July 18,2003 - 4.33PM

It's Friday and sunny outside... What am I doing inside??? Waiting around for my parents to get home so we can go out to dinner later of course.

The interview on Wednesday went well. Lasted two hours, and I thought that I took the oppurtunity to show what I've done so far and dispel any fears that they may have had considering that I have the least amount of experience of those who were applying. Not sure if they'll actually offer me the position, but I feel confident in the fact that the those who interviewed me in my department have a better understanding as to my capabilities and understand my work much more. I'm guessing I should know probably around the middle of next week.

Read earlier today that Kobe Bryant admitted that he committed adultery against his wife with another woman. It's sad that at this point in this day in age, things like this are almost expected to happen within the realm of sports. No longer is it the exception, but it now seems to have become the rule. Sad indeed. He's always had a great reputation and interacts well with the media and public, but through this it just shows how fallible man is. I heard a comment on the radio driving back home "this just shows how difficult it is to be a good person." To that, I thought in my head "It's more than difficult, it's downright impossible to be good (good in the sense that this person was using it means "perfect"). We're sinners. Thank goodness Jesus is our atonement." Thank goodness indeed.

July 15, 2003 - 7.31PM

Well it's the middle of the month, so... about time for a new post.

Quick little update - Connie has moved into her new apt... which in her words is a bit scary at night because there isn't much lighting in places. Also, the neighbors seem to like to talk quite loudly, at least it seems quite enough in the late evening though. The situation with the roofing guy is still on going, think my dad has given up hope on actually having a conversation with him, so complaints to the Better Business Bureau and the State Attorney General is the next step. My cousin has been learning how to swim. It's coming along slowly, but at least she's not afraid to stick her head in the water anymore...

Little side rant - IKEA in my mind is not a well run business. Alan and Debbie (Connie's roommate) each purchased a couch about two weeks ago. We went to pick it up at IKEA last week and hauled them back to each of their apartments. When we get Alan's couch into his apt, we find out that all the legs screw in except the far left one. Great... so obviously he's a bit bummed about this. We move onto Connie and Debbie's apt and haul their couch into their apt. We screw on the legs only to find that the same leg won't screw onto their couch. Great... now we have two defective couches. So we call IKEA and tell them that we want the defective ones picked up and new ones sent. They say no, you have to pay a delivery fee... anyways after some debating we agree that they will pick it up for free if we move one couch over to a central location. So we pick Al's place. We do this on Sunday morning and when the trucking company arrives they pull out two couches which look like the same model, but the color is totally different. This is some nasty brown color. So we refuse it due to the fact that it doesn't look like the right couch. Alan then calls up IKEA to inform them of this, but they tell him that it's the same couch and that they just changed suppliers (the couch comes with a slip cover, so the color of the couch doesn't really matter). How in the world were we suppose to know that this was the same couch? It looked totally different, and they never said that it could look even remotely different. Anyways Alan and the IKEA manager talk for a long time and IKEA says that they won't redeliver it without charging a delivery fee. In the end they offer to charge on half... wow, thanks for being so generous even though you sold two defective couches and in my mind either miss delivered or failed to inform the customer that the coach would look like an entirely different couch. The overall cost of delivery would be $42... and a company like IKEA is squabbling over that? Sure it'd cost your company $42, but ever think about the long term damage you could do by alienating your customer? You could lose more than 2 customers if these 2 were to tell others never to buy from IKEA again. Doesn't seem like much forsight or vision to me.

Anyways, been longing to play golf a lot lately. Can't find the time to even go out and hit the range though. There's so many beautiful courses in the Pacific Northwest that I want to play. It's actually a nice relaxing game if you don't take it so seriously. Some people get so frustrated after making a bad shot that it ruins it for them. I think it's just cool to be able to play on some really nice courses. But I guess it never hurts if your playing well haha.

I've got an interview for an Assistant Buyer position in my division tomorrow. It's for a Foods Assistant Buyer position, and up until now all of my experience has been in Non-Foods categories, but I don't think it'd be much of a problem to switch over. I'll be spending the rest of this evening finishing up my preparation for that.


July 1, 2003 - 5.47PM

Yay! Good job Lanna... you were correct in guessing that I would have only one entry for the month of June :P Since I'm writing on the 1st of the month rather than the middle of the month right now, I think that I will at least double my output for July.

Just found out that one of my high school buddies is getting married.... in September! Well, looks like it's time to dust off the good ol suit and get ready to pardy hardy haha.

So, I spent pretty much all of yesterday evening sorting through this roofing situation that's going on concerning my parent's house. Here's the quick dealio...

My dad hires this guy (who in all respects sounds very friendly) to work on our roof. My dad pays him around $500 to finish the job... in cash mind you. The guy also did my neighbors house... did a pretty good job on that one, but for our house he hired someone else to do the job. That someone else didn't exactly do the job correctly. We had shanks fall from our roof on a slightly windy day! My dad hired another company to come up and take a look and do some more work on the roof... they had to redo everything the other person was paid to do! Another $300 just to redo the work that should have been already done (if it would have been done correctly). Anyways, so my dad tries to get in touch with worker #1 to explain the situation and ask why it was done so poorly, etc. Guy doesn't call back.... 13 tries later he finally replies (this is after my dad leaves a message saying that if he doesn't call back in 3 days he'd be forced to take action legally). So the guy calls back and that's where all the stories and excuses begin (well, actually I should say continue). I talked to this guy on the phone for a couple hours last night... I found out yesterday that my neighbor has been trying to get in touch with him for awhile as well. You would think that it makes good business sense to at least apologize to your customer if they are not satisfied right? Hmm... doesn't seem like he understands that... he even asked me to apologize to my dad for him. In which I replied... are you going to compensate me as your employee? Psh... anyways, the story is a sad one because the dude does have a young child (4 year old... I could hear him on the phone trying to get his dad to play with him) and it seems like he really is tight on cash... but then again, you'd probably make a little more money if one was honest with their customer. It's not exactly what I'd want to be teaching my kid. I'm sure the child doesn't realize any of what's going on... and for all I know he's a really good father to his son, but eventually if your dishonest to others your child will probably pick up on a lot of that. Anyways... the situation is still to be resolved. More to come...

So, my cousin is learning how to swim this year... along with doing the hw that I assign her each day. It's tough... she's so behind in what she should know at her age it isn't even funny. I don't exactly have the time to really tutor her properly. I get home and check her hw every day and help her with her hw... but that is not nearly enough.