Altron
Well-Known Member
I was at West Point Military Academy for the weekend. I got to see the museum and walk around the campus a bit. It was really cool. We camped in a nearby site where they put the incoming freshmen during the summer before they are Cadets.
I wouldn't want to join the military, but several of my friends are thinking very seriously about it, going into either West Point or Annapolis and becoming officers.
I get a call from the senior patrol leader at ten PM on thursday, tellin' me that I gotta plan the meals and get all the food for six scouts.
So then on Friday, I go out to the grocery store and do it the right way. Saturday morning is bacon and cheese omelettes with hash browns. Saturday dinner is cheese steaks (very thinly sliced steak with melted cheese and fried onions on a long sandwich roll), then Sunday breakfast is pork roll (a combination of Canadian Bacon and balogna that is only available in New Jersey but is completely fucking awesome) with cheese on bagels.
Back when we started, we were taught to do it right. Very well-made meals. No half-assed grilled cheese or bagels or shit like that. The new guys don't do that, but I'm the second oldest guy in the troop, and I learned to do it right.
So then my mom calls, and tells me that I need to get off work on Wednsday to go to a town planning board meeting to get the eagle project approved.
I call work to see who else is there on Wednesday, to find out that I was scheduled for work that night!
Now, I put in a Time-Off Request like three weeks earlier, because I knew I was camping. The manager put together the schedule last Saturday. On it, I was scheduled off for the weekend. It was a guy and a girl working friday night, the girl was saturday morning and the guy was saturday night, and they were both working all day Sunday (we have three weekend people). So, apparantly, at some point on Tuesday, the schedule was changed to have me work friday with the girl. Was anyone notified about it? No.
Now, I haven't had a single Saturday or Sunday off since August 6th. Since then, I've worked at least eight hours every Saturday and ten hours every sunday.
So I'm calling to find out who else is working on Wednesday. The plan, as it stands, is for me to come in for about 2-3 hours, then leave for as long as neccessary to attend the meeting, then come back and close the store. I haven't checked with the girl who's working with me that night, but she should be alright, because she closes by herself quite often.
Then they're like "Umm, it's 4:30, you're coming in at 5:00, right?"
To which I'm like "No, it's the guy and the girl tonight, I'm off this weekend"
Then I discover that they changed the damn schedule three days earlier without letting anyone know (the guy who was originally scheduled but was then scheduled off was coming in anyway, he didn't even know that it was changed either) AND that the girl is really sick and called out.
So then management wants me to come in and work, and I'm like "No, I'm not. I put in a time off request and made plans three weeks ago, and I wasn't scheduled to work. You can't just change the schedule whenever you damn well please without telling anybody, then expect people to know that it's been changed. I'm going to be out of state for the weekend, so if I'm scheduled any other days this weekend, I won't be there."
What idiots.
So then, we take like forever to get headed out. There's four cars. We pulled over probably 10 times to get out and try to figure out where the fuck we were going, and to ask directions. We finally find out that we overshot the campsite by 20 miles. All told, it took some four hours to go 200 miles.
We get in, get unpacked. A-frame cabins with electricity and cots, but no running water.
In a confused mess (the troop had a lot of new scouts, and they're very difficult to control, especially since a lot of the older scouts were fucking around. If the kids saw someone older having a good time, they would want to join them, and not do what they were supposed to.)
It took us some three hours to get 20-odd people out of cots and into uniforms.
Then they realize that there is no fucking propane.
So we find a deli place, and buy breakfast. Now, you'd normally get two dozen mixed bagels, a container of cream cheese, and a container of butter, right? Nope. You need to take the individual orders for each person.
We finally pull into West Point a solid five hours after waking up...
We hit the museum, which is pretty cool.
Walk around the campus, see the huge mess hall and the barracks and all that good stuff.
We eat lunch at one of the smaller mess halls, then we see the football field and the protestant chapel, then the hockey/basketball building.
They decide to go to a Catholic mass, since most of the kids are Catholics. Us "protestant barbarians" walked aroound the campus for awhile longer.
We finally get all packed up and leave the academy, then get horribly lost on the way back to the campsite. 2 hours to drive 15 miles.
I start on dinner. Apparantly, somehow the five people I was originally cooking for turned into seven. There wasn't much food, and we had spent so much time at the catholic mass and getting lost that it was really late and really dark while we were cooking. The cheesesteaks were pretty decent, there just weren't enough.
Then they put together some oddly complicated variation on "Jailbreak" called "lazing the target" which involved a few cabins, four laser pointers, and like 20 people. Four people were chosen as "special ops" and their goal was to "laze the target" by pointing a laser pointer at the building containing the "terrorist leader". The terrorists's goal was to take special ops as hostages. If two special ops guys died, the special ops lost. If the target was lazed, the special ops won. The terrorists could take special ops as hostages and put them in the same building as the terrorist leader, the special ops couldn't kill terrorists but they were four of the older, faster, and smarter guys.
I had the dubious honor of being the terrorist leader. We had two A-frame cabins and a bathroom building. I manipulated my team into thinking that I was on the other team and that one of my teammates was the terrorist leader. I stood in the bathroom while the terrorists defended the decoy and the special ops tried to attack the wrong guy, waiting for the time limit to end. Then one of my own men captured me, thinking that I was a special ops. I did some reverse psychology and talked them into holding me as a hostage. Needless to say, we won, although a few of the kids got way too rough and they decided never to play the game again.
Saw some really nice stars on Saturday night.
Sunday, TWO of the three patrols decided to take the easy way out and eat a box of donuts for breakfast. I cooked a pound of bacon, a dozen eggs, a pound of potatos, and about two pounds of pork roll. It was awesome.
Then it took HOURS for them to clean up.
Two of the cars went back to west point for some more sightseeing while the other four cleaned up. The idea was to get home at the same time. For whatever reason, it was decided to put personal gear in the cars going to west point.
The west point people took too long they were like three hours behind, so here I am. I don't have a driver's license, an ATM card, any money, car keys, or a phone. Gotta get my mom to drive me back there to pick up the gear.
ARGH
I wouldn't want to join the military, but several of my friends are thinking very seriously about it, going into either West Point or Annapolis and becoming officers.
I get a call from the senior patrol leader at ten PM on thursday, tellin' me that I gotta plan the meals and get all the food for six scouts.
So then on Friday, I go out to the grocery store and do it the right way. Saturday morning is bacon and cheese omelettes with hash browns. Saturday dinner is cheese steaks (very thinly sliced steak with melted cheese and fried onions on a long sandwich roll), then Sunday breakfast is pork roll (a combination of Canadian Bacon and balogna that is only available in New Jersey but is completely fucking awesome) with cheese on bagels.
Back when we started, we were taught to do it right. Very well-made meals. No half-assed grilled cheese or bagels or shit like that. The new guys don't do that, but I'm the second oldest guy in the troop, and I learned to do it right.
So then my mom calls, and tells me that I need to get off work on Wednsday to go to a town planning board meeting to get the eagle project approved.
I call work to see who else is there on Wednesday, to find out that I was scheduled for work that night!
Now, I put in a Time-Off Request like three weeks earlier, because I knew I was camping. The manager put together the schedule last Saturday. On it, I was scheduled off for the weekend. It was a guy and a girl working friday night, the girl was saturday morning and the guy was saturday night, and they were both working all day Sunday (we have three weekend people). So, apparantly, at some point on Tuesday, the schedule was changed to have me work friday with the girl. Was anyone notified about it? No.
Now, I haven't had a single Saturday or Sunday off since August 6th. Since then, I've worked at least eight hours every Saturday and ten hours every sunday.
So I'm calling to find out who else is working on Wednesday. The plan, as it stands, is for me to come in for about 2-3 hours, then leave for as long as neccessary to attend the meeting, then come back and close the store. I haven't checked with the girl who's working with me that night, but she should be alright, because she closes by herself quite often.
Then they're like "Umm, it's 4:30, you're coming in at 5:00, right?"
To which I'm like "No, it's the guy and the girl tonight, I'm off this weekend"
Then I discover that they changed the damn schedule three days earlier without letting anyone know (the guy who was originally scheduled but was then scheduled off was coming in anyway, he didn't even know that it was changed either) AND that the girl is really sick and called out.
So then management wants me to come in and work, and I'm like "No, I'm not. I put in a time off request and made plans three weeks ago, and I wasn't scheduled to work. You can't just change the schedule whenever you damn well please without telling anybody, then expect people to know that it's been changed. I'm going to be out of state for the weekend, so if I'm scheduled any other days this weekend, I won't be there."
What idiots.
So then, we take like forever to get headed out. There's four cars. We pulled over probably 10 times to get out and try to figure out where the fuck we were going, and to ask directions. We finally find out that we overshot the campsite by 20 miles. All told, it took some four hours to go 200 miles.
We get in, get unpacked. A-frame cabins with electricity and cots, but no running water.
In a confused mess (the troop had a lot of new scouts, and they're very difficult to control, especially since a lot of the older scouts were fucking around. If the kids saw someone older having a good time, they would want to join them, and not do what they were supposed to.)
It took us some three hours to get 20-odd people out of cots and into uniforms.
Then they realize that there is no fucking propane.
So we find a deli place, and buy breakfast. Now, you'd normally get two dozen mixed bagels, a container of cream cheese, and a container of butter, right? Nope. You need to take the individual orders for each person.
We finally pull into West Point a solid five hours after waking up...
We hit the museum, which is pretty cool.
Walk around the campus, see the huge mess hall and the barracks and all that good stuff.
We eat lunch at one of the smaller mess halls, then we see the football field and the protestant chapel, then the hockey/basketball building.
They decide to go to a Catholic mass, since most of the kids are Catholics. Us "protestant barbarians" walked aroound the campus for awhile longer.
We finally get all packed up and leave the academy, then get horribly lost on the way back to the campsite. 2 hours to drive 15 miles.
I start on dinner. Apparantly, somehow the five people I was originally cooking for turned into seven. There wasn't much food, and we had spent so much time at the catholic mass and getting lost that it was really late and really dark while we were cooking. The cheesesteaks were pretty decent, there just weren't enough.
Then they put together some oddly complicated variation on "Jailbreak" called "lazing the target" which involved a few cabins, four laser pointers, and like 20 people. Four people were chosen as "special ops" and their goal was to "laze the target" by pointing a laser pointer at the building containing the "terrorist leader". The terrorists's goal was to take special ops as hostages. If two special ops guys died, the special ops lost. If the target was lazed, the special ops won. The terrorists could take special ops as hostages and put them in the same building as the terrorist leader, the special ops couldn't kill terrorists but they were four of the older, faster, and smarter guys.
I had the dubious honor of being the terrorist leader. We had two A-frame cabins and a bathroom building. I manipulated my team into thinking that I was on the other team and that one of my teammates was the terrorist leader. I stood in the bathroom while the terrorists defended the decoy and the special ops tried to attack the wrong guy, waiting for the time limit to end. Then one of my own men captured me, thinking that I was a special ops. I did some reverse psychology and talked them into holding me as a hostage. Needless to say, we won, although a few of the kids got way too rough and they decided never to play the game again.
Saw some really nice stars on Saturday night.
Sunday, TWO of the three patrols decided to take the easy way out and eat a box of donuts for breakfast. I cooked a pound of bacon, a dozen eggs, a pound of potatos, and about two pounds of pork roll. It was awesome.
Then it took HOURS for them to clean up.
Two of the cars went back to west point for some more sightseeing while the other four cleaned up. The idea was to get home at the same time. For whatever reason, it was decided to put personal gear in the cars going to west point.
The west point people took too long they were like three hours behind, so here I am. I don't have a driver's license, an ATM card, any money, car keys, or a phone. Gotta get my mom to drive me back there to pick up the gear.
ARGH
