kimurho | Entries tagged with work

Didn't sleep well last night. Kept dreaming that I was at work but I was in bed asleep at the same time so I would try ringing items up and get frustrated because I wasn't at my register and couldn't get the things in bags.

Then the manager of the store called me and I couldn't understand a word he said on the phone.

I worry about answering the phone.

Friday 7 January 2022

We got our first big snowstorm on a day when my car was in the shop because the engine wouldn't turn on, B had to be at work at 3 am and I had to be there before 6. M drove us both. The drive at 3 wasn't too bad as the snow was only just starting but by 5:30 it was very bad. We were skidding and slipping the entire way and barely made it up the first hump of Reed Road on Digital Hill. Michael was shattered by the time he got back home again. When he called to let me know he'd made it safely, he told me to let B know he wasn't up to making the trip at 11 to get him and then 2 for me, that he'd make just one trip for both at 2.

B kept working after 11. By 1 I could tell he was out of spoons and I went to the Front End Manager to ask if I could leave early. He was coming to ask if I wanted to go early because it was pretty dead - had been all morning - and others were coming in. I called the house phone, and it went to voice mail. I called M's cell twice and it went to voice mail. I started imagining that the stress had triggered a heart attack ... or maybe shoveling out the drive so he could leave. I suggested to B that we walk over to the car dealership to ask about my car and then see if they could give us a ride home. We did that - had to wait 15-20 minutes but one of the guys in the Service Dept. did give us a ride.

We got to the house just as M was pulling out of the drive.

I guess, writing this down, it wasn't too bad except in worrying. B called out for Saturday because ... he was still out of spoons and couldn't face going in. I'm not too sure about that but he's an adult and should be able to judge what he can and cannot tolerate.

After a short rest, I shoveled the front steps and scraped the layer of snow left by the snowblower off the drive. Then I fixed a pot pie for dinner.

There is a big sale on beef this week that started Friday ... with the fine print that the customer MUST buy $25 worth of groceries before the meat is added in. A lot of customers didn't read the fine print so there was some blockage at the register while they expressed their disappointment, resignation and anger in addition to many customers there taking advantage of the sale prices.

In short, we got slammed with the result that we kept running low on shopping carts, so from time to time, one of us - either myself or the head cashier - would shut down our register and go out to retrieve carts from the parking lot.

Between serving the customers, assisting two of my fellow cashiers (one has an accomodation that she needs to have someone there at all times, the other is a new hire), retrieving carts and the bitter cold inside the store as well as out due to the open exit - I was in bad shape when I got home. One leg was threatening to give out on me with a deep muscle ache and I was close to tears at the smallest thing.

I gorged on left-over turkey pot-pie, crackers and cheese.

I lay down on the library couch, found that I couldn't bridge the suspension of disbelief in the latest book of a series I've been reading and turned to an old favorite (Cast in Deception the book after Cast in Flight) ... and fell asleep for a couple of hours. I did have hot tea.

It may not be good for me, jury's still out on that apparently, but when I'm feeling bad, it's hot tea I want.

I had three cups, stayed up until 10 because of laundry, and I slept until almost 7 this morning. Didn't really want to get up because ... no pain, no pressure, warm bed and cold house - but I finally did. I think I needed the sleep and the rest both.

Now I'm waiting for my son to call for a ride home from work (4am - noon, but sometimes he finishes early). It's a dark, warm, wet day and I'm glad to be inside.

Today, I will have to finish the grocery shopping at another store and maybe look in Savers for something or other - we threw out our old metal drain rack this week - both back legs broke off and rust was attacking some of the cup prongs on the sides. We handled the loss of the back legs using marble rectangular prisms but I couldn't trust the putting glasses on the outer part anymore. So I plan to see what Savers has.

At the moment we are using one that Senna used in college - it's half the size of the old white rack and doesn't have the prongs for cups on the sides. (Should I mention that Savers is in the same shopping plaza as the supermarket I plan to visit?)

Right now, I'm going to fix another mug of coffee, put my legs up and read some more of Cast in Deception.

I work as a cashier in a small neighbourhood grocery store. I enjoy the work, I enjoy treating with customers and bagging. I consider customer satisfaction to be a major part of the job for which I was hired.

Today a customer gifted me with a lace cloth embroidered with the words "Silent Night" - because she said I had helped her so much. I feel humbled and dumbfounded; flabbergasted even. I don't understand why she would feel that way. It is a beautiful piece of work.

In other news, the rosemary plant I snuck into the house before Thanksgiving is still alive and that amazes me also because it had started drooping. My experience is that once a rosemary plant begins drooping at the ends, that's all she wrote and it's a long slow decline into death. But this time, the droop reversed and it's alive for another week. I have this plant inside a couple of very large (empty) pretzel barrels. I'm hoping that a terrarium effect might help so ... maybe it is? Maybe it is.

In other news, the orange tree has a LOT of small branches just starting out on it now. I think it was jealous of all the praise I was lavishing on the coffee plant for its one.

It snowed overnight - not much, just a coating on the driveway, but this is the first time I'll be driving into work on snow; and the first time the question arose whether we'd have to shovel the drive before either of us can get out.

Last week I worked 3 hours less, it's very obvious on the paycheck.

One of the problems I have with some Portuguese is that I live in Massachusetts where final "-r" is usually left unpronounced. So I have difficulty distinguishing between "-ar" and "-a", especially, but also occasionally "-er" and "-e" and "-ir" and "-i"

I know that I mentioned the last week in November my aggravation with the tree service for simply showing up and doing the work without giving us advanced notice or allowing us to schedule their visit when our pocketbook could handle the strain but I neglected to notice that another service did that week.

We had contacted the gutter cleaning service we use back in September ... or maybe the beginning of October (it's in the Budget book to contact them at the end of September so that was when the note is on the calendar - but I'm not the one who made the call). They told my husband that they would come "toward the end of November". He got the call on 30 Nov. that they would be there in a few minutes.

That was scheduled in the Budget (capital B - it's a book); the brake work on M's car and the tree removal were not and those totaled $1000 over on a month that was expected to be high already.

::: sigh :::

I do NOT want to draw money from savings to handle the unexpected expenses. We can manage it, but it will be tight.

We had some excitement at work this morning. Around 7:00 the lights went out. At 7:30, I caught a whiff of the smell of burning dust - an electrical burning scent, so I called one of the managers to the front. She discovered that the freezer of the Drive Up and Go department (located in the front) was out. Just before 8, it was clear that the exit chamber was filling with smoke, so we evacuated the store.

Three fire trucks came, one of them a ladder truck so they could access the roof. It was determined that the compressor(?) of one of the heating/cooling units had shorted out. Because of the smoke, we were not allowed to return to the store until just before 9.

My son had a key to the car with him, so we sat in it, out of the wind, which I greatly appreciated since I didn't have my wrap or my gloves. I also did not have the mystery that I've been reading that had just gotten to a really interesting part. I planned to read some during my break but instead ended up filling out an application for the bookkeeper position that is open at the store. I'd like to go full-time because ... well, the new cashier IS full-time and that's cutting into my hours.

I'll confess, I'm not too sure about this because I do very much enjoy being a cashier. I enjoy interacting with the customers and helping them and I REALLY enjoy bagging. It's a puzzle and a challenge and I find it fun. Also, I dislike handling phone duties. OTOH, I'd still be helping customers at the customer service desk; I'd be dealing with math problems; I'd be helping the store (?). And ... full-time.

Timmy took me into the back room to introduce me to the duties of the bookkeeper - he's the front-end manager and the one who gets stuck with the duties when the bookkeeper is out for one reason or another, as she was today. I think he likes the idea of someone else taking over. Unfortunately, he sucks at explaining how to do things.

One final note - it's interesting that my dream this morning involved an electrical short. Illustrates the problems of precognitive dreams - they only make sense in hind-sight and they rarely mean what you think they do.

The new cashier is settling in and aware that she is rubbing the rest of us the wrong way, I think. She mentioned to me yesterday that the way the register is set up is aggravating her physical problems and that being in pain makes her more critical and angry. She seems to have taken against one of the other cashiers - Lori - who is a disabled woman with some cognitive issues; she has fewer spoons to start with and gets short-tempered and upset when she's in pain. I do what I can to help Lori out, I'm not sure that I have enough spoons myself to keep an eye on Laura as well - but I will try.

We had a busy spell yesterday, I found myself breathing heavily as I rang up order after order, because it was so physically demanding. Even more demanding is dealing with the bagger who is arrogant and obstinate as well as being damagingly bad at his job. I fear that he is losing us customers with his incompetence.

At home, M continues to drink peppermint water. About 1/16 tsp to a filled water bottle. It seems to be helping him although I wonder how much of that is the increased water consumption and how much is the peppermint. The water bottle we use is unlikely to be used for anything else hereafter - it has a permanent smell of peppermint in it now. I've been making up a jar of peppermint water before I leave for work in the morning, just in case.

As I mentioned, it is helping; he says he's only taking the pepcid once a week or so - when we have an especially spicy chicken dish or beef.

Also, I borrowed the latest Michelle Sagara "Cast in" book from the library yesterday ("Cast in Conflict") but have not yet started it. I was afraid that I'd not be able to put it down, besides - I'm rereading the previous book "Cast in Wisdom". M says I should call them by the actual series title "Chronicles of Elantra" but I don't think of them as that and the name means little to me.

I was hired as a cashier at the local grocery store at the beginning of August. To my surprise, I enjoy the work and I am good at it. What I enjoy about the job is talking to the customers and playing grocery bag tetris.

That said, we are ferociously under-staffed.

This week we started a new cashier ... or she will be once she's trained on our cash registers. When the front-end manager has time to train her. She started yesterday, hanging around bagging. At my register.

And she talks to the customers.

Leaving me there doing nothing except ringing up the purchases ... which is boring.

She was there again today with no chance of the manager finding time to train her in sight - at my register. Now, I spent almost 20 years hanging around the high school sharing what I know with others and besides which ... she was in my space. So I starting telling her about the register. Showing her how to work it. Encouraging her to ring up a few items.

Next thing I know, it's pretty much accepted by everyone that I'm training her. Which is all well and good but ... she's using my register and switching things around to suit herself!

Well, at least I got to bag but my knee is VERY sore from standing on it all day.

Also, I "won" a coupon to buy stuff from the company store ... I *think* it's a reward for raising the most for the local food pantry but because they are not officially handing out rewards for that because of some cheating ... :: shrug ::

I've already ordered another uniform shirt and a vest for my son, so easy come, easy go.