The people of Lowe's
I like nearly everyone I work with at Lowe's. I even like the customers much better than those at Walmart (even though some of them might be the same customers). There's just something that comes over people who enter the realms of Mordor Walmart. At Lowe's I rarely lose my temper like I did damn near every day - and sometimes multiple times a day - at Walmart. This last Thursday was an exception.
Generally I don't mind getting extra hours because I need them. Thursday I was ready to get out of there because I had an errand to run before I could go home and I was pretty darn jealous of my time since I not only had to work Friday but also today so I only have one day off this weekend. On the upside I will have a 3-day weekend coming up but still. I was in the break room, literally taking off my apron and getting ready to get my shit and vamoose when the lady I work most closely with - Sharon - said I'd need to stay later because management was making her leave at 11 am instead of her scheduled 2 pm to lose some potential over time and there were still price changes to do. For the most part, I don't mind the fact that Sharon extends her hours during the week so that she only has to put in 3-4 hours on Friday so she can take off early for a long weekend. But sometimes it'll bite her in the ass when they dump a load of price changes on Friday. Apparently, management wanted to make sure she had a few more hours for Friday without going into over time. So her funky time management whiplashed back onto me. I was pissed.
Sharon is kind of a strange duck anyway. She is extremely anal retentive about some things, almost to the point of compulsive behavior. When she comes in a 5 am she spends the first hour of her day doing computer work at the front desk so she can watch the front door and let people in as they arrive. Before she can start her work she has to spend 5 minutes straightening and wiping down the whole front desk to her satisfaction. An area that she will only be spending an hour at and is actually the balywick of someone else. When she prints out her price labels she does it in a very specific way and won't alter it even though there are people - like me - waiting to get our own labels made. She takes nearly twice as long to get it done because she's using the space to separate and organize her shit, stuff that she can do anywhere. If you mention anything she gets all flustered and exclaims loudly 'I have a system!'. She has a lot of other foibles but you get the idea. The other thing is, though I take instructions from her when it comes to helping with the price changes, I think that sometimes she forgets that she's not my boss. She's not anyone's boss. She asked me the other day if I would fill up the supply of labels in the cabinet under the printer. I said sure. After all, I use them too. I went to receiving where supplies are kept, which is all the way in the opposite back corner of a huge ass store, sorted them out, brought them back and put them away. About that time she came back by, pointed to the box of trash on the bottom of the cabinet and wanted me to empty that. I said no. She should have asked me before I went back to pick up labels because I had absolutely no reason to make another trip all the way back to the same area. OTOH, she had price changes to do in the appliance dept. which is right outside of receiving. She wasn't happy but I didn't give a shit. Like I said, most of the time I like Sharon but she can be a pain in the ass sometimes.
Not too long ago the store hired a couple of guys for the stocking crew. Because they have to come in at 2 am (sometimes 4 am and sometimes midnight or even pull over nighters) and are worked like dogs they tend not to hang around for very long. These 2 new guys are in their very early 20s and for the most part are nice guys. Unfortunately, they seem to have to collective IQ of a bag of hammers. One of the guy's father is a contractor and frequent customer at the store. They couldn't be any more different from one another if they tried. Austin is maybe 5'4", a little soft and dumpy and very good natured. His father is about 6'3" and built like a brick shit house. He's very intense and his face is always red and he seems to be perpetually a snap of the fingers away from 'roid rage! I'd love to know what Austin's mother is like.
The other day a customer was ragging on Emily (the hearing impaired cashier with Peterson the Service Dog) to get off her phone and do her job. Emily looked gobsmacked and said tentatively, 'I'm not on my phone. My phone is in my pocket.' The woman insisted that Emily needed to 'take that off' (pointing to the white disk clipped to her hair above her ear) and do her job. Emily touched it and asked 'this?' When the woman again said she needed to take it off and do her job, Emily reached up, pulled it off and stood looking at the woman. You have to understand that Emily was in no way neglecting her job. She was right where she was supposed to be and not paying attention to anything else. When the woman started talking to her again Emily merely stood there and stared at her for a few moments and then blandly informed the woman 'I can't understand what you're saying because you just made me take off my hearing aid.' You'd think the woman would apologize or even just admit she was wrong but she just glared at Emily then jerked her cart out of line and went over to the far checkout. God I want to smack people sometimes!
I have one lonely little day off tomorrow and I'm trying to talk myself into spending it on my lotions and potions because I have 2 lotion orders (and a couple of more scents I want to try out) and about 10 lip balms to do. We'll see. One of the ladies at work also told me today that she wants to make baskets of goodies for the girls in her family for Christmas and wants to include a lot of my stuff so she wrote a list of all the products I make to think about. I'm really going to push the Christmas present angle this year. Even without doing that last year, I sold several bottles of lotion as Christmas presents. It's nice because I personalize them with the names of the recipients on the labels.
Damn, I'm already getting tired. I bet I don't make it to 10 tonight. Oh well, that means a longer day tomorrow to get stuff done as well as sit around and do nothing part of the time. Oh, I forgot, one of the guys at work brought me green peppers from his garden! I'm going to make stuffed peppers tomorrow. If I'm going to cook and play mad chemist tomorrow I guess I'd better get the few dishes washed and feed Phoukathecat before he rubs the skin off my shins.
Pray for clear weather on Monday. So far the forecast is 'mostly cloudy' for Eclipse Day. Wouldn't that be shitty?
It's sad, I just realized I use the 'tired' mood more than any other. I'm a sad sack sometimes.
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