Worst Employee Ever
Been a long time since I did a proper update. It kind of fits in with all the other things I feel like I'm woefully behind on in life.
Biggest life news is that I got fired. On Mother's Day. It's a good thing I'm not a mom or that would have doubly sucked. I'll admit the firing was mostly my own stupid fault. Mother's Day is one of our biggest days of the year, and even though everyone didn't stress that as much as they did with Christmas and Thanksgiving, I knew that. But I wasn't prepared for how packed the store was. At one point, in the middle of the day one of the managers came up to pay for one of our guests. I never truly understood why they sometimes did that. I had assumed that they did it when a guest left their money and bill on the table without bringing it up to the cash stand. It was usually one manager who did it and the payment was usually cash. This time it was a different manager and the payment was a credit card. After a rang everything up, he took the receipt back to the customers. Given how busy our day was and how long the line was I didn't want to keep the ticket open and have everybody wait. I assumed (what's that saying about assuming and being an ass. I've learned a lesson about assuming) that he was just going to have the customer sign the slip and that would be it. So I closed out the sale and moved on. He came back a few minutes later and I took the slip and put it away. After there was a moment's peace I started putting my slips away and noticed that the customer that my manager had come up to pay for had actually left a tip. At this point, I thought the customer had already left and I didn't think they could do anything without the card. I could have, and should have left the the slip alone. But, partly because I was worried about getting in trouble and partly because I thought I would be saving them time later on (they wouldn't have to worry about the amount from the slips not matching up with my total for the day) I scratched out the tip amount and the total. I felt bad about the server not getting her tip, but I thought at the time it was the easiest and fastest solution. It's definitely one of those things when you look back on it, you realize there were probably about a bunch of different ways you could have gone about it. But the server was told by the customers they were leaving her a tip and when she went to collect her tips at the end of her shift, she didn't think the amount was right and they went through my slips and found the scratched out slip and said I wasn't supposed to do that.
For the rest of my shift, I had a feeling that I was going to get in serious trouble. But they didn't really say anything. Up until I was almost out the door, just waiting for one of the managers to do our usual walk out that they said the head manager needed to see me. He started out by saying that that days mistake was part of a series of mistakes I was making, which was the first I'd heard of it. He said the day before that I'd wrongly ran in a discount and they had to pay for the meal. That one wasn't really my fault. Part of our training was that we were supposed to ask our my experienced co-workers for help if we ever needed help with anything. The previous day a customer had come in with this discount card. At Cracker Barrel, they had these things called Gold Cards where if someone had it they could have one free meal. The card this customer gave to me looked similar to the Gold Card, but was also very different. I thought about calling the manager but they had been getting very pissy all week whenever we called them up to actually do their jobs. So I turned to the other cashier next to me, who'd been working there for years, and asked her what to do and without any hesitation she said you were supposed to scan it like a Gold Card. So I did, and I figured if that was wrong, the machine wouldn't recognize it, but it immediately scanned and a receipt printed out and I though that was that. Apparently, that was the wrong thing to do but I didn't think I should get blamed for it. And I didn't think that qualified as a series of mistakes. The manager finally was like, even if he took the coupon mistake out of it, that tampering with the slip was too major of a mistake. He said it was illegal and it showed a lack of integrity and then fired me.
Honestly, I think if they had liked me better they wouldn't have fired me. I had been in trouble two times before - once for writing while at work and the other time because one of the district managers came in and said she didn't think I had a positive enough attitude and my smile was up to Cracker Barrel standards - but other than that no problems. I had never called out and was rarely late - one of the only times I was late the retail manager called me worried because he said I was never late. But they didn't like my personality. The time I got in trouble because of the district manager's assessment, the general manager said that some of my co-workers had also complained that I wasn't friendly enough and didn't talk to them.
I wasn't necessarily sad about not getting to work there anymore - there was a lot of incompetence at that place and I didn't like the attitude basically being if I wasn't acting like a beauty contestant on crack that I wasn't doing my job right. But I was very worried about Mike's reaction. The whole reason I was working at Cracker Barrel was because Mike's mom had given me the ultimatum that I had to find a job soon or she was going to kick me out. So I was petrified to tell Mike about it. It took me a couple of days to do it but Mike was really good about it. He said he wasn't upset and he's been really helpful in trying to help me look. Still, part of me worries what happens if the jobless situation drags on.
I've been looking for work less than a month and I'm already despairing about never finding a job. Constantly being rejected is really demoralizing. It sucks to fill out an application online for an hour only to be rejected five seconds later. This isn't a really large town so there aren't that many jobs to go 'round. My biggest worry is that the fact I've been fired from my last two jobs might make me unhireable. I don't know what to do on my applications. On some I list the jobs I was fired from, on some I don't include them. I'm worried that I'm being rejected because of the times I've been fired or I'm not getting hired because I lied on my application.
I feel like I'm really behind on wedding planning. I downloaded The Knot magazine wedding planning app, which has a handy checklist for month to month wedding to do's. For April we were supposed to book an officiant, for May we were supposed to take engagement photos and make a wedding announcement and we haven't done any of it. I had wanted to take our engagement photos at the butterfly house where we got engaged but Mike said it closed down, so now I don't know where I want to do it.
For an officiant I'm not sure how to go about finding one. My mom suggested my uncle Robert who's a Jehovah's Witness elder or something like that. She said he wouldn't have to do necessarily do a religious ceremony, but I don't know. Plus he's out of state, though I don't know if that really matters. I have been leaning toward the common trope nowadays of having a friend get ordained and perform the service. Mike has a friend who was one of the candidates for his best man who is really funny and not afraid to talk and give speeches, but I don't know if the friend marrying us idea is really Mike's cup of tea. We definitely don't want a religious service, so minister is out. I've looked online for a justice of the peace in the area. There aren't that many to choose from. I suppose I should just set up appointments with all of them. I don't know what we'd ask though and what criteria I would use to make the final choice.
Jean has been making these centerpieces for the wedding. She had started making them before I had picked out a full color scheme. I think Mike told her my favorite flowers are white roses and she's been making it from fake white roses and fake purple flowers. It looks good. I just am not sure if it's really what I want. Now that I've picked the color scheme, I would like a little more variety in the colors and flowers used, especially since white isn't a part of my color scheme. But she's already bought a buttload of these flowers and started making a lot of the centerpieces. I don't know if I want to tell her I want to make some changes. It honestly doesn't look bad, and part of me thinks I should just let her have this for the wedding. Or, I could possibly tell her that we could use the centerpieces during a rehearsal dinner. Here's a pic of one of the centerpieces.
Had a scare with Mike and his job. For his job, he is required to have a CDL license even though he doesn't drive the company truck. He was told when he first got the job that if he had any moving violations against his license, whether he was driving a company vehicle or not, he'd lose his CDL license. Last week, on his day off, he got a speeding ticket. Lately around our house they've been doing a lot of construction building this dollar store. The speed in one part of the road went from 60 to 50. Most people I know haven't really been adhering to it. I know because I'd been trying to go slower but most people behind me have been acting like I've been doing something wrong and whizzing past me. So Mike didn't remember that the speed limit had changed and was going 60 on that street and a cop pulled him over.Mike said there were plenty of other cars going way faster than he was but for some reason he picked him. The same thing happened to me when I got my only speeding ticket. I was going about ten miles over the speed limit on the expressway and the cop picked me instead of the others going way faster. Anyway, Mike was more worried about the price of the ticket. He said that a couple of other people had gotten tickets, including his stepdad, and they hadn't gotten in trouble. And he said the worst that would happen is they would demote him to working in the warehouse, which is where he started out. He had to wait to talk to his bosses until he went back to work. One of his bosses said that it wasn't a problem and they would try to sweep it under the rug, which was a relief. So at least that was one bit of good news.
Stacey
Biggest life news is that I got fired. On Mother's Day. It's a good thing I'm not a mom or that would have doubly sucked. I'll admit the firing was mostly my own stupid fault. Mother's Day is one of our biggest days of the year, and even though everyone didn't stress that as much as they did with Christmas and Thanksgiving, I knew that. But I wasn't prepared for how packed the store was. At one point, in the middle of the day one of the managers came up to pay for one of our guests. I never truly understood why they sometimes did that. I had assumed that they did it when a guest left their money and bill on the table without bringing it up to the cash stand. It was usually one manager who did it and the payment was usually cash. This time it was a different manager and the payment was a credit card. After a rang everything up, he took the receipt back to the customers. Given how busy our day was and how long the line was I didn't want to keep the ticket open and have everybody wait. I assumed (what's that saying about assuming and being an ass. I've learned a lesson about assuming) that he was just going to have the customer sign the slip and that would be it. So I closed out the sale and moved on. He came back a few minutes later and I took the slip and put it away. After there was a moment's peace I started putting my slips away and noticed that the customer that my manager had come up to pay for had actually left a tip. At this point, I thought the customer had already left and I didn't think they could do anything without the card. I could have, and should have left the the slip alone. But, partly because I was worried about getting in trouble and partly because I thought I would be saving them time later on (they wouldn't have to worry about the amount from the slips not matching up with my total for the day) I scratched out the tip amount and the total. I felt bad about the server not getting her tip, but I thought at the time it was the easiest and fastest solution. It's definitely one of those things when you look back on it, you realize there were probably about a bunch of different ways you could have gone about it. But the server was told by the customers they were leaving her a tip and when she went to collect her tips at the end of her shift, she didn't think the amount was right and they went through my slips and found the scratched out slip and said I wasn't supposed to do that.
For the rest of my shift, I had a feeling that I was going to get in serious trouble. But they didn't really say anything. Up until I was almost out the door, just waiting for one of the managers to do our usual walk out that they said the head manager needed to see me. He started out by saying that that days mistake was part of a series of mistakes I was making, which was the first I'd heard of it. He said the day before that I'd wrongly ran in a discount and they had to pay for the meal. That one wasn't really my fault. Part of our training was that we were supposed to ask our my experienced co-workers for help if we ever needed help with anything. The previous day a customer had come in with this discount card. At Cracker Barrel, they had these things called Gold Cards where if someone had it they could have one free meal. The card this customer gave to me looked similar to the Gold Card, but was also very different. I thought about calling the manager but they had been getting very pissy all week whenever we called them up to actually do their jobs. So I turned to the other cashier next to me, who'd been working there for years, and asked her what to do and without any hesitation she said you were supposed to scan it like a Gold Card. So I did, and I figured if that was wrong, the machine wouldn't recognize it, but it immediately scanned and a receipt printed out and I though that was that. Apparently, that was the wrong thing to do but I didn't think I should get blamed for it. And I didn't think that qualified as a series of mistakes. The manager finally was like, even if he took the coupon mistake out of it, that tampering with the slip was too major of a mistake. He said it was illegal and it showed a lack of integrity and then fired me.
Honestly, I think if they had liked me better they wouldn't have fired me. I had been in trouble two times before - once for writing while at work and the other time because one of the district managers came in and said she didn't think I had a positive enough attitude and my smile was up to Cracker Barrel standards - but other than that no problems. I had never called out and was rarely late - one of the only times I was late the retail manager called me worried because he said I was never late. But they didn't like my personality. The time I got in trouble because of the district manager's assessment, the general manager said that some of my co-workers had also complained that I wasn't friendly enough and didn't talk to them.
I wasn't necessarily sad about not getting to work there anymore - there was a lot of incompetence at that place and I didn't like the attitude basically being if I wasn't acting like a beauty contestant on crack that I wasn't doing my job right. But I was very worried about Mike's reaction. The whole reason I was working at Cracker Barrel was because Mike's mom had given me the ultimatum that I had to find a job soon or she was going to kick me out. So I was petrified to tell Mike about it. It took me a couple of days to do it but Mike was really good about it. He said he wasn't upset and he's been really helpful in trying to help me look. Still, part of me worries what happens if the jobless situation drags on.
I've been looking for work less than a month and I'm already despairing about never finding a job. Constantly being rejected is really demoralizing. It sucks to fill out an application online for an hour only to be rejected five seconds later. This isn't a really large town so there aren't that many jobs to go 'round. My biggest worry is that the fact I've been fired from my last two jobs might make me unhireable. I don't know what to do on my applications. On some I list the jobs I was fired from, on some I don't include them. I'm worried that I'm being rejected because of the times I've been fired or I'm not getting hired because I lied on my application.
I feel like I'm really behind on wedding planning. I downloaded The Knot magazine wedding planning app, which has a handy checklist for month to month wedding to do's. For April we were supposed to book an officiant, for May we were supposed to take engagement photos and make a wedding announcement and we haven't done any of it. I had wanted to take our engagement photos at the butterfly house where we got engaged but Mike said it closed down, so now I don't know where I want to do it.
For an officiant I'm not sure how to go about finding one. My mom suggested my uncle Robert who's a Jehovah's Witness elder or something like that. She said he wouldn't have to do necessarily do a religious ceremony, but I don't know. Plus he's out of state, though I don't know if that really matters. I have been leaning toward the common trope nowadays of having a friend get ordained and perform the service. Mike has a friend who was one of the candidates for his best man who is really funny and not afraid to talk and give speeches, but I don't know if the friend marrying us idea is really Mike's cup of tea. We definitely don't want a religious service, so minister is out. I've looked online for a justice of the peace in the area. There aren't that many to choose from. I suppose I should just set up appointments with all of them. I don't know what we'd ask though and what criteria I would use to make the final choice.
Jean has been making these centerpieces for the wedding. She had started making them before I had picked out a full color scheme. I think Mike told her my favorite flowers are white roses and she's been making it from fake white roses and fake purple flowers. It looks good. I just am not sure if it's really what I want. Now that I've picked the color scheme, I would like a little more variety in the colors and flowers used, especially since white isn't a part of my color scheme. But she's already bought a buttload of these flowers and started making a lot of the centerpieces. I don't know if I want to tell her I want to make some changes. It honestly doesn't look bad, and part of me thinks I should just let her have this for the wedding. Or, I could possibly tell her that we could use the centerpieces during a rehearsal dinner. Here's a pic of one of the centerpieces.
Had a scare with Mike and his job. For his job, he is required to have a CDL license even though he doesn't drive the company truck. He was told when he first got the job that if he had any moving violations against his license, whether he was driving a company vehicle or not, he'd lose his CDL license. Last week, on his day off, he got a speeding ticket. Lately around our house they've been doing a lot of construction building this dollar store. The speed in one part of the road went from 60 to 50. Most people I know haven't really been adhering to it. I know because I'd been trying to go slower but most people behind me have been acting like I've been doing something wrong and whizzing past me. So Mike didn't remember that the speed limit had changed and was going 60 on that street and a cop pulled him over.Mike said there were plenty of other cars going way faster than he was but for some reason he picked him. The same thing happened to me when I got my only speeding ticket. I was going about ten miles over the speed limit on the expressway and the cop picked me instead of the others going way faster. Anyway, Mike was more worried about the price of the ticket. He said that a couple of other people had gotten tickets, including his stepdad, and they hadn't gotten in trouble. And he said the worst that would happen is they would demote him to working in the warehouse, which is where he started out. He had to wait to talk to his bosses until he went back to work. One of his bosses said that it wasn't a problem and they would try to sweep it under the rug, which was a relief. So at least that was one bit of good news.
Stacey