Mall Rats

I took DD#1 to the mall last night so she could drop off job applications. We've been to this mall a gazillion times but it's recently had a face lift and I've been watching my money closely for the past month or so, so I haven't been in awhile. A couple things jumped out at me as a sign of our times. One seemed like I'd hyper-jumped into the future. First, about one third of the food court restaurants were closed. Forever. Out of the fast food places left, the only one with a line (and it was shorter than usual) was the Japanese/sushi restaurant. Subway had a few people but no long lines, either. Gone were the Mexican places and a sub place. I did a double take at the soda vending machine. I've never seen one like it. There was a video of the merchandise selection on front, scrolling by so the customers could choose their selection by touching the screen. Video ads ran across the top portion of the machine. I've seen similar things but never on a vending machine. DD#1 said this looked like the malls in Japan. She's a fan of everything Japanese (except for the sushi last night which was blah - it was the last time I got it at the mall, too). I was also amazed how the Japanese restaurant's service has fallen off, how the food tasted at best blah when it used to be really good. It seemed as if the workers didn't give a damn about their product. That surprises me especially at this time when businesses are dying all over the place, when you have to provide more and better service to survive. Their prices were higher than the last time I visited. They want more from me. Don't I have a right to expect good product and good service, if not better for my extra money at least pretty good? My boss at the day job almost sounds like a broken record, but a good one. He says we have to increase our services, increase the level of everything we do so we can survive this economic downfall. My many business classes supports him. Why would someone want to provide second class (or worse) service especially now when there's so much job competition? Or is that the problem? Are people who were let go from higher level jobs taking any job they can get? Are they now apathetic to their new lesser job (lower pay, less station)? That's just a theory. My alternate theory is that they're just dumb or lazy. The mall itself has improved their look, upped their security, and moved into the future. Unfortunately it won't help if a lot of the surviving stores give decreased service or substandard products. So I was both impressed and turned off. You'll also want to see what Amarinda Jones, Anika Hamilton, Anny Cook, Barbara Huffert, Brynn Paulin, Bronwyn Green, Dakota Rebel, Kelly Kirch, Molly Daniels, Sandra Cox, Regina Carlysle, and Cindy Spencer Pape are up to, so make sure to visit them also. :)

Meme: 6 more random things about me

Tagged!

I've been tagged! Not the first time it has happened, but it's always fun. Nicole McCaffrey tagged me. Pop over to her blog to find out 6 fun things about her. The rules: 1) Link back to the person who tagged you. 2) Post the rules on your blog. 3) Write six things about yourself. 4) Tag six people at the end of your post by posting links to their blogsites. 5) Let them know they've been tagged by leaving a comment on their site. 6) And let your tagger know when your entry is up. Okay, now for the hard part. Here are six random things about me that I've not already posted. Let's see if I can top the one about liking to catch fireflies that everybody loved. 1) I love Scooby Doo. I've loved this cartoon and Scooby himself since I was a kid. Now my 13 year old follows in my footsteps. In fact, we're watching a Scooby Doo movie right now. 2) I also love the Disney cartoon movie "Mulan". Not only do I love it, I used to watch it so much my kids begged me to stop. My daughter-in-law and I were both in love with Shang Le (the hero in Mulan). 3) Sometimes I eat sushi for breakfast, I love it so much. 4) I used to be a river rat. Dad and I used to boat and water ski on the Ohio River all summer long. Boy do I miss that. Although I can water ski, I've only been snow skiing once and the ground was almost flat on the beginner's "slope". 5) I consider myself to be a tomboy (remember I like to climb trees, catch fireflies, walk, ride horses, shoot guns and archery) but my daughter says I'm a "girlie girl". I guess that's because I rarely go out of the house without makeup, I wear pink a lot (even if it's pink fatigues), and I wear dresses a lot. I just like variety and I love being a woman because we have more choices than men. Compared to my daughters, I guess I am a girlie girl. My younger daughter would rather die than wear a dress or make up. She won't go near pink. 6) I take shorthand and thus whenever there's a meeting in my company, I get called to take the notes a lot - even though I have trouble hearing what's said (and I tell them - funny, I guess they don't believe me). Although it's becoming increasingly frustrating to hear, I am privy to a lot more information than I otherwise would be because of this skill. I also use it as a secret code to write notes to myself that no one else can read. Or when I'm out in public writing, and if I think someone might be looking at my writing pad, I write the dirty words in shorthand. I also amuse myself (aka keep myself awake during staff meetings) writing stuff in shorthand. Years ago, my boss thought I was taking such good notes of the meeting, he asked me to transcribe them and email them company wide. I'd been writing my own thing and so really had to scramble to put out decent minutes so I wouldn't get in trouble. Or maybe he'd caught on to me and was trying to teach me a lesson. After that, however, he made me take minutes of the staff meetings for a year or two after. Oy! Now, I have to tag 6 people. Here goes: Giggles (you have to read her "Adventures of Rat Girl" Vi Kelly Kirch Molly Amarinda Jones Brynn Paulin It's my hubby's birthday and we're going to have pizza and ice cream cake tonight. However, he just called, pissed, because he has to cover a softball game (he's an umpire) for someone who bailed at the last minute. So he won't be home till late. The family's coming over for his birthday. Sounds like my kind of luck. From time to time I'll pass on a bit of advice I've learned from doing customer service for a charity. Today's advice is: if you want your name removed from a mailing list from any organization and you mail a note to the organization, mail back the reply card containing all the numbers as well as your name and address to reduce the waiting time of your request. Some people who want off our mailing list delete the numbers or cross them out or write notes on their own paper and don't include the numbers. Since we're so busy, we separate the requests into stacks of "people with donor numbers" (the fastest way), "People with cold mail numbers" (pretty fast), "people with no numbers" (by far the slowest as we have to do more research and because we're so swamped with work, those piles wait until everything else is done, so we can help as many people as possible. I read a lot of rude notes that come with these requests. We at my charity read everything and don't take things personally (I try not to) and do what is requested. However, I've known people at other places that will deliberately lose or ditch a request if it arrives with a nasty note. So please remember to be nice, even if you're boiling mad if you really want to be helped. I know my hubby won't listen to me, and then he'll wonder why his requests aren't meant or at least why they take forever to get done.

I've been tagged!

I've been tagged by Alexis Fleming at: http://alexisfleming.net/blog/

So, here are my 7 random facts about myself.

1) I marched in the 1979 New Orleans Mardis Gras parade as part of the Air Force Drum and Bugle Corps.

2) I used to shoot trap and Jr. Olympic archery.

3) I once fell off a horse in the middle of a riding competition. I felt myself falling and knew I couldn't stay on, so rather than fall on my butt, I jumped off. The judges, of course, asked me why I jumped off. Oy! And the cutest boy in the world was watching. (I guess he noticed me as we ended up necking later.)

4) I have an MBA from Nova Southeastern University.

5) I've only been out of the US three times to visit: Jamaica (for work), Haiti (for work), and Canada (for lunch and one afternoon).

6) I love to play scrabulous and waste too much time playing it.

7) I'm a Trekkie. I also love Star Wars.

Here are my victims:

http://liladupres.blogspot.com/

kimcox.blogspot.com

Sher Hames Torres at http://www.theyarnspinners.blogspot.com/

CJ Parker at http://fuguemacabre.livejournal.com/

Billie Williams at http://printedwords.blogspot.com/

Now it's your turns to tell us 7 random things about you.