It's Fall Somewhere
Sunday's hat:
A Kathy Jeanne which we've been calling "The Ladybug Hat." I didn't sell it but did sell another Kathy Jeanne, lending more credence to the idea of wearing the hat you hope to sell.
It was a weird night at the hat shop, we had lots of customers but a very difficult time making any sales. I got cornered no less than three times by people who just seemed to want to talk my ear off about their lives...I guess it killed time nicely but unfortunately we didn't meet our sales goal. There was also an issue with one of our new employees having "visitors" while on the clock; it seems like her partner or a good friend(?), and I have noticed that he is in our store every time she's working. He was here again tonight and stuck around for at least an hour with her while it was busy and she should have been helping customers. I guess management decided tonight was the night to confront her, because when I came back from my break she was crying and a keyholder was talking gently to her.
All I overheard was, "I feel like I've been criticized non-stop here!" and then I had to turn away and organize hats so as not to roll my eyes. She has probably not worked much retail. if you take corrections in the workplace personally, you're going to be weeping every few minutes lol. Supervisors will always find something to nitpick, either because they WANT to or because they HAVE to to make it look like they're busy, and either way it has nothing to do with you. (unless it's malicious and in this case it definitely wasn't.)
In all honesty, I was ALSO feeling over-criticized that night. First I was corrected on a very minor and subjective choice of hat organization, and later I was chided for sweeping while there were many customers in the store (there was spilled popcorn and candy on the floor, and imo a food spill is a good justification for a quick spot-sweeping no matter how busy it is. But next time I will leave the spill untouched for people to trample, and I will reference tonight's events if anyone asks why I didn't take care of it. Ahh the joys of retail.)
But sorry chica, inviting friends and romantic partners to come distract you at work makes your supervisor quite well justified in correcting you. She's lucky not to get a write up. She'll either figure that out and buck up, or quit I suppose.
She did end up leaving three hours early due to being upset (sigh) so we were shorthanded for closing. But it was two keyholders + me, a former retail boss, so we easily crushed all the closing tasks and were clocked out early.
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Monday I slept until 9am. I needed it, and it still wasn't enough either.
Had just coffee. My guts are being weird, probably from A) stress and B) being sedentary on the days that I was doing transcription and C) having to eat dinner at 3pm on closing nights at the hat shop. Waited around to see if I'd get corrections on my transcription job, then when they didn't show by 10:30 I practiced my Disney trombone stuff.
Lunch, running some small errands, packing for tomorrow, checking on my banana. The fruit looks ok and that's all I can ask for. We're also supposed to get a tropical storm/hurricane this weekend so it may be a moot point.
I felt low-energy so spent two hours lying down, reading or watching TikTok. Didn't even eat snacks, just had tea.
These times where I feel bad tend to coincide with extended periods of stress and lost sleep, so it's no surprise any more.
Oh yeah, and look what I found at Walmart today! What the hell is Dawn thinking!!
More fool me for actually buying it...but you know what? It's not bad. It's a very mild scent, so I am finding that I like it more than some of Dawn's citrus scents which are often very strong.
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Tuesday I was up at 7:30 only so I could have quiet time to myself before this extremely long day. Packed a bag with hat shop clothes, toiletries for showering, and meals and snacks for the whole day, then off to the Magic Kingdom.
Here are the guys performing their first set in front of the castle. It was 90-something degrees (32C).
Everyone seems to be doing well. Tony, one of the full-time trombone guys, is into gardening and we've talked at length about our mutual hobby. He immediately asked how my firefly petunia is doing. Since he is so interested and clearly a good gardener, I am going to bring him a cutting on Thursday, the day I'm subbing for Keith. I could tell he was trying very hard to hide his excitement about getting a cutting, it was adorable :) I have a small one growing in an Italian ice cup with holes punched in the bottom, he can have that one.
There is some sort of "recycled items" competition going on for Halloween, where each competing department makes something spooky out of recycled materials. Here is the band's super-weird entry (please do not share/repost):
It even has a styrofoam brain inside (I guess Keith made it):
Good luck with that, ya weirdos :p
In other spooky news I was able to play the Halloween music in the parade today!
The Halloween charts are "Cruella DeVille," "Grim Grinning Ghosts," "Pink Elephants," and "Poor Unfortunate Souls." It felt slightly early in the season to be playing these, but the red/orange/yellow fall decorations all over Main Street USA were helpful for creating the proper mood :) I was very grateful to get to play the Halloween stuff today because it may be my only chance with the storm coming on Thursday.
I also did one set, finally getting to play the Mary Poppins Medley in the park for the first time.
Before Flag Retreat I took a shower in the locker rooms under the castle, knowing that I had a full shift at the hat shop that night and having gotten quite sweaty and gross while performing.
I wonder how many people can say they've taken a shower under Cinderella's Castle!
It was amusing to think about.
At 5pm I drove to Disney Springs and clocked in to find that we were deeply shorthanded, with three people having called out including our boss. And it was pretty busy too. It was just Jordan and I in the shop, and we did our best, but even so we were $100 short of the sales goal when 10:30 rolled around. After a brief discussion we decided to stay open right up to 11pm, and if a sale was meant to happen, it would. The result was a mob of annoying teens coming in at 10:57 to do selfies in hats...but right behind them came a couple who were looking for cowboy hats! It turns out the man was an undercover cop who wears them for his work, and his wife just wanted one for the beach. Jordan worked on counting/closing one of the registers while I worked with the two customers to find them hats they'd like. And we made our sales goal after all! I felt good to have sort-of been a part of that.
Today's hat. It's hard to tell but it's actually orange just like the pumpkin on the bag behind me. The lights and iphone camera washed it out. And interestingly, continuing the trend of "Wear what you want to sell"...I sold one of these orange hats tonight.
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Wednesday, thank god it's a day off. I woke up feeling rough due to the long workday yesterday.
The tropical storm is a hurricane but so far still a Cat 1. I kind of wonder if all the hype about this is just fearmongering and herd-mindset tittering. Sure seems like it right now, but I'm also not totally ignorant and know that the Gulf has the conditions for rapidly escalating storm systems.
Yesterday while at Disney I received both a review of my first transcription job, and a new job assignment that is twice as long. This sent me into a bit of a panic because I'm working multiple jobs this week plus the tropical storm coming through. It made me cringe to ask, but I requested an assignment with a later due date. To my surprise they simply moved the due date for this assignment about four days forward, which is absolutely perfect because now I can start it on the weekend, after both my 18-hour workday and the tropical storm have passed. Phew!
There were many things that I wanted to do today but I was thwarted when my phone suddenly decided to stop working. It's easy to forget how dependent we are on our phones until we don't have them.
You can see here that there's something wrong with the battery. The charge keeps dropping drastically (those red lines are when the phone crashed on me) and/or it's not charging fully.
After talking with Apple support I decided to try taking it to Apple-certified techs at Best Buy, per their recommendation. The phone crashed partway there, leaving me to guess the way to the store (how did we used to get ANYWHERE?? omg.) When I got there they wouldn't even look at it, just said, "You'll need a new phone" and quoted me $640 for it! I was shocked and angry; the Apple tech had made it sound like the problem could be fixed or at LEAST looked at. But they didn't even touch my phone or attempt any diagnostics.
I tried calling Apple again and set up a new appointment for one of their actual stores, even though it will cost me another afternoon. Then went to an AT&T to see if they could cut me a deal as they're my phone carrier. They quoted me the same price, adding that I'd have to pay off the remaining balance on the broken phone as well. I don't think it's at all fair to ask someone to pay the full cost of a phone that stopped working of it's own accord after only two years of use, so I decided to keep the broken phone and deal directly with Apple on Friday. If they can't help me out with either a repair or an exchange, this will be an expensive lesson learned and possibly an Android phone in my future.
Other things that I managed to do today:
- Reviewed the feedback for my first transcription job and asked questions of the proofreader
- Bought dinner for myself and Jameson for tonight
- Packed meals, clothing, and another all-day bag for myself for tomorrow's 18-hour day
- Threw away my dead jalapeno plant and black sapote tree
- Did laundry
- Messaged/Emailed family and bosses to let them know to email me with anything urgent, since my phone is acting up
- Set up my phone and computer to use Disney wifi, so that I can hopefully do transcription tomorrow if the band gets rained out
- Appreciated the Giant Mountain of Candy, which is what's getting both of us through this hectic week
And instead of practicing trombone I allowed myself to rest, which is just as needed as everything else.
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Thursday: Hurricane Helene but she's not supposed to get here until evening, and I'm scheduled to perform at the Magic Kingdom, AND I'm scheduled to work the hat shop at night. We will see how many of those things actually happen.
Friday: Transcription, visit to the Apple Store.
Saturday: Transcription, probably cooking us some meals and cleaning.
Sunday: ???
A Kathy Jeanne which we've been calling "The Ladybug Hat." I didn't sell it but did sell another Kathy Jeanne, lending more credence to the idea of wearing the hat you hope to sell.
It was a weird night at the hat shop, we had lots of customers but a very difficult time making any sales. I got cornered no less than three times by people who just seemed to want to talk my ear off about their lives...I guess it killed time nicely but unfortunately we didn't meet our sales goal. There was also an issue with one of our new employees having "visitors" while on the clock; it seems like her partner or a good friend(?), and I have noticed that he is in our store every time she's working. He was here again tonight and stuck around for at least an hour with her while it was busy and she should have been helping customers. I guess management decided tonight was the night to confront her, because when I came back from my break she was crying and a keyholder was talking gently to her.
All I overheard was, "I feel like I've been criticized non-stop here!" and then I had to turn away and organize hats so as not to roll my eyes. She has probably not worked much retail. if you take corrections in the workplace personally, you're going to be weeping every few minutes lol. Supervisors will always find something to nitpick, either because they WANT to or because they HAVE to to make it look like they're busy, and either way it has nothing to do with you. (unless it's malicious and in this case it definitely wasn't.)
In all honesty, I was ALSO feeling over-criticized that night. First I was corrected on a very minor and subjective choice of hat organization, and later I was chided for sweeping while there were many customers in the store (there was spilled popcorn and candy on the floor, and imo a food spill is a good justification for a quick spot-sweeping no matter how busy it is. But next time I will leave the spill untouched for people to trample, and I will reference tonight's events if anyone asks why I didn't take care of it. Ahh the joys of retail.)
But sorry chica, inviting friends and romantic partners to come distract you at work makes your supervisor quite well justified in correcting you. She's lucky not to get a write up. She'll either figure that out and buck up, or quit I suppose.
She did end up leaving three hours early due to being upset (sigh) so we were shorthanded for closing. But it was two keyholders + me, a former retail boss, so we easily crushed all the closing tasks and were clocked out early.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Monday I slept until 9am. I needed it, and it still wasn't enough either.
Had just coffee. My guts are being weird, probably from A) stress and B) being sedentary on the days that I was doing transcription and C) having to eat dinner at 3pm on closing nights at the hat shop. Waited around to see if I'd get corrections on my transcription job, then when they didn't show by 10:30 I practiced my Disney trombone stuff.
Lunch, running some small errands, packing for tomorrow, checking on my banana. The fruit looks ok and that's all I can ask for. We're also supposed to get a tropical storm/hurricane this weekend so it may be a moot point.
I felt low-energy so spent two hours lying down, reading or watching TikTok. Didn't even eat snacks, just had tea.
These times where I feel bad tend to coincide with extended periods of stress and lost sleep, so it's no surprise any more.
Oh yeah, and look what I found at Walmart today! What the hell is Dawn thinking!!
More fool me for actually buying it...but you know what? It's not bad. It's a very mild scent, so I am finding that I like it more than some of Dawn's citrus scents which are often very strong.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Tuesday I was up at 7:30 only so I could have quiet time to myself before this extremely long day. Packed a bag with hat shop clothes, toiletries for showering, and meals and snacks for the whole day, then off to the Magic Kingdom.
Here are the guys performing their first set in front of the castle. It was 90-something degrees (32C).
Everyone seems to be doing well. Tony, one of the full-time trombone guys, is into gardening and we've talked at length about our mutual hobby. He immediately asked how my firefly petunia is doing. Since he is so interested and clearly a good gardener, I am going to bring him a cutting on Thursday, the day I'm subbing for Keith. I could tell he was trying very hard to hide his excitement about getting a cutting, it was adorable :) I have a small one growing in an Italian ice cup with holes punched in the bottom, he can have that one.
There is some sort of "recycled items" competition going on for Halloween, where each competing department makes something spooky out of recycled materials. Here is the band's super-weird entry (please do not share/repost):
It even has a styrofoam brain inside (I guess Keith made it):
Good luck with that, ya weirdos :p
In other spooky news I was able to play the Halloween music in the parade today!
The Halloween charts are "Cruella DeVille," "Grim Grinning Ghosts," "Pink Elephants," and "Poor Unfortunate Souls." It felt slightly early in the season to be playing these, but the red/orange/yellow fall decorations all over Main Street USA were helpful for creating the proper mood :) I was very grateful to get to play the Halloween stuff today because it may be my only chance with the storm coming on Thursday.
I also did one set, finally getting to play the Mary Poppins Medley in the park for the first time.
Before Flag Retreat I took a shower in the locker rooms under the castle, knowing that I had a full shift at the hat shop that night and having gotten quite sweaty and gross while performing.
I wonder how many people can say they've taken a shower under Cinderella's Castle!
It was amusing to think about.
At 5pm I drove to Disney Springs and clocked in to find that we were deeply shorthanded, with three people having called out including our boss. And it was pretty busy too. It was just Jordan and I in the shop, and we did our best, but even so we were $100 short of the sales goal when 10:30 rolled around. After a brief discussion we decided to stay open right up to 11pm, and if a sale was meant to happen, it would. The result was a mob of annoying teens coming in at 10:57 to do selfies in hats...but right behind them came a couple who were looking for cowboy hats! It turns out the man was an undercover cop who wears them for his work, and his wife just wanted one for the beach. Jordan worked on counting/closing one of the registers while I worked with the two customers to find them hats they'd like. And we made our sales goal after all! I felt good to have sort-of been a part of that.
Today's hat. It's hard to tell but it's actually orange just like the pumpkin on the bag behind me. The lights and iphone camera washed it out. And interestingly, continuing the trend of "Wear what you want to sell"...I sold one of these orange hats tonight.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Wednesday, thank god it's a day off. I woke up feeling rough due to the long workday yesterday.
The tropical storm is a hurricane but so far still a Cat 1. I kind of wonder if all the hype about this is just fearmongering and herd-mindset tittering. Sure seems like it right now, but I'm also not totally ignorant and know that the Gulf has the conditions for rapidly escalating storm systems.
Yesterday while at Disney I received both a review of my first transcription job, and a new job assignment that is twice as long. This sent me into a bit of a panic because I'm working multiple jobs this week plus the tropical storm coming through. It made me cringe to ask, but I requested an assignment with a later due date. To my surprise they simply moved the due date for this assignment about four days forward, which is absolutely perfect because now I can start it on the weekend, after both my 18-hour workday and the tropical storm have passed. Phew!
There were many things that I wanted to do today but I was thwarted when my phone suddenly decided to stop working. It's easy to forget how dependent we are on our phones until we don't have them.
You can see here that there's something wrong with the battery. The charge keeps dropping drastically (those red lines are when the phone crashed on me) and/or it's not charging fully.
After talking with Apple support I decided to try taking it to Apple-certified techs at Best Buy, per their recommendation. The phone crashed partway there, leaving me to guess the way to the store (how did we used to get ANYWHERE?? omg.) When I got there they wouldn't even look at it, just said, "You'll need a new phone" and quoted me $640 for it! I was shocked and angry; the Apple tech had made it sound like the problem could be fixed or at LEAST looked at. But they didn't even touch my phone or attempt any diagnostics.
I tried calling Apple again and set up a new appointment for one of their actual stores, even though it will cost me another afternoon. Then went to an AT&T to see if they could cut me a deal as they're my phone carrier. They quoted me the same price, adding that I'd have to pay off the remaining balance on the broken phone as well. I don't think it's at all fair to ask someone to pay the full cost of a phone that stopped working of it's own accord after only two years of use, so I decided to keep the broken phone and deal directly with Apple on Friday. If they can't help me out with either a repair or an exchange, this will be an expensive lesson learned and possibly an Android phone in my future.
Other things that I managed to do today:
- Reviewed the feedback for my first transcription job and asked questions of the proofreader
- Bought dinner for myself and Jameson for tonight
- Packed meals, clothing, and another all-day bag for myself for tomorrow's 18-hour day
- Threw away my dead jalapeno plant and black sapote tree
- Did laundry
- Messaged/Emailed family and bosses to let them know to email me with anything urgent, since my phone is acting up
- Set up my phone and computer to use Disney wifi, so that I can hopefully do transcription tomorrow if the band gets rained out
- Appreciated the Giant Mountain of Candy, which is what's getting both of us through this hectic week
And instead of practicing trombone I allowed myself to rest, which is just as needed as everything else.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thursday: Hurricane Helene but she's not supposed to get here until evening, and I'm scheduled to perform at the Magic Kingdom, AND I'm scheduled to work the hat shop at night. We will see how many of those things actually happen.
Friday: Transcription, visit to the Apple Store.
Saturday: Transcription, probably cooking us some meals and cleaning.
Sunday: ???