So What Did I Do With The TGIFriday’s Gift Card?

Oops, I spoke too soon. This is my 6th consecutive day of blogging.

Did I finally find someone to take to the restaurant so I could blow my gift card? Well, no. Instead, I decided to order takeout last Friday and made it a real Thank God It’s Friday. Remember that movie and Donna Summer during the days of disco? This time there was no dancing involved, just eating.

 I’ve been looking on the internet to find the nearest TGIFriday’s and also get an idea what kind of food they served. I found a website with a menu and prices and started making a list of what I might order without exceeding the amount on the gift card. Based on the prices I saw, it appeared like I may be able to order about 5 dishes, which was a mix of an appetizer, a salad, a pasta dish, a meat dish, and dessert.

The nearest branch was at the Long Beach Towne Center which was six miles away. I called them up and told the guy what I wanted. He said their menu had changed recently and some of the things I wanted to order were no longer available. I asked him for alternatives and he offered some. By the time we got to four items, I asked what my running total was. It exceeded the card amount so I told him to take off the salad. With that, the remaining items just barely made it to the limit with 46 cents to spare. Here is what I ended up ordering: Jack Daniels appetizer sampler, full rack of baby back ribs with French fries, and angel hair pasta with bruschetta sauce and grilled chicken. I asked the guy who took my order to please substitute the French fries with some vegetables. I had a mistake though. When I got home, I realized the appetizer sampler already had a half rack of ribs so in retrospect, I should have kept the salad and dessert and that still would have kept me within my budget. Oh well, a little too late, but at least the ribs weren’t fatty. I polished that off on Friday, ate the pasta on Saturday after the AREC run, and still have the appetizer sampler in the fridge.

Somehow, with the menu change, the prices also increased. As an example, the price for the rack of ribs I saw online was $14.99 but the new price was $17.99.  I ended up having only three dishes instead of the hoped for five. By the way, when you order takeout from a place like TGIFridays where you pick up your order at the bar, do you still have to tip the server? Because I didn't.

The food I ordered didn't look as pretty as the pictures above though because they all came in styrofoam containers.

Wanna find out how I got the gift card in the first place? - A Computer Problem at Work Which Became a Gift Later

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A Computer Problem At Work Which Became a Gift Later

Three weeks ago, our IT department scheduled some updates for the electronic medical records system from 2 to 4 a.m. and we couldn’t use the computers for charting. By 6 a.m. they were still not done updating. Well, that went on all day until they discovered that it was not a software problem but a hardware one and it didn’t get fixed until about 10:30 the next night. It didn’t really affect me personally because I was off from work the next several nights. When a computer outage happens at my job, the backup plan is to use our old paper charts. Those papers are being kept under lock and key  and unassembled so that the doctors are forced to use the computers rather than get a form to chart on with their illegible writing.

When I came back to work after my weekend off, the unit secretary approached me and pulled me aside. I thought she was going to tell me about the shelves that were rearranged in the area where I make chart packs. She said that she has been very appreciative of what I’ve been doing with the charts because I made her job easier. She further clarified that during the daylong computer outage, she was about to assemble charts from the cupboards that were under lock and key (she had the key) so they could admit patients. Before she did that, she decided to check the shelves and see if there were old charts left there. Sure enough she found the old charts that I had leftover and kept from the time before we used electronic medical records. I still had about a hundred left. She said she was so relieved to find them and as a token of her appreciation, she handed me a TGIFridays gift card. I was stunned by her offering and was further shocked to see the amount of the gift card! Wow, I get to eat very well for several meals! I haven’t been to TGIFridays in a long time. It was way back when I was meeting chicks from AOL (America Online) IRL (in real life), and we would have lunch or dinner at Fridays. Ooops, perhaps that’s TMI (too much information). Anyway, it was sure nice to be appreciated and rewarded. Hmm, I wonder who I can take out to dinner?

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