Leave It to "Them" to Mess Up a Perfectly Good Plan

If you want to read the "good plan" first, see my previous entry. 
1.  When I walked in the door and looked at the day's schedule, two things struck me right off the bat:  a)  the schedule said I was to leave at three, when I thought I had 'til four, b) I was put "on call" for register back up.   I checked my phone calendar and found out a. was right.  When I objected to b, I was told I was the only one to call so I had to be used.   Oh, well.


2.  I got my cart with all my set paraphernalia and got started working on my set.    I had just got into it good, when the co manager (who was the only manager there for the morning), sidles up to me and says, "I've made a mistake in scheduling.   I have no one in fabrics this morning.   Would you cover fabrics?"   "Sure, just tell them to page me when someone wants service."


3.  Did I say that by this time I'd looked around and realized they REALLY MEANT IT when they said I was the only one to call for cashier back-up?   I mean, only one.   There was no one in seasonal.  No one in Home Accents.  No one in floral.  No one in Art & Hobbies.  No one in Wearables and Jewelry.  No one in Crafts.  No one in Party & Candles.   And no stockman.  There was me, one person in framing, and the office person, two cashiers, and the manager.  That was IT!!.  Further more, they were not scheduled to come in until two and I was supposed to LEAVE AT THREE.   Even with only 25% left to do, it sure wasn't looking good.  (Later the co explained to me that the reason we were so short was because all full time people had to be given an extra day off because of the holiday, but payroll still had to be met and they had to pay us for those days no one worked.  So scheduling suffered.)


4.  I had a good day.   A really good day.  Even with 4.5 hours of sleep.  Even with running around doing all the price checks, hurrying over to cut fabric when I was paged for service and going back and  having to find my place and work a few more minutes on my set.   (Did I say that the sides I had left to reset both required I remove stuff from the top caps, take off the top caps, i.e., shelving, and change out peg sizes?)  So why --in spite of all the things that went wrong-- did I have such a good day?  I'm sure God was merciful, but it was also because of WHO was not there.  The crisis creator was not there to fall apart over every thing that didn't go the way the crisis creator wanted it to go.


 5.  Around twelve, the fabrics person showed up.   Great.   She was told to come in and "work on your set."  Boy, was that backhanded.   Fabrics had been busy.  I was making a lot of trips over there and I was leaving the mess (bolts to put back) for when the fabrics person did come in because I was thinking of getting my own set done.  (I didn't remember she had one to finish also.)  NOW that she had come, I could do my set.  WRONG!!  The co manager came up to me once again and asked, "Could you help out on the registers?   They are getting really backed up at the front."   They were.  Both lines (two cashiers, remember) were backed up.   So I spend the time from twelve until I was to go to lunch, at the front cashiering.  It actually took 30 minutes before the lines were back down to 1 or 2 in line and no one else showed up at my register to be checked out.


6.  After lunch, I asked the secretary to check my time.   I said, "I'm sure [the boss] will want this set done today and she won't care if I stay longer as long as I don't go into overtime."   When she checked, just after lunch, I had worked 32.47 hours for the week.    So I started back on my set.


7.  At two o'clock the other employees began to arrive.  Wow.  I couldn't believe how many.  I determined to let them do the work of price checking, phone answering, etc. from that point on and I went back to work.   It took me until 7 o'clock, but I finished all but the one section I was getting help with.  My "helper" was supposed to come in on Saturday and he had left all the stuff in a tote so he could find it and finish that section.  I had done the rest of the sections that he had not even started on "his" side.   All together I did twelve sections.     And oh, I forgot about this, I had had to go back and rework six of the sections he had done previously because they weren't done right.   By the time I left, I figured that one section-- and he had some of it done already-- was all that was left for the set to be done.   One left out of fifty-eight.   I was just over 98% done.   (We had to turn in percentages daily.)


8.  I came home to a wonderful supper cooked by my daughter-in-law and an empty house.  She and her family were not here.   I took a shower, put on my pjs, ate my wonderful supper, and marvelled at HOW GOOD A DAY I had had.   It's amazing how just one person can make such a difference in stress levels.   Even when everything else goes wrong, if that one person is NOT there, things can still be "good".   But, honestly, I ended the day thinking:  this was a day of grace.  Surely the saints must have prayed for me today.  It was unbelievably UNstressful even with all that foiled my "good plan".