Jack of All Trades

I forget to update my blog unless someone reminds me. Thanks, Mom. :)

Between my 2 jobs I usually tend to work 13-hour days. After a week though my body has gotten used to the routine. And I get Thursdays and Sundays off of both.

Papa John's has stayed pretty much the same. I'm still answering phones and cutting the pizzas. I meet some interesting folks of all nationalities and accents. And I get orders from a lot more Americans than I would have expected. Some nights about half of the people who call in are American.

Business at Snappy Snaps has really calmed down since the holiday season. Things were CRAZY then, and it was an awful time to be trained. In fact, I never really was trained. I was just thrown into the deep end and told to swim. But I've got most of the basics down and it's a lot easier since the business has slowed down as well, though it can still get pretty hectic at times.

This past week, since it's been a bit slower, Simon (the owner) has had me doing all kinds of weird projects around the place to keep it in shape. The sink in the kitchen downstairs had a leak. He told me to go fix it. I went down, found the leak coming from a part of the pipe under the sink. I took it apart, went to a Home Depot-type store and found a replacement part, and put it back together again. Of course it wasn't that simple. It took most of the day, and I was in all kinds of awkward positions trying to keep my black clothes as clean as possible (basically impossible), and problems kept arising here and there. But in the end it was perfectly fixed. Hooray! *pats self on back*

A few days ago, he had a couple of us going into the back of a closet-type area to find any documents older than 5 years old to be burned. They were all bundled up in garbage bags by year. First of all I never even knew this closet was there. Second, it's set up to look like a small closet, but as I kept digging through the bags it's actually a giant room underneath the pavement without any real floor, wall, or ceiling. I felt like I was spelunking. I found old bags from 20 years ago covered in bits of mud. When Simon came down to check on us, he saw how far back we had gotten and said not to worry about going that far back. I thought the job was annoying but when I saw how far back the room goes, I got really excited about going through all that stuff. Disappointment. And of course by this time my hands were completely dirty as were my once clean black clothes.

The past couple days he's had me cleaning the ceiling in the shop, focusing on the areas where the fluorescent light bulbs are fixed in. With a ladder, a bleach spray bottle, and paper towels I've been going at it. I didn't realize how dirty it all was until I started cleaning it. It's come to a whole new level of brightness. Half the room is a lot brighter than the other half now. It's a long work in progress.

Yesterday, he had me go up into the ceiling to find some cords we don't need anymore and pull them down. It took a while and involved me popping my head into a few different places within the ceiling, but I eventually got the job done. And of course I'm having to wash my black clothes once again. At one point, Simon got up on another ladder to help me. He was on the other side of a big ventilation tube thing so we couldn't see each other. He found one end of the cord and wanted me to pull it down my side. To make it easier he threw the plug over in my direction hitting me square in the eye (not small enough to actually hit my eyeball though - don't worry). It left a small mark on my nose. Didn't really hurt, I was laughing about how accurate his blind aim was. But he bought me lunch, probably bc he doesn't want me to sue. :)

So I'm learning quite a bit working at Snappy Snaps, and not just about developing pictures. And I finally got my first paycheck yesterday, so that makes it a lot more rewarding. :)

And now I'm off to Primark to spend Christmas money!