Snowmageddon

"The store is still open," they said. "The storm's almost over," they said. "It's too late for you to call out unless you're literally in the hospital."

So I'm stuck in a snowbank instead of at work right now. Anyone have fun (or aggravating) snow stories to share while I wait to get dug out? For those in the current mess, how are you holding out?

 

Oh boy, let me tell you about Boston last year.
I missed at least a month's worth of school, and like.
There were people fighting over parking spots and dumping snow into rivers. It was awful.
There was this one time I got stuck on a train for a half hour with no power. Half the trains broke, cutting the amount of usable trains in half, paralyzing the commuter rail.
The green line above ground trains were completely and utterly fucked, red line tracks were freezing and just.
it was baaaaaad.

 

That's a sympathy "like". What the fuck were your bosses thinking? I don't know where you are, but several places around here (Annapolis, for one) have literal driving bans in place this morning - nobody allowed on the road except emergency vehicles and plows. I'm angry on your behalf right now.


Editing to add a nice story: A group of my neighbors got together half a dozen snow shovels and a snowblower and went around last night and cleared all the sidewalks around my apartment, shoveled off and salted all the stairs, and volunteered to help people dig out their cars. I just looked out the window and saw them out there again. I think I might put on my coat and go see if one of them wants to take a break and give me his shovel.

 

SNOW HAS RUINED MY DAY
AND IT DIDN'T EVEN FUCKING SNOW
I was supposed to hang out with my qp today
and then his mom was like "I don't want you out on the roads"
AND IT LITERALLY ISN'T EVEN SNOWING

 

The convenience store I used to work at was more understanding of having people drive out in blizzard conditions.

But that's the thing. Driving bans allow emergency vehicles, plows, and people who work at places that supply gasoline/emergency supplies. I learned this when one of the town cops came into the store, during the last blizzard I worked, to ask about whether I would get in trouble for driving home. Since I worked at a gas station that supplied the cops and other emergency vehicles, I was exempt from the ban.

 

Ah, I see. I learned a thing!

 

Did you get out of the snowbank yet?

I just came in from helping my dad and Little Brother #3 shovel out the driveway so Key can get to work. We've got a foot or so here (I'm in north-eastern Virginia) and it's still snowing. I didn't know how much snow we were going to get until yestreday - people started calling it Snowpocalypse and I just went "so, more than three inches, then," and didn't bother to check the weather.

@WithAnH I think I warmed up a little bit reading about your nice neighbours.

 

@Elaienar I did indeed get out and to work (albeit half an hour late), thus not responding to the thread :P

And... there's no one here. There are about five other people working, including managers, and I think we've had all of ten customers in the last three hours? Ugh.

@WithAnH even my supervisor's salty about us having to come in, apparently it was the New Manager's decision ._. NM isn't even in today, which... says something about him.

 

I'm in northern WV and I think there's more snow out than I've ever seen here. Two of my three roommates went to work last night even thought they knew they were going to get stranded at McDonald's, because McD's apparently got orders from On Corporate High that they weren't allowed to close, no matter how much snow there was, and both me and my remaining roommate were like "Why. Why would you do that."

I've been taking pictures periodically, and this is what it looked like outside 40 minutes ago:

And it's still snowing.

...I guess at least since there aren't any customers, they can get paid for doing nothing, and they'll have food?

 

I think that's about what Key's experiencing, haha. My mom's ticked that she had to go to work in this nonsense. She wants Key to get off and come home before dark, or she wants to make a huge pot of soup and take it down there and feed everyone in the store. Sounds fun, but I don't know what store policies are on parents of employees bringing picnic suppers in.

Here's northern Virginia, about five minutes ago:

 

There was a brief lull in the storm, so we went outside to play for a bit.

Snow dogs

The snow is about knee deep, with drifts up to mid-thigh. Five minutes after I got back inside, the wind picked up again and now I can barely see the trees across the parking lot.

ETA: I have now seen eight cars and two trucks get stuck in the intersection I can see from my window.

 

I got bored and remembered we had two snow shovels in the closet, and me and my roommate dug out paths from all the buildings in our part of the apartment complex. It was up to mid-thigh height in some places, and there were cars that were almost completely buried.

At least it's mostly stopped for the moment.

 

Still snowing. Sitting in the pickup at the bottom of the lane again because we got stuck, again.

Aaaaa, cute puppies @WithAnH :D they look a lot like my dad's dog, and also like they're having a lot of fun c:

 

Wow, yeah, New Manager has failed several social tests there. To NM, not that they'll ever hear it: You don't tell employees to do something dangerous if you're not going to lead them into it, or at least bother to show up. NM deserves every passive aggressiveness people can muster against them.

 

Tennessee, and we got somewhere between 5 and 8 inches, which is definitely way more than we are prepared to handle. Fuckin, all the roads are crusted over with two or three inches of solid ice, even the well-traveled ones, cause we don;t got snow plows or salt or whatever the fuck. And people are out all over the place because nobody believes the news when they say it's gonna snow bad, so they get caught without food and toiletries and crap and then we end up with a buncha cars half buried in ditches all along the roads. Fuckin, my coworkers were cracking jokes about the factory shutting down for a snow day, like snow is a fuckin myth or something. I thought we weren't gonna get snow, because snow is a fuckin myth in my dumb head. It's still a myth to me and I'm looking right at it, and my foot's wet and burning cold with it. So dumb. I wanna bury myself underground and hibernate till summer. give me dry and warm, pls.

*is frazzled*

 

Would you believe I got off work five hours ago and only got home now?

This has been {fun} ._. Aaaand I have work again tomorrow afternoon. If the roads aren't any better I'm calling in, jeez.

 

@Anon19 Jeez. Witnessed.

 

@Anon19 yiiikes D:

There's like.. two and a half feet here? Idk it's mid-thigh on me and I'm 5'4". Huge drifts, though.

Currently my dad and aunt are digging out our car to rescue my cousin, cuz he went out (to his workplace? but he doesn't have work? I'm not clear on the details) and got stuck :|

 

*quietly sympathizes from up north, and sends warm fuzzies and all the calm and sanity she can muster*