Sweet Catastrophe

The weather was crazy tonight! The clouds started rolling in really quickly around 7. It didn’t take long for the sky to become pitch black and lightning started going nuts! It’s been a while since I’ve seen so many powerful lightning strikes in such a short amount of time.

I was down in lumber and we lost power to the rollup door, and the lights under the shelter. Right after that, one of the power surges knocked out all of my registers. Of course, the registers were fine in the front of the store, but I have 5 customers waiting. Luckily they were all pretty cool about it; most of them just went back to shopping.

It was so rough, one of the strikes actually set off a car alarm in the parking lot….and then we lost all the lights out there!

Through all of this–no rain! It took forever, but it finally starting raining at 8:30 and we got a good bit of rain. If it keeps up, eventually there’ll be enough water back in the lakes and rivers and my dad can stop complaining that he can’t go boating ’cause everything’s so dry.

1-10 on a Saturday in Lowe’s is just ridiculous. For some reason I’ve been feeling really off all day. I think the best way to describe it would be that I feel like one would normally feel after being sick (puking sick) for a day or two. My whole body feels like it’s in a minor cramp. I’m really hungry, but I have no appetite. I hope it’s just random and not something slowly settling in. I’ve got to work at 8 am tomorrow and I’m certainly not looking forward to doing that in sick-mode.

It just finished storming. It’s thundering to suggest it’ll soon be storming again. So tell me why…why are those idiots outside blowing off our sidewalks? It’s wet! It ain’t movin’ darlin’! Furthermore, as soon as the wind sweeps back in, there will be more!

Let’s not forget the fact that it’s ridiculously loud, and not helping my headache….And since it’s wet and nothing is actually blowing away, they’re taking longer than usual. Please just stop.

I skipped classes today. My head was pounding when I woke up and I was exhausted. I had no sleep last night. Work called me at 8am to tell me they added some hours on to my schedule….two weeks from now. Thanks for the update. Next time can I just get the note left for me like everyone else?

I feel guilty for missing class. I probably shouldn’t, but I do. I wish I could skip work, but money is needed.

I’m in a downswing. Unfortunately, I’ve got all the makings for happy days, but my job is awful and I’ve had no hours so I’m not even living paycheck to paycheck right now. Before the check arrives, it’s spent and I’m looking for more money to cover the rest of my needs. It’s killing my motivation.

It’d also be great if people around me could stop dying. I’d appreciate that.

This depression brought to you, most likely, by pms. I have no money for Pamprin to make me happy lol.

Okay, so, I’ve bitched about our retarded availabilities plenty of times before, but here’s an example of its retardation–

Today, I was scheduled 1-8. I’m only available until 6 on Sundays. It’s been this way since January. Peggy has followed that, and the one time she scheduled me past six, I reminded her , and she fixed the schedule. Well, of course today when I get there and point this out, the whole time I was there, they try to turn it into being my fault and all the while I’m just chillin.

Whatever though. They tried to make it a big deal because apparently my availability in the computer doesn’t say that I’m only available until 6. Which, if that’s true, it’s from when Melissa changed my availability for me. S’ok though. I’ll come in Monday and fill out a new availability and we won’t have that issue anymore, and this time, if they try to give me crap about my summer availability, I’ll do what everyone’s been threatening to do and bring corporate into it ’cause I’m not about to let a part time job run my life, nor do I plan to let them run me off.

Last count I heard was 42,000 acres burned in Waycross, Ga. I can’t imagine what the smoke is like over there, ’cause it’s plenty thick here in Valdosta. It’s gettin rough. Due to allergies (I’m assuming, and hoping) I woke up with a sore throat and an achey chest. So of course I eventually ended up outside at the Garden Center registers. It was all going fine until the wind started dying down and the smoke really started settling in. So finally I called up front and asked to be switched out because the smoke was really starting to get to me. I’ve been out there in unbearable weather only to reply, “No, I’m fine” when they’d call and ask if I needed to switch out, so I assumed the fact that I was pleading to go in would hold a little weight and they’d realize I really needed to come in. Nah. I was finally relieved about 30 minutes before I was to leave anyway…almost two hours after I started requesting to come in and was told it’d be a minute every time…that really got me going. My throat is on fire now and my chest feels like I have a bowling ball on it.

I’ve got to be at work from 7am-6 pm tomorrow and I’m just not feelin’ it. It’s been an exhausting day and I had already decided to take a sleeping pill after eating and showering, but now I don’t even know if I have the energy to eat and shower. I just wanna sleep. *Yawn* Mmmm, smoke-filled lungs.

Ohhh, I almost forgot–Dad called today and said he expects I’ll have the car within the next month. I’m dying to get this car, for real.

I had my feelings hurt yesterday and it’s really bugging me. At work, these people don’t know me. There are maybe two people there who have an idea of what I am outside of work. So to them, all they see is a really sweet southern girl. Apparently that automatically means I’m also simple-minded, because I happen to be easily amused and enjoy laughing… Really though? Ouch. Truth is, I avoid intelligent conversations at work because every time I’ve attempted one, I run into that all-too familiar situation of talking to a brick wall. The same things are said over and over with no progress in the conversation. How stimulating…and no, I’m not saying everyone I work with is dumb or anything like that; if that were the case I’d be doing the same thing they’ve done to me. It just so happens that all the people I work closely with are just really different from me. So thanks to those of you who think I’m simple-minded and felt the need to joke about it yesterday. Wanna compare SAT scores? I swear every time I start climbing up to be happy with my life, something smacks me down. Now I’ll be paranoid and self-conscious at work, and I really don’t like that.

And really, maybe it was just a joke, but it’s not the first reference in Lowe’s to me being a dumb little southern girl, so it just struck a chord this time. I have a very fragile self-image. I don’t know what kind of insults hurt worse–those founded in truth, or those you know are completely wrong. Either way I appreciate the blow to the ego. :-|

Methinks this isn’t going to be a pretty week. My chest hurts. It’s getting pretty bad. I think the most logical explanation I’ve come up with is that I’ve probably pulled the muscle, thus causing all this pain that feels like I’m right back at week 1 post surgery. I’ve just put myself back on orders to not do any heavy lifting until at least a week after the pain finally subsides. Until then I’ll grin an bear the pain. There’s not really much else I can do without insurance to help pay for pain pills right now.

Anyway, how about on my way to work yesterday it was sleeting!! I mean really; it was almost 11 and droplets of ice were bouncing all over my car! Work was almost unbearable. Not a single person there wanted to be there, and we had no customers so it was really hard to feel like there was even a reason to be there. Really, we were only open because Home Depot was. For anyone who’d like to challenge that, I submit to you that originally, our hours for Easter were to be 10am-6pm, that is until I believe Friday when a manager saw in the sales paper that Home Depot would be open 8am-6pm on Easter Sunday. GR! We stay open later than other Lowe’s stores because of the Home Depot hours here as well. I’d confidently venture to say they lost more money being open this Sunday than they made. I say this because we had more coverage Sunday than we normally do. Why they keep over scheduling on these holidays when no one is out shopping, I’ll never understand. Of course, they don’t send people home and save hours either, do they? Nope, everyone did busy-work all down. Down-stocking, cycle counts, catch up on computer training…Sunday was neverending. It was that much worse because everyone was in such a ‘blah’ mood. We all just wanted to go home.

After work Ryan and I were planning to go eat and then to the movies, but Ryan was napping (he worked over 20 hours straight on Saturday out at Wild Adventures–as in pretty much constant hard labor, nothing to laugh at) and most everything was closed so we scratched the going out to eat and just went to the movie. We saw Meet the Robinsons and it was every bit of great that I expected it would be. I loved it so much and it had the cutest ending :) We plan to buy it when it comes out. I was really excited that when the movie came up there was a Mickey Mouse cartoon short at the beginning. It was great to see that. Then we came home and played Super Smash Bros Melee where I proceeded to get grumpy again because I was all sorts of sucking at that game last night and well, pms just isn’t pretty =P

Today sucked royally. It wasn’t really any one thing, it was just collectively a really crummy day. I had a Monday for real. After my morning class, I meant to take a quick nap and get up and shower and do all my reading for my afternoon class, but that didn’t happen. I woke up just in time to be too late to bother going to my afternoon class. Not too happy about that at all. I only have that class MW and I missed last Wed as well. Then work was just really horrible. I lost count of how many times I dropped things, hit myself with something, how many computers froze up on me…gah. Then after a while I finally made it up to the Return Desk and the girl who was running it earlier that day left a royal mess. I was ready to flip my shit when I got up there, no lie. There was barely any room for customers to even make it up to the counters! Everything was in the wrong place, and there were no less than 8 carts (not just shopping carts, but flat beds and lumber carts) just hanging around in front. Some were just returns, some were RTMS (defective/broken) and some were buggies of BOTH. No ma’am! It took me forever to get all that crap straight and all the while I’m giving refunds and running Customer Service (answering the always-ringing phone and fielding questions, etc) because they’re still not scheduling enough coverage for the front-end. I got really pissy then. I didn’t calm back down until I took my 30-minute break, and it wasn’t long after I got back that I started hurting pretty bad again and just wanted to go the eff home. I really just wanted to leave. I never enjoy being there, but it’s been a while since I’ve wanted to leave so badly.

I’m hoping the rest of the week doesn’t follow suit but it’s looking as though it will. I have bills due this week and I currently have like $17. I need like a $200 loan until next month or something. Oh! I got another USB cable for my phone….yeah, don’t think it’s gonna work. I can’t get the drivers for my phone installed because my computer is looking for one file and there’s another on the cd….I’m not sure what to do. Maybe if I can find some software to work with my phone I can get it all going that way. I’ll have to ask Catie again what it is she uses. (How ’bout I totally just gave you some link-love Kt-kins? Woot.)

Work was such a chore tonight. I felt like I was stuck in a never ending game of Pong. Really, I couldn’t stay in one spot to save my life. It was full of drama because two cashiers were working together tonight who apparently had some sort of little falling out on Sunday when I wasn’t there. Melony wasn’t working tonight. (Melony would be the head cashier responsible for me still working there. If it weren’t for her current schedule, I’d be long-gone.) Some people just know how to run things smoothly and others don’t. That’s really all it boils down to. Early on in the evening there were quite a few irate customers because things in Lumber (on the other end of the freaking store, thanks) weren’t going so well because 3 of the guys had some sort of little bitch-fest earlier in the day so everyone was avoiding one another. That’s right, drama isn’t reserved for females! At one point, while I was running the front alone, I had a customer come in who had found something another customer left in the parking lot. Well, he decided that since he found it and out of the kindness of his heart *sarcasm* brought it into the store, we should give it to him if the customer didn’t come back for it. Sorry, no go, doesn’t work that way. While he wanted to argue with me about how it wouldn’t be fair for us to be able to return it to stock and sell it again, I politely *sorta* pointed out to him that in no way, shape, or form would it be fair for him to get an item he hadn’t paid for, and while yes, we occasionally end up with items customers leave behind, it’s rare for them to leave items above $20 unclaimed and we’re constantly losing money replacing items people leave in the parking lot and others walk off with. He somehow thought he was going to get somewhere by arguing with me for no less than 20 minutes on the matter. Sorry sweetheart, today isn’t your day. His wife kept telling him to just leave it back out in the parking lot. Finally I just said, “Ya know, you can walk out there and leave it in the parking lot, take it yourself, or leave it here, it really doesn’t make a big difference to me, that’s on your conscience but I’ve got other customers waiting to be helped.” Now, not a big deal for some of you, but I never stand up for myself at work. In any other situation, absolutely, but at work, I’m the customers’ bitch. Don’t ask me why; it’s just something ingrained in me. So anyways, that felt pretty great and he ended up leaving it there with promises that he’d be back in a few days to check up on us and see if anyone had picked it up. Golly, you promise??!! Do I care?

I’m feeling like an oldie now. I’ve worked on concrete floors before, but I think it’s finally starting to take a true toll on my feet and legs. I’ve got constant aches and pains in different key parts of my feet and lower legs. Having a mother who’s had problems working on concrete floors I’m familiar enough with some of it to know I’d probably do myself a world of good if I had them checked out by a doctor, but for now I’m gonna have to make do with some new inserts, see where I get with those.

Kids say the greatest stuff at Lowe’s. Last week there was a little boy right inside the entrance letting his parents know with a passion only 4 year olds can muster, “I HATE this plaaaaaaace.” I feel ya kid. The little girl in the bathroom today was adorable. Her mother was telling her not to walk out the door without her, “I know ’cause there’s strangers will steal me.” How cute?

So everyone (particularly Jamey) has trouble understanding why we all hate the front-end so much and so many people are so desperate to get away. Working the front end of any retail operation is like being back in high school. Everyone knows everyone else’s business…whether it’s true or not. Drama is as common as the customer who complains about a line, only to take ten minutes arranging her checkbook when it’s her turn to check out. I can handle that. I’ve been doing retail since I was 16ish. I’m totally used to that. The thing is, when you add that to working at a location where customer service is key, but the slack is so obviously taken up in the way the employees are treated, that’s when it just gets to be too much. I really can’t even express all the common practices in that store that really shouldn’t be going on at all. When I started the job, no, I didn’t like all my superiors, but there were none I had a problem working with. Now, there’s only one who doesn’t inspire feelings of…oh maybe jumping in front of a train.

Oh and let’s talk about scheduling again. Since my availability has changed (read: been changed for me), I now have the wonderful privilege of opening next Tuesday morning at 6am. Now, according to my school schedule that they have on file, that would mean that basically from 9am Monday morning to 10pm Wednesday night, I’d be in either class or work. It would go as follows:
Monday = Class 9am-3:15pm
Work 4pm-10pm
Tuesday = Work 6am-1pm
Class 2pm-4pm
Wednesday = Class 9am-3:15pm
Work 4pm-10pm

No ma’am. I’m gonna try to catch Peggy (the one who actually makes out my schedule) within the next few days to discuss it. If she really can’t do without me, I’ll take it next week, but after that, I’m done. I want my original availability back. I won’t repeat all my complaints about the availability, but the point is that I know my limits, and I know what my schedule needs to be to ensure that I’m actually going to show up to all my classes and all my scheduled shifts and actually do all my homework. That schedule ain’t gonna cut it.

Things got tight starting this weekend because 1 cashier up and quit Thursday (wish I could afford to do that), and 2 officially moved to other departments, but of course the schedule wasn’t changed around to account for those people. We also had an unusually large number of call outs this weekend too. Why didn’t anyone warn me that no one was gonna be there so I could be one of those missing folks as well? So we have those three who have shifts that aren’t gonna be covered for about 3 weeks, well, today we added 3 more bodies to that list—here’s the fun stuff, ready for it?

TWO cashiers were carried out in handcuffs today for stealing merchandise. Another was fired for aiding them. A little vague, but at the moment that’s all the info I have. The two caught stealing don’t really surprise me that much, but the one supposedly aiding them really bothers me. I’m generally a really good judge of character but I really never would’ve expected this from this person. I guess you just never really know.

So that’s 6 cashiers we’re gonna have to pick up slack for in the upcoming weeks. It’s gonna be rough, and it probably means I can’t expect to get out of work on time for a while. Hoorah….thank God I’m off the next three days.

Oh! On a good note, it appears I was approved for my time off during Spring Break after all. I won’t know for sure for a few days, but we found my request today and it had been signed off on. I’ve never actually taken a Spring Break off so it’ll be nice. Unfortunately, I had already been told I wasn’t getting it off so I haven’t been doing anything to save up money so I don’t really know what I’m gonna be able to afford to do and I don’t know how bills are gonna go for the end of March/beginning of April. Wish me luck….

so we had a cashier meeting this morning (from 7-8:30 am….assss) and of course it was pretty much pointless, but patrick became my hero of the week when he threw out how pissed we all were about the availability/school schedule thing. at first, greg (our manager) tried to back melissa up, but when all was said and done, he told david they needed to discuss HRs involvement in our scheduling and told us that as long as peggy has no problem working with the availability we’ve given her, not to worry about it. my favorite part was when patrick was on a roll and said, “we’re in valdosta to go to school; we’re not in valdosta to work at lowe’s.” god that was amazing.

i can’t get motivated to get any of my school work done. i really can’t. it’s hard enough to get motivated to go to work–it’s really a chore right now.

i really want to see Employee of the Month and Catch and Release. if you wanna paypal me some money to make one of those happen, i’m all for that ;)