YummY! Down on This

Archive for July, 2010

Its like this….

I’m grateful to have a full time job, and I’m not taking it for granted.  I’m even more grateful for my job since my hubby lost his 5 months ago.

However, you can be grateful for something, and not like it very much.

I mean, I used to like my job.  As recently as 2 years ago I liked my job, and I saw myself staying there for years to come.  I planned on getting a department manager position and everything.

Then, not once but TWICE when a department manager position opened up I was passed up, not for someone else in the store, but for people they brought in from outside.

And now since we’ve dropped from an a grade to a b grade store, and we have no cashiers I never get to do MY job.  I get to stay on a register pretty much all day while every day I get asked, “Did you finish so-and-such that I gave you yesterday” to which the answer is always no.  No, I didn’t finish setting that 25 foot planogram because I was on the register all day.  No, I don’t think I’ll finish it today either, I’ll probably be on the register all day.

He tells me I’ll never get moved up to department manager if my department is always getting low grades when the DM visits, but I can’t keep it nice and neat and well stocked because I’m on the register all day.

I LOATHE being on the register because you never get a break from the greed.

I kid you not, I had a lady give me a hard time because her 40% coupon wouldn’t come off the 10 cent item she was buying because it was clearance.  IT WAS 10 FREAKING CENT and she wanted a 40% discount off of it badly enough to ARGUE with me.

I can no longer see myself working there long term, and want very badly to get out of there ASAP.  I want to open my own store.  A thrift/resale/consignment shop.

I know that running my own business will be even harder work than what I’m doing right now, because not only will I be the boss, but I’ll probably be the only employee for a long time too.  But the difference will be that I will be working for MYSELF.  All the blood, sweat and tears will be for my own goals, and not to help CEOs who make more in one day than I make in a year get ever richer and richer and richer.

Plus, maybe at a resale shop I won’t be faced with so many housewives who have never worked a day in their life but have socks that cost more than my entire outfit argueing over 4 cents off a dime.  And if it someone who seems like maybe they COULD use a break, I could be the one to help them cause it sucks to be broke.

I want to create.  I want to sit down, have an idea in my head, and have it come out of my hands.

Sadly, it seems that I can’t even put words together in a creative sentence anymore, most less sit down and make something crafty.  And art seems to be utterly beyond me.  I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t even try anymore.  I think of something and then I think….it wont be good enough.  I think, its not going to be “art” so why bother.

There was an artist, an art journaler, whose videos I used to watch on youtube, and I found them to be very encouraging, until in one video she started really dissing on how “bad” a journalers art was.  She was angry because said journaler had used one of her images in her art, but still, it burst my creative bubble.  I had been watching her “anyone can create art” videos, and was inspired, then she called someones art crap, and I realized, yeah, mine is pretty much crap too.

Just call me the goddess of low self esteem.

My art isn’t good enough, my photography isn’t good enough, my writing isn’t good enough.

What am I good enough for.

I know, I’m good for the menial labor I do every day.  I’m good for climbing ladders and lifting boxes.  I’m good for stocking shelves, for ringing up purchases, and for telling people which glue is best to use on metal, and where in the store to find the letter stickers and foam visors.  I’m thinking I’m an exellent employee, only for my yearly review to tell me that despite the 8 “customer service” stars I put on my shirt every day I’m not even a special employee.  What I am is average.

I’m good enough to be a drone.

Gah……that is full of suck.

I’m in a rut I need to get out of.

I want to create.  I need to be inspired.  Someone wanna come inspire me?
   

Dearest friends, family and random interent strangers….

I gather you all here today to share with you a deep dark secret.

I have….and addiction.

Yes, I’m addicted to blogging.

This addiction was brought into the spotlight by the lovely and tallented Rachel when she said to me that I have so many blogs she didn’t know which one to follow.

After giving it much thought I have decided this….

I will be keeping YummY! Down on This as my main blog because it is full of awesome.

Over the next week or so I’ll be pulling all my good writing out of Noner’s Notebook and reposting it here at which point Noner’s Notebook will be deleted.

All further fiction and bad poetry will be published right here.

As much as I love my dogs, they really are not interesting enough o have their own blog anymore.  Any further posts about my dogs will either be shared here too.

Likewise, Pawesome will be deleted.

Social Hermits and Parker 365 have hardly been updated since creation.  Ditto, talking about crabs adn babies will be done here.

I will keep in operation 4 blogs other than this one.

Rattitude (my rat blog)
I Want….Wednesday (daly question meme)
Random Animals (the title pretty much sums it up)
and
Second Helpings (a blog for my soon to be born online thrift store)

For more completely unedited, unaltered pictures visit Murrieta 365 for SOOC

“We have not the reverent feeling for the rainbow that a savage has, because we know how it is made. We have lost as much as we gained by prying into that matter.” Mark Twain

Dear Customer,

I’m sure you’ve noticed the new register set up.  See the wall?  See the sign that says “Please Wait Here for the Next Available Cashier.”  Know what that means, it means the wall is driving you like a cattle chute, and you should wait at the sign for the next cashier to call you forth.

If I’m still with a person, I’m not an available cashier.  If you come down the chute to my register before I call you, then you are not waiting for the next available cashier.  At that point you are waiting for ME and ONLY ME. 

Know what I’m going to do?  I’m going to take my precious time.  I’m not going to rush my current customer to help you.  I’m going to chat with them if they feel chatty, and our customers often feel chatty.  I’m going to slowly clip out the cupon they gave me, luckly still attached to this week’s sales flyer so that I can take my time cutting it out.  I’m going to sort my stack of credit and debit slips and put them in their correct sleeves.  I’m going to re-stock my plastic bags, all while you stand there waiting on ME.

After at least 2 of my fellow cashiers have called someone forward who was BEHIND you and waited at the correct spot to wait, after at least one person behind you has been checked out and ushered out of the cattle chute, THEN I will begin ringing your purchases. 

I bet next time you might wait for the next available cashier instead of crowding up to my register without being called, and trying to rush my current customer.

Thank you, have a nice day, please come again.

–

Dear Customer(s),

If you shop here often I bet you know we print out coupons with every receipt that will be good for the following week.

I bet you DIDN’T know that I have a pocket full of the ones we gave out last week that are valid CURRENTLY.  I bet you didn’t know that I will pass them out to the right kind of people.

If I smile at you and you smile back I will ask you if you have a coupon and give you one if you do not.  If I speak to you and you speak to me like a human being I will offer you a coupon.  If you tell me up front that you don’t have a coupon and ask nicely if I might can give you one, I’ll give you one.

If you feed me a line about how you “left mine at home” I probably will not offer you a coupon.  If you are on the cell phone I will DEFINITELY not give you a coupon.  If you act in any way rude, demanding or condecending I will not give you a coupon.  If you say, “Well they give suchandsuch discounts at ‘insert competing stores name here’ so you should too” you will not get a coupon from me.

I started last week with not quite 20 coupons.  I have 15 left.  Thats a sad amount of people nice enough for me to have given a coupon too.

Remember, treat others as you wish to be treated.  Treat me nice, I’ll give you a treat.  Treat me badly, I’ll withhold the coveted coupons.

–

And speaking of coupons..

Dear Customer,

We have a policy that says, right on our coupon “One coupon PER CUSTOMER per day.”  Recently a manager talked with each of us individually to reinforce the one per customer per day rule.

One of our register coupons along with one of our sales flier coupons is 2 coupons, not one.  One of our coupons and one of our competitors is 2 coupons.  Yes, one plus one equals 2.

I told you I could only take one.  Arguing with me wont make me take two.  Telling me, “Well the girl took two yesterday” won’t make me take two either.  See, maybe the girl yesterday let you use 2 because she doesn’t need a job as badly as I do.  Will they fire me for taking 2 coupons instead of one?  Knowing my company like I do, if my DM sees me take two coupons then the answer could very well be yes.  Its not that uncommon for places of business to fire people for giving unauthorized discounts.

I do like to please my customers, but risking losing my job so that you can save 40% off of 2 different packs of stickers is not something I’m willing to risk for anyone’s happiness.

If you want to leave my line and check out again in someone elses lane that is your perogative.

Thank you, have a nice day, please come again….with ONE coupon.