Yes. It is true... I am fired. Best Buy has given me the boot. And I deserved it. Or so the story from corporate goes. I was terminated on ethical grounds pertaining to the customer rewards program Reward Zone on October the seventh, two thousand and six... The day was an... interesting day. I was working that day. Which didn't need to happen by the way. The day that I sold the reward zone tickets, the event that would eventually lead to my termination- was several days prior. It was all very complicated and not worth recounting. Basically I wrote up a statement and they faxed it to corporate Best Buy, then told me not to come back for a few days. I came back anyway because I knew that if I didn't, I'd get more people mad at me because someone would not have passed on the memo that I might be fired, there would only be one person opening the store in my department and they'd get slammed with customers and then... well then they'd hate me for doing what I was told and not showing up. So I showed up. It was a good thing because when I walked in there the first thing I see is Dave on the phone trying to call me to tell me to come in.

I think I've said all this before... We skip ahead now to the part on saturday, when corporate returned the fax. It was a truly horrible day by the way. That morning my laptop crashed hard-core and completely died. Then I went into work, gave it to the geeksquad guys to fix it, they took it, and I got on the clock. I hadn't eaten and I had a long shift. So I was getting just a little hungry. ... A lot. The ironic thing was that there were catered ribs and barbecue in the breakroom as a part of the celebration that we completely rocked last month and made number one in the department. 12 in ONE! YEAH! Half my coworkers keep mysteriously dissapearing into that room and I run the floor till they get back. When they get back we get totally plastered, Customer Madhouse. FOr two hours. I get off the clock in about an hour, we finally slow down, I'm starving to death and I tell the guys- "Hey, I'm taking my lunch break." I tab out for my lunch break, half an hour, and I go back to the breakroom. The place is loaded with food. Oh... YES...

I gather a plate and start piling stuff onto it. When I've got it all there and forks and napkins and sauce and all of it, I set down to eat and the intercom rings and tells I nearly laughed. I get up from my plate, leaving it where it is, knowing it will be there when I return. I get to the admin office, step inside and someone closes the door behind me.

...

A few minutes pass and I step out a bit more shaken than I was when I walked in... A solid month and a half of working 15 hour days, barely sleeping, hardly eating, and gritting through it all suddenly caught up to me like the wave overtaking a ship and I suddenly realized how very tired I was. They told me to just... go home. I was on lunch break so there was no need to clock off. Just go.

I went. I walked out to the car, stood beside it for a few seconds. Just standing there, knowing. Because I saw that the window was up when I walked up to it. I knew I was locked out. I tried the handle anyway.

Yep... locked.

So I walked up the road three or four blocks to Hardees. I keep a coat hanger there. Just in case. Fortunately the weather has been cooling up a bit, so it wasn't so bad a walk. Then I turned around and jogged back. Stuck that coat hanger in the car door, got the car open in about four seconds- grabbed the ey, rolled the window down, sat down... and got back up and started walking back into Best Buy.

The GeekSquad still had my computer.

I went in and went to the counter and asked. It had been in the service center for nearly six hours and I'd almost entirely forgotten about it. They told me the hard drive was entirely toast. There was nothing they could do barring an $800 data recovery attempt. And even that might fail. So basically everything was gone. Three years of writing, two years of special projects in rpg maker, sketchup, powerpoint, and intensive C# code programming. Gone. I had the documents backed up to a certain date, about two weeks ago, the rest of it... I'll never see it again. I left the computer there. They said they'd reinstall the operating system, replace the hard drive, and do some basic diagnostics. Great.

I went home.

Now- as bad a day as that was: the entire situation really is less sour than it could be. For instance- there are several other business positions opening at the hospital nearby, good jobs that pay well. I could also become a telemarketer... Above that, when I finally got the computer back, turns out they couldn't find a 100gb HD to replace it with, so they upgraded me to a 120gb. Free storage space. I have resources, and marketable skills, and nearly every supervisor told me they'd be more than happy to be my best reference on an application. So there is some good that cames from that as well.

There is a lot I could say about the particulars of that event, the day, the job, the loss and all the drama drama drama that could come of it but won't. What this article is really about is my status at Best Buy- right now. You see, shortly after my termination, several rather unusual things began to reveal themselves. For instance, when the GeekSquad finished my computer- they installed several anti-virus and anti-spyware applications and generally cleaned it up for me. I gave them the okay to run that service charge. When I get the machine back and pay for the extra service, I notice it's quite a bit lower than normal cost for these things. I would know, I sold these things like a dynamo for a month and a half. When I ask to see what's up, the guy at the desk laughs and tells me "Employee discount, man." As if I should know this. I check the receipt. Sure enough, he'd run it through as employee, used my number, and it went through without a hitch. He hadn't been told I was no gone.

My employee discount is still active. On this date, it has been a full week since my termination and I purchased something there just today, and it still registers. Why.

Ready for this? I'm still on lunch.

According to Best Buy's internal employee tracking system, I never legitimately clocked off. I just went on lunch. At current status, that system quotes me as having been on my lunch break for seven days, four hours, and twelve minutes at least. Which is one doozy of a lunch break. Doing some research, it takes Best Buy's system at least a month to completely remove an employee from the system. At the end of that time, I will be completely expelled and the discount, at least in my understanding, will no longer work. I have a month to buy everything really really cheap.

Talking to those at Best Buy, each and every employee I have asked has told me- buy everything I can while I can, now don't tell anyone I said that- but do it. I mean what can they do? Fire you?

Well, they could count it as stealing... I guess. So basically I've been buying plenty of Best Buy stuff recently. I figure, heck, I never did get to eat those ribs and barbecue- as long as I'm still on lunch, I might as well pick up some product. I feel so evil...

By the way Jess- it's a unit weekend, my siblings are over for the next two days and we're hosting, so I doubt I'll be on much till tomorrow. (it was great talking to you though... Whew... wow. :D Missing you greatly) Talk to you all later!

A massive and (hopefully) quick recap over the past week: (this will probably be a long post...) Ladies and Gentlemen- it all began on Monday:

First though- Reward Zone. Reward Zone is Best Buy's customer rewards program. You join it by getting one of the little cards peppered all over the store, buy something and have the cashier scan the card. You earn points on everything you buy and those points accumulate, eventually earning money back and you get it in the mail in a few weeks or so. Please note: Employees are not allowed to have Reward Zone membership.

A week or so before I was ever hired at Best Buy, I purchased a laptop. And a service plan. The laptop and service plan came together to price out at around $1100. I signed up for Reward Zone and supposedly was getting $35 in the mail... some day. A week later I am hired at Best Buy and begin work. YAY!

About a week ago- I recieve $35 worth of reward zone certificates in the mail. Oh... well there they are. These little guys are about worthless to me. Completely worthless. As an employee at Best Buy I am not allowed to spend them. So what am I to do? Might as well put them to good use. I sold them. I sold the lot of them for $16 to a customer with which I had a brief relationship. Cool...

Thinking about it later I... I don't know. That was free money I just gave a customer. Hm... That... I don't know. I became uneasy about it. So I asked some of the other employees about it. Wow. I was right. That was a bad idea. Steven (the department senior) rightfully took the issue to the store employee relations someone-or-other. Basically this woman named Debbie. A little while later I am asked to come back into a quiet room with the two of them. Debbie hands me a sheet of blank paper and tells me to write out a statement explaining anything I might have done today that involved Reward Zone. I figured she could just out with it and say it... but, I guess I can see where she would want to be cautious. She wanted these to be my words, and if she said anything specific, it might contradict either what Steven had told her, or what I had really done. And depending on the person you're working with, that kind of thing can be good for starting an argument, the very last thing she wanted. I understand that entirely.

I wrote out everything that happened. She talked to me about what happened. It was all very awkward and somber. So somber in fact that Steven didn't say a word for the entire time. I think he felt bad. He told me later he didn't know what it would amount to, but he knew that if he didn't tell his upper staff that HE would be in trouble. And I understand that as well. Steven is my buddy who helped me ring out that 9 in 1 a week before. It was very somber indeed. Debbie very calmly told me then that they would fax the statement to corporate to decide if I was to remain in employment at Best Buy and that I should not come in to work for the next week till I heard from them. I was scheduled to work the next two days and off two days following them. She told me to go ahead and finish the rest of my shift today, then to stay off the clock. I said okay, and then shakily stumbled back onto the sales floor with Steven in tow. He said he was sorry I told him no- I was sorry, that he did the right thing, I screwed up, just... wasn't thinking.

I worked the rest of that day, then went to work at Michael's and then I went to Hardees to use the wifi... and then I went home. Kinda went home anyway. The internet kinda cut off halfway through and I went zipping all over town trying to find a wifi connection that was working. I finally found it outside my own home, down the block from the my driveway. I sat there for a short while composing an email to my dearly beloved explaining what had happened. (It was the DNS and the ISP darn it) and somewhere near the end of that this light shines through the window onto my laptop from behind me. It's a flashlight.

Hello officer. Apparently it's four AM and someone noticed me just sitting outside the houses in my car and called the police on me on report of suspicious behavior. So he wants my license and wants to know what I'm doing and I tell him exactly what I'm doing, hand him my license and he goes back to the squad car which has snuck up right behind me. Clever him. If I was doing drugs or something illegal and was going to book it when he showed up, not using the lights definitely made him less noticeable till he was standing right beside my window. I continue to type, I figure I ought to probably wrap up the email and move along. The officer agrees and that's what happens.

The alarm sounds the next morning. Time to go to work... wait... wait no I don't have work. She said not to come in. I can't go in there. No wait... no- that would leave like... only one guy on the sales floor. No.. no that would be suicidal...

...

Dang it.

I roll out of bed and get ready for work, the shirt, the pants, the belt, the whole nine yards. I freshen up, snack on a little something and head out the door to save the world... What? Failures save the world all the time, didn't you ever see Spiderman? I continue to reassure myself that this is crazy and stupid and pointless and atop all of those things... on top of all of them I'm no stranger to any of those things and that I am doing the right thing... I hope.

I roll into the parking lot at work, moments before Best Buy opens. And I sat there in that parking lot for several minutes, just thinking several things that I'd already thought about on the way up. Finally I went in. The place has opened for the day and there are customers milling around inside already. Sometimes we have customers show up before the employees... I head to the computers department. I round the kiosk and there is Dave, the store human resources manager on the cellular phone. He's calling me, at home. He claps the phone shut, points right at me and says "You're not fired. Get on the timeclock."

.... Oh god.. WHEW!!! Relief poured over me. The whole story of it involves Steven telling the PC department manager Chris Palis, guy who is constantly reinforcing his salesmen with compliment and constructive critique. A great guy honestly. (Even more honestly- the first reason getting fired terrified me was because that would be the end of my avenue to Australia, the second reason is because it would mean I'd lose partnership with some of the greatest team members I've ever worked with.) Chris Palis had made a few phone calls. The word spread kinda quickly thoughout the entire department after I left shift the day before. There had been a flurry of support and demand for my stay! Nearly every guy in that PC department who carried any weight had voluntarily gone to management and personally vouched for me. It was amazing. Telling them "He's too valuable to lose, you have to keep him." I show up the next morning even when they said to stay away and sure enough there's only one other guy scheduled to run the department and he's about to get swept with customers. Dave instantly reinstates me I get back to work.

There will be reprocussions, and there will be consequenses. But I will not lose my job. The overall effect of this scenario might actually be advantageous... Following something like that, those in distant management positions, those who aren't familiar with particular members of each department (especially new guys like myself) are prone to turn a careful eye towards the singular newbie that a whole branch of staff stands up and supports even after doing something like I did. Curious... it was, and I got more attention, much more. I showed up in so much paperwork that day it was unreal. People floating in the far off deserts of conference and meetings and policy took notice because I was a bump in the system, and you watch things like that. You ask questions like- why are they all rallying behind him?

It was amazing. That day, the day that I was supposed to stay home and came anyway- I was allowed to be a part of something absolutely phenomenal. This woman came into the PC department looking perfectly flustered. I found her and we began to talk. It began to build so quickly I had to make a three page outline just to keep all the components straight. I moved from computer to computer, going through features, expandability, services, components and add ons, functionality and speed. I suggested, spoke and it all happened. It all HAPPENED - sofastitwascrazy. And I sold. I sold this woman nearly $5000 worth of stuff. Two PC's, two 19" monitors with speaker sets, graphics cards, floppy drives, lightscribe and extra DVD-ROM drives for each, four packs of lightscribe discs softwareSoftwareSOFTWARE There was more! So much MORE! Everything I could think of was being examined and explained. I don't know if I was just in a good mood because I hadn't lost my job or if God sent me grace but when we were done, oh when we were done I had this woman with over 20 hardware and software components, not counting the computers and monitors, accessories, not basic- but PREMIUM ADVANCED performance service plans on everything. And for the set up? TWELVE in-home services. From advanced security setups to hardware installs to data transfers to everything under the freaking sun above. (Which I haven't seen in a while... is it still yellow?) A twelve-in-one. I blew through a national record at a margin of plus three. And I did it on the one day that all eyes were on me.

Everything happened. The reciept was over four feet long. Chris Palis instantly ran the numbers, somewhere in the area of $1200 for in home services, not even counting service plans. The computer department has a daily target budget for in home sales. The total we're supposed to sell before the store closes. I sold the entire day's projected budget in one sale. I felt like God. Palis pulled me aside and gave me a talking to, running through the numbers with me, and told me, actually told me he wished he, the guy who had been there for 5 years and ran the entire department, he wished he could sell as well as I.

I figured I've been really lucky... and he knows that it takes more than a great salesman to make a great sale. The customer has to be willing and the money has to be there and a million things have to align... So I honestly think he was probably just being nice. (He's teased me about the Reward Zone thing at least three times a day since... He has every right of course... eh- anyway) One of the double agents (the GeekSquad guys who goes to do the in-homes) gave me a GeekSquad pin for having the huge sale. It was so... cool.

All in all, it was a good day. I got to keep my job, was given the chance to redeem myself, and was given the best possible opportunity to be noticed in one day, and on that day- I absolutely rocked. Someone up there is being friendly with me...

Some time after that sale I'm talking to some other people about a laptop and an old friend that I hadn't seen in quite some time walked in the door and purposefully browsed near the PC department... the mere sight of them almost gave me a heart attack- my automaton salesman speech skipped and faltered. What followed the rest of the day and night was crazy enough that I'm still rolling in the weirdness of it.

But, I am afraid that is another story for another time, suffice it to say I ended up outside the state by the end of the night and we'll launch from there at the next post. This one is getting far too long as it is, it is late, and I am to meet Arby to look at apartments early in the morning.

Cheers* Monsterbox

P.S. I got a mobile phone! 1 (417) 622-1096. POH are you thrilled? (Openly laughs at POH)

For some reason, I was up early in the morning, rolling through the morning prep routine, getting ready for work... and in the most amazing mood ever... I didn't have any idea why. I was aware I was going to work. I knew that it would consume the rest of the day for me, that I was working morning and afternoon at Best Buy, and then all evening at Michaels... that I probably would not eat. Or sleep much that night. I was tired like every morning though I knew I'd get over that soon enough, like every morning.

I found out when I got to work. This was to be an unusual day. I actually arrived early. This guy named Brandon Cline was waiting for me. Brandon is one of the double agents in Geek Squad (AKA, one of the people who go out and do the in-homes we sell.) Today I was apparently scheduled to go with him and observe one of the in home setups to get a better feel for the value in an in home setup.

Translation: Free Day!

Brandon was late when I arrived, he was supposed to be at the guy's house six minutes ago. The reason he was late even with me coming in early is because the Best Buy network was down that morning (which happens sometimes when you wire 750 stores (several thousand computer terminals) together for extended periods of time with frequent use.) We were now waiting for the guy to call and complain so we could tell him what had happened, that we couldn't get into our system to find out where he was, and that now that he was there he could resupply the information.

He never called. A short while after I arrived, the server came back online and its OFF WE GO! We rode in the little car! The Geek Squad uses this signature Volkswagen Bug car to travel to the in homes. Looks a little something like this:



That's right folks. I rode around in THIS thing! HA! We talked on the way, the car got a lot of looks because it's infamous. It's on so many freaking commercials. Anyone on the road who saw us honked or waved or something. Trying to get a piece of the drama. Felt like being scored by paparazzi. It was hilarious. When we got to the guy's house and he opened the door, I do a double take. Sure enough it's that guy I sold the nine in one to! Whoa! He's like- hey I know you! And I'm like- Yeah! I know you too!

The in home begins nearly immediately. Oh I could write scores of things about what Brandon did to this thing. It was INSANE. Believe it or not folks, a setup isn't just where we pull everything out of the box and plug it in. It is just not that simple. The in home took five and a half hours. It was massive. We had so many programs uninstalled, so many installed, wired to everything running the wireless network, installing a new power supply, a wireless card, a graphics card, a sound card, and then finding that there was something not wuite right with that configuration- redoing it, testing, finding the problem, getting the software drivers installed and downloaded and registered and making them all run seamlessly together. Then downloading all the updates, getting the two computers and the printer on the wireless network, doing things to the machines that I didn't even know COULD be done to a computer. It really was phenomenal what this kid did. It was crazy.

Five and a half hours later, we finally finish (I helped!) and wow... I thought I knew about computers before. Now I'm convinced I don't know nearly anything! This kid Brandon Cline is a technical monolith, and knows more about the internal schematics of these machines than I ever will. I think... Which is really ironic because when we're walking out of the house to go back to the store and we get in the car it won't start and when I pop open the hood Brandon steps back with his eyes wide and says "Whoa, okay no... No I don't even know the first thing about these things."

:P Got to have a range of talents and skills right? So I screw around with it. Turns out he just left the lights on and we needed a jump. For anyone who has tried to jump a volkswagen bug, the battery is not the most accessible component under that hood. But I got to it alright, the guy we had just set up was kind enough to provide us with some juice and we were on our way. While traveling, Brandon groans. "I'm hungry. Are you hungry? Lets get some food." And he pulls into the Burger King.

The guy bought lunch for us both. I turned him down and he still bought. We're in the drive through and it hits me that I'm still on the clock. I turn to Brandon and ask him "Is this what you guys do every day?"

"Yeah, pretty much." I turned to face ahead again almost laughing. I was sitting in this awesome cool car getting looks like I was John Wayne, eating Burger King food, and being paid by the hour to do it. That was when I realized: I have the coolest job in the world... ^_^

-Cheers mates.

Told you so...

HEY CONNIE! Is this BIG enough for ya? ^_^

Thanks for the comment prisoner, we're still working out the comment system. It's no big deal really, from now on I'll have the font at slightly larger than normal just so your poor old eyes can read it. :P (joke!)

And now presenting a post that will finally have nothing at all to do with Best Buy!!! A series of terrible random things have been taking place. And the collective effect of those things is that a number of people are finally beginning to see things as I see them and have seen them for some time. Our feelings about everything are beginning to align.

Yesterday, Natalie, my little sister (she's 18) got into her first car wreck. It was a parked wreck. Meaning that the person she hit wasn't moving. She just got distracted and wasn't paying attention to the color of the light, nor to the SUV in front of her who had stopped when it turned red. Everyone is okay. She was seriously shaken but she holds everything in pretty well, she wanted to cry and didn't. She rarely cries anyway. In fact... I haven't seen her cry in years. But that doesn't mean anything. It's not as if either one of us are ever around for each other's intimate moments.
The older woman driving the SUV was calm and collected about it. The police arrived, insurance information was exchanged. The only reason I found out about this as soon as I did is because I was crossing Joplin on my way to work and I passed an accident and thought to myself, "Oh, those poor people. Wait... What? That's my sister!" And it was. So I pulled over and went to see what was going on. When it happened, my dad was still gone for the weeked. Altogether, not a very productive couple of days for the family.

The way the car situation works is that My dad owned his big deisel monolith truck, a Dodge something-or-other. And then there's the Mazda dinosaur, a compact car that also runs on deisel (go figure) and is a car older than I am. Nearly 300,000 miles on it, a terribly old and exerted machine. Nathan bought his T100 truck with the help of my dad and my dad's dad. Natalie drove a mitsubishi, a nice one. It was a kind of opalescent purple.

Obviously there isn't the need for so many cars for one little family. There is a spare car. My dad drives the truck, nathan drives his truck, and natalie has driven the purple one. That car is totaled now. The other car, the mazda dinosaur, was being used by Courtney for the time being. Till she could get her own feet under her and get settled into a workable situation with a house and a car of her own. She doesn't live with my dad, she was living in any number of random places while she tried to juggle a son and a job. She has been living with my grandparents, who's charity extended to watching Joel while courtney worked. Courtney has been trying to get her feet back beneath her for several years now, we haven't gotten anywhere in a hurry. The father of the kids, a guy named Billy, has been a dodgy character at the finest. And an absolute brute at the worst, hitting both her and my year and a half old nephew hard enough to cause cut and bruise.

She still sticks to him though. She isn't a stupid girl, I think she just has no where else to go. And she wants those kids to have a father. She knows they need a father. They just haven't got the option of having a good one. My grandmother hasn't been in the greatest condition recently, she's had multiple muscle spasms and contractions and things of that nature. Things that suggest a relevant problem developing somewhere inside the system. All of this is whispered vapors of rumor to me though, these are the things I've only put together in the echo. In the scattered things I hear from time to time. I've not had time to learn of anything in detail. Recently, its almost as if I'm distant enough from them all that I couldn't ask without feeling as if I were prying through things that were none of my business.

As far as concrete facts, things that I know- the problem has been traced to her neck, and she goes in for surgery tomorrow. Dangerous surgery. My grandfather is going to have enough to do with taking care of her following that, and told Courtney that she needed to find a daycare service before surgery took place. Its been some time now, and nothing has been worked out. Party because of negligence, some because she was in the hospital herself, giving birth. Courtney took the two kids up to Columbus, another city where the father is, to let him watch them for the time being while she worked. She found him there with his girlfriend and ultimately decided against it.

Now we're a car short. Natalie needs the vehicle to drive to work, Courtney needs the vehicle to drive to work, and there is only one Mazda. Everyone is fighting, harshly, about it. Courtney's existence is based upon the charity of others, what a true example of all our lives isn't it? What is childhood all about anyway? Dependency. Now everything is at an impasse and there isn't time to find a solution.

"Something will work out." I said once. "Something always does."

The car is technically to be Natalie's. Courtney, in her rash ventures toward independance, shattered the possiblity of a lot of success for herself, and thus killed her ability to be independant. This began several years ago with a simple childish rebellion, it went unchecked, then overchecked, then it went to hell. And here we are now swimming in the residual heat. My grandmother somehow has ended up in the middle of a great deal of it. And it has been very unkind to her. She said she was ready to pack up everything and just move away from it all. There were few who disagreed with her.

Dave, my mom's husband, has had his share too. Between the ever-ascending animosity between himself, my mom, and the rest of the kids, Courtney, Joel, Billy, and the new baby, and all the constant fighting- he's feeling more than he bargained for as well. He told my mom he just wanted to get out. To go somewhere and leave it all behind.

Someone finally sees my reason.

It all began like a beautiful dream. The family was great, the perception behind how it would happen was great. My mom, my dad, the kids, all of us, one great big happy family. Dysfunctional of course, but it worked. These past twelve years it has been that dream like watching a beautiful building crumble in on itself slowly, and everyone thinking "Oh its not that bad, it can still be salvaged. Something good can still be salvaged from this." And th building never stops crumbling. It's different for everyone I guess, the understanding, the perspective of the point of no return. The reality of the matter isn't that it can't be saved. It's that it won't be saved. Everything rots, everything rusts, everything crumbles and shatters and breaks.

Things die. It's like a giant field of dominoes, or like a snowball rolling down a hill, it gets bigger and bigger and eventually people realize what's happening. No... it's like a disease. An epidemic that you can't escape till you just get the hell out. You can try to treat it, you can fight against it. And you may even win. But you've still been sick afterwards and its not the same. It's spreading and it's getting worse. I realized this a long time ago. Now, people are beginning to see.

It's not just my family, and it's not just what happens here and now, its not that there was a car wreck and another baby and this constant drama. Some now see, it is a constant. Something that began a long time ago, something that can no longer be controlled and now it's the thing in control, it's eating everything alive. Distance... is the last resort. Just make sure you're not sick when you leave. Because if you travel out and spread that sickness to whatever eden you found, you've just made it worse.

Stay away from it while you're there. Cleanse yourself with the sterility of insanity. Like immunity, and then leave as soon as possible.

I might have to accelerate my evil four year plan. I might just have to find a way to leave sooner. Perhaps there is a way. Time to be resourceful again. Alright then... have a good night and take it easy.

You especially Jess- enjoy your break. ^_^

Cheers - monsterbox

So apparently my sister had another baby a few days ago.

I was unaware of this till this morning. Reason being that I work almost around the clock and, well. I really don't have that much of a life, I nearly never see my family, and no one tells me these things. I was however vaguely aware that she was pregnant...

Wow. I'm a horrible person aren't I?

The way this happened (me finding out, not the conception... obviously) is that when I got up this morning I stepped out into the hallway and my nephew Joel is running rampant and giggling his teeth out. I catch him as he's running and lift him up and tickle him and he starts yelling my name because he just recently learned it. I make my way into the kitchen to get some breakfast and I bump into my mother, and I'm like- "Hi mom, long time no see."
"Hi, Caleb. Did you see the baby?"
I looked at Joel. "Oh I don't know if I'd really call him a baby anymore..."
She looked at Joel, looked at me. "No, not him, Courtney's new baby."
What? Is she getting him exchanged? I didn't know those things came with a return policy. "I didn't know anything about another baby."
"You didn't?"
"No."
My mother furrows her brow. "Where have you been?"
"At work."
"Oh... well Courtney had another baby."
"Ah." So I grabbed a pancake and drove out to the hospital before work. I went in, found her room, stepped in, she was lying there holding Justice in the bed halfway through watching Catch Me if You Can. It was a very inviting room, which is to say that it was very empty. I was the only one besides the nurse that she had seen all day. Several people were supposed to have stopped by but none of them had showed up. People like the father.

I sat and we talked for a while, catching up. I didn't have too long exactly but I sat there in that big empty room all the same. She offered to let me hold him. And I held him, this little tiny person, no larger than a bread box. We talked some more till the movie ended.
Then I had to go.

I got to work wondering too many things for my own good. Forced myself to get over it, and then set to the task at hand. Once again- we were swarming with customers and there were so few of us left to contain the flood. There was no time for anything, for any thought but doing the job. Another great day of sales. This guy was getting just a case for his computer, an empty tower box. Said he built computers as a hobby and he'd just gotten this massive new power supply and he needed a new cooling fan for the CPU and blah blah blah. Asking for a load of stuff we don't carry. I kindly told him we were not a hardware store, that we sold whole computers, that you could get empty towers but not spare parts. He was miffed. I let him look at our empty towers while I toddled off to help another customer, for there were many of those.

There is this one laptop that was a really great deal that we were selling a lot of, a new one, and a fast one for a really low price. And those laptops were going very quickly. I sold one with an in store setup and a service plan, wireless mouse and a carrying case. Nothing huge, basic, standard features.

As I am handing the woman the paperwork she'd need to fill out, the guy with the tower rolls past with a cart and an actual computer tower. No monitor, no printer, just cables and cords, a keyboard, a mouse, and all of its out of the box. Frank, one of our full time people, is helping him. I ask how he's doing, he tells me he guesses he solved the cooling fan problem. He's just getting a new computer tower instead of a billion replacement parts. I tell him it's probably a wise decision. Frank has this guy going straight basic. Just this tower.

Nah... While my other customer is filling out paperwork, I talk to this guy about the performance service plan, he's getting a good machine, great parts in already, and with the plan if he needs to replace a part: he doesn't have to go look for it, he can just bring it in and we'll fix him up properly. He muses about it while I speak and he decides to go with it. Cool. $250.
I also remembered what he said about his new power supply, I suggest to him an AVR, a unit that protects him from power spikes and surges. He assures me he already has twin surge protectors. I ask if he knows that a surge protector does not protect against spikes and power fluctuations. A 330 watt surge protector will only safeguard you from surges over 330 watts. A 329 watt spike, and the computer takes the jolt full force. The power in one's home is constantly fluctuating, the air conditioning kicks on or the clothes washer starts and power is rerouted, lights dim temporarily and the power traveling to the computer takes a hit. An AVR will protect the computer from all the random fluctuations, streamlines the power, and extends the life of the computer generally 2-3 years. He muses over that as well while I'm speaking, we go look at them on the way to the checkout where Frank is leading him, and because it's on the way it's no problem to stop and look. We decide to go with an AVR, just to be on the safe side. $110.
When we finally get to the register that has been only a few steps away the whole time, Frank is watching me just sell this guy stuff and I asked Frank privately if he'd offered him the in-store setup. He said he had and the guy told him no dice. He looked at me sideways. He dared me to sell it to the guy, dared me to, as if it were my choice whether he bought it or not. "This is why I've been letting you do all the talking, just keep talking."
So I walk back over to the guy and we start talking. He is now at the register getting stuff scanned in. There is hardly time for this. We're talking, he was so apprehensive about the thing. He told me he'd heard of it, and I just started melting his apprehension. I don't even know what I said. Something... I don't know. This guy had come in looking for the tower case and a few spare parts. He had gotten Frank to get him an open item. Now I was talking to him about getting the open item an In-Store setup. He was determinedly no at first, then apprehensive, then unsure, then interested, then he wanted it. It all happened in thirty seconds or so, I'm just talking. Frank watched, shook his head, and walked away. The open item was a 700 dollar tower, I doubled the sale within a few minutes while we are walking from the computer department to the register. When we were done, I shake the man's hand, smile kindly and let him know that the woman here at the checkout can take care of the setup as well and that I had to get back to the sales floor. He smiled back, shook my hand, and I walked back just in time for my other customer to hand me her just finished paperwork. I loved it.

The best part though was not that, the best part was the truck driver and the laptop. I recall writing that it was near impossible to sell an in home on a laptop. Richard disagreed. He said it was possible and that he'd even done it a few times. I told him about the sale I was currently working on (this is later in the day) and I asked him if it was morally ethical to sell an in home to a truck driver who's just got his rig in town for a few days who wants a laptop for the road. He looked at me and laughed. "Are you serious?" It was then then that even Richard Winters I think wondered if some sales were possible. I went back into it. It was the longest sale ever. A full hour and gently explanation and conversation with these guys. The guy was a trucker, drives a semi for a living and just wanted a laptop to use roadmaps and maybe some GPS stuff so he can track his own motions across the road. It was so hard, and I wasn't forceful at all, that is the last way to gather a sale. The absolute worst way is to shove it down their throat. I mean I wanted it, I really wanted it, I'm not going to lie. But I waited for it, I started at the bottom, I worked my way up. We built upon everything, stacking feature and value upon feature and value. It happened.

I sold a three in one in home on a LAPTOP to a guy who doesn't even intend to keep the laptop at HOME! It was gold. That's the short story long. It was a good time.

After work I went to my dad's house for the weekend. I got there around 11:30pm and my sister, brother, and several friends were there. My dad was gone for the weekend to Branson, a nearby tourist town for some fun and such with someone... Anyway. Natalie and Nathan were doing the "Cats away and mice will play" and were having all these random people over for the night. I showed up late and we all ended up staying up late, just talking in the dark till around 3am when Nathan looks up and sees out the window and says "What is he doing?" We all go look out the window and across the street through the window of another house to see this guy standing in his living room doing Karate moves, by himself, without pants. At 3am.

It was so bizzare. So Nathan runs off to get the camcorder and tries to film out of the window but can't because the camera keeps focusing on the screen instead of the window across the street, and when he moved to a point on the window where there was no screen, the guy across the street looked up and I guess he saw the red blinking light because he stopped, turned, and immediately left the room. He didn't come back either. This is the same neighbor that has been seen walking around with a samurai sword in the middle of the day and the last week Nathan found 45 caliber shell casings in his yard while mowing. It's a strange life...

That's about all I have for this one, I actually started writing this yesterday and am finishing it up now. Or am finished with it now. So to avoid much more delay on its publication we'll just wrap it up and post the post.

Cheers-

Monsterbox