One of our female members, who shall remain nameless, took
a vacation to France some years ago with one of her girl-
friends.

Her husband drove her to the airport and wished her a good
trip. The wife asked, “Would you like me to bring something
back for you?”

The husband laughed and says, “How about a French girl!”

Our lady kept quiet, didn’t respond and went into the
terminal.

Two weeks later her husband picked her up at the airport and
asked, “So, honey, how was the trip?”

“Really great, I loved Paris.”

“And, what happened to my present?”

“Which present?”

“What I asked for….the French girl?”

“Oh, that? Well, I did what I could, now we’ll have to wait
nine months to see if it’s a girl.”

“Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies within us while we live.” ~Norman Cousins

I ran into one of the stranger prejudices I’ve ever encounter in one of my fellow humans last night. Part of the job duties in our store is cleaning, including the bathrooms. Basically, both bathrooms have to be cleaned every shift. Simple enough, right? So, during a slow point at work, I told one of my fellow employees to take care of it and he refused to clean the women’s bathroom. His exact words were “I don’t think it should be the responsibility of a man to clean the women’s restroom”. What, he’ll clean guy poo, but not girl poo because that’s so much more offensive? I just totally didn’t get it, but then, I rarely understand people’s prejudices. Since I didn’t have the option of physically locking him in the ladies room and not letting him out until it was clean, I took care of it myself (just the women’s, not the men’s) and today I get to report what happened to the manager. This guy is a general downer to work with anyway He’s an older gentleman who’s got a Master’s degree in something-or-other and worked in the scientific community for many years running a laboratory. It’s fairly obvious that he considers it beneath him to be a convenience store clerk. Heh, my attitude is; what’s worse, doing a job that’s beneath you or doing a job that’s beneath you badly?

I also ran into an anti-smoking fanatic who tried to convince me that we shouldn’t have our cigarette display behind the checkout counter because that encourages people to smoke. Yeahhhh, because I get customers in all the time who see the display and say “Oh, what’s this… cigarettes? What the heck, I’ll give them a try”.

Meanwhile, I continue to be cheerful and happy with my job. Not all moments of it, of course. It’s not like I’m walking around in a blissed out trance, but in general, I’m feeling good and my attitude shows it. Heh, and being me, I wonder about this change in myself. I mean, customer service annoyed the crap out f me when I was working for Cartridge World. I was much more content on the days I could stay in the back room working on cartridges and not dealing with anyone. Also, I worked part time in another convenience store a few years ago and I absolutely hated it. So, I wonder what’s changed. Is it the company and the people I’m working with that make all the difference? Is it the depression medication and the fact that I’m not drinking? Regardless of the reason, I like this change. I want these feelings to continue and I’m going to work at keeping it up.

Ahhhhh, finally a day off. This whole “working” thing really cuts into my free time.  Not to mention, there’s a full crew meeting this afternoon, so I have to go in despite it being my day off…. Oh wait, I just mentioned that, didn’t I? It’s a little more overtime, so I’m not complaining too much.

Last night was my first night in charge without any managers in the store for backup. I think I handled it all fairly well, though it wasn’t a very busy night, so there wasn’t all that much to handle. Still, I got to train a fairly new hire and I actually sounded all knowledgeable and stuff. I also handled a few customer issues, like the elderly lady who couldn’t understand why the Lays two for $4.00 deal didn’t combine with the Wise two for $4.00 deal. All in all, I’m quite pleased with myself.

Friday night was the first bad night I’ve had at the store. Not bad for me, so much, as just a lot of crap going wrong.  We had a power outage which caused a major hassle, along with a couple of people calling out so we were short staffed, and there were a couple of personality clashes among the crew (hence today’s meeting), all on the busiest night we have. It wasn’t a lot of fun, but I didn’t get too stressed and I kept a good attitude and dealt with what I could. I was tired at the end of the night, but not all pissed off, so I’m counting it as a good thing.

I also found out that promotion to Shift Leader comes with a bigger upgrade in pay than I thought it would. Not that I’ve seen my promotion in my paycheck yet, but we’re talking about just above a 25% increase in pay. That will put me close to what I was making when I first started with Cartridge World, so I’m pretty pleased with that.

Yep, all in all, I’m feeling good about things. Good enough that I’m starting to think long term, like taking advantage of the company’s tuition policy to go back to school part time and getting my own apartment so I can live like an adult and not an arrested adolescent sponging off of my father for a change. Wouldn’t that be nice?

Free association is described as a “psychoanalytic procedure in which a person is encouraged to give free rein to his or her thoughts and feelings, verbalizing whatever comes into the mind without monitoring its content.” Over time, this technique is supposed to help bring forth repressed thoughts and feelings that the person can then work through to gain a better sense of self.

I say … and you think … ?

1. Intimidated ::Never
2. Brush ::Off
3. Masquerade ::Must End
4. Procedure ::Question
5. Tattoos ::Body Art
6. Square ::Off
7. Tuck ::Nip and
8. Boyfriend ::Commitment
9. Badass::Biker Babes
10. Thousand ::Island

A guy comes home from work, walks into his bedroom, and
finds a stranger on top of his wife.

He says, “What the hell are you two doing?”

His wife turns to the stranger and says, “I told you he
was stupid.”

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….. See what happens? I get a new job and my updates go right down the crapper.

The new job continues to go well. Starting next week, I’m going to get further training so I can actually be left in charge of the store all by my little lonesome. More responsibility will, hopefully, translate into more money as well. I’m still actually enjoying the work, some parts not so much, but for the most part, I’m busy and happy. The store itself is doing great. We’ve exceeded the expectations of the main office and even outsold the busiest store in the district (so far). This all with a new crew of mostly new hires. It’s been chaotic at times, but I thrive in chaos.

Yep, at this point, I really have no complaints. Kinda scary, isn’t it? If I keep my motivation high and keep doing the kind of job I’ve been doing, I can work my way up in this company fairly quickly. There’s already been mention of Assistant Manager possibilities in the near future, which is really encouraging. I think I may be able to attain that within six months.

The real trick is keeping my motivation high. I know I can DO the work. I just can’t let myself get bored and start slacking off. So far, bored hasn’t been a problem, but I’ve been working here less than a month. I’m really working at changing my usual patterns though. Day by day, I will succeed.

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Just a couple more shots of the family of Canada Geese that are living behind my store. I like to take my dinner break out back and watch them if they’re around, makes for a nice change in a hectic day.

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