My Weblog

Hours wasted...........

Both yesterday and today, I have spent hours trying to get my tax software in place. I talked to several different customer service representatives. I was totally torqued off when I finally gave up talking to them. I figure I will probably not do more than 25 returns this year unless the Lord surprises me. The company I have bought from for 28 years offers two "basic" versions of the software, one allowing for 20 returns and one allowing for 50 returns. They also offer a pay-per-return version which I planned to use to cover the last few returns I'd need to do. I wanted to buy the 20 version. The upshot of my hours on the phone yesterday is that I am forced to buy the 50. Do I need to tell you that the 50 costs much more than the 20? And I could do all 25 on the pay per return system, but it would be even more expensive. Apparently, they are only offering the 20 for first year customers. So, the way it shakes out for me is that I am being penalized for being their customer for 28 years...........

I had an opportunity to buy a different software product earlier in the season. I even had the opportunity to buy at a discount. Because I've used the product to which I'm referring for so long and because I know all its ins and outs, I opted to go with my usual software. Now, I regret that decision. My concern, at the time was that the new software would not be able to handle the demands that my clients would place on it. Perhaps, I thought, the new software would not have all the required forms available. Now I figure it's a shame I didn't try it. Of course, it would have cost me nearly $300 to find that out and I couldn't afford to take the risk that I'd pay for the new software and then still be faced with the need for the software I've been using long-term.

The software I bought offers all sorts of "helps". However, they are not "helps" that I need. They're completely extraneous to my life. For example, it offers the possibility that I could go open a temporary bank account, receive customer refunds into that account, deduct my fees and issue clients their refunds. I promise you, I have absolutely NO desire to handle what I consider clients' money.

They have all sorts of "enhancements" for electronic filing. Well, if I've had one memo from the IRS about identity theft in the last month, I've had at least 10. No, thank you. I do NOT wish to be responsible for transmitting data through a system that the IRS itself fears will be hacked. I will stick with paper returns or else. And, I will back up right here, not "in the cloud".

After discovering the disappointing results about what I could buy, I made up my mind I had to bite the bullet and get the darn program downloaded. I tried all afternoon and evening yesterday and kept getting an error message as well as being advised to try again later. I tried again and again today and finally had to get on the phone and spend even more time to effectuate the purchase, download, and installation. I am not amused............

I did make something delicious and nutritious for dinner and the freezer, somewhat redeeming myself in my own eyes for last night's failure. I made a butternut squash soup. I had my doubts about it. It called for what looked like a LOT of leeks and onion. It also called for potato, carrots, and apple as well as butternut squash. I got it all peeled, chopped, etc. and simmered the requisite time, and then pureed it with the stick blender. The recipe then called for some nutmeg and some light cream (I used a bit of half and half). It is actually quite delicious. And, I am quite full and have enough left to freeze a number of servings.

I did not can any chicken and I don't think I will. I found a recipe for orange chicken that looks good and it calls for 6 chicken breasts. I will probably create that tomorrow night. It will feed me and it will feed the freezer. Using 6 chicken breasts will take care of the bulk of my "problem" with having a lot of raw chicken in the freezer. I have also decided to use about 3 chicken breasts to make some enchiladas next week. I own everything I should need for those except corn tortillas. And, I even have a possible substitute for those so I'll have enough of this casserole to feed me dinner and to freeze some.

I have decided that I am going to try to keep stocking the freezer with cooked meals and only cook one new item a week. I think that will ease the strain on the budget. At least, I hope so.

I bought some buttermilk when I went to the store yesterday. I DO like to drink it, but I'm not likely to drink an entire quart. However, I learned that it can be frozen and I'm going to try dividing it up into smaller portions and freezing it that way. With next week's grocery money, I intend to buy some extra half 'n' half and do the same thing. I am tired of running out halfway through the pay period and having to use evaporated milk which seems more expensive to me. Maybe I can prevent that in future. At least, I'm going to try.

That's it for now. I don't know if I'll be back later. I have many things still on today's "to do" list.................

I can't believe.........

that one whole day of my 3-day weekend is gone. I did most of my grocery shopping and then came home and performed some surgery on my shopping list. There are some things on there I just can't get. I have just enough left in the envelope to buy dog food........

I tried a new recipe last night. I'm blaming operator error, but it was a big fail. One of my favorite Italian dishes is Spaghetti Carbonara. I love it. It has been my  most frequently ordered dish when I go to an Italian restaurant. The recipe looked good. It had the classic ingredients, used classic methods. I thought I was on a roll. Well, first, I bought bacon. When I got home, I found some bacon in the drawer, carefully preserved in a food saver bag. So, I used what I found, not the new. That's the way it's done, right? You use the "old" stuff up before you use the new. Well, as it turned out, it was maple cured. Let me tell you, maple and Italian don't necessarily mix very well. The recipe called for an entire pound of pasta. What, I wondered, was I going to do with a pound of pasta? So I used less. Sadly, I continued to follow the recipe for the sauce. It was like 3 little pieces of spaghetti swimming in a backyard swimming pool. WAY too much sauce for the amount of pasta I cooked. Finally, I have these burners with varying abilities. They all heat, but some are "power burners". I had been cooking the sauce on the smaller "power burner", but I couldn't get it to stop boiling. So I moved it to the smallest burner which is just a "normal" burner. I put the heat on the lowest setting, just wanting to keep the sauce warm. Well, I forgot that I was using a cast Iron pan. And cast iron retains heat forever. So, I might have been okay if I'd completely taken the pan off the heat, but, no, I didn't. And I curdled the eggs. Yes, indeed, I did temper them with an entire cup of HOT pasta water, but, apparently, it was not enough.

I have lots of leftovers, primarily because I really did not enjoy what I'd cooked. I'm going to throw the leftovers out, which is SO not me. Ordinarily, I'd portion the leftovers out for the freezer, but not this time. I can't face maple flavored carbonara again, LOL.

Today I will go get Parker's dog food. I may have to exceed the contents of the "grocery" envelope because I really need some chicken broth. But, I pretty much HAVE to stop there. Sad about that because they have spiral sliced hams for $.99 a pound, but the budget has to be king in all this.........

Beyond the grocery trip and filling (partially) another water bottle, my intentions are to spend the day in the kitchen. I have a butternut squash soup I want to make for the freezer as well as some chicken breasts I want to get canned up. Don't know if I'll be able to accomplish the canning or not. I did not feel well last night and made the ill-advised decision NOT to pull the chicken out of the freezer. Cubing it will be easier if it's partially frozen, but cubing it when it's completely frozen is probably not going to work. Maybe by late afternoon or this evening..........

In the meantime, there's plenty more to do.

Home again..........

Love, love, love walking back into "my sanctuary". If I think about it, there is a boatload of things to be done around here and that could be depressing. On the other hand, no one can make demands on me while I'm here. I dig deep to engage customers in conversation all through the workday. To a degree I enjoy this. But, when I come home, Parker is satisfied if I say "Good boy" a few times.........

I am still working in crazyville. After the trauma of the last two days, today we had cashiers a-plenty all day long. It is just nuts! If there is any rhyme or reason to it, I can't find it. I will say this: they need to stop hiring kids. They need to go looking for us oldsters. Reason? We show up. We need the job, we want the job, we value the job and we understand the meaning of "work". The twenty somethings and under just don't seem to get it with a very few exceptions. In the store I can name 3 exceptions, just 3, across all the departments.........

I will admit that those of us who are older do get ill, sometimes seriously ill, but we don't seem to call out because we're hung over and we don't call out because of a football game or because we want to go shopping or because we have a headache.

One of our 3 youngsters who is dependable complained today that just standing there running a register is "boring". Geezopete! How can anyone be bored with people to watch? I will never understand that. Customers will see me just standing there because there is a pause between customers, and often they will say "You looked bored so I decided to come to your line". My response is "I'm never bored when there are people around me to watch"........ And that is truly how I feel.

Oh, well, enough of that. I bought a couple of storage bins today. I want to try to start working in the garage again. I will start by sifting through the Tupperware type things that are out there. Some will get donated and I want the rest containerized, not splattered about.

So, this is a 3-day weekend for me, starting tomorrow. It's pretty likely the last I'll see for a year. I am still irked that IF I don't have vacation or holiday time to use, I get two days off a week and I work 5. IF I DO have vacation or holiday time to use, I'm lucky to get one day off a week and the other gets charged to vacation or holiday. But I still end up standing at that register 5 days a week........... How does that work? Maybe they are just trying to figure ways to give me larger paychecks. Or maybe they figure 2 days off a week, no matter what they call them, is enough. Well, if the second alternative is their reason, I'd love to set them straight. However, I'm afraid it would result in me losing money when I don't want to lose money. What if they suddenly decided to cut my schedule to 4 days a week every week? That would not sit well.

I got to do something different today. I was actually allowed to enter the customer service area and pick up the "go backs" and distribute them among the various departments. I felt like I was finally "a big girl", worthy of such vast responsibility, LOL. Actually, everything is already presorted by department. Doing "go backs" consists of pushing a cart to the department and dropping off what needs to be restocked. Big deal! But it was different.............

So what about the weekend. Right now I know of 4 things that are on my "do it or else" list. I need to go to the grocery store tomorrow. I need to continue the campaign to get my water bottles filled up (or 2/3 full if I don't want to carry those bottles full). There is chicken in the freezer that should be canned. You know, I've resolved to use the freezer as a rest stop, not a destination, because of its age. I've lost 2 freezer loads of food in 2017. I just don't want to risk that happening again, at least, I'd like to minimize the losses if it does. I also want to get on with dehydrating that butternut squash. I'm tired of looking at it. Beyond those things, there are all the usual things like cleaning toilets and washing clothes, etc.

At 3 minutes before the time I was due to clock in at work, my home computer received an e-mail from DGS asking if he could come pick up the box. Yes, of course. I thought I made it clear originally that anytime Friday - Monday after 3:30-4:00 would be fine. Of course, I answered the e-mail as soon as I got home and found it. However, I have heard nothing further from him. I'm assuming, this being a school night, that he's probably not going to come any more tonight, but who knows............I'd love a nap, but I don't want him at my door trying to wake me with the possibility that I wouldn't hear him. Remember, I have the dog that doesn't even bark when people knock.......... So, no nap for me..........

That's it for now. Maybe more later.........

 

 

So over it..............

By my standards, it's pretty early. However, I'm tired and I think I am giving up for today.

I had my little "to do" list for this evening. I managed to handle all but one item on the list. I still need to list out a bunch of stuff that I then need to bag up to take to Goodwill. But, I spent time working in the kitchen. I managed not to make a mess nuking my unstuffed cabbage soup. And the kitchen is a bit cleaner than it was when I started. Smells cleaner too with that bag of smelly trash deposited in the outside bin. But the counters are looking better and the stove is as clean as I can get it. I've even cleaned out the sink. Yeah, better.

I picked a small area of the living room and put away some things that were sitting there awaiting relocation to real homes. So, that corner looks better.

I also spent 15 minutes on the desk. Right now I'm trying to dig down to the center area of the desk. I have a desk pad there, a desk pad I bought in 1989. It's a two layer job with a softer layer underneath and a clear layer on top. In theory, it cushions as you write on it, and you can stash things you want to keep track of under the top see-thru layer. it's a good concept but after almost 30 years, the top layer has become brittle and broken around the edges. After I snagged a sweater on it, I decided maybe it was time to replace it. I have the replacement so now I have to get down to the bottom of the pile of paper to get it into place.

I also did some budget stuff though I'm still behind on that. I just have to keep slogging away at it til I'm caught up. After tomorrow, I have 3 days off again. I will be busy, but I will include work on the budget stuff in the agenda.

When I was home earlier in the week, I found a binder and put together a lot of information for menu planning. However, I was in and out of it for days. It was splattered around the desk. I've finally got it all nailed down in the binder in what seems to me to be a logical order. I'm excited going forward to see how well I can make it work.

Oh, here's a frustrating thing: I ordered some metal "shelves" from Amazon. They're really those things that hang below an upper shelf to make better use of vertical space. NOT full length shelves. And note that word METAL. Yeah, they arrived today and Amazon packed the box full of those little plastic cushion like things--like the metal was going to break in shipping. Some folks want to complain about Amazon's use of cardboard. BUT, cardboard DOES eventually break down. Not so these little plastic pillows. And they take up an amazing amount of space in the trash can, even when you go through them all and pop them with the point of a knife. My trash can in the kitchen which was empty a few hours ago now looks like it needs emptied again. I will try to take comfort in the hope that the plastic stuff will smash down, at least a little, as I put more trash on top of the pile.............

Well, I think I'm going to limp off to bed. Chances are if I go to bed this early, I'll be awake long before the alarm sounds. So, I won't get the extra sleep I think my body needs anyway, but it's worth a try. I hope you had a blessed day!

A day bathed in prayer...........

One of the things I miss about my mother is that she was my personal prayer warrior. Now, to be honest, there were times when I worried exactly WHAT she might pray, but then I realized that God was going to answer prayers that were in accordance with His will, not those in accordance with my mother's will if they didn't match up. Anyway, I know someone was praying for my day. That is such a comfort. I would love to be able to stay in a continual state of prayer throughout the day, but that is just not possible with customers to attend to. I LOVE having backup.

It was just as bad today as it was yesterday in the store. We were busy, busy, busy and we were short handed. Three people called to say they were too sick to come to work. Oy! However, I was sent to Lumber for about an hour and a half, maybe 2 hours. It was quieter down there though still busier than usual. Customers were telling me that the lines in the front part of the store were "REALLY long"........ No doubt. But, where I was, it was manageable. Most of the traffic I saw was a result of people willing to walk the distance to avoid being in the front part of the store, LOL. But, I did get a few periods of peace and quiet where I could sit down.

After my break I was asked to open a register up front in the middle part of the store. We had two registers going and both of us had lines at least double what they're supposed to be. I saw one of the Assistant Store Managers on a register for a while and later, Mr. People-Person opened a register. I realized on the way home that I was on the very brink of dehydration. I actually excused myself a few times and drank a bit of water in front of customers, but it was not enough. I did my best to drink as much as I could as I was driving home.

Oh, and here's another slightly strange tidbit. My guess is that one of our two cleaning/maintenance guys was scheduled but didn't come in today. When I got to the store, the Assistant Store Manager who is responsible for the front end was cleaning the bathrooms! In a way I think that is admirable. It's nice to see managers doing some of the same things the rank and file are called upon to do. However, I'm going to bet the store paid a pretty penny for that Assistant Store Manager to be cleaning bathrooms. One would assume an Assistant Store Manager would have a LOT of important things on his plate and maybe bathroom cleaning was not a good use of his time. I'm not criticizing here, just analyzing. Perhaps if we had not already been so short staffed, he would have delegated someone to do the dirty deed. Well, that makes it seem better til you consider what might be afoul in the staffing model..........

So, at least, I was spared some of the craziness. That helped. It also helped that I could tell myself that I survived yesterday and surely that indicated I could survive today as well.

I will tell you quite frankly, I hurt from end to end tonight. Ankles, knees, legs, back, even my upper back. My arms are okay, LOL. If I want to accomplish anything tonight, I will almost certainly have to either take some ibuprofen or maybe even put on one of those pain patches. The ibuprofen isn't great for my liver, but the pain patch isn't going to do a thing for any part of me it's not stuck to!

I did stop to get more water on the way home. I "cheated". I only put 2 gallons of water into a 3 gallon bottle. It was still heavy, but not as bad as if it were full. Since then, the only other thing I've accomplished is taking out a bag of smelly trash. I have made up my mind that I will drag at least one bag of trash to the outside bin each day. That will make the  night before trash day better. I am not thrilled with the prospect of carrying trash out in the dark. Besides, this particular bag of trash was starting to stink up the house and it HAD to go outside right away.

I have been relentless in working on the kitchen. Is it good? No, of course not. Is it better, why yes it is! I just have to have enough energy to keep it up.

I'm also trying to police myself in two other areas--at least 15 minutes a day on desk/budget stuff, and at least 10 minutes of straightening/cleaning each day, over and above the most obvious things I might otherwise have done anyway. I figured I'd start the 10 minutes a day in the dining room and work around the house. If all I can do is put some things away, well that's better than nothing. In some rooms I should be able to accomplish some actual cleaning.

Tonight's dinner should be easy. I am going to eat some unstuffed cabbage soup from the freezer. Maybe I won't be able to make too much of a mess with that. Whaddaya think?

Sometimes the Lord amazes me.........

I had just written the previous post, talking about being down. I walked into the bedroom and an image hit me. Into my mind popped an image of Joyce Meyer. An image from a sermon she'd preached YEARS ago. I haven't really been watching Joycey regularly for a solid 10 or more years, maybe longer. She was preaching about the incident where Paul is bitten by a snake, a poisonous snake. You can just imagine. Those around him were aghast. Paul, that man who seemed so nice, was a goner. He had been sentenced to death before he ever got to court by a poisonous snake. But, the Bible says he "shook it off". Now, if you've ever watched Joyce, you know sometimes she kind of illustrates her sermons. I distinctly remember her flicking her hand, much like I might do if I was flicking water off my hand. However, her motion represented the way she thought Paul shook that snake off, as if it were nothing at all, a motion indicating he'd totally dismissed it...........

Then I remembered a story about an old donkey. The farmer didn't want the old donkey any longer. He was too old to pull the cart and he was just costing the farmer to feed him and the farmer was poor. On the farmer's property was an old dry well. The farmer pushed the donkey into the well. Then he began shoveling dirt into the hole, onto the donkey's head, onto his back, all around him, basically seeking to bury the donkey alive. But, before he got the hole totally filled up, the donkey came to stand next to the farmer. The farmer asked the donkey how he had managed to get out of such a deep hole, particularly since he was shoveling so much dirt onto the donkey in an effort to bury him. The donkey replied that he had just shaken the dirt off and stepped on top of it.

So, I guess I'd better shake the dirt off and rise on top of it. Okay, thanks, Lord. Once again you've shown me the way. Now, please just help me do it.

Feeling down..........

My praise session has not yet cleared away my negative thoughts and feelings. I guess I'll have to keep at it.

I am tired this morning. I gave myself plenty of sleep time, but myself decided to make potty trips over and over during the night. I was in bed about 5 hours and I made at least 4 trips to the restroom. It might have been more--I'm pretty groggy when I first wake up. In any case, that didn't contribute to my getting "a good night's sleep".

I also received a somewhat unpleasant e-mail last night from someone important to me. On the surface it's not too bad, but the little snipes are there. And, yes, they hurt.

And I have to go to work today. I no longer have any idea what I will face when I walk through those "entrance" doors. Will I be required to do "The Marci Show" 2 days in a row or will there be sufficient staff scheduled for the day? Will I be dealing with customers who are understandably not happy with standing in long lines, or will I have my usual mix of sweet, kind folks? After yesterday's experience (isn't this the 3rd time in a couple of months????), I'm half afraid to find out. Yes, the Lord and I made it through yesterday, unscathed. But then there was Friday with all its technical difficulties. So, is the blight over, or will it continue into today? And, apparently I am going to have to expect to reprise my role in The Marci Show on a moment's notice, maybe today, maybe tomorrow, maybe next week. That's NOT a happy prospect.

So, I am hoping the Lord will lift me up between now and the time I clock in so that I can show the joy of the Lord to my customers............

Just when you think you have it right............

I found out yesterday the intended disposition of the contents of the box I got last week. Or, at least I thought I did. My oldest DGS left me a message the afternoon of the 24th. I found it yesterday morning and was given to understand that somehow the contents of two boxes, one for me and one for him, were mixed together and sent to me. I returned the call, got his voicemail, and left a message that I'd be home yesterday and each of the next 3 days by 4PM so he could come and get his things. I had taken off my work pants the evening of the 22nd and not bothered to empty the pockets. Sure enough I'd left the phone in the pocket of my pants. Only when I picked them up yesterday morning did I find the phone and the message.

Last night after work, I put together an explanation and thank you note for my daughter for the gifts. Well, tonight I received a response to my note. It appears there is nothing in the box I received that was intended for me. Even the bath and body stuff I thought was mine was intended for DGS's girlfriend. Oops! I did open the body lotion and use a tiny bit. I've offered to pass it on or replace it, whatever DD prefers.

Apparently, in the box I was supposed to find a ring and a scarf that belonged to my mother. However they are not there! This makes me sad because the ring has sentimental value. She originally had a solitaire engagement ring. Not a big stone by any measure. However, after she'd worn the engagement ring for many years, the gold on the back of the band wore through. I don't know the source, but she rounded up 3 more diamonds from somewhere and had the original diamond and these other 3 stones reset. So, while the ring is NOT her original engagement ring, it does contain the original diamond from her engagement ring which she received in 1946, 72 years ago, from my father. But, it isn't there. Of course, I've checked, double checked, and triple checked.

I had asked DD about the ring a while back. I tried to make it clear that I didn't necessarily WANT the ring. Rather I just wanted to make sure she had it in that I did not. I guess she thought, despite my efforts at clarity, that I thought I should have the ring. I really just wanted to make sure it had stayed in the family. Now I don't know where it is...........It makes me sad but I've lost all sort of things in my lifetime of greater value to me than a diamond ring. I'll get over it. She DID say in her e-mail that my mother had intended the ring for me. That was nice to know.

I'm not sure what's going on but apparently she thinks DGS has tried multiple times to call and text me about the package and I've been unresponsive. Not so. I don't text and I don't have it on my plan and I've told him that a coupla times. However, my phone notes when someone tries to send me a text. The only incoming texts the phone shows are from AT&T and CVS pharmacy. And I got one phone message and as soon as I found the message, I left a message in response. So, I'm clueless as to how she could have gotten the idea that I have been contacted multiple times and I'm holding out on the kid...........

Geez, sometimes life is SO complicated..........

Oh, what a day!

I am exhausted. It was another "Marci Show" day at work. And it was a Saturday, one of the two busiest days of the week. First, we were pretty thinly scheduled, particularly given that it was a Saturday. One employee who is 8 months pregnant called to say she was sick. Well, you can't say too much about a heavily pregnant girl who is sick. Word was that she has a dose of the flu that is going around and was throwing up most of the night. When I got there, one of our newer employees was on the register. And Mr. People-Person, another "blessed one", was at her register and you could just tell from looking at the tension in his face that he was angry. Right there, in the middle of the store, he was reading her the riot act.

Now, I have to tell you that the employee on the register is not necessarily one of my favorite people. I don't know her well. She seems sweet, but somehow I don't necessarily trust people who "seem sweet". I kind of get the impression there's a good bit of vinegar under the sweet. This could just be my imagination, but I'm in smile-but-watch-and-see mode. Another thing about her is that she is GROSSLY overweight. I would guess that largely as a result of her weight and the damage that degree of obesity can do to knees and ankles, she does not get around very well. but that is purely a guess. There may be some other cause. Now, I don't get around very well either, but I make an effort to move with some small degree of energy and speed. This lady is very slow and she seems to carry that over into most everything she does. She just runs at about half speed. Maybe that is just her manner. Her appearance is not good. I'm sure that her weight limits what she can wear, but from the neck down, she seems to get dressed in whatever combination of clothing she can grab at hand. She has a way of dealing with people that gives the appearance of being uninvolved, removed, not caring how she is perceived. However, she has held positions in retail for many years. So she has experience dealing with the public. And I have had my very own experience with Mr. People-Person who is anything BUT able to relate well to people, at least employees.

Anyway, the cashier was sick. She came to work anyway. For that, I think she deserves gold stars. I am very aware that if I don't go to work when I'm scheduled, I am increasing the burden on everyone who does go to work that day. I know THEY, my coworkers, pay the price for my absence. I would have to say that this woman either feels the same way or desperately needs the paycheck. Either way, she was THERE.

And, she said or did something that caused a customer to complain. Let's face it, no one can please all the people all the time. Perhaps she was out of line. Or, perhaps it was her manner. Or, and this cannot be disregarded, the customer may just have been one of those crotchedy people we have to deal with from time to time. And Mr. People-Person told her She was behaving in an "unprofessional" manner and to go home if she was sick, and, she did. So, in my opinion, Mr. People-Person created the situation with which I dealt for HOURS today. There HAD to be a better way.......... Say what you will, but the woman is not working in a position where she is being paid $100,000 a year and carries a LOT of responsibility for the functioning of the store. In all likelihood, she has no concept of what is "professional" behavior. Additionally, she comes to us from a company that has a reputation for not giving a fig about customer service......... In that she is new to our company, one would wonder if she understands what's expected of her.

I was absolutely buried in customers. The lines were way longer than they are supposed to be. It was another of those situations where you call for help and no one comes. So, all you can do is just keep on pushing. And you know that while customers are standing there in line, they are just NOT happy, so the danger of customer complaints goes up. Of course, in that this store has tried to create a reputation for service, and in that long lines do NOT reflect a concern for service, they are even more disgruntled. Mr. People-Person did come out and run a machine for a while which helped. That seemed only right in that he contributed to the situation. I was SO stressed by the time my break rolled around that I sat in my car and had to talk myself out of a good cry. It was horrendous. I am not at all sure how I gathered my courage to walk back into the store. It HAD to be a God thing.

Thankfully, shortly after I got back into the store, reinforcements arrived which helped. Honestly, if I wanted to deal with LONG lines of people, I'd go get a job at DMV and make a WHOLE LOT more money..............

So, anyway, I came home and almost immediately went to bed. I slept for 3 hours which has helped, but I am still pretty darned angry about the demands that are made on an employee making just a bit better than what Walmart pays. I am NOT going to have a stroke or heart attack for this store! NOT for what they pay me...........

I will have to have a prayer and praise session to adjust my attitude. Otherwise, how do I go back there tomorrow? I have no clue. I guess I start by reminding myself just who it is I seek to serve when I go to work in that store............

I did stop and put gasoline in the van before I came home. I could have put it off for another day, but that just makes tomorrow's burden heavier......... Now I have to regroup and see if I can salvage some part of my plan for the evening..............

 

Full moon?

Today was a pistol of a day for hours from the time I started til about 2PM. First, they sent me to my regular work station. You know, the one where "the refrigerator" is active. Except, that register's printer was not working. So, it could not generate receipts for customers, certainly not a good thing. So that register was marked off limits and we were operating on its twin. When I took over, my predecessor told me it was "really slow". Well, it just seemed to get slower and slower and slower. Finally, it just more or less stopped. As it was worsening, I called the head cashier to see if he could do anything. He said everything was running slow today because of the launch of the new "Chinese" order system. Finally, I had a customer who had returned an item at the returns desk. Then she went out and picked up the same item but in a different color. She came to my register. Since she had exactly the same item, just in "gold" rather than in "silver", she just laid the cash she'd gotten at the returns desk down on the counter to pay for the transaction we were working on. I discovered she'd laid down an extra dollar. According to her that was the exact amount she'd been given up front. So, we got her current transaction finished, totaled out, etc. She went to the restroom. Then she walked up to Customer Service to return the $1. Well, no matter what I did, I could not get her transaction off my screen. It was just stuck there, still "stuck" there when she arrived at customer service! Finally, to make matters worse, the card reader stopped working.

Again, I called the head cashier. He had me move to another machine. The first time I opened the cash drawer, I discovered there were no 10's and no 20's and nothing under the till to exchange for money in those denominations. I called the head cashier. (I figured by now the head cashier was ready to strangle me.) His advice, struggle through with only the 5's and 1's in my drawer, hope that folks would give me 10's and 20's to pay for their transactions. According to him, someone had messed up the cash order and an insufficient # of 20's were ordered from the bank. His advice was "Call Customer Service if you need to make change on a big bill." Efficient? Not really. Oh, and when I called him to talk about what was in my drawer, the cord fell out of the phone, abruptly terminating our phone call!

Another fun fact is that the even numbered machines have the 20's on the left, descending to the 1's on the right. The odd numbered machines are flip flopped. The objective is, given the way the machines are arrayed, to keep the higher denomination bills out of reach of the customers, just in case someone wants to try a grab and dash. Well, that's all understandable, but in that I live on register 4, more or less, moving me to #5 makes me disoriented, and then moving me to #6 makes me even crazier............

I stopped at the pharmacy on the way home. I filled two 3 gallon water bottles for a total of $1.80. Wow! I haven't tasted the water yet, but it has to be better than the highly chlorinated water that comes from the tap.......... The pharmacy has been calling me over and over, as is their habit, about refilling a prescription. So I wanted to pick that up today when I was there. No! Suddenly, instead of calling me to tell me a prescription refill is ready for pickup, which has been their practice for YEARS, they are calling me to see if I want a refill. So, was the prescription they had called about ready? No, of course not. Ugh! I've taken one of those pills every day of my life for almost 5 years. I would just up and stop now????????????? Geez.

The water dispenser is set up for either 5 gallon or 1 gallon bottles. With a 3 gallon bottle, you just have to kind of guess when you might have it under the little nozzle/faucet thingy and be ready to jump to adjust as necessary. I was right--I WILL be getting wet doing this, LOL. Glad I waited for a warmer day! I only brought one bottle into the house. Dragging those things into the house by the handle is difficult for me. It is even worse when I can't use the handle! When you carry the bottle by the handle, it is in almost a horizontal or at least severely tilted angle. All well and good when the bottle is sealed up tight. However, I don't have that kind of lid for my bottles! So I have to carry the bottle in upright and that's even harder.

Remember my mystery gift box? Well, the mystery is solved. I got a phone message from my oldest DGS this morning. Apparently the mystery items were for him. How they ended up being packed together with my gift I don't know. But, either he will pick up his goodies or I'll have to deliver them. I'm just glad to have answers and to finally be able to write a sensible thank you note.

I have more to do around here, so I need to get back to it. I'm running out of time. I hope you had a blessed day!