Possibly you know a girl like the one I am about to describe: young, innocent, naive, feminine in a girly girl kind of way. Contrast her with another woman I would like you to meet - hard, demanding, petulant, wealthy and dissatisfied. Superficially these two women may not have much in common however one thing they share is a bad experience at the store where I currently work. Last week I moved to the store I work at now. My previous manager is a certified pedorthist. Almost everything I know about feet, shoes and how to match the two I learned from her.

To get back to the story of the two women I must first introduce you to a man I have to work with. What little I know I don't like primarily because when I met the second woman she had two red marks on the tops of her feet from trying on shoes that he wanted her to buy. Being an ethical sales person means that some of the people visiting your store will walk out empty handed because you will not sell them shoes that will not be good for their feet. When the younger woman I had walked previously came into the store I work at with shoes I was going to have to damage out I was not a happy camper. Because of the incompetent sales people I work with the naive young woman you met at the beginning of this writeup now has scars on the top of her feet because someone told her the clogs she bought would stretch.

A couple weeks ago my sister and I were talking. At the time I was excited about moving to a higher volume store. We sat up talking, I shared some personal goals I had, my sister nodded and after I was done talking she sat back and told me that nothing would really change even if I myself did. Now that I've been at the new location for a week I understand what she was trying to tell me. It doesn't really matter that I've changed.

When my new boss asked me what was wrong I had trouble explaining what was bothering me. Part of it is working with people who don't know what they're doing but that's not the root of the problem. My district manager sat down with me the other day. After talking with her my manager pulled me away from a customer to bring me back into a discussion about a coworker of mine who had her boyfriend back in the stockroom on a night I came to visit the store. Saturday night I was ready to head home, get blind stinking drunk and call in sick but I put my work clothes on and went in to work on Sunday.

I'm not really sure what the problem is other than I feel as if I don't fit in with the other people who work there. At the other mall I didn't fit in either but it was a different feeling than the one I have now. Previously I could walk around the mall visiting shops my friends worked at. The other day my new boss was talking to a woman and her daughter. Before she turned to leave she asked if I had worked at another location. We chatted for a while about incidentals while my manager listened in on our conversation. I didn't really mind because even though I didn't remember that woman she remembered me and she even made a comment about people at the other mall knowing who I was.

Throughout my life I've worked towards goals. I've always thought, if only I have this item or if I can achieve this my life will be different. By now I should realize life doesn't work that way however it still saddens me to discover this at my age. Today was one of my day's off. I have off tomorrow and I am not looking forward to returning to work on Wednesday. Surprisingly my sales have been up. I've worked hard to get to the top and it was momentarily satisfying to outsell my new manager this past Sunday. After closing the store I wrote the numbers up on the greaseboard thinking that my victory was a hollow one.

Eventually I'm sure I'll settle in but for now I just want to go back to the mall I used to work at even if it means dealing with the issues that store has. The other day my children stopped in to see me. Once again I almost started crying. A couple years ago I went through what I believe was a major depression. I wouldn't describe myself as depressed now but I'm certainly not happy either. I don't really know what to do or how to deal with this. I have everything I thought I wanted yet inside is a big empty hollow nothing. Maybe it's like my former boss said - my current situation is just something I have to get through and this too, shall pass.