Windy Day!

Right now I should be on a plane to Dallas for work. Let me stop there. As of 6:30pm last night, I should have been on a plane at 8:40 this morning. Then my boss gave me the option to sleep in and smartly....I took it! We planned on flying out at about 1pm for market. However, the wind has decided otherwise. Most of the flights today have been canceled due to wind which is highly unusual for this area. I'm still waiting to see if we will leave tonight or tomorrow. So in essence, I've gotten a "free" day off! Hooray!

In other news, I've gotten back into the gym. After almost a 2 month hiatus, going back hurt. All of my favorite classes like BodyStep and BodyAttack are at times that are impossible to make. So, I made myself get on the elliptical and lift on my own, just like I did back in the day. Some of you may remember that. I found that I lost a lot of strength and endurance. It's going to be a rough road getting back, but I'm up for the challenge.

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By request, an update

Hello all!

I have totally lost track of this blog in the last week. My new job is going great so far. My new boss is absolutely wonderful and so easy to work with. This job is such a change from the stress I had before at my last position. Sure, there's a LOT to do and a LOT of things to catch up on, but it's not stressful in the same way. Going from commission to salary took quite a weight off of my shoulders. Now I know what I will make each month without freaking out about how much I am selling. This morning I will start my second week and.......I'm actually excited!

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Happy Friday Peeps!

I realize today is Friday the 13th, but I have no suspicions today! Today is the last Friday I'll ever work at my current job. Tomorrow is my last day EVER. You have no idea how ready I am. I would love to skip out on the last two days entirely, but I just feel too bad about it.

I know, I'm a wuss.

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More News

Remember how I told you that Jason had finally found a job? He starts on Monday and I am very excited for him. One, because it gets him out of the house. Two, because we get another paycheck. Hooray for more paychecks!

But wait.

There's more news.

I got a new job too. At a baby/children's store. This is one of those jobs that literally fell into my lap like it was meant to be. I was working at the store and trying to sell a woman an expensive handbag. Out of the blue, she asked me if I liked my job. I decided to be honest and told her that it was an okay job, but it wasn't what I wanted to do. I said that "sometimes we gotta do what we gotta do" as the saying goes. She asked me what I wanted to do to which I replied "marketing" and she told me that she was looking to hire someone for a marketing position. I took her card and said I'd call her to follow up.

Now let me interject here. When I worked in outside sales a few years ago, I had employers constantly give me business cards and tell me to call them. They were always hiring. As you can imagine, by the time I called, they weren't as serious as they seemed to be. Having this past experience gave me very low expectations for this particular offer. Regardless, I made the phone call. She wasn't available. So, I emailed instead.

Bingo!

She invited me in for an interview. I looked up the company and got a little information. I really wasn't sure exactly what was expected as I didn't have a written job explanation. So, I went in cold turkey. Isn't that against what they teach in Interview 101? We got along wonderfully and I interviewed (very casually, I might add) for a little over 2 and a half hours. I'll be working in another retail establishment, but I'll be more in the back. I won't have to sell, there's no commission, and I have steady work hours. From what I gather, I'll be in charge of marketing, vendor/customer relations and various store operations. My position is being written essentially by the owner as we go. I'm the first salaried employee they've ever had on their team. I'm really excited about the opportunity! The best part?

I work 9:30 - 6:00 Monday through Friday and will probably work every other Saturday. On the weeks that I work on Saturday, I get a day off in the middle of the week. Not too bad, huh? The gig is 12 miles closer to my house, too. How could I say no? And to top it all off, when I accepted the job, the owner told me, "I feel like I've been waiting for you forever!" Isn't that the nicest thing anyone could say? I start August 16th and can't wait!

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Work Updates

I haven't updated about my job since The Day That I Wanted To Hide, so here's what's happening in my world. Work is a constant battle of my emotions. Some days, I sell a lot and go home smiling. Other days, like today, I had so many returns that I went home feeling down and dejected. Today, and the last few days, have been just like the former. I am such a perfectionist at heart that I feel as if I must do everything well. If I don't do it to my standards which are usually ridiculously high, then I get very upset and feel like a failure. On top of that, working on commission can be very stressful. Knowing that selling just one or two more things can make a major change in my paycheck is hard for me. I stress so badly because I know that I'm the sole income provider right now and every little bit extra counts. I try not to think about it too much, but it's very hard not to do just that. But tomorrow is Saturday and that should be a good day!

In other work-related news, our department had a visit from our Regional Manager. My own manager had never met the RM since he was new, so I was a little nervous. But......he told my manager that he couldn't believe I had only been working there for three months. He was impressed by the amount of product knowledge I have already. That made me smile!

Also, I had a customer come in a few days ago that was looking for a small, inexpensive item. She told me that I was so nice the entire time I helped her. She couldn't believe that I could spend that much time on her even though she spent so little. She wanted to tell my manager that she was pleased with my service and even wrote a note to our Store Manager. Isn't that awesome? Those are hard to come by! I love customers that appreciate the service I give. :)

So even though I had a sub-par day today, I do have other things at work to be thankful for. I'll try to remember that the next time I have a yucky day.

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The good and the bad

First, the good: I had a really good day at work today. I sold more than I had all week. THANK GOODNESS. It's been such a slow week that even Saturday's numbers were worse than a bad Monday. Seriously! So that was good news!

Now, the bad: The first person I sold a handbag to today was someone that I didn't ever want to run into. And I mean EVER.

Let's flashback 5 years, shall we? I was working for a certain company in the staffing industry. After college, I was lost in what I wanted to do and got an interview with a lady at a different staffing company. The job fell through and I didn't hear from the lady for months. Then out of the blue, she called me from a different staffing company. She had changed jobs and offered me a position at the office. I really didn't want to do this type of work, but I agreed to try it out thinking that I could move onto something else if I did this job. Staffing wasn't so bad at first. It was fairly manageable and my coworkers were nice. Slowly, the work load was elevated and our company was given goals that were impossible to attain. My workload suddenly increased by over 100% and demands were made that were hard to keep up with. And when I say that the workload was getting too hard, I speak for all at the company. On top of this, I had just started grad school and was balancing this full time job with 3/4 time grad school at night. In the middle of this, a new salesperson was hired. This salesperson was new to sales and had recently left the police force. Yes, you read that right. A former cop decided to go into sales. Can you picture a salesperson/former cop interrogating employees (unintentionally) and nearly bullying companies to give her job orders? And then once this person left and I had to fill the job, suddenly there really wasn't a job that was open. Maybe, this person was a little too forceful in acquiring job orders and when she left, suddenly these companies grew a spine and told us "NO JOB" over the phone. Yeah, that's pretty much how it was. The really bad part to it all? She was the owner's "pet" employee. They got along too well and he thought she could do no wrong. She made my horrible job even more stressful and drove me to meltdowns at home frequently. Finally, I was let go from the job. My direct boss didn't support this decision, but she had to go with it since the owner had made his decision. I believe that I was let go as an example. I wasn't heartbroken over losing my job since I was already miserable, but I was really disappointed. I had gotten into a job that I didn't even want and then was let go because it was probably obvious that I didn't want the job.

If you haven't guessed that the person I sold a bag to this morning was the saleslady in the story, then you need to have a couple more glasses of wine so that my story begins to make more sense.

Fast forward to this morning: I saw a woman walk into my department looking at an expensive Coach handbag. I asked her if she needed help and she said she knew she wanted that bag, but she wanted to look a little more. Then she told me I looked familiar. She looked vaguely (and I mean really vaguely) familiar to me, but it was more because her profile resembled someone I knew. Then she asked me where I worked before this. I told her a certain staffing company (not the one mentioned above) and then I interned at another company. She still looked puzzled and asked me if I worked at Staffing Company Mentioned Above. I told her that I did a long time ago. She looks at me and says, "I'm Tina! Remember me?"

The wave of emotions that rocked through my body at that moment are indescribable. That part of my life was so miserable, I never wanted to remember it again. Or her. And I feel bad for saying it because she's actually really nice. I get along with her as a person. But working with her was hard. To add insult to injury, the Staffing Company Mentioned Above had merged with two other companies and now had 4 offices. She's now the Branch Manager of one of the locations and earns way more than she did before. On top of it, she's gotten married and has a baby.  Just seeing her was enough to send me over the edge. But hearing that she's really successful and is able to do the things that I want to do now just hurts. And I was embarrassed to have to admit that after 8 years of schooling, I'm working in retail. I've essentially gone nowhere. I really wanted to punch a wall this morning. It took every ounce of strength that I had to keep a smile on my face and look comfortable speaking with her. It was so freaking hard. I wanted to break down afterward, but I held it in. On top of it all, I have a bad feeling that she's going to return that bag.

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Update, anyone?

It's been awhile since I've done an update, so here's what's been going on (in bullet points, of course!):

• Work has been going pretty good. I'm doing well according to my 45-day review and am improving daily. I'm no longer the newbie since they have hired someone else in my department. Hooray! The constant changing of my schedule is harder than I remember and I frequently get tired. When I close and then open the following day, I don't get 8 hours of sleep. My poor body needs 8 hours (no less!) to function well. I've taken two 2-hour naps so far in my quest to catch up on much-needed sleep.
• Somehow, even though I have a crazy schedule, I have managed to stay in the gym. I'm still attending Body Attack, Body Pump, Body Combat and Step. It's been hard to fit them in, but I'm able to go several times a week. I'm getting better at each class and I'm able to follow the motions with much more ease. I did fall in Step class this week, but I didn't hurt myself. It was toward the end of class and I was exhausted. I was jumping over the step quickly when one foot touched the other. It was just enough to set me off balance. Then, it was like I fell in slow motion. I landed on my butt fairly softly and laughed. The best part? No one noticed because I was in the back!
• Still no job prospects for Jason. He's been looking, but there's not much out there. His mood has been very up and down and some days it's hard to deal with. As long as he keeps himself busy, he's okay. I've been trying to keep him motivated to get things done to make himself feel productive. So far, so good.
• Luckily, with my paycheck we can live the exact way we are living currently (the horror!) for another 18 months. My paycheck doesn't cover all the bills currently, but's fairly close. At least that means we can stay in our house for now. Thank goodness.
• Our garden isn't looking good. The soil that we brought in last year has mixed too much with our original soil. It's now a compacted, thick soil that is making it hard for the plants to establish roots. Also, something is eating a few of the plants. I have no idea what they are, but it's not the pill bugs that we had last year. This time, it's eating the leaves, not the stem. The squash is the only plant that actually looks pretty good. I think we'll have a good harvest from it.

I think that's all there is to talk about. If you made it through my jumbled train of thought, I applaud you! And now my friends, I must get dressed to go to work. On a Saturday. :(

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Creep Alert!

I have to talk to a lot of customers on a daily basis, which I have absolutely no problem with. It's fairly easy to strike up a small conversation with someone in my type of work environment. However, sometimes it's the customer that catches me off-guard rather than vice versa. Here's what happened:

I was finishing up with another customer and filing away some paperwork when a late 40s-ish man randomly walks up. He's dressed almost too casually in his jeans, flannel shirt (hello! It's 80 degrees outside!) and fishing-type floppy hat for the day. He walks right up to me and says "Hey there!" like he knew me well. I politely said "Hi" because I thought maybe he did know me. Maybe I had sold him something before and my memory failed me. After all, I'm not exactly well-known for remembering names. I thought I'd stick around to see if I could jog my memory. So then he begins talking to me about everything from the weather to politics to global warming. I kid you not. He left no room for me to say a word other than the occasional "uh huh" and "yeah". There was no escape! And then he dropped a bombshell on me:

He said to me, in a distinctly confident way, "You're a natural blonde."

I replied, "Yes.....". I mean, what else am I supposed to say here? Where did this question even COME FROM???

Then he said, "Want to know how I know?"

Oh God, no I don't. I have no idea what the look on my face was. I didn't want to know how this question was going to be answered. Can you guess what I was even THINKING? The first thing that went through my head was that he hadn't seen me naked and he wasn't going to. Gross! After the initial shock in my head, I cautiously asked, "How?"

He simply pointed to his eyebrows, indicating that my eyebrows are naturally blonde and that I hadn't colored them.

Seriously, what the hell? You can't imagine how relieved I was at that point to have another customer ask me for help. After answering that person's questions, I hauled booty to the other side of my department and wouldn't go back until he was gone. Normally I might have called security, but his wife and daughter were in the department and they were normal. (Or so it seemed.) I guess he was bored. Geez, can you say creep alert? I was never so happy to see anyone leave in my life!

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What a freaking week......

I started my new job this week. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday were to be training days. Oh, Tuesday was such a long day. There were five of us in a room learning all about our company's values, our expectations and such. I wondered why I took the time to read the employee rules online beforehand since we went over each one in detail. After sitting in a classroom for 5 and half hours, I was ready to go home. I get so antsy when I'm supposed to sit still!

Wednesday was another training day which wasn't quite so bad. Except for the girl next to me who knew it all. She had worked for the company many years ago and recently came back. Therefore, she felt the need to get ahead of our "teacher" and talk to me while he's talking. It was a tad annoying, but at least I made a friend in another department. That will come in handy one of these days.

Wednesday morning, before I left for work, Jason told me about an email I received the night before. A friend of mine had lost a 5 and a half year-long battle with breast cancer. It was devastating news. My friend was so young. She was always full of life and hope. Her faith was so strong that it inspired me. Twelve years ago, I caught the bouquet at her wedding. Now, she was being laid to rest in that very same church that she got married in. It was such a sad, final moment. I skipped my third day of training (with permission, of course) to go to her memorial. Wednesday and Thursday were pretty rough for me. Seeing a friend leave this world always makes me contemplative. Hug those you love now because you never know what could happen tomorrow.

Friday was my first day in the new job. I think I did pretty good. I still have some on-the-floor training to do, but I didn't do too bad for my first day. I came home feeling kind of yucky and I had feet that hurt so freaking bad! I'm not used to being on my feet all day anymore. Then, I woke up with a bad sinus headache on Saturday. Not good. Luckily, I didn't have to be at work until 3, so I laid around the house and tried to get some rest while Jason and his Dad worked outside on a water line.

I got to work feeling a little better, but definitely not myself. I finally got to meet all the girls in my department and they are all so nice and helpful! From what I hear through the grapevine, I got into a very good department. Thank goodness! Saturday went pretty well, but I came home with two new blisters on my feet. I've got to find some flats to wear to work! I came home sneezing, sniffling, coughing and expecting to fall asleep fast. I got to bed about 11:30 and was still awake at 2am. My darn nose wouldn't stop running, so I couldn't breathe. My throat hurt too bad to sleep with my mouth open. It wasn't such a good night for me.

So here I am on Sunday, my day off, and I feel miserable. Seriously, what the hell? I think I may have to dose up on some Benadryl on top of the Zyrtec I've already taken. I also think a nap is in order for this afternoon. Hopefully, next week is better!

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