Help Me Help Josh

My nephew Josh, Megan's oldest, was diagnosed with autism last year.

Here he is enjoying a piece of his little sister's first birthday cake. You can tell how much he is enjoying it by the amount of chocolate on his lips.

Josh was born on Halloween. A few weeks later on Thanksgiving, Jason took this picture of him in his Thanksgiving outfit lying on the turkey platter. This picture always cracks me up.

Josh is the sweetest little kid. Megan and Jason are working hard to help him as much as possible. Megan takes Josh to a special preschool every morning and in the afternoons a teacher comes to their house to work with him some more. We all love Josh so much and are so excited whenever he makes progress and we can see more of his little spirit.

Josh's diagnosis has been hard on all of us. I wish I could do more to help, but it is hard to do much from so far away. So when I was trying to think of a gift for Megan for her upcoming birthday I thought it would be nice to do something to help Josh and their family.

So in Josh's honor I'm going to participate in a walk for autism next month on April 25. I would love for anyone who lives in the area to join me.

The whole point of doing this walk is to raise money. The money goes to Autism Speaks which is an organization which raises awareness about autism and funds research for new treatments and a cure.

If you'd like to sponsor me you can donate at the following website: http://www.walknowforautism.org/faf/r.asp?t=4&i=288321&u=288321-250434567

Thank you!

I'm Crazy and so is Supercuts

I've been having headaches lately. I don't know why. Maybe it's my eyes, maybe it's my sinuses, or possibly a tumor taking over my brain. I don't know, but my head has been hurting off and on all day for several weeks now.
Simultaneously my hair has gotten completely out of control. I've put up with it for several months. I'm not sure when I had my last haircut but it was embarrassingly long ago. My friend Lindsey cuts my hair, but she only takes appointments on Saturdays and I can't get my lethargic self to face up to a hair appointment and a Saturday night of fun at Borders all in one day. So I just kept putting the haircut off.
For some reason I decided that my long, crazy hair and resulting perma-ponytail were making my headaches worse. I kept taking my hair up and down, up and down, depending on which was bugging me worse - my headache or my hair.
I finally decided I had to get my hair cut at any cost. But then I found out I might lose my job. Every dollar became super important and I couldn't justify getting a $50+ haircut at a salon. So I decided to enter the world of bargain haircuts. But I hate doing new things so I was really relieved when I got to keep my job and could go back to Lindsey's nice salon. But even though my job was secure it still seemed frivolous to spend so much on a haircut. I mean I have bills to pay!
So I did some research. I got the lowdown on Supercuts from Heather and one of the guys I work with. I yahooed and mapquested my closest Supercuts and decided Friday was the day. After work I drove to the supposed Supercuts but it wasn't there. I drove around and around but the phantom Supercuts failed to appear. My fro seemed to grow larger on the drive home. My usual work vs. haircut problem arose on Saturday and my Saturday lethargy triumphed. Sunday morning I almost chopped off my ponytail myself but I thought it would be too much trouble to explain.
Monday had to be the day. I once again yahooed and mapquested Supercuts. Right after work I headed to the Supercuts closest to Borders. But once again the alleged Supercuts did not exist. Luckily my car had a flat tire so I was driving Mom's SUV complete with GPS navigation. I typed in Supercuts and found another Supercuts a few miles away. This one existed.
Nobody told me that Supercuts is only for men. Or at least the one I went to was patronized by an all male clientele. One of the stylists was a man who seemed to specialize in buzz cuts. But the other was a woman so I crossed my fingers and hoped she was the one to call my name. I lucked out. But then she asked me if I wanted my hair shampooed. That one was kind of a stunner. I hesitated before answering. The following went through my brain, "What? Is shampooing optional? Is cutting my hair dry an option? Is she just going to squirt my hair down if I say no? That doesn't seem like a good idea." So after what I hoped wasn't too long of a pause I agreed to the shampoo.
The haircut proceeded normally from there. Except that she didn't talk at all. I guess Supercuts stylists don't need to buddy up to their clients. I considered that to be a bonus. She seemed to be doing a good job. She finished cutting and handed me a mirror to inspect her handiwork. Everything looked good. Next thing I knew, she was whisking off my cape and blowing off my neck with the blow dryer. I sat there for a moment wondering, "Am I done? Is that it?" She said, "You can get up now." I stood up, my hair still dripping on my shirt. I guess blow drying isn't the Supercuts way. Good thing I didn't go on my lunch break. I bumbled through the payment process, pulling out some tip cash until I realized I was supposed to add the tip onto the credit card receipt.
The highlight of the experience was when the stylist told me my haircut was only $18. I also saved on gas on the way home since my head was too cold to require air conditioning. My future relationship with Supercuts? TBD

Borders Zone 10

I know, I know, another Borders Zone already? But I have to share the good news.

I still have a job!

The layoffs happened yesterday and I fortunately wasn't one of them. This is a huge relief for me as I'm sure you can imagine. Although my job isn't my dream job, I am extremely happy to have it considering the current state of the economy. They laid-off a manager and a supervisor at my store. Unfortunately that means that my friend Jon lost his job. It was a strange day. On one hand I was tremendously relieved to still have a job, but on the other hand I keep thinking about Jon and worrying about him. The mood was pretty somber today.

Thank you to all of you who worried with me and helped me deal with the stress. I'll try to be more patient with the crazy customers now that my job is safe for awhile. Now get out there and buy some books at Borders people!

Borders Zone 9

Like many retail businesses, Borders is definitely feeling the recession. So far the layoffs have been limited to the corporate level but lately the phrase "ideal management structure" has been floated around about the store management level. Last time they started talking about "ideal management structure" they eliminated one of the supervisor positions at my store. So now when I go to work I'm not only dealing with the stress of the retail-recession environment but I also have the ochre cloud of unemployment hanging over my head.

Unfortunately this has made me notice some interesting things customers do that are part of the reason my job is in jeopardy. What in the world could our lovely customers do to get me laid-off? Here are some examples from just this morning.

1. I spent about three hours this morning on a special project to reorganize and simplify the baby and toddler books to make the area more "shoppable." When I left for lunch every book was in place and each section was demarcated by a lovely, labeled divider and a matching shelf label. When I got back from lunch an hour later, the whole section was trashed. Books were thrust into the wrong sections and piled haphazardly on top of other books. Three hours of precious Borders payroll destroyed.

2. A customer came to the register with six copies of our latest Rewards coupon and became outraged when we said that she could only use one coupon. She couldn't understand why we wouldn't let her get 30% off of six different books. I mean she went to all the trouble to print six copies of the coupon and all. I think sometimes customers forget that businesses have to actually make a profit to stay in business.

3. I tried to help a customer find a nursing book but we couldn't find it. I then offered to call another store for her. They didn't have it either. The customer then made me call three other stores to track down the book. Half an hour later we still couldn't find the book. She kept apologizing for taking so much of my time. I just wanted to scream, "You're going to be a nurse and you can't even handle tracking down a book yourself!" Our store's payroll (the number of hours we can schedule employees) has been cut by about 40% since last year. In other words, we are trying to get about the same amount of work done with a lot less people. Borders doesn't have the money to spend half an hour with each customer trying to find them a $20 book.

Anyways, I just needed to vent some of this "looming layoffs" stress. It gets frustrating when I'm scrambling to keep my job and our customers are so oblivious to the highwire we are walking with this recession.