So, today finished up my week of working in the steel shop with my husband and our college buddy, Jason.  When I set foot in the shop on Monday, I knew nothing about building scenery with steel.  Shit, all I knew about steel was that it was metal.  But as with 75% of what I know about technical theatre, Kyle taught me everything I needed to know, and oddly enough, I had a blast this week.  Something about working with steel really appealed to me.  Part of it is that working with steel made me feel really badass.  I mean, if you think about it, there is no manlier building material than steel.  I felt totally hardcore swaggering around the shop with a stick of steel over my shoulder.  Of course, the downside of working with steel is that it’s an incredibly filthy building material.  My nails are permanently gray and I left the shop everyday resembling an orphan in a Charles Dickens play.  (I took a picture because today was particularly bad, (think Mary Poppins chimney sweeps,) but the picture is so terrible that I refuse to post it.)

The other thing that I adored about working with steel all week is that every step of the building process requires that you use powerful tools, all which throw incredible sparks.  I spent a large portion of my time this week working at an abrasion saw cutting steel to specific lengths, and the spark that thing threw were epic; I felt like I was at the center of a 4th of July sparkler.  It was beautiful and dangerous all at the same time, which made it all the more beautiful.  Even after the 100s of pieces I had to  cut this week, I don’t think I could ever get tired of that.

Despite my new-found love of building with steel, however, I don’t exactly see a new career path emerging.  For one, I don’t know enough about general building.  I can cut the shit out of a stick of steel, and I can grind that bitch til’ it’s smooth, but after that…I kind-of don’t know what to do with it.  I can follow  you around with it, maybe lean it up against the wall, but it sure as hell ain’t going to turn into scenery in my hands.

But also, let’s face it, I was working in the best possible work conditions in the world.  For the most part, it was just me and my husband in the shop, working and listening to 80’s stadium rock; I could not ask for more perfect working conditions.  Unless there was maybe a slushy machine in the corner.  That would be awesome.  Besides, I’m no idiot, I realize that our little shop functioned differently from a real metal shop.  In a real shop, I couldn’t tell my boss to go fuck himself, and in a real shop I sure as hell would have gotten my ass beat for not only playing Madonna, but singing it at the top of my lungs. Working with steel in the real world would never be as much fun as it was this week, and I’m okay with that.

No, I’ll stick with hanging lights and plugging them in.  I’ll save building with steel for our next vacation.

As many of you know, I work at a high end retail store.  While it isn’t exactly my dream job, it pays money, (good,) and for the most part I enjoy it.  But over the last couple months, this job has really been riding my nerves.  Needless to say, with the recession and all numbers have been a bit down lately, and desperation is seeping down through the upper ranks.  Everyone from the district manager on down is riding our asses, and it’s making work beyond stressful.

So last week I find out about this gig working for our buddy, and how he’ll pay $500 extra if I come along.  I don’t think I need to tell you how badly we could use an extra $500, because I think you all could, too.  Plus, let’s be frank, the idea of escaping the stress of the store to hang out and drink beer with my husband and our friend is pretty appealing, too.   So I start looking to see about getting rid of my 2 shifts for this week.  I leave voice mails on all the associate’s phones, and by Friday I’ve got 1 shift covered.  On Saturday, I call the store to talk to one of the girls, (we’ll call her Serenity,) and see if she can work my hours.  She tells me that when she got my voice mail she told Manager that I was looking to get rid of hours, and Manager gave all of my hours to New Hire.  Oh.

Oookaay.  Was anyone going to call me and tell me about this?  What would have happened if I hadn’t been able to get my shifts covered myself and had stayed home from the trip?  And shown up at work, not knowing that someone else had been given my hours?  Does anyone realize how royally and violently pissed I would be?  Okay, breath.  It might be a little sketch, and probably a sure sign that Manager is getting ready to replace me, but at least the hours got covered and I can go work the gig.  Cincinnati, here I come.

Everything’s fabulous until this evening, when one of my assistant managers, (we’ll call her Monica,) calls me and asks me if I want some extra hours this week.  Here’s how the conversation went (paraphrased, obviously,):

Monica: Hey Steph, I was calling to see if you wanted some extra hours this week unloading shipment?

Me:  A large sigh. Any other week I’d be all over that shit, but right now I’m actually out of town and we won’t be back until late Saturday night.

Monica: Okay, no problem.  Have fun on your trip!

Me: Thanks, Monica.  Bye.

Monica: Bye.

3 minutes pass.  Stephanie’s phone rings again.

Me: Hello?

Monica: Hey, it’s Monica. Um…so, you know you’re scheduled to close on Saturday, right?

Stephanie explains that Serenity told her that Manager gave all her hours away to New Hire.

Monica: Why in the hell would she do that, New Hire is working on Saturday afternoon?

Stephanie explains the entire sketchy story

Monica: What the hell?  It doesn’t say any of that anywhere on the schedule!  Listen, let me get this figured out and I’ll call you back.

Me: Okay.

Monica hangs up.  Stephanie resumes eating tacos.

It’s now 2 hours after close and I haven’t heard a word.  But something’s going on.  Either Manager arranged all this but forgot to write it down or Serenity straight up fucked me and lied about Manager giving away my hours.  The first is pretty likely; it gets busy in the store, and things often get forgotten.  And even managers are human.  But, I suppose, it’s also possible that Serenity fucked me.

The thing is, I really, truly hope that it’s not true.  For one, because I can’t imagine anyone, let alone Serenity, doing something like that.  She’s always given me the impression of being a good-hearted, generally nice person.  We seem to work well together, chat when the store’s empty, and she’s always been very kind to me.  I can’t imagine how I could possibly have upset her enough that she would jeopardize her own career (and new promotion to Sales Lead) by lying to me.  But even if I had, why would anyone do something so childish and petty that can so easily be caught?  Call me naive, but I just can’t fathom the idea that behavior like that exists anywhere in the workplace.  We’re adults, for chrissake.

I also hope that it’s untrue because frankly, I like Serenity.  I admire her incredible fashion, her sales skills, her confidence.  To know that someone that I admire so much could do something so petty and mean would be incredibly disheartening and disillusioning.  So for both her sake and mine, I hope that Manager just made a big ass mistake.

But even if Serenity did fuck me over one, the thing is, I really don’t care.  I should be pissed.  I should be outraged.  I should be worried that they’ll believe her over me and that I’ll get fired.  But I’m not.  I’ve been so frustrated and fed up with that place that I’m seriously looking forward to leaving for my summer gig, and I probably won’t make any attempt to continue employment there in the fall.  If they want to fire me over something so ridiculous, they can knock themselves out.  Personally I find this whole dibacle ridiculous, and the fact that I can cause drama in the store while 3 states away hilarious.  I have a feeling that by the end of this, the story will be retold in 6 different versions, and somehow I will be blamed, if not for not getting my hours covered then for wanting to take time off and causing trouble in the first place.

Whatever happens, I laugh knowing that in 5 weeks I will be far away in Wichita, hanging lights and drinking beer. And then who wins?  That’s right.  The girl with the beer.

And by that I mean F airfield, OH.  And by that, I mean please kill me now.*

That’s right, the husband and I are back in Cinci for Spring Break ’09.  Because that’s the hot spring break destination, right?  Actually, only Kyle’s on spring break.  I’m on I’ll-make-a-hell-of-a-lot-more-money-and-have-a-hell-of-a-lot-more-fun-in-Cincinnati-than-I-will-working-8-hours-of-retail-and-cutting-myself Break.  I like to call it Awesome Break.  What makes this Spring/Awesome Break better than the average beer-fueled party-fest is that we will leave with +$1,500 instead -$1,500.  And it will still be beer-fueled.  We’re** here to help a college buddy of ours, Jason, build a show for his theatre, and in return we get $1,500*** and all the beer we can drink with dignity. Which turns out is quite a lot.

So for the next week, I’ll be sharing my experiences here in a tiny suburb of Cinci.  And this time I will get a picture of the drive-through  liquor store.  I promise this to you.

*No, I don’t need a reason to hate F airfield, OH.  Just say the name out loud; it reeks of rusty trucks and cheap beer and a city without Sonic.

**Okay, so actually Kyle will be doing most of the work because I don’t know shit about building scenery, and even less about building with steel.  But I’ll totally be helping.  And baking cookies, which according to my husband is a critical job.  It’s good to feel useful.

*** I argued that we should get an extra $100 for having to stay in Ohio for a week.  I was told to shove it.