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I looked out my window to the back yard and thought to myself, "It has snowed again!"
That's a typical me-thought when I first get up. My brain is kind of cloudy until I get my coffee. Actually, it had NOT snowed. It's just that temperatures have been SO LOW this week that the same snow that fell on Sunday night and Monday is still COVERING the whole back yard. That, in spite of the fact that the sun shown on it most of the day yesterday. It's just that temperatures didn't rise high enough to help the sun out.
The back road I take to get to the highway finally cleared up though. That was nice. It was the most "treacherous" part of my drive into work from Tuesday morning until yesterday. (Treacherous being the word that the weather reports were using to describe driving conditions in this area.)
In spite of the weather and in spite on a number of people calling out of work on Monday, and in spite of the fact that we were not allowed to work on a Sunday this year, we have still made good progress on getting ready for inventory on Monday. When I left last night, I think the last major obstacle was getting all the home accent clearance counted. The three home accents workers were given that job to do and told to not leave until it was finished. I left about 4 o'clock and they were diligently working on it.
The bad weather was a "blessing" to us in some ways. Since we couldn't come in on a customer free day and work, it sure cut down on the number of customers who came out shopping. That helped. Those who could get to work on Monday were able to work uninterrupted. (TOTAL SALES for Monday were right around $100. And, oh, there was still someone who came in to do a return.)
On Tuesday sales were up but not up to normal. Most of the shoppers must have been at the front because there weren't many back where I was working.
Another way the weather helped us out was to keep our "inspector" stranded in his own store. He had told our manager he would be here on Tuesday to make sure we had done things like he wanted them done from his previous visit. These were NOT things that pertained to getting ready for inventory explicitly. They were the things that would make the store look "perfect" for other "important" visitors. Anyway, he didn't come and that helped us be able to concentrate on doing the precounts and other stuff that actually pertains to being prepared for inventory. Getting everything out of the stock room that can possibly be got out. (We have to count what's in there; the inventory service counts what is on the floor-- up to a certain level. They won't count anything above six feet I think it is. We have to count everything that is up on the ledges and high walls.)
I counted tables on Tuesday. (The tables run around what we call the "racetrack".) I was only there for about five hours, because the roads didn't get passable until later in the morning on Tuesday and the threat was that melting snow and dropping temperatures would produce icy conditions later, so I Ieft before it got late so as to avoid ending up in a ditch... or perhaps even worse, having some idiot think they could "fly by" me in the icy left lane and instead of flying by, fly into me.
Our freight came in on Wednesday and that was our priority for the day. Church was canceled because of the icy back roads-- and probably because the parking lot was still covered in snow and ice-- so I worked until I got everything out. I went onto bed not long after I got home because I knew I had to be back at 6 AM to start weighing my paper.
It took all day.
I had estimated that it would take six hours, but that was before I had the six racks of specialty paper added. It actually took us until 4 o'clock to finish the paper. Of course, we took out breaks and lunch. And it took awhile after we got there to get the scales adjusted and get started. And we were beginning to have some interruptions by customers that stopped the process. But we figured the whole procedure took about nine hours.
On Friday I went in at 7 in order to get my order for next week done. We had to have them turned in yesterday because, since our inventory is on Monday and that's the day we normally turn them in, we had to get it done. The office person who keys in the orders will be "all tied up" with inventory paper work on Monday. No way would she be able to key in our orders.
I had to weigh some more "paper" that was not on our list. A new line that had come in. It wasn't much, but it had to be done. And I had to "count the office". We have to keep all our Cricut cartridges and machines and Spellbinder diecuts in the office because people will walk off with them if we don't.
Before Cricut came in, we used to carry Sizzix products and we kept them on the counters where people could just choose what they want. They chose all right. They chose to steal them. I think as many were stolen as were purchased. Eventually the Sizzix line was deleted and when Cricut came in, the high end products were kept locked up in the office and customers had to take a ticket to the cashier to get what they want.
By Friday, I guess people were getting "stir crazy" staying at home with the kids who had been out of school all week, so they brought them out shopping. I was glad I was done with my counting and just working on my order by the time the influx began.
I got everything done that I was supposed to do by three and I came home and RELAXED for the rest of the day. By relaxed I mean, I played "my" computer game. Once I start that silly game, it's hard for me to stop so I don't start it until I've decided I will "relax" for awhile. So I played my game and then went to bed in time to get a really good rest.
I had been scheduled to go in at 8 this morning but I asked my boss if he didn't think I would be needed more to help recover at the end of the day because the inventory people will be in bright and early (possibly six) on Monday and we will have to have an EXTREMELY GOOD recovery tonight. So instead of working 8 until 1, I am going in to work at 3 and work until 8 to help get the store straight. I did tell him if he needs me for anything to call, but with the way he's being ridden about payroll, I doubt he will. He'll want to keep the hours down as much as possible and the fact that I missed on Monday and worked only about 5½ hours on Tuesday threw me completely out of the overtime category. I think this is the first time I've NOT gotten some overtime when we were getting ready for inventory since I've been working. (I looked forward to that overtime in January to help me pay my house insurance in February. But as they say, "That's how the cookie crumbles.")
I do not plan to "relax" today. In other words, I will not even start up Rome Puzzle. I find that this silly little game affects me the way reading books used to. I'd tell myself I'd put the book down at the end of a chapter, but I never could. I'd get so caught up in the book that before I even knew what I was doing I'd have read right on. That's THE reason I gave up reading those huge 1000 to 2000 page books I used to read when I was in high school and college. If you can't put it down, then you have to decide at some point to just not even pick it up. At least with this game, I'm not left hanging on. If I was reading a book and was "into it", I'd be so pulled to find out what's going to happen next that I would gravitate to the book without even realizing it. With a game, there's no plot, no wondering about what's next, none of that. But it can go on and on if I ever start it. Sometimes I'll go on until I've lost all my "lives" and would have to start all over again. That's when I stop. When I limited myself to playing it online, I could only go to Level 16 and it stopped there, but I downloaded the game so it takes losing all my lives to stop me now. Even if I do that, it still doesn't take as long as those long, long books I used to read.
Micah's birthday is next week.
I was going to send him a gift (mail order from online) but didn't get it done. Now I find out that Francine is packing because they are moving and I'm not sure when that event takes place, so I need to be getting some information on these things and let Micah know that his Meemuh hasn't forgotten him and do something to take care of that. TODAY.
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