“Challenge is a dragon with a gift in its mouth… Tame the dragon and the gift is yours.” -Noela Evans

Oooooh man, it’s been a rough week. I started out feel ing good. Really good. Too good, as it turns out, because I ended up totally overdoing it at the gym on Monday and Tuesday. I have a couple of muscle groups that just feel like they’ve been punched. So, not being a total masochist, I gave myself a couple of extra resting days yesterday and today…… Well, it was more my body insisted on resting than any real decision on my brain’s part. Kind of a “either you lie down or you fall over” thing. I’m better now, just a bit achey and with interesting popping noises happening when I stretch. I’ll be back at the gym tomorrow, but I’ll keep it light.

So, what else has been happening? Work work work, of course. I’m still on nights….dammit. We had a new girl hired to work third shift, had her in a couple of days for training, then she worked one overnight shift with Nimeh and never came back again. Our manager at this pint has had enough. Not enough to fire her….yet…. but enough to tell me to stop avoiding confrontations and call Nimeh on her bullshit. Not just me, but everyone who works with her. I seem to be the tip of the spear, however… Maybe because I’m the one who really stood up to her in the past. My challenge will be putting a positive spin on any confrontation I have with her. Maybe positive is the wrong word, more like constructive…. Which would be easier to do if I was dealing with a rational person. The trick will be not letting myself react emotionally if (when) she flips out. Ah well, that should make life interesting.

On the positive side, our store’s “shrink” has gone down since I’ve been back on nights. “Shrink” is coporate speak for product that’s lost without going through the register. Basically, theft and/or spoilage. Anyway, since I’ve been in charge of the register on nights, shrinks gone from $935 a week to $123,  so that’s being looked at as a rather large feather in my cap. I don’t know if it’s a result of my paying more attention to what’s going on in the store or if someone on nights was actively stealing. Either way, the change has been noticed and on a higher level than even the district manager, or so I’ve been told. My manager has been giving me more responsibility (and more overtime) as a result. At this point, I’m pretty much acting as an Assistant Manager, but without the actual title. The title will come in the next couple of months, so I’m not worried.

Yeah, so work, sleep, and exercise has pretty much been my life lately.