Since I have some catching up to do, I'm going to try and string a couple days together. Wednesday night I closed by myself. Nobody came in after the customers who had arrived when the other person I was working with was still there. It was dark and a bit cold, but there was also a somewhat comforting and cozy feeling to the place as the shadows crept in and grew longer. I sat at a table working on a word search and listening to the game that was playing in the background. My night was uneventful and I drove home feeling pretty good about the experience. The guy I had been working with sent me a text to see how things were going which I thought was nice. My manager has always encouraged me to call if I need help, but that day the assistant manager said he would be around and I could feel free to reach out to him as well.
Thursday morning I was very tired, even though the night was slow, I had trouble winding down and did not sleep well. I dragged myself out of bed, showered, ate breakfast, and made it to work on time to open two minutes before my shift started which felt like a bonus to me. The morning was not as quiet as the night before had been, but I managed with little trouble until a man who wanted to know more about how to upgrade his phone came in to pay his bill. I ended up calling the assistant manager and then felt silly because the function was the same as if the customer is actually upgrading, and I thought I should have known that. Thankfully the conversation was short, and I was able to get the customer on his way. A very high maintenance customer came in after that, the assistant manager was there by that time and I had to run the scenario past him since this woman was claiming we owed her a bunch of free stuff.
An older woman came in because her flip phone wasn't working. I didn't have much to do with that, but I did inform her that she could pay her bill at our store and that made her day since she thought she was going to have to go home and didn't know if she had stamps. Her son is going to be incarcerated, she said this as if it was a very commonplace thing and the assistant manager rolled with it like a champ. Later on that day an angrier customer would come in wanting to know why his bill was so high, and once again I was intrigued with the way the conversation unfolded. You see a lot of things working in retail, and to be able to address a billing issue without making the customer feel bad about the bad check fees, or even mentioning them directly, is an art and a skill. It was a normal day until we started working on putting the order away.
I screwed up the order and had to manually do the labels which was a huge pain and waste of time. It interfered with me being able to take my lunch on time, I don't know who started this, but all of a sudden me and the guy I was working with were in a jokingly heated debate about where the Sharpie we used to date phones should be kept. Side note - we put the date on phones and only sell phones that are less than a year old. I never thought about phones or other electronics having a freshness date, but here we are. But back to the pseudo argument. I felt like the Sharpie should go in the pen and pencil holder closest to the third computer. My fellow employee disagreed and said it didn't matter. I mustered mock outrage and complained that I was just trying to be more efficient. If the only place we use the Sharpie is to put away orders, it should remain by the order entry terminal.
When I tried to sneak the Sharpie into the container where I thought it belonged, he picked it up and threw it on the floor. This guy is super organized and very particular about things. I had noticed he had a new notebook, and had even commented on it earlier. To retaliate I picked up his notebook and pretended like I was going to steal it. Then he told me that he and his friends had gotten drunk and he had purchased the notebook as part of the drunken revelry at Walgreens at approximately two in the morning. I thought the silliness would vanish after I got back from lunch, but to my surprise it continued, with both of us taking turns at giving each other the business about one thing or another. He had cut himself shaving and then we got into a conversation about tweezers that was tangentially related. Customers came in, and we kept bantering with each other. It was a ton of fun and I think the customers liked it too.
Whether they did or not, we had a very profitable day, selling beyond our goal even though I ended up helping a woman whose debit card was declined. I drove home very tired, but feeling better about the situation at work, and thankful that I had Friday off. Despite sleeping fairly well Thursday night, I was groggy and still tired when I woke up. I missed a call from my friend, but then another friend called me and we had a nice chat. During the conversation she told me it was so nice to hear me laughing about antics at work, and before she said that, I hadn't really thought about how far I had come from the job I held previously. I don't make anything close to what I did, the hours are more erratic, I'm on my feet, and don't get to wear what I want to work anymore, but I wouldn't trade it for anything I had before.
Friday afternoon a friend of mine came over to help me clean and organize my kitchen. I didn't expect it to take long, but she insisted on doing my dishes, and I pray that I am never in that position again. My friend pulled every dish out of my dishwasher, washed the stack I had accumulated and neglected, and by the time another friend of mine dropped by to say hi, everything was neat, clean, and organized. I was so happy with the new arrangement I wanted to cry. My place has that homey and cozy feel I've wanted, everything is the same, but rearranging the furniture and having someone else work in my kitchen solved a lot of problems for me. I like to spread things out so I can see them. I don't stack things behind each other, but my friend said she jams things into her cupboards and I discovered that being too much of a perfectionist was my undoing. Her seemingly cluttered cubboard strategy was the permission I needed to actually have more harmony at home.
The three of us sat around my tile topped table and it was one of the best afternoons with friends that I have had in forever. I felt like I was traveling back in time to a place I had never really been. So often I have been the friend who goes over to help another clean, sort, and organize; this time it was someone else telling me to sit down and relax while the work went on in front of me. It was one of the absolute best gifts I have ever been given, and I'm not really sure what to do to thank my friend who is leading a super busy life of her own. It's really true that you can get more done when you have more to do, but it's also true that setting up systems like this, and getting the support you need plays a critical role in your ability to manage your roles and responsibilities. I stayed up late that night watching the World Series game, but went to sleep during the top of the thirteenth inning because I had to work on Saturday.
When I arrived at work my boss was doing the things he needed to get done. He's very focused and doesn't like it when he feels like work is piling up on him. It's a bit like working in a restaurant, you have to optimize down time when the temptation to lounge around and be lazy is strong. We were busy right away, I had a woman who wanted to overpay on her bill, but when I sent the payment through, it only took the amount she actually owed. We had a lull, my manager went to the bank, and when he came back we had more customers. A guy who came in asked if we could sit down, I didn't really care for him, but it's my job to deal with customers so I started listening to what he had to say about his daughter having a phone and his son wanting one. He's jaded, bitter, cynical, and that's bad, but there's something more about him I don't like. Thankfully my boss comes over to help.
It turns out that the man still owes the company more than $500, and because of this, is not allowed to add extra lines to his account. He tells my boss that eventually the charge will go away, and then my boss explains that the company is good about making sure that money they feel that they are owed, gets collected. The tension mounts and I'm scared. The guy alleges that our company sucks and so do our products. Then he says something about his daughter needing a new phone and number so the guy who is harassing her on it will go away. This is scarier to me when I learn that his daughter is ten. The guy tells us his credit is great and he points to the brand new truck that is parked outside of our door. He lives closer to another store, but has chosen ours for some reason. Eventually he leaves, my boss and I talk about the encounter, and I start crying.
More people come in and I have to pull myself together. The store is busy, I have another customer with a billing issue, I call my boss over again and feel bad that I am interrupting his sale. I notice a woman who is sitting by herself on a table and go over to talk to her. Right away I am nervous because she has these blue eyes that seem to take in everything at once. She tells me she needs to cancel her line, I remember that this can't be done in the store, why, I'm not exactly sure, probably the wisdom is that the loyalty department might try and salvage the customer, but I'm not sure about this. It might be just to keep sales people selling, you know what I mean? The woman tells me she has had a stroke. There's something about her that reminds me of a caged animal at a shelter. She's not exactly trembling, but it has that feeling about it. Like she might burst into tears at any moment.
I take my time with her and tell her she is more than welcome to stay at our store while she is on the phone. I point at the restroom and tell her she is welcome to use it. She launches into her life story and it is bad. Her sister died when she was sixteen. Then she was in a terrible car accident. She married a man and lost a set of identical twin girls at five months through her pregnancy. Things go along, she has a son who is six weeks premature. The man she married has to go to the hospital. His kidneys are failing and she has two small children. He dies and she moves in with a family member. She shares a room with her two children because she has no other alternative. She marries again, her life starts turning around. Then she has a stroke. She is diagnosed with cancer, and then she is at a ballgame when she notices another woman giving her a very intent look.
At home she hacks into her husband's phone. Calls and texts to and from this woman abound. They are there morning, noon, and night. There are people around us in the store. She apologizes, but I tell her that sometimes people need to talk. She agrees and keeps going. Tells me about her anxiety, depression, and eating disorder. I tell her she looks like she needs a hug and ask if I can give her one. She has the alert and wired look I recognize. This woman has known great pain, great loss, and no longer feels safe anywhere (this is my guess). I'm able to redirect the conversation after she's spoken, she apologizes again, I tell her not to worry about it and that we are going to help her to the extent that we can. She calls to cancel the lines she no longer wants. I go back over, and she tells me she would like a new phone, but does not want to purchase it today.
When she asks me when I am working I tell her anyone can help her, but she insists so I go in back to write down my schedule for her. I include my cell phone number because we aren't always able to answer the store phone when it rings and I want to make sure I am not on break or on my way out when she stops by. It was another very emotionally charged encounter and my brain is fried from it. I spend the last couple minutes of my shift shadowing others since I couldn't really do any trainings on the sales floor when the store is full of customers. I'm numb and tired, but I drive to the grocery store instead of heading home. I spend too much, but I don't care on some level. I eat a bag of sticky rice pieces on my way home and this is comforting in some sense. The pots and pans I have are all vented. I want nothing more than to go home and fall into the softness of my bedding, but I force myself to go to the store and buy a pot for rice.
Somehow I make it through the afternoon. I sit down with my youngest and talk to her about a party she wants to go to for school. We look at Halloween themed treats and discuss them. I hear that she has a chorus teacher she does not care for and wants to drop the class, but the woman keeps trying to get her to stay. She has these elective credits and doesn't need more. I'm proud of the way her mind works when I hear her explanations. It's nice that she is talking to me at all, and I'm happy she is opening up to a certain extent despite being dead tired. Parenting is one of the least convenient things anyone can choose in life, but I feel better about the future now that we are seated together under a blanket my friend put over the back of the bench. A guy I met online sends me a picture of where he is at and I tell him it reminds me of being a kid and my dad driving us around on gravel roads out in the country.
He tells me he has found a hidden gem, I tell him he is a modern day treasure hunter and he agrees. Then he tells me I should join him and I want to, but I need to make my daughter a priority, and am honestly not really up for a date. Then I decide I am being foolish. I take a bath and the warm water is soothing to my frayed nerves. I apologize for the delayed response and ask if the invitation is still open, or I have missed my chance. I don't hear from him right away, but I'm used to that. Then he tells me that he is on his way to the hardware store, but we should go another time. I ask what his schedule is like and tell him he is probably a busy guy. Then he tells me he isn't too busy to have a little of fun, and I ask if he is too busy to have a lot of fun. He writes back asking what he is getting himself into, and I tell him that I don't know, and ask if he wants out. I don't hear from him for the rest of the night so I go to bed after the Red Sox win.
This morning I wake up and am congested. He still hasn't written back. I'm cold, and it's drizzly and raining. My daughters wake up and they're crabby because mom still has their phones and computers. I have a lot I want to get done, but know that if I write this out, my day will go better since I have processed events from these past few days. My oldest agrees to make steak and salmon. My youngest writes out a grocery list. I just bought groceries, but forgot a few things, and the girls want the foods they like that I didn't buy. The guy gets back to me and says that I can't dangle the promise of a lot of fun in front of him, and then ask if he wants out. He sends the winking emoji and I feel good about that. I send back an apology without an emoji. Now the ball is in his court again. He doesn't say a lot, but I have a feeling he thinks quite a bit before he sends anything. Of course, I could be wrong about that.
He doesn't really look like someone I would like, but I love the idea of someone who gets things done around the house on the weekend. Pictures are hard because they don't always look like the person, and it can be hard to convey who you are in text, but so far I feel like he is someone I could get along with, someone who has some similar interests, and perhaps we could be a complement to each other. He feels deep without being intellectual, and I like that. It feels like we are playing a game with each other, and I like that too. I don't know what the rules are exactly, and maybe he doesn't either, but that's okay. It's fun to be able to do this with another person. He looks very serious in all of his pictures, and he's alone in all of them. I like that too. His pictures seem to be a reflection of who he is, and it's interesting to see him being able to give someone a sense of what his life might be like through these tiny images. Work, romance, friendships, sports, and children; I am blessed.
Xoxo,
J