Chapter 85
Under and Over Achievers
It’s been a long time since I’ve written. Just to update a little bit, I am done training for my job and am actually doing it! It’s crazy. Some days I hate it and never want to go back and luckily the next day I have a good day where I decide that I love this job and think it’s the greatest. So it alternates, maybe, if I’m lucky there will be two or three days in a row where I love it. Last Friday I took a chance on an unknown kid, she came about 40 minutes late for training and I know what TDH would have done, he would have told her to go home and he would have someone call her to reschedule. I went ahead and asked first if she could stay an extra 40 minutes after her scheduled time, she said ‘yes’ so I told her I could train her. Then the hard part started. Not only did I have a girl there that I was training past the 15 minute cut off but I had to deal with the bitchiest manager in the company. I was talking to Wheezy about it on Saturday and he said that he’s gone out (not on a date but with a group of people) with that manager because she’s best friends with one of our old managers and she is pretty much the same way in social settings too. So I had to deal with her and she was pretty much complaining about this girl, “She’s not coming here is she?” “Oh, no,” I assure her, “you get the one who is ready to kiss some ass.” Then later she comes up and says, “Do you know she has a tongue ring?” and I had noticed, but since she was late to training I hadn’t gone over the uniform check, so I made a mental note to go over all of that. I told the manager that yes, I knew and that I was going to be talking to her about it. So when that day of training was all done, completely done, the other trainee had left and I went over the first part of training with the girl, I talked to her. I got serious and told her that ‘yes’ I had given her a chance on training, I understood that traffic could be tough to work around however she’d better have her store’s number in her cell phone and give them a call if she is stuck in traffic. I told her that I had taken a chance on her and asked her not to prove that decision to be a bad one. Then I told her that I noticed that she had a tongue ring and asked if she was able to take it out yet. She said she could and I said that she needed to and that she should never have it in her mouth at work. I also got on her about her belt and told her that she needed to try and get a solid one; she had too much decorative stuff on it. I passed her in training because aside from being slow to help bag she didn’t seem to not get it. It’s so much easier with cashiers to figure out if they don’t understand or just don’t care. Sometimes I just want to tell these kids that if they don’t want the job they didn’t have to take it, there are plenty of people looking for work. I personally think she was late on Friday because she was hanging out with her boyfriend (she had mentioned her boyfriend so I’m not just guessing that she had one) and she smelled like minty cigarettes…my least favorite smell in the world. From now on if someone is 15 minutes late I don’t take them.
Oh and then last Thursday (the day right before tongue ring Friday) I trained this woman who really understood the register, she was really impressive but she wasn’t sure if she wanted to be a cashier anymore. I talked her into staying for the entire training session and I even helped her get out early so she could go pick up her daughter. I told her how impressed I was with her customer service and her register skills and she was going to be working Saturday morning at the store I was going to be training at so I told her I would see her then. I didn’t see her then and I think that she may have called in or just not bothered showing up. I was bummed to say the least because she was good and I thought she had changed her mind. But I suppose she is more stubborn than I thought and had decided four hours into training that she wouldn’t be doing that. She knew before she left Thursday that she wasn’t going to see me Saturday.
Saturday however made up for Friday. I had four cashiers but they were what we call “Promos”. Meaning that they were Courtesy Clerks at work and their managers had decided that they were “worthy” of becoming cashiers. So I had them to train and they were all bright, they all wanted to be cashiers, and even though one in particular didn’t think he was ready to “go live” with real customers they all did exceptionally well with real customers. One of them looked like this guy that I had a huge crush on in high school and it was beginning to creep me out.
When I finished there I went to my store to pick up my paycheck, and I ran into Jaq. He asked me where I had trained today and I told him my usual store and he asked me if it was for Short Pump. At first I thought that the disdain of the bitchy manager traveled fast and Jaq had news of my number one hater. So wearily I said ‘yes’ and then he asked me if I had a particular person in my class. I said ‘yes; and he said that he was his son. Weird! I wish I had known before hand, because then I would have given him a hard time. But he was a nice kid so I shouldn’t punish him just because Jaq and I don’t always get along. But when I thought about it I could see a resemblance, in more ways then one.
In other news, my mom is still on my case about my job. She wants me to go for a full time trainer job at Ukrop’s, but it’s in the food service department and I don’t know anything about Ukrop’s food service, yes, I worked in the deli in Idaho, but that doesn’t mean anything. This is a completely different company. Then she e-mails me jobs at VCU which I should apply for, and I think I will, but I like my job most of the time. She kind of gave me an ultimatum the other day; she said it was the VCU job or the Food trainer. I asked her if it was an ultimatum and she said ‘no’ but I couldn’t help but not believe her. I love my mom, but she needs to back off and let me make my own decisions. My mom also bought a dog…which has been in the family for about a week and I believe she is already getting rid of him. My sister made a good point that my mom is lonely. It’s hard to think about someone being lonely when they have a house with a husband and two kids filling it. But when I thought about it I understood what she meant, it is possible to have people around you but still be lonely. I should know, I’ve felt that way before, and it explains why my mom has been continually trying to get me to move back home. It always starts off with trying to get me to spend the night and then it gets to, “why don’t you just move back in?” I feel bad and sorry, but I can’t move back in. When I was younger my mom would do stuff like this to me, I was in a way her crutch, I’ve always been her crutch and while she’s had the dog she hasn’t mentioned me moving back in. But the dog doesn’t work out because my dad never wanted it in the first place. He said he didn’t want the dog and my mom still went and got him. My parents are lonely, they have each other but they are still lonely. How can that be? If that is what life is going to be like…I don’t want it. How do people keep “the flame” alive? How do they nourish the relationship instead of letting it slide into this dreadful existence from day to day? I want to know what my parents were like when they were young and newly married. I want to know when they became the couple that they are, unable of true communication. They are talking but they aren’t listening to each other.