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2004-06-18 - 3:43 p.m.
work sucks
Last Thursday I took off work to drive down into the city and report to jury duty for the first time in my life. I got a piece of mail about it at my permanent address at my dad’s house a few months ago, and I wrote back asking to be excused because I currently go to school outside the city and go to school in Baltimiore County. But then a few weeks ago I got a summons, so I figured I was no exempt, and cleared my schedule to go down there. I was a little apprehensive, but also excited about performing my civic duty as an adult. So I got up early, well not really, about the same time I get up to go to work every other morning, and drove down 83 and found a parking garage near the courthouse and got there right on time. When I got to the juror waiting room, it was already full, but it turned that upstairs there was another waiting room that was only half full. I brought a book with me and sat and read for almost an hour before they started giving directions. When it was time, I went back downstairs and reported to the desk, but when they asked me if the address they had was correct, I told the lady my current address, and she kind of looked at me with this pissed off, impatient look, and told me that I was not eligible for jury duty because I lived outside city limits, and to go across the hall and get a waiver. So I got waived from jury duty and went home after an hour. It was kind of nice, though, I had the rest of the day off, which is rare for me. Maybe sometime I’ll get called to serve in Baltimore County. Since getting back from the weekend in Chicago, I’ve worked every day, and will continue to do so until probably next weekend. Between my 2 jobs, I’m working almost 60 hours this week, which is insane even for me. But the night manager at the sub shop, Mike, is taking his vacation this week to see his dad in Florida, and since the schedule there is so delicately arranged, having just one of the managers gone for a week means everyone else has to work more to pick up the slack. But it’s that bad because the most exhausting thing about that job, at least mentally, is dealing with Mike, who is socially retarded and yet loves nothing more than to talk (and stutter) everyone’s ear off. So it’s kind of a vacation for everyone else for him to not be around. The other job’s been ok lately. One of the other student workers, Jared, is taking a summer class now so he’s working for the summer too, so it’s not just me and the older contract workers Bruce and Batty, and it’s nice to have someone else young there to help share the workload. Jared’s kind of hotheaded, though, and he clashes with Batty a lot over stupid stuff. The other day after we had got done some work, I took the elevator upstairs to go back to the office, and a guy got in the elevator with me, and before we knew it, we were stuck in there. There had been an “out of order” sign on it earlier, but I didn’t realize it was still broken. It just kind of went up and down from one floor to the other without opening doors, and we pressed the emergency button but it took a couple minutes for anyone to respond. It was hot in there too. But finally, after a few anxious minutes, it let us out. It’s kind of lazy for me to take the elevator in a building with only 3 floors, but I go up and downstairs so many times in the course of a day at work that I just get tired of taking the stairs every single time. -al
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