We had a bar-b-que at our house today with our church. I had to work.

Robert, who used to be on the maintanence team but now is a Garden associate, is now acting as a temporary stockman until we hire some more. He opened today and it was a mess when I came in, but I have to give him the benefit of the doubt because he's a good guy and has a family and he seems the responsible type. But regardless, I had my work cut out for me. It was very busy. I still need sunglasses.

After my lunch, I basically had to start over with the carts, and that's when Fred came strutting out and called my name, stopping inside my personal space and started telling me orders in an accusing tone. He said, "Jason, I want this whole parking lot picked up by 11 o'clock tonight, no later. And there is this shopping cart in the G.I. Joe's parking lot that has been there for 2 days. I want you to get that, too. And I want you to remember to bring the batteries out to the boneyard tonight. You left a lot of them last night. So I want the whole parking lot picked up by 11, and no later. No ifs, ands, or buts," and he walked off as quickly as he came.
I thought, "Okay, I'll do what I always do since I don't go slow other times, and if I don't get it done by 11, that just means that I was given an inadequate time limit, since I always work as well as I can."

Right after he left, 2 boys pulled beside me in a large pickup truck and asked me if he was being an asshole to me, and I said he always is. They agreed that he was indeed an asshole and went off on how one time they were skating and just messing around and he came and took their shoes and said to follow him and he'll make sure they're banned from the store. They said a lot of cuss words, "fuck" being their favorite, but I liked hearing it, considering it was directed at Fred. Plus, I was told by another manager that it's their responsibility to tell me when they want me to go do the batteries and even Fred had come and told me that he forgot to have me do them one night.

Anyway, I did the carts like I always do and when I had finished, I looked at the clock and it read 10:59. Fred was around and asked me if I was done, and I said, "Yes, and I must compliment you on your judgement. Right when I finished, I looked at the clock and it said 10:59."
He said, "Look at you, I knew you could do it. Now if you would only do that every night." Okay, first of all, I do do that good of a job every night. There just happens to be more or less customers and carts. And I'm the constant here, Fred's the variable. I did the same as I always do. He's the one who made a good guess this time.

When I got home, Andrea was on the computer and was still on it when I got too tired to wait any longer, so I went to bed.