Micro-managing

There is an older woman at work, mid 40s perhaps, who I like to call Eeyore since she is the gloomiest person that I have ever met. Not that I can really blame her, since she's still working at a Carmike for $5.50 an hour, but still. The first time I ever met her was my second day of work, and literally she moped in whining about how tired she was and how much she didn't want to be there. It didn't get much better.

Quite literally, the only times she has ever spoken to me directly have been criticisms and commands. That gets extremely irritating extremely quickly, considering that she was technically at the same employment level as I (subterranean) but never did work. Seriously. She would waddle into the 'box' area, set herself creakily down on the lame stool, and sporadically during the night, waddle back over to the manager's office and probably bug the heck out of Nathan the manager. She would spend hours in the office. That usually happened at the end of the night when every other employee was actually working at cleaning concession. It got so bad that I asked a coworker, and he said that the reason that she cleans nothing is because she once broke both her thumbs and can't lift anything. Ah, she's relying on the old 'broken thumbs' excuse. I see.

So lately Nathan the manager got a memo that he had to advance someone to the title of 'Shift Leader'. Due to Eeyore's lack of inclination to do anything else, she got the position. And she is lording it. Last night, she came over to the concession at about 8:00 and told us to start restocking the candy. We did. Then, of course, we had a huge rush at the 9's that left huge gaping holes in our newly stocked candy cupboards. Thanks, Eeyore.

Last week, my manager gently chastised us for starting the cleaning process a mite early, so this week we were good and waited until the right time. Out of the corner of my eye I see Eeyore hurrying over, which was a surprise in its own right. She started having a hissy fit in the middle of the lobby about how we should have started cleaning ten minutes ago! And we are just sitting there talking! And we're not doing anything! I internally freaked.

"Eeyore," I say. "Both Bill and I had to go upstairs and get boxes of inventory. And we have been restocking the candy."
"That takes two minutes! You guys have just been sitting there!" She gestures wildly and then can't take it anymore and scurries back to her office refuge. I scurry to the back room to bitch to Nathan. He seems concerned about her unpleasant ways. Things will be done, he assures.

God, then I volunteered to stay late, forgetting that instead of waiting until 12:00 with Nathan (cool) I now had to wait in an empty, awkward lobby with only Eeyore (uncool).

This should be wonderful every Saturday.