Fun at Work and New Ways to Communicate

This week has been a bit hectic. I'm beginning to start a lot of projects due at the end of the semester while finishing up a couple that are due soon. Work was also pretty crazy this week. I work at Princeton's University Store in downtown Princeton, which is much like a small clothing store (think of a Gap or Banana Republic that you'd find in a mall, but about twice as big). Typically for closing hours (shifts that I usually work), three people are assigned to work: a manager and two sales associates. Occasionally only a manager and an associate are assigned if not much business is expected. There are four managers: three work on the actual floor, one works in the basement in the mail order and receiving department. While the mail order manager is probably the best guy to work with, he's also never on the floor; not bad unless a huge influx of people enter the store. I think we can all see where this is going as we jump to last Friday. The store supervisor scheduled the mail order manager and me as the only two in the store on Friday night for the final two hours of store operation. That would have been fine had it not been a week where every alumni and their mother (or children as the case overwhelmingly was) been visiting. So I was basically the only worker on the floor while a steady stream of traffic came into the store. Needless to say, it was a tiring night. It wasn't that bad, and I actually enjoyed not having a manager hanging over making sure I was working the whole time (which usually isn't an issue). But it made for an exciting night being the only one on the floor.

I also wanted to let everyone know about a new way to communicate. I'm not sure how many people have heard of Skype, but it's basically an internet phone. It's free, you can "call" people who also use it, and it also allows for video chatting for free. All you need is a computer with an internet connection and a microphone. If you want to video chat, you need a webcam too. If you use it already, or if you make an account, you can look me up: jeff.desurra. I think it could be a really nice way to keep in contact. You can also use it to call landlines and cell phones, but that costs money. Anyway, just wanted to let everyone know.