My New Job

It's great to be back to just "normal" stress in life.  Not the kind that makes me dread going to work every day wondering what's going to happen this time.   Having to pray that I react to the unreasonable demands in the way that I should, because I know for certain they will be facing me when I get there.


No more.   It's like having a completely DIFFERENT job.    Which I do.   I've told my manager, "The only thing I don't like about going part time is that I don't know what I'm going to do until I get here and ask someone.  And I don't like that because it's not always easy to find someone to ask as soon as I get here and I hate not having something to be doing."  (Generally, I try to find something, by going and asking others how I can help them out, if I can't find a manager who already had a job lined up.   I wish I'd done that last week.  Cleaning those bases all day .... not my idea of the work I would have chosen for myself.  But I did it and I did it as well as it could be done.)


Looks like they are scheduling me for EVERY Saturday now.  That really doesn't bother me as far as interfering with any plans I might have.  The ONLY reasons I don't particular care for Saturday work is that it's "family day" at HL.  Husbands and children galore.  Men never know where anything is and children run wild.   So I spend my days walking men around helping them find what they need.  (They really are "lost" in that place.)   If the children aren't running wild, it's because irate fathers are scolding them-- unlike what mothers do when they bring them in without the fathers.   Normally mothers who have their children under control before they come in the store, also have their children under control when they get there.  Those children behave and you don't really have a reason to notice them -- except to tell their moms what good kids they have-- because they are NOT making work for you, they are not making you wonder if the next run around a table full of ceramics is going to produce an accident that will end in a lawsuit, they are not screaming and crying, "BUT I WANT IT.  I WANT IT!"

The other reason I don't like Saturdays is that on Saturday evening, they sometimes require us to put up all of Monday mornings sale signs.   We don't usually have a very big crew closing and by the time we recovery the store, put out stray merchandise, help customers, do back-up cashiering, and pull the old signs, it really runs us late to put up new signs.  That throws me hugely late getting home Saturday night.   It's not a biggy, but I'd rather not get home late on the night before going to church.  (It's not like I wouldn't be up late anyway though.  It's just very tiring to do all that.)  


On Wednesday, I was "officially" put in charge of the clearance wall.   That means before I leave I have to be sure it's recovered no matter where else in the store I have been working for the day.  And it means I'm in charge of getting the clearance out.  


I had also told my co-manager I wished that he would somehow indicate on the day's schedule where I was to be working so when I came in I'd know where to go.  He did that for me.  And I was sent to scrap booking to help with a huge reset that is going on there.   I hadn't gone as far with as I wanted before he came to me and told me to work on the clearance wall.  There were some "issues" there.  Someone else had added a bunch of stuff and moved some other things around on Monday and the "lines" weren't right.   The top and the bottom of the pegged merchandise has to be straight, not zig-zaggy.   By that time, I had two carts full of scrapbooking that had to be added to the wall anyway.  So, I spent the rest of my day working on the clearance wall.   I just barely finished it up before we left last night.


I like my new job.  I generally can find plenty to do --here and there and everywhere-- and yet I do not go to meetings.  They are reserved for department heads.   And until Wednesday, I could just walk out as soon as my time was up because most DAYS I was not responsible for recovery in any particular area.   Now, of course, I'll have to take a look at the clearance wall and make sure I allow myself time to make it "perfect before [I] leave"  -- which were my instructions.


Need to leave in about an hour so I'm done here.And I'm kinda looking forward to my day at work (again, finally) even if it is Saturday. Because I know what I'm going to be doing (for the most part) and it's work that I like.