Posts tagged BLOCKBUSTER
Fuck BLOCKBUSTER!
Aug 18th
Well I finally have the time for updates! “Why?” Because BLOCKBUSTER let me go, as they have done to so many valuable Managers.
No – my store did not close down (I’ve turned profits in every store I’ve operated) Unfortunately, I was fired due to politics. I apparently did not kiss my District Manager’s ass enough. Call me crazy, but when I can “fix” their broken stores and they send me from one store to fix to the next; I don’t feel I should be kissing his ass. (In my mind, HE should be kissing MY ass, but you know how life really goes)
Anyway, (on my day off) I was called and asked to come in a little early the next morning to assist my District Manager in finding some paperwork he was going to be auditing. I agreed and met him at my store the next morning.
The next morning he came in and brought a Corporate person along with, and let me know that I was being terminated. He said I had broken policies (even though he had directed me to do the things that broke policy) and that my “Mistake was going to cost you your job.”
Which brings me to my point. FUCK BLOCKBUSTER! I gave my blood, sweat, and many tears to that company for nearly 8 years. I had worked there during the “Glory days” to the “Doomsday days”, loyally and always defending BLOCKBUSTER’s stupid decisions.. Towards the end of my days, all Store Manager’s were being threatened weekly about how we had better get all these customers to buy a $3 Coke,Candy,Popcorn and $5 Coke(2),Candy(2),Popcorn bundles, with a 40%/60% mix of $3/$5 bundles — even though the customer’s do not want them, and it makes BLOCKBUSTER little revenue. (The reason SM’s were being terminated for not getting enough of these bundles sold with a 40%/60% mix is that BLOCKBUSTER apparently counts on receiving “kick-backs” from Coke, Nestle, Hershey’s and Orville.)
I will never spend even a penny at a BLOCKBUSTER store, kiosk, Online or anything BLOCKBUSTER ever again – you shouldn’t either!
Where does the time go?
Feb 28th
Geeze, where does the time go? I cannot believe it has been almost a month already since I have posted. Time really flies when you’re having fun..
So I moved stores at work.. That was a good thing, and at the same time a hard thing. I can’t go into the details; but I can say that I will deeply miss my team in The Colony, they were awesome, and definately all Superstars! Thanks to their determined and hard work, we were able to do amazing things with that store.
My new team is also awesome! We have some areas to improve, but I really think we can overcome those things and really rock this store too! There will definately be some challenges, but I honestly love challenges. (Keeps me from ever having time to get “bored”)
Switching to “iPhone talk” now.. I am still absolutely adoring my iPhone! I find myself playing with it almost all the time. (Except at work – ask anyone: I will rarely take it out and use it at all at work — it just feels rude!) I used to dislike iTunes, but find myself liking it now and downloading Music/Videos/Apps more than I should.. LOL. And I am still finding apps than I find useful – though it does seem harder to find “quality” apps on the iPhone App Store because you have to constantly sift through all of the stupid ones that for some reason like to show up first. :p
Anyway, that is really all for now – I need to get myself out and be productive! I’ve already waited longer than I should today.. it’s past noon and all the crazy church-goers are out now. 
*worried look*
TTFN,
Austin
C-C-C-Changes! :)
Jan 31st
Ooh, so where do I start?
It’s been a while since my last post. I’m still working 55-(almost)-60 hours per week. (Welcome to the life of a Store Manager) Things should start to quiet down as time goes on–and we will see how that goes. (Maybe I’m just dedicated!)
Anyway, about a month or so ago: I was eagerly awaiting the release of the Nexus One from Google, my contract was up and ready to be renewed, and I was absolutely sure that I wanted that phone! So the release date finally came — I was ever so excited to purchase mine, as I had been a good boy and did not spend the money I was saving aside for it. However, things took a wrong turn when I attempted to Upgrade/Purchase this phone on Google’s website. The website said that T-Mobile customers were able to get the Nexus One for $179.99, but when you attempted to upgrade it would offer you the phone for $379.99. Wow, $200 MORE than I was expecting and led to believe it would cost. So I called T-Mobile to inquire about why this happened, fully aware that it was Google that was offering a outrageous price, but just expecting that T-Mobile would be able to help non-the-less since their Logo was the only one on the Google website as a carrier.
Talking with T-Mobile, I was told that they do have “private” criteria that is used to determine a customer’s purchase-price on the website, and that I would have to call Google HTC to find out more information. So I called the number given, and spoke to an HTC rep that told me T-Mobile was lying, and that their servers were actually the ones feeding Google with the pricing info per Customer. HTC said that T-Mobile was lying to me, and merely sending me to talk to the manufacturers of the phone just to get me off of their support call, since they had no real fix for me. Well, hearing this (true or not) did upset me; so I called T-Mobile back and told them what information I was given by HTC and that supposedly “T-Mobile lied to me”. T-Mobile was not much help when I asked for a Supervisor. I was told that the person I was speaking to was practically a Supervisor and she was sure she could help me. After about 40 minutes on the phone with her, she was little to no help, except that she did manage to make me angrier by talking in a super-cheeful tone for 40 minutes. She finally gave me a alternate phone number for Google and said that I should call it, as she tried when she placed me on Hold, but that the Automated system said her wait time was “too long,”
I called the number given, only to experience that it answers your call, says it is transferring you, then “We’re sorry, this number has been disconnected or is no longer in Service, please try your call again.” Infuriated by this situation, I decided I was no longer seeking T-Mobile or the Nexus One, as I had felt pretty mis-treated as a Customer to both. T-Mobile said little about the situation until I called and actually (by some stroke of luck) got to a Supervisor, who promised I would be added to an Escalation List for this issue, and would be called/emailed within 24 hours.
48 hours later, (with no resolution or call-back/email from either side) I took my happy ass to AT&T and bought an iPhone, which I LOVE. Talk about faster internet and really-badass Apps! (You also have to understand that before this, I was not an iPhone lover-I really thought it was silly that everyone [and their dogs/cats] had this phone!) After all of this tho, I LOVE and ADORE my iPhone. It’s so much faster, holds ungodly amounts of data/apps more, and has more apps available! Not to mention it was more stable and MUCH more pretty, cosmetically. Funny thing I learned about this is that on one side, Google/Android wants to try to be as popular as iPhone – but it has a LONG way to go (and likely a lot of alienated customers to bring back [good luck with that!]).
My Top 10 Favorite/Recommended Apps so far:
- Loopt
- 2Do
- BillMinder
- CardStar
- ICHC
- Bejewled 2
- AP
- Spending
- MySpace
That is it so far, in the order that I use them. 
That’s all for now, I will be back soon (possibly on my lovely new iPhone) to post again soon!
-Austin-
Just Breathe..
Jan 3rd
Jeebus, it has been a busy, busy last two weeks! Work has been absolutely hell-acious with the Holidays (Gotta love Retail during the Holiday season) — I am hoping it will finally start to calm down now that the major Holidays are over. (And not a moment too soon!) I’ve been working 55, almost 60-hour weeks lately — so I am more than ready to resume “calm” days.
Happy New Year Everyone! – Welcome to 2010 – I hope everyone has a great 2010!
Now, onto Life – I am absolutely in LOVE with Lady GaGa and her new video, Bad Romance. If you have not checked it out yet; you had better do so because i said so! I will even be so nice to add the video to this post! See below:
I am so mad that we missed her tour to Dallas when the whole Kanye thing went down and caused cancellations. ”Lady Gaga, next time you come to Dallas; Aaron and I are coming to see you — we love you!!” -Love Aaron&Austin Monsters
I will try to update again this week now that things should have finally calmed down. (Let’s hope – cross your fingers!)
P.S. Anyone looked at the Links page lately? I’ve removed the obviously bad links, but am now left with few – if anyone would like to exchange links; please let me know!
Time for some updates about ME! :)
Dec 13th
Well it’s been a while since I have posted any “personal” updates. Let’s give this one another shot.
On November 23rd, I finally got promoted to the position I had been trying for so long to reach. I’m now the Store Manager of a ‘Rock the Block’ BLOCKBUSTER Media store. (A goal I had been trying to reach for at least 5 years!) And coincidentally enough, my store is located in the city where I grew up. Also, while I’m blabbing about my store – I will even say that my store looks better than most BLOCKBUSTER stores–even the new ones! The previous Store Manager at my store ran a very organized, clean and trained staff and store. (I love her! Our management techniques are so similar that the transition was very smooth) So needless to say; that will occupy a lot of my time..
Sliding in second for taking my time is my Internet Relay Chat (IRC) network, IRC4Fun. I’m still actively using it and maintaining it. There have been a few improvements and wins for the network lately; such as new features, a Win in the Spam Fight for our network, a Win in the Drone Fight for our network, etc. I have updated Defender (our network protection/abuse prevention service) to handle many more situations and battles for our staff/network. I will continue to update Defender to combat network annoyances as I just fucking LOVE it. I am still a nerd at heart – I love to code.
I hope everyone likes the updates to this site! I’m still making tweaks here and there and fixing things that were broken during the update. If you see any bugs/etc that linger for a while (as if I am just not noticing them) please contact me. You can also contact me if you have any ideas for the site (or just want to). :)
~Austin~
I’m still here!
Jan 22nd
Wow! It’s been a while! Does anybody still read this? Anywho – where do I start this time?
Things have been pretty good lately. I still love my job at BLOCKBUSTER (maybe too much.) We’re a new (remodeled) BLOCKBUSTER – and the store is just awesome! I got promoted to Assistant Store Manager a while back (and forgot to post about it). I couldn’t be happier.
Outside of BLOCKBUSTER, my life has been relatively quiet. I suppose that in some instances I keep it that way (subconsciously?)..
Anyways; as I think about the past issues/thing’s I’ve gone through that made me who I am — I will begin posting more entries and more content. (I know, I know: I’ve been saying this for a while now. Rest assured that you can check back periodically and see the updates for yourself and know I’m serious this time.)
TTFN.
-siniStar-
What is new with me? Let’s go!
Jan 10th
So first, got my job back at BLOCKBUSTER. Thank god for that, but I (shamefully) had to start at the very bottom all over again. After leaving BLOCKBUSTER for my previous job that was supposedly better, it turned out to be worse and I lost all I had with BLOCKBUSTER and my Management title/status. However, I have been given the 4-Star CSR position, that is essentially a CSR (Bottom rank employee) that can morph into a Manager when necessary (and it bumps my pay $0.60 while I am “Manager’d”).
So, am going to try to work my way back up to where I was — but admittedly, that will take a long time (if it happends at all). In the meantime; is time to scrimp and save and live uncomfortably poor. God life is fun. Still, I am glad to be back there.. I am so good at my job there – and even after being gone about 10 months; everything came back to me instantly upon coming back. I didnt even really need training. I love the feeling of being able to do the job with my eyes closed & hands tied behind my back. So I am just overly thrilled to be back (though i never thought I would say those words).
Next, I rented some movies at work; one being “Killer Drag Queens on Dope” which was quite amusing. It stars Alexis Arquette (from Surreal Life, etc). I really find it quite amusing and am tempted to buy it. Not sure if its the BLOCKBUSTER employee purchasing addiction, or if the movie just gives me satisfaction with my current life situations. (Being dumped for the 3rd or 4th time now by the same person — that is next)
And finally; was dumped again by the same guy for the 3rd or 4th time. Apparently this time because “I get attached too quickly”. This after he sends me an e-mail saying that he realized he ran off on me several occasions before but says he really wants to make it work because I’m a great guy.” Then he also proceeds to tell me that we have nothing in common (excuse me? WTF?!! BULLSHIT, but if YOU believe it – GREAT!) and that I’m slutty. HELL-FUCKING-O; I have only been with 5 guys in my life. Most of the people I know cant count on one fucking hand how many people they’ve fucked! I hadnt dated anyone for over a year before you and you call ME a slut?! FUCK YOU.
Sorry, obviously some of those words are meant for him. I doubt he will read this; but still — I need to vent it before I go on a rampage.
All of this bullshit has inspired me to write down some of the things in life that have always left a mark on me and shaped me into who i am and therefor explain my oddities. People dont understand me, and they likely never will; but at least I can vent and possibly help others that have (or are) going through some of these good/bad/tramatic things..
Anyways, that is all for now – I hope everyone is having a great night.
