Someday I'm going to have my own ideas.

It'll be awesome.

Until then, I'm following suit, with my mom and sister. John, you seem to have a knack for starting viral blogs. Good job. Think of all the tables you can wait with that skill. : ]

Anyway.

As you guys know, I work for McDonald's, and have for the last four years (my four year anniversary was last month, actually, I was hired in Sanford, as a Crew Member on April 4th, 2004, don't ask me why I remember that). I was a Crew Member for four months. A shift manager for close to three years. And now an Assistant Manager.

I do like my job, and pretty much always have. I've met some awesome people, and made good friends through McDonald's.

My job isn't all that thrilling, and I don't necessarily make a difference in anyone's life. However, I go to work everyday, for at least nine hours (usually more, nine is the minimum for Staff), and work. My job changes all the time, which I love. Whether it's product changing, new employees, learning new things to do around the store. I used to be quite handy, back in the day. I could tear apart, clean, and fix numerous pieces of machinery, such as toasters, shake and orange juice machine, an ice machine one (I'll admit, that one ended badly). However, the equipment is incredibly different now, and I don't spend as much time on the floor as I used to.

No more uniforms. Ha ha. I love that. I just wear dress clothes to work everyday.

What my job consists of at this moment (it's changing a lot, because I just got a new boss). I do Crew schedules, which are easy, but not very fun. It's time consuming, and tiring, since I look at a screen for hours at a time. So I drink coffee, it's good. I'm in charge of training, which I love (and where I hope my career is headed, I'd like to train Restaurant Managers at Hamburger University). I do a little bit of hiring, but mostly my boss does that (I used to do 100% of the hiring). I'm in charge of our People Promise Manager, which is a Crew person who sort of acts as a "delegate" to the Crew. She knows all about Crew insurance, policies, and does all orientations of new employees, plus a lot of the training (in big stores, Crew Trainers are usually part of a large group, but we have very few employees). I do all the ordering for the store, and deal with our distributor, and also am in charge of supervising all product deliveries, and the integrity of the product upon delivery (basically, if something doesn't look right coming off the truck, I tell the driver it is to go right back on). I'm also our bilingual manager, meaning I deal with anyone who doesn't speak very much english, which is fine. That's not actually a role, but my new boss doesn't speak much spanish at all (my old boss was married to a mexican man, so she spoke tons of spanish). I'm also in charge of safety and security, and making sure the Crew know how to deal with unsafe situations (we have a lot of crazy homeless). Lastly, I'm in charge of promotions and in-store advertising. Menu boards, those window clings, any signs in the store, if you walk into my McDonald's, I put up and/or approved the location of every single one of those.

There are less fun aspects to my job. My new boss is a bit of a (sorry, mom, no better word for this) bitch. She tends to blame things on me, that aren't my fault. She took away a lot of my job responsibilities I really enjoyed, and put me in charge of the things no one else wants to do (which is fine). She often feels, because I ran the store so long with no one above me, I should be stronger in my role than I am (keep in mind, I went from an overnight Shift Manager to a Restaurant Manager in a matter of months).

There are two kinds of Assistants. 1st and 2nd. I'm a 2nd, only by title. We don't have a 1st Assistant, so I have to sort of step up, and take the role, even though I'm in charge of more than I normally would be, in a regular restaurant.

Upon understanding I was being overwhelmed awhile back, and felt as though people were having a hard time taking me seriously, my Operations Manager (who normally doesn't deal with Restaurant Managers, let alone Assistant Managers) assured me when I come back to the company, after school, he will not put me in a SPOD restaurant (Special Point of Distribution), but a regular, free-standing, high-volume restaurant, so that I actually have the right kind of exposure for an Assistant, and will be better ready to keep moving up.

*EDIT*EDIT*EDIT*

I'm back!

First things first.  Why does everyone have this idea of me, that I'm this huge, liberal Democrat?

I'm really not liberal, much.

And as far as Democrat/Republican goes...I couldn't care less, really.  I sort of hate politics (my, how far we've come in four years).

I got my Mac!

I'm sort of just playing with it right now, it's so much different that a PC, it's a bit hard to use right now.

And this screen is enormous.  Way bigger than I remember (my friend has one).

Anyway...give me a little time, I'm sure I'll have some posts that are somewhat interesting for you guys.  

*EDIT*EDIT*EDIT*EDIT*

My laptop crashed.

Yes. About five days ago, my laptop crashed.

Mom is in Indy for work, we went out to dinner, and she's watching Survivor, and I'm using her computer. Heh.

I bought a new computer today. A Mac, to be specific (I'm super excited), which will be here in 12-16 days (not sure what kind of time frame that is). I've been planning on buying one for awhile, and then when my laptop crashed last week, it just really pushed me, and all the money lined up right (tax rebate, last quarter's work bonus, plus economic stimulus check), so it all worked out.

Anyway. The reason for my absence, I do apologize. I promise something awesome when I come back, really.

Exciting things are on the horizon. I've missed you guys in the blogging world, and I'll be back before you know it!

I have a new eMail address.

My new eMail address from now on: malong12@svsu.edu .

: ]

Thanks.

Guess who's a model?

Ha ha ha.

That would be me.

Basically, because extra cash is always nice, right? I have two days off a week from work. I like Indy. I like meeting people.

So. I signed up with an agency that provides local companies and businesses with promotional models around the city.

My first job is beginning of May. My suit fitting is in a couple weeks.

So weird...

-Mickey

It is Wednesday.

And I'm sure you're all dying to know what I was talking about.

Heh.

Anyway...let me explain something quickly. My restaurant is part of a group of restaurants called a Patch. Which is part of a bigger group of restaurants called a Market. From there a Region. Then the grouping basically stops. I work in the Indy West Market, in Emily's Patch (she's my Area Supervisor...sort of our version of "District Managers", which actually don't really exist at McOpCo McDonald's).

Now. My restaurant manager's name is also Emily. Not confusing at all.

Three restaurants are being affected by what's going on. They are:

Broad Ripple: Linda (I used to work there, under Linda).
Hyatt: Emily (I work there now, and Emily was actually promoted out of Broad Ripple, into the Hyatt).
Zionsville: Cindy (Linda used to work there). Zionsville isn't actually in our patch, though.

This is what is taking place. Linda is going back to Zionsville. Emily is going to Broad Ripple (I'm so sad...), and Cindy is coming to the Hyatt.

I'm not going to go into details as to why. Just some personal stuff from one of them.

Anyway. Here is the great irony. Back when I was still in Broad Ripple, I was doing overnights five nights a week, because we were really in a bind for overnight managers at the time. I was getting really worn out and frustrated, because I knew I was so close to being promoted, yet I felt like I wasn't being considered, because no one was ever seeing me. I also knew I'd never be promoted in Broad Ripple, because we already had four Staff. So I ended up working a convention in the Hyatt, and met Emily, who knew I was planning on leaving the company at that point (I had already accepted another job), and offered me to come to the Hyatt, saying she needed an Assistant, and it's what I wanted to be. So after about a month, Emily (our Supervisor) gave the okay for me to be transferred. So off I went. After about three months, sure enough, I became an Assistant...and then a Store Manager for six weeks.

Throughout this experience, Emily and I have become pretty close friends. I have pictures of her son on my cell phone (chicano babies are cute, what can I say?). I was staying in Indy, only because I knew Emily would have a hard time without an Assistant, and she later told me she'd have a hard time finding an Assistant as good as I am (which surprised me, because I often feel I'm not really that great at my job).

A recap: I was unhappy in my old job. Emily convinced me to come to the Hyatt. Emily and I always talk of going back to Broad Ripple. Emily gets to go back to Broad Ripple as the Store Manager, and I'm stuck in the Hyatt.

Ironic.

I know only my family has been to the Hyatt where I work, and thought it was actually a nice store.

I believe in the ten minute conversation I just had with Emily on the phone, I told her of about seven things that are currently broken.

Emily was what made my job fun, and enjoyable.

In the end: I'm coming back in late June. With Emily not being there anymore, I feel no obligation to stick around.

School in the fall again.

I'm excited.

(Sorry for the long McDonald's post...vacation is coming up, expect pictures.)

My apologies.

Why I haven't written in awhile.

Yesterday I worked 2-10 in my old store, as a favor to my old boss.

I work 5:30 AM to at least 8 PM tonight. We'll see how I'm feeling, to see if I want to stay later to count inventory. I'm also the only manager scheduled today.

I work at 5 AM tomorrow, to do inventory/food cost.

There's a lot of stuff going on at work, but I can't really talk about it until Wednesday. However, it does affect me pretty greatly, and also when I'll be leaving Indy. Expect more on that after Wednesday.

I'm so tired.