Dear Monday,
I know we have fought over the years, and I know we haven’t really been friends since about first grade, when your arrival meant five days away from Saturday Morning Cartoons and meant that I had to trudge my sorry backside to the bus stop for another wonderful day at school. The older I got the more I grew to dislike you…long nights studying just for you to stir the alarm clock at the crack of dawn, you were as welcome as a hangover. I can even accuse you of being the cause of a Tuesday hangover with some of the fun you’ve sent my way over the years. I hate you and you hate me. Got it. But isn’t this crap a bit tedious? It’s the same thing every week.
Let’s call it a truce one time and see how it goes, ok? Instead of having the idiots lining up at the door ten minutes before opening, yelling at me because I won’t open the door until everything is ready for the day, how about giving me about fifteen minutes after the door is unlocked before our first visitor? By then the money will be out, the first cup of coffee will be in my system and I’ll be a much more pleasant person, which in turn will pay it forward for the customer who I’m sure doesn’t want to see me standing at the counter looking like an extra from The Hills Have Eyes.
And while you’re at it, can you look over the other people heading in? How about seeing to it that the mechanic stepping into the shop has at least one donut left in the box that might actually look appealing? Maybe let the first customer be someone who spent their weekend cleaning out their car, and just needs a simple diagnosis. Let the service technician translate the customer’s request into English for a change, since nobody in on the floor can read the Sanskrit he usually writes in. Let the delivery drivers be on time, let the workload be light enough to not absolutely crush our spirits, and just let us try to make the day better for other people, instead of wasting your time crushing our spirit. Can that be a deal? Can that truly work? You hold up your end and I’ll hold up mine.
Let’s make today the Monday that “y’know, was pretty good!”
Your Pal (no, really, I promise)
UPCG
First phone call this morning was 08:00:26. Luckily, it wasn’t an upset customer. Just the guy I sold parts to Friday with some questions.
Thank god I don’t have school today and I’m not working my auto parts job today.
Mondays get better after you retire. Trust me.
I work in land survey now after a few years as a mechanic.
Monday (yesterday) : throw some crap in a Jeep, drive to a new part of the county, go for a walk w/ technical gadgets & say very little to anyone but my partner on the job. Clock out at 3:45.
Monday (as a tech) observe 2 beater-ass cars in driveway and two people waiting in their cars at the curb. Watch 8:00 come and go with no word from the service writer, who has the key. Half hour late, he opens the door in a bad mood: his commute was hell, and now we have two unannounced and unplanned for vehicles in the driveway. Try to open the shop ASAP and get shit moving but, with a half hour’s delay, there is no way to make it look good by the time the boss shows up 15 minutes later. Spend all day trying like hell and generally failing to keep shit moving and make it look professional.