What's In A Name?

Maybe I shouldn't get so frustrated over this, but it's been slowly building up the past 10 years or so. I'd just like to slap the first person that made a variation of Rachel. Oh, and I'm not talking about Rachelle or Rochelle. Those are perfectly fine. I'm merely talking about the unnecessary desire to add an 'a' where there doesn't need to be one in the first place.

I understand there are some of you out there with the names Rachael or Racheal, and you can't really do anything to help that, but why is it so God-awful hard for people to spell my name? It's just gotten considerably worse over the last few years. You would think mine would be easier. Hey, it has one less letter than its competition, and it's been around much longer. I would think those two factors alone would work in my favor, but...no.

What annoys me the most is that this happens to me all the time with people who know me and have seen my name spelled out numerous times. They still have that itch to add another letter. Don't scratch it. Even if you can't remember if it has an extra 'a' or not, just write "Rach" to be safe. I'll even accept that. Just don't mangle it up by adding that letter. Yes, I take offense to it, and yes, it annoys me a great deal.

Do any of you have this problem with your names? I'm more than willing to hear empathetic complaints.

I've Got Nothin'

I'm about halfway done with my week in hell! I thought that was worth mildly celebrating until I have a decent blog for you guys. I promise it will be soon. In the meantime, commiserate with me until I reach the pearly gates (i.e. my new job; a good blog; whatever that means to you).

Stress, Excitement, Illnesses...And Dancing Monkeys

Thank you all for the nice, supportive responses you gave me from my last blog. They were so quick! I guess that just proves you like my blogs short, sweet, and straight to the point. Fair enough.

Right after I blogged that I got hired at this place, I went straight over to Burlington to put in my notice. I made the rounds to let people know so they could hear it straight from the horse's mouth before I actually handed in my goodbye slip. While I was up at the desk talking to Olga, our store manager walked by, looked at me, and snapped, "Don't you have something to do?"
Um...are the purse on my shoulder and the car keys in my hand absolutely no indication to you that I'm not working today? Before I could answer, she had walked away, so I made it a point to walk after her.
She turned around, looked me up and down, and said, "Oh, you're not here today?"
"No, I'm off." Yeah, bet you feel like a real ass now, don't you?
She started to walk away, but I caught her by handing her the piece of paper stating my last day of employment. She read it and simply said, "Ok," and walked away. I'm just another person walking out on that place, in addition to the 11 others the past month.

Even though I'm really thrilled about leaving, I'm a little stressed out because I know there will be a change in routine and my environment a week from now. I always get a little antsy when I'm switching jobs. I felt the same way when I went from Dollar General to Burlington. Even though it was still retail, it was a whole new setting.
On top of this stress, I'm sick. Oh, no, I can't enjoy the fact that I'm leaving Burlington and retail without something to drag me down. I'm not sure if what I have is a cold or allergies, but I can barely talk, I'm coughing up a storm, and my nose is itchy/runny/stuffy/etc., etc. I'm trying to make this blog halfway coherent because I'm hopped up on Benadryl (one tablet, and I'm out of it for two days). I slept a grand total of four hours on Thursday night, and last night I slept from midnight until 3:00, and I didn't fall back asleep until around 7:00. Do you realize how many weight loss infomercials I viewed while trying to get back to sleep? More than I cared to see. I even watched an episode of Dawson's Creek on TBS to bore myself to slumber. Didn't work. I'm hoping this subsides in a day or two.

In the meantime...only five working days left in hell! I can't wait until the end of my shift on Friday.

*Drum Roll*

I got hired! I start the 17th! Bye-bye, Burlyworld and retail!

Interview

They're sending me to a job interview today at 11:00. It's for a different place since the one I tested for only allowed the agency to submit two applicants, and well, I don't think I need to explain any more than that. Wish me luck at this one. It's a manufacturing company, so hopefully the people there will be nicer than the place I filled in for a couple months ago because if I get hired here, I plan on putting my two weeks in.

Update (9/5, 11:56am): The interview went really well, the people there are extremely friendly and easy-going, and I think I have a good chance of getting the position. I'm supposed to find out either later this afternoon or within the next day. Keep your fingers crossed; mine are as soon as I finish typing this...

Typical Retail

It's been the week from hell at work this week. Ignore the fact that it's been busier than all get-out, and let's analyze the other background things that are going on. I can even categorize them for you if it makes it easier to read:

Ignorant Manager:
The other day, I was actually really busy doing work all day. I just finished putting out a bunch of stock, and I took a minute to check our mail. We've been getting a lot of e-mails regarding furniture being discontinued and such, so I wanted to keep up on that.
As I was reading over an e-mail, my store manager came up and automatically snapped, "Don't you have something to do?"
I gave it right back to her: "Uh, yeah, I'm checking the mail."
She really needs to lay off. She just automatically assumes I'm slacking off now. You need to find out what I'm doing before you snap at me or question me.

It really was stupid of her to say anything to begin with because I couldn't do anything that wasn't work-related on that computer anyway. All sites are blocked except for our company's. You're just making yourself look like an ignorant jerk (I could insert another word here, but I'll refrain).

Low-Staffed:
People have been quitting left and right [Can you blame them?]. Right now we have three people who have put their two weeks in (one of which is in our department), and they're not hiring anyone to replace any of them. In fact, corporate suggested we don't hire anymore people and just use the staff we have to fill in the empty spots [As if we don't have enough to do already.]. Boy, this is starting to sound like a typical business shortcut to me: "Let's save money for our company by burning out our employees. Let's work them until they're within an inch of insanity."

Right now they've sent the entire ladies' coats department down to Shoes "until further notice." What does that do to us upstairs? Well, let's see: The upstairs includes Baby Depot, Youth, Linens, and Ladies' Coats. They've already gotten rid of the Ladies' Coats manager (last year; she now works in Sportswear and occasionally Linens), sent the youth department manager downstairs to Sportswear, and my department manager is running Youth and Baby Depot. Now that they've sent everyone from Coats downstairs, we run that department, as well. We're already low-staffed in our respective departments, so you wouldn't have wanted to see the situation this weekend.

We always get a lot of buses from Canada every weekend. Last weekend was like Christmas time (our store made $85,000 and we got about 20-25 buses), and this weekend was only slightly less busy. It was still back-to-school time since a handful of schools in this area didn't go back until today. There weren't many of us upstairs to begin with, but they made three of us put in backup drawers (including me). Luckily, I didn't have to ring that day because they pulled me at 1:00, but the others did. I did, however, have to go down and help bag. How many people were left upstairs that day? Two. One in Baby Depot; one in Youth (which was one of our Baby Depot people). On a Saturday. Are they insane?

When my manager had to go to dinner, I came back up to take her place in the department. I was running around like crazy the rest of my shift. I helped one person after the next and almost every one said they were searching for 15-20 minutes, looking for someone to help them. At least they were understanding of my plight, but I am only one person, and this is just ridiculous. I never thought I'd see the day where I'd be the only person running most to all of the upstairs on a busy day.

On Sunday I had to run a backup drawer a few times, so my manager and one other person were left to run the entire upstairs. Yesterday, I was by myself from 7:30 on, but there were only three of us between 1:00 and 5:00. Granted, it wasn't overly busy yesterday (busier than I thought it would be though), but it's still stupid.
I wish a lot of customers would write to corporate complaining about this. They shouldn't have to rely on one person to help them all out. Needless to say, it's not fair for me to be pulled every which way all day and hear the potential whining of someone who had to wait a half hour to get help.

Thankfully, last night, one of the managers noted to a coworker that she thought I was doing a good job and am a good worker. It's nice that someone is noticing and not always assuming I slack off. Makes me feel like my work isn't completely unappreciated and thankless.

Drawer Mishaps:
As I said above, I had ring on Sunday as a backup. Unfortunately, I must have made a mistake somewhere because my drawer was $120 over. I've run a register hundreds of times at Dollar General, and I've never been over that much. In fact, I couldn't think of anything I could have screwed up on, so I was hoping it would be determined to be an electronic mistake.
Nope. It was apparently something I did. Now I'm getting written up for it. One more time, and I'm out the door. Quite frankly, I would rather not risk my job for something like this. Ringing on that register is a secondary job that they've required for us now. I'd so much rather be exempt from this. I can just go back to being a permanent Baby Depot associate. I'm also afraid to say anything because I don't want this situation to be misconstrued as purposeful so I could be excused from the registers. It's touchy. I just would feel more comfortable in a safe zone. I'd rather not touch their money at all if I can help it.

...And Styes:
All this stress has apparently caused a nice physical representation on my face now. I don't have one or two styes but three. I have one in the corner of my left eye and two on my right: one in the corner and one in the middle. My eyes have been so sore and puffy. Yesterday, my left eye was starting to bruise up underneath. One of my coworkers said I looked like a druggy. I could barely keep my eyes open, and they were somewhat bloodshot and watery. Like I needed this...
They're not quite as sore today, but they're still a little puffy and watery.

So there's my week/weekend in a nutshell. Can you see why I want to pull my hair out or jump off a cliff?

Ahhh!

I'm somewhere between ripping my hair out and jumping off a cliff right now. I'll explain more later...