It's been a long two days.
Monday I worked just over 11 hours. Today, I put in another 10. Tomorrow may be shorter, but my guess is, it won't be less than seven.
The reason for the long days is because my schedule got moved around a bit. Yesterday, I was supposed to be relatively close to home, roughly 25 minutes at most. However, three additional accounts that are about 45 minutes away got added on, along with another account in town that I'd never been before. That meant about an hour and thirty minute round trip, plus travel between the accounts, were added on.
Today, a similar thing happened. A couple of accounts I didn't know existed became part of the coast trip today. Not a big deal, except one of the places doesn't open until 4 pm, although all its signage outside says its open from breakfast to dinner. Fortunately, I was able to find something to do for nearly all that time. Now I'm just hoping I'll have enough product and bank bags to get me through tomorrow, since I stocked up based on what I knew I'd be doing last Thursday. Now I see I need to stock up based on what I don't know at the time, too.
Interestingly enough, I've been okay with the rearranging. I'm still new, and I know the company has been understaffed, something they were finally able to rectify starting this week. There's been plenty going on with new accounts, as well, so the business doesn't just stop because the new guy is on board.
And actually, I'm feeling better about many things. I think I'm getting done faster at places with both collections and fills. It helps when there's not a whole lot to do but pretty up a display case, and I have more or less the right keys.
I can also say I had a minor victory yesterday. Up until then, I'd not been able to get into any of the older styled candy/toy machines. The one where you put in a quarter and then turn the handle. Even with the right key, they're a lot more involved to access the money than other machines because you basically have to dismantle them to do it. At any rate, I didn't have the right keys for any of them until yesterday when I was able to fill up one that had Mike & Ike's in them.
Of course, that minor victory was plagued by a minor setback. Instead of cutting open a bag of Mike & Ikes, I decided to try to rip open the bag. It looked sturdy enough, but that apparently only applied to the glued ends. Once that was opened, so went half of the bag, and candy went flying all over the floor.
That took several minutes to clean up. I guess I could have gone and asked for a dustpan and a broom, but I felt like I should own this myself. Feel it. Burn it into my memory so the next time I want to go ripping open a bag, I'll think twice about it. Because it's a pain, literally and figuratively, to clean up.
While I was cleaning up, I had to resist several times from popping some of the candy in my mouth. I haven't had Mike and Ikes for a long, long time, and I know people really like them. This was a selection of natural fruit. I didn't do it, though. I'm 53 years old. You would think I wouldn't have such thoughts, like a five year old. Maybe that's not the case, which is why my wife continues to get after me. I'm still young at heart, which I guess I'll chalk up to a good thing.
Another minor triumph came at a stop I'd never been before, part of the accounts added on yesterday. There, one of the padlocks had a broken off toothpick in it. I was able to remove the toothpick without breaking it off inside the keyhole, so it could be unlocked. However, just as with the prior experience, there was a downside. Another padlock had something stuck so far into the keyhole that I couldn't really see it. I only knew it was there because the key wouldn't go in more than about a third of the way.
I tried using the toothpick I fished out of the first padlock to get whatever it was out of the second one, but to no avail. I may have only succeeded in wedging it in there further. I put it in as a service call. My guess is, they'll have to use a pretty heavy duty pair of bolt cutters, but they may have some trick that I'm not aware of to get whatever it is out. I was thinking some kind of resin that wouldn't stick to the metal, but encase whatever was inside would be cool, but I don't know if that kind of thing even exists, and if so, if we even have any of it to use.
At another stop, I ungunked another coin slot which had a combination of at least a dozen quarters, a half dollar, a penny, and pieces of paper wedged into it. I also think some kind of soda dripped or somehow got spilled in there because some of the coins were sticky and when I took apart the coin mechanism, it was sticky. I wasn't able to completely fix the problem, though. Coins just go in and get stuck, so it might need to be cleaned and I don't know what we have to do that.
There's so much I know I don't know, and probably more I don't know that I don't know. I do know that it's bad enough when things get messed up accidentally, but when someone goes around intentionally doing it, it just makes me wonder. I suppose it could be some kid who doesn't realize what they're doing is going to cause problems, but even so, I wouldn't let my boys at a young age go unattended for any length of time. So, I guess I'm wondering where the parents were, if it wasn't someone older.
Thankfully, today went smoother. I didn't need to fix too many things. There were a few issues. There's a game where you use gumballs in a very simple pinball box. Someone's gumball had broken in half, though, and it was keeping someone else's gumballs from coming down far enough to engage with the flippers. To get the gumballs, you need to bat them into the right holes. There's no way into the game that I can tell, so I had to finesse things a little to get the gumballs out. That, though, was fun.
The coast run has been around a four hour driving experience so far. Three hours more or less up and back, and then about 45 minutes in between spots depending on traffic. It's a 33 mile stretch of coastal road for what amounted to eight accounts.
Tomorrow, unless it changes, I've got one account about 50 minutes away, while the rest are around 20-30 minutes. One of the places I can't get into until 3 pm, so I'll have to figure out logistics and try to time things. I don't like starting work later than 9 AM, but it's been better in some cases. As far as blogging goes, it's not a whole lot of time to get something ready for publishing on STEEM (and generally earlier than I would like to post), but it also mean getting home later, like after 7 pm, which again doesn't give me a whole lot of time to put something together before it gets a little later than I'd like to post.
The safest bet is to try to come up with something to post and at least write part of it in the morning and then finish up in the evening. I wish inspiration always worked that way with me.
All right. For those keeping track of my weekly updates, that pretty much brings you up to speed on the highlights.
Flexibility. It's the name of the game. Now if only my body would bend like my attitude.
Images by Glen Anthony Albrethsen
