The Funchess is coming! The Funchess is coming! And, Guard the Borders!

September 24th, 2005


Paul Funchess plans to arrive on Monday evening. We (and the rest of the church) are looking forward to having him back with us. He brings with him an energy level that most of us just can't match. In preparation for his arrival, Wenonah and I have spent most spare daytime hours with Deacon Ron painting and drywalling the place he'll be moving into. We've got today and tomorrow off from that duty before jumping back in again on Monday. After he gets here, we get to tackle the mound of dirt (roughly the size of an Aztec temple) that was dumped in our backyard, moving it by wheelbarrow to a hollow in the front yard. Yee-haw! I need the exercise; haven't been to the wrestling room or gymn in weeks for sheer lack of time. Running is all fine and good, but it's just not the same; ditto for biking part of the ride to work. At least the bookstore called off my overnight shift next week. The one I worked this week was a real pain.

Speaking of bookstores, I now no longer work for Waldenbooks. Oh, I work in the same store as always, but it is now a "Borders Express." This means that we now have several comfortable chairs, a new sign, and a new paint job. How exciting. Oh, I guess all those corporate rah-rah speaches and flyers and what-not didn't get me as excited as they meant to. I found it very nearly hilarious that during the transition, they gave us a survey (to be filled out anonymously) regarding how we felt about the change. Lots of multiple choice questions about whether we read the company propaganda and whether we think the change to being a Borders Express is lousy, so-so, great, wonderful, or the best thing that's happened to civilization. I don't remember many questions at all regarding why (in any sort of concrete way) we might feel the way we do. It was clear that the survey had absolutely no interest in changing the way that they transition, or in making Borders Express a better place to work, or a more efficient tool for selling books. The purpose of the survey was to figure out better ways to target their in-house propaganda so that we serfs would think it wonderful that the name on the store was changing, even though it meant no change in pay rate or benefits for us. If I sound bitter about it, I'm not. I just think the corporate mentality is funny, in a darkly ironic sort of way.