying out for cheerleading. The only difference is that I eventually came to my senses and realized the cheerleaders would laugh me out of the tryouts. Unfortuntely, in this situation you can't see being laughed out of a coffee shop.

As for keeping up with their pace? Again, try working at a Starbucks in a college town where there are constantly five drinks to make, two blenders running, the drive-thru lined up, etc. All that and from the day I walked in there to the day I left, I was the top-selling barista, beating out employees, managers and shift leaders who had been there for five years and more. Furthermore, the manager of the store when I worked there, upon my leaving, told me to come back whenever I wanted and he would rehire me on the spot.

This all blends into the second part of today's life lesson of not fucking with the people who handle your food and/or beverages. If you are you are a) stupid and b) an asshole. I put stupid first because the people who handle your food are working harder for less money and if you piss them off they may or may not have a "spitting" problem that tends to activate around asshole customers' food and/or beverages. Trust me, if it's spit that makes it into your consumables, you're lucky. I've seen some pretty nasty things put into food in my time but frankly, each time I turned a blind eye to it. Some people just deserve to eat piss soup.

On my last half-day at the coffee shop, I was still under the delusion that I had a job and was getting a handle on the coffee bar, which timed its own shots but had a nasty habit of pulling a ton of bad ones for some reason or another (an espresso shot should be pulled between 18-22 seconds otherwise it's bad) and constantly needed adjusting. I was wishing for the machine I initially learned on where you ground and tamped your own espresso and timed your own shots and actually had to know by sight and smell whether the shot was good. Things were going pretty well, though, and I was getting more familiar with the drinks, etc when the trendiest, most blonde woman I have ever seen sidled up to the area where you pick up your drinks. She had ordered some sort of drink that had a thousand notations on it: the "I'm a control freak" drink as I like to call it. Aforementioned awesome manager was steaming milk for me and I leaned over to ask her a question when the woman started shaking her head like she was terrified and said, "No...no..I don't...I don't..want TRAINEE COFFEE. I want it...how I like it." As soon as these words left her mouth, it took me a moment to process it. My brain went through an "are you a human being?" scan and then my eyes looked over to the uber manager who was saying nothing but I could sense gears moving frantically in her head and then out of her mouth came this: "Wendy, could you go toast that bagel?"

Now we are back to being an asshole.

Nothing else was said to me about this interaction. The fact that I was demeaned by a customer and further demeaned by super manager, which I brought up to the owner over the phone during my long distance firing and nothing was said in response, was so beyond my grasp that I think I put too much cream cheese on that fucking bagel. I'm sure whoever ate it will live with my trainee bagel.

There is no moral to the story because these people have no morals.