It's aliiiiive!!!111one
And hidden behind cuts for your convenience.
This is one of the bigger ones, so this where be where I'm starting from.
One thing that annoys me about work is that although I work in the cash office, and I'm technically in charge of front end for forty hours a week (minus overlap time with other cash office people) and I have a shiny key that dangled from my arm, I'm only a junior cashier. Which means that I shouldn't have to deal with the headache of say...the front end supervisor. Scheduling (other than when people no-show or call in sick) and pay roll are just a few things that I shouldn't be touching. Same as a period end close.
Each period is four weeks long. Every Saturday, we do a week end close. The rest of the nights, we do a night close. A week end close is more annoying, has a lot more paperwork, and is a little more delicate. I need to make sure that the safes are completely balanced, I need to make sure that the tills and the over/short report are somewhat reasonable and I have about five times the paperwork on a Saturday. No kidding. Usually, the morning person helps out by subtotaling everything that I'm going to make a final total on that night, as well as getting everything ready for the deposit and the paperwork. It's not much, but it definitely helps. The chances of me leaving on a Saturday before eleven at night are slim to none (I managed it this last Saturday, and was out the door with five minutes to spare).
After I came back from Vegas, a number of things started happening in the cash office, other than the supervisor and the next higher-up sniping at each other throughout the day. They started to leave me increasing amounts of work. Throughout the day, we're not allowed to leave more than two thousand dollars in a till, for security and safety reason. Whenever anyone is off shift and someone else gets on their till, we have to bring it in and spot check it first, floating it back to three hundred dollars, so we can tell who is making the mistakes on cash. They weren't. Morning and afternoon safe counts weren't being done. Paperwork wasn't being completed and taken upstairs to the managers. Lists of phone numbers of people to call to come into work and cover shifts was being left on the desk for me, and usually an hour before the shift needed to be covered, which c'mon, you try and get a teenager to come into work from four to ten on a Friday when it's 3:25 pm on that day.
It just kept building up for weeks, so I finally snapped. I complained to my store manager, Terry. Thank God he was the one that was closing that night. I ranted for close to an hour, and I was close to tears through some of it as I was telling him that this was complete and utter bullshit. I was taking on practically all the work of the cash office and all the stress, and I was getting pain ten bucks an hour while everyone else went home early and left the work for me to do. I conceded the fact that I agreed to take all night shifts (have I ever been a morning person?), and all nights shifts meant all teenagers, and I knew that it was going to be hard at times, but this was unbelievable. I wanted to go back to being a cashier.
It seems that those were the magic words that got the ball rolling. I hadn't known that there had been a discussion before this about my office between some of the managers, and the conclusion had been that everyone was doing a good job, but Julia was really good at customer service and doing the paperwork and closing the store and damn it, we can't lose her because no one wants to do her job. It didn't take long until the message got to the store owner and he asked me to write out a very simple letter with all the problems happening in the cash office, so that he could address them. So I did.
And then I hunkered down for the shit to hit the fan. Literally, the day after I gave him the letter (I expected it to take longer), I went into work and got pulled out by the front end supervisor for a cigarette staff meeting, and was reamed out. Why didn't I say anything to her, she asked. Well, I did, but the common response was, don't worry, it'll get better. But it didn't. It only got worse.
It was the magical little letter. Everything was fine after that! The morning shift got their work done, and the other woman who works the nights I'm off and I had just our afternoon and closing stuff to do. Hurrah! Then new shit started happening.
Hi, welcome to Extra Foods, where we'll be more than happy to let you steal! The employees seem to think that this is the new motto. We literally started catching people all at once in different departments. The worst? Front end. Five teenagers in particular. I was the lucky one that they seemed to target (to be fair, I'm the youngest in the cash office, so I'm closest to their age, I talk to them when it's slow, and there are people that have asked to be scheduled specifically with me because I'm the most easy-going of the cash office). They started to learn that they could scan items in and then void them off the bill, leaving only one small item to pay for. What they didn't realize is that in our office, we have a computer that's strictly used to look at the electronic journal roll. Basically, it's a copy of every single order that goes through every single till. It wasn't hard to filter the results by their number, the date they worked, and what till. I think the stack of paperwork we have on them is almost an inch thick at this point. And last Sunday, we actually caught them doing it with cigarettes behind the customer service counter. Which, is not only stealing, but giving it to a minor, which means the store can get nailed for it. Someone from head office, and someone from loss prevention is there today (and hopefully will be gone by the time my shift starts) so hopefully this is all going to be over and done with. On the other hand...knowing my luck, I'm gonna have a bunch of angry teenagers. Grr.
Thus endeth the work update.
And Grandma isn't doing so well. She's been in and out of the hospitals lately. They had her up at St. Paul's for almost a month, because of the heart failure and pneumonia (isn't St. Paul's the old people's hospital? I seem to remember calling it that for some reason). Oh, and the kidney failure. They finally sent her home once her lungs cleared and she was able to walk up and down a flight of eight stairs with minimal difficulty. That was all fine and dandy. However.
In the hospital, in order to clear up all the fluid that was accumulating in her, they had her on water pills. Huzzah, they worked! And then they took her off of them when they released her. Bad idea. A day and a half after she came home, she passed out again, and we had to call an ambulance to take her back to the hospital. Now that she's there in Squamish, and it's been awhile, they've given us two choices. Either take her home and take care of her or send her to an old-folks home. This is where I start to get angry. We HAVE one in Squamish. We have Hilltop. But despite the fact that my grandmother has lived in Squamish for fifty years, she can't get in there. Nope. In fact, she'll never see the inside of Hilltop. Instead, they'll ship her off to West Vancouver. How does that help her? Yes, she'll be surrounded by medical care professionals and other people, but not her family. I had an aunt who was sent to West Vancouver. Because her family couldn't afford to go and see her constantly, she had nothing left to live for. Literally. She died not long after they sent her there. And I definitely don't want that happening to Grandma.
So, instead, we're changing the house around a bit. We still have all the tubing for the oxygen system in the walls from when Grandpa was still alive, and we're installing benches for the shower and bars on the walls in certain rooms so that she'll be able to get around. Of course, as soon as they told us that we could take her home after Thanksgiving, she started to get worse again. All the fluid is building up and putting a strain on her heart, so she's not doing good. If she comes out, I'll be moving up to the house and modifying my work hours, because she won't be able to be left alone. I helped take care of my grandfather towards the end, so that's not a problem. I've done it before. I've wiped asses and emptied pee containers with minimal gagging.
But I know that we're just going to end up sending her back to the hospital later on, so really, what's the point of sending her home? She'll probably be home for a day again before this all happens again and we have to call for an ambulance. Now that's a sad fucking existence, going home when you know you're going to have to go back up, but then she'll be a new patient, and it'll be a month before they threaten to ship her off again.
Thus endeth the Grandma update.
As for the manager-type-person...
We're most certainly not sexually compatible.
Not happening again.
Thus endeth the Manager-type-person update.
The More You Know...*cue music and shooting star*
This is one of the bigger ones, so this where be where I'm starting from.
One thing that annoys me about work is that although I work in the cash office, and I'm technically in charge of front end for forty hours a week (minus overlap time with other cash office people) and I have a shiny key that dangled from my arm, I'm only a junior cashier. Which means that I shouldn't have to deal with the headache of say...the front end supervisor. Scheduling (other than when people no-show or call in sick) and pay roll are just a few things that I shouldn't be touching. Same as a period end close.
Each period is four weeks long. Every Saturday, we do a week end close. The rest of the nights, we do a night close. A week end close is more annoying, has a lot more paperwork, and is a little more delicate. I need to make sure that the safes are completely balanced, I need to make sure that the tills and the over/short report are somewhat reasonable and I have about five times the paperwork on a Saturday. No kidding. Usually, the morning person helps out by subtotaling everything that I'm going to make a final total on that night, as well as getting everything ready for the deposit and the paperwork. It's not much, but it definitely helps. The chances of me leaving on a Saturday before eleven at night are slim to none (I managed it this last Saturday, and was out the door with five minutes to spare).
After I came back from Vegas, a number of things started happening in the cash office, other than the supervisor and the next higher-up sniping at each other throughout the day. They started to leave me increasing amounts of work. Throughout the day, we're not allowed to leave more than two thousand dollars in a till, for security and safety reason. Whenever anyone is off shift and someone else gets on their till, we have to bring it in and spot check it first, floating it back to three hundred dollars, so we can tell who is making the mistakes on cash. They weren't. Morning and afternoon safe counts weren't being done. Paperwork wasn't being completed and taken upstairs to the managers. Lists of phone numbers of people to call to come into work and cover shifts was being left on the desk for me, and usually an hour before the shift needed to be covered, which c'mon, you try and get a teenager to come into work from four to ten on a Friday when it's 3:25 pm on that day.
It just kept building up for weeks, so I finally snapped. I complained to my store manager, Terry. Thank God he was the one that was closing that night. I ranted for close to an hour, and I was close to tears through some of it as I was telling him that this was complete and utter bullshit. I was taking on practically all the work of the cash office and all the stress, and I was getting pain ten bucks an hour while everyone else went home early and left the work for me to do. I conceded the fact that I agreed to take all night shifts (have I ever been a morning person?), and all nights shifts meant all teenagers, and I knew that it was going to be hard at times, but this was unbelievable. I wanted to go back to being a cashier.
It seems that those were the magic words that got the ball rolling. I hadn't known that there had been a discussion before this about my office between some of the managers, and the conclusion had been that everyone was doing a good job, but Julia was really good at customer service and doing the paperwork and closing the store and damn it, we can't lose her because no one wants to do her job. It didn't take long until the message got to the store owner and he asked me to write out a very simple letter with all the problems happening in the cash office, so that he could address them. So I did.
And then I hunkered down for the shit to hit the fan. Literally, the day after I gave him the letter (I expected it to take longer), I went into work and got pulled out by the front end supervisor for a cigarette staff meeting, and was reamed out. Why didn't I say anything to her, she asked. Well, I did, but the common response was, don't worry, it'll get better. But it didn't. It only got worse.
It was the magical little letter. Everything was fine after that! The morning shift got their work done, and the other woman who works the nights I'm off and I had just our afternoon and closing stuff to do. Hurrah! Then new shit started happening.
Hi, welcome to Extra Foods, where we'll be more than happy to let you steal! The employees seem to think that this is the new motto. We literally started catching people all at once in different departments. The worst? Front end. Five teenagers in particular. I was the lucky one that they seemed to target (to be fair, I'm the youngest in the cash office, so I'm closest to their age, I talk to them when it's slow, and there are people that have asked to be scheduled specifically with me because I'm the most easy-going of the cash office). They started to learn that they could scan items in and then void them off the bill, leaving only one small item to pay for. What they didn't realize is that in our office, we have a computer that's strictly used to look at the electronic journal roll. Basically, it's a copy of every single order that goes through every single till. It wasn't hard to filter the results by their number, the date they worked, and what till. I think the stack of paperwork we have on them is almost an inch thick at this point. And last Sunday, we actually caught them doing it with cigarettes behind the customer service counter. Which, is not only stealing, but giving it to a minor, which means the store can get nailed for it. Someone from head office, and someone from loss prevention is there today (and hopefully will be gone by the time my shift starts) so hopefully this is all going to be over and done with. On the other hand...knowing my luck, I'm gonna have a bunch of angry teenagers. Grr.
Thus endeth the work update.
And Grandma isn't doing so well. She's been in and out of the hospitals lately. They had her up at St. Paul's for almost a month, because of the heart failure and pneumonia (isn't St. Paul's the old people's hospital? I seem to remember calling it that for some reason). Oh, and the kidney failure. They finally sent her home once her lungs cleared and she was able to walk up and down a flight of eight stairs with minimal difficulty. That was all fine and dandy. However.
In the hospital, in order to clear up all the fluid that was accumulating in her, they had her on water pills. Huzzah, they worked! And then they took her off of them when they released her. Bad idea. A day and a half after she came home, she passed out again, and we had to call an ambulance to take her back to the hospital. Now that she's there in Squamish, and it's been awhile, they've given us two choices. Either take her home and take care of her or send her to an old-folks home. This is where I start to get angry. We HAVE one in Squamish. We have Hilltop. But despite the fact that my grandmother has lived in Squamish for fifty years, she can't get in there. Nope. In fact, she'll never see the inside of Hilltop. Instead, they'll ship her off to West Vancouver. How does that help her? Yes, she'll be surrounded by medical care professionals and other people, but not her family. I had an aunt who was sent to West Vancouver. Because her family couldn't afford to go and see her constantly, she had nothing left to live for. Literally. She died not long after they sent her there. And I definitely don't want that happening to Grandma.
So, instead, we're changing the house around a bit. We still have all the tubing for the oxygen system in the walls from when Grandpa was still alive, and we're installing benches for the shower and bars on the walls in certain rooms so that she'll be able to get around. Of course, as soon as they told us that we could take her home after Thanksgiving, she started to get worse again. All the fluid is building up and putting a strain on her heart, so she's not doing good. If she comes out, I'll be moving up to the house and modifying my work hours, because she won't be able to be left alone. I helped take care of my grandfather towards the end, so that's not a problem. I've done it before. I've wiped asses and emptied pee containers with minimal gagging.
But I know that we're just going to end up sending her back to the hospital later on, so really, what's the point of sending her home? She'll probably be home for a day again before this all happens again and we have to call for an ambulance. Now that's a sad fucking existence, going home when you know you're going to have to go back up, but then she'll be a new patient, and it'll be a month before they threaten to ship her off again.
Thus endeth the Grandma update.
As for the manager-type-person...
We're most certainly not sexually compatible.
Not happening again.
Thus endeth the Manager-type-person update.
The More You Know...*cue music and shooting star*