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chrystallineWell, a lot has changed since I last posted, and as usual, I have a huge-long-summary of it all. I'd call it tl;dr if it weren't for the fact that, well, some folks seem to like reading it all;)
At the end of September I took an entry-level cashier job at a new branch of a much-loved chain, just to make some money to pay bills. Freelancing has some good points, but it takes a lot more focus than I've been willing to do in order to make a good living at it. I like variety, not repetitive tedium. More on that later.
Anyway, I had no idea what I was in for - the backlogged demand for this store resulted in MASSIVE crowds as soon as it opened. Company-record-breaking crowds. Trial-by-fire-for-us-newbies crowds. STRESS. OVERTIME. At least the overtime meant more money.
By the end of October, I was sick. It started out with a sore throat and general exhaustion, which I'd been ignoring until that last Monday, when it felt like razors in my throat and I finally called in so I could get some sleep. Had to get a doctor's excuse for work (thought I'd left that behind in school!) so I had to go to the doctor's office for the first time in about fifteen years. By the time I got to see the doctor, the painkillers had kicked in and I was feeling pretty good. I figured I'd have no trouble going back to work the next day, so I had the excuse written to reflect that. I regretted it the next day, as I was feeling awful.
The doctor's office wouldn't extend the excuse, so I went to work anyway. I made it through Tuesday and Wednesday, and by Wednesday night, I had completely lost my voice. That never happened to me before, and I found it both frustrating (since part of the cashiers' job is answering the phone and talking to customers at the counter) and frightening, since singing is a huge part of my self-identity, not to mention part of my relaxation habits. I had Thursday and Friday off, and since I wasn't getting any better, my mom took Friday afternoon off work to take me to the doctor (she had to call for the appointment since I couldn't talk) and then to get my prescription, and then to take me to see my manager so I could give him the doctor's note explaining that I'd be off the next two days to try to recover.
I'll spare you the disgusting details, but suffice it to say that the sore throat had been compounded with an opportunistic sinus infection that was REALLY hard to kick. It took a week to recover my ability to speak at all, and I still have some gaps in my voice when I try to sing along with my CDs. (It's amazing how many people think it's funny when others lose their voices - if I had a dollar for every "You're every man's ideal woman right now!" and "Where'd you lose it? Can I help you look for it?" I could have gone without working during that week.) It took the whole month of November to recover completely, except for the last remnants of voice trouble. So much for NaNoWriMo.
On the other hand, I've become quite good at what I'm doing. I have always been good with people, and I've worked a lot of cash registers in my life. This one is computer-based (complete with total touch screen interface - no keyboards) and keycard secured (so no one but you can access your cash drawer), so it's not all that surprising that I'm pretty good at it. I know that sounds arrogant, but seriously - I've been helping some of the managers figure out what to do with certain scenarios because I'm better with computers than they are. That's not to say I'm perfect, but most of the time, I only need the managers to come help me because I don't have the authority to do what needs to be done (voids and so forth) so I need them to swipe their keycards. Looks like it'll be about a year before I can apply to move up toward a management position there, assuming things progress well, so we'll have to see what happens there.
On a more amusing note, people can be endlessly funny. I've got one anecdote I'm trying to write up for submission to Reader's Digest, since they pay rather nicely for funny stories. If they don't take it, I'll post it here later.
There are a few folks there who drive me nuts, and there's some inter-departmental friction that's not good, but since the place hasn't even been open six months yet, I think we're still ironing out some bugs. We're still drawing corporate attention due to better-than-predicted sales, so there's pressure to get things running smoothly even beyond the fact that I tend to be a perfectionist when it comes to work. I mentioned to the general manager the other night that I was an A student in high school, as a way of explaining how embarrassing it was to be off count in my register - he seemed to completely miss the correlation. Oh well. At any rate, we're trying to get things working right, but it's a bit like preparing your car for a long drive to visit family and ending up in the Indy 500.
The strain is noticeable - my mom's been taking a keen interest in my progress and encouraging me to pursue management, and in a conversation this afternoon before I went to work, she pointed out my tendency to throw myself into something new and give it my all, only to get burned out and quit. This was food for thought; nobody had ever encapsulated my personality quite like that before. I really am like that. I do things fast and furious and wear myself out, and then I'm tired and cranky and I just want OUT and that ruins everything. Mom said I need to learn to pace myself; I said I don't know how, and she countered with, "That's why I said you need to LEARN." I was a little exasperated - learn from WHOM?
With regard to my goals, I've really only gotten the cards printed. I think they're kind of nice, all pretty font for my name, with a plainer font for the URLs and email/phone. The NovaCon got moved, so I didn't do that yet, either. I've applied to be staff at DragonCon, but I have a bad feeling they might turn me down since I've never been to DragonCon as a fan before. It's early yet, but we'll see. Nano was a bust, as seen above, but I have a pretty good outline of a fantasy story. I'm giving thought to self-publishing it POD (maybe even through my CP shop). I'd like to think it's better than the average self-published story, but I have to finish it first.
I've overhauled my LJ layout, because I can't stop tinkering with it. (If I could get paid to tinker with LJ/Blogger/CP/WP layouts, that would be GREAT, but most folks aren't looking to pay for that) I haven't figured out how to do everything I want with it yet, but I'm working on that. I may have to get into the code to find a way to display my public friends groups, since I don't want to hard-code links for all of them. I have too many communities and RSS feeds on my friends list - I need to separate them by category to make it manageable. If you've looked at my friends page, you may have noticed it's just people, not communities. That's because I found out how to make a default page and specified only the people, because otherwise you'd have to go back twenty pages to get to yesterday;)
Anyway, that's what I've been up to for the last three months or so;)
At the end of September I took an entry-level cashier job at a new branch of a much-loved chain, just to make some money to pay bills. Freelancing has some good points, but it takes a lot more focus than I've been willing to do in order to make a good living at it. I like variety, not repetitive tedium. More on that later.
Anyway, I had no idea what I was in for - the backlogged demand for this store resulted in MASSIVE crowds as soon as it opened. Company-record-breaking crowds. Trial-by-fire-for-us-newbies crowds. STRESS. OVERTIME. At least the overtime meant more money.
By the end of October, I was sick. It started out with a sore throat and general exhaustion, which I'd been ignoring until that last Monday, when it felt like razors in my throat and I finally called in so I could get some sleep. Had to get a doctor's excuse for work (thought I'd left that behind in school!) so I had to go to the doctor's office for the first time in about fifteen years. By the time I got to see the doctor, the painkillers had kicked in and I was feeling pretty good. I figured I'd have no trouble going back to work the next day, so I had the excuse written to reflect that. I regretted it the next day, as I was feeling awful.
The doctor's office wouldn't extend the excuse, so I went to work anyway. I made it through Tuesday and Wednesday, and by Wednesday night, I had completely lost my voice. That never happened to me before, and I found it both frustrating (since part of the cashiers' job is answering the phone and talking to customers at the counter) and frightening, since singing is a huge part of my self-identity, not to mention part of my relaxation habits. I had Thursday and Friday off, and since I wasn't getting any better, my mom took Friday afternoon off work to take me to the doctor (she had to call for the appointment since I couldn't talk) and then to get my prescription, and then to take me to see my manager so I could give him the doctor's note explaining that I'd be off the next two days to try to recover.
I'll spare you the disgusting details, but suffice it to say that the sore throat had been compounded with an opportunistic sinus infection that was REALLY hard to kick. It took a week to recover my ability to speak at all, and I still have some gaps in my voice when I try to sing along with my CDs. (It's amazing how many people think it's funny when others lose their voices - if I had a dollar for every "You're every man's ideal woman right now!" and "Where'd you lose it? Can I help you look for it?" I could have gone without working during that week.) It took the whole month of November to recover completely, except for the last remnants of voice trouble. So much for NaNoWriMo.
On the other hand, I've become quite good at what I'm doing. I have always been good with people, and I've worked a lot of cash registers in my life. This one is computer-based (complete with total touch screen interface - no keyboards) and keycard secured (so no one but you can access your cash drawer), so it's not all that surprising that I'm pretty good at it. I know that sounds arrogant, but seriously - I've been helping some of the managers figure out what to do with certain scenarios because I'm better with computers than they are. That's not to say I'm perfect, but most of the time, I only need the managers to come help me because I don't have the authority to do what needs to be done (voids and so forth) so I need them to swipe their keycards. Looks like it'll be about a year before I can apply to move up toward a management position there, assuming things progress well, so we'll have to see what happens there.
On a more amusing note, people can be endlessly funny. I've got one anecdote I'm trying to write up for submission to Reader's Digest, since they pay rather nicely for funny stories. If they don't take it, I'll post it here later.
There are a few folks there who drive me nuts, and there's some inter-departmental friction that's not good, but since the place hasn't even been open six months yet, I think we're still ironing out some bugs. We're still drawing corporate attention due to better-than-predicted sales, so there's pressure to get things running smoothly even beyond the fact that I tend to be a perfectionist when it comes to work. I mentioned to the general manager the other night that I was an A student in high school, as a way of explaining how embarrassing it was to be off count in my register - he seemed to completely miss the correlation. Oh well. At any rate, we're trying to get things working right, but it's a bit like preparing your car for a long drive to visit family and ending up in the Indy 500.
The strain is noticeable - my mom's been taking a keen interest in my progress and encouraging me to pursue management, and in a conversation this afternoon before I went to work, she pointed out my tendency to throw myself into something new and give it my all, only to get burned out and quit. This was food for thought; nobody had ever encapsulated my personality quite like that before. I really am like that. I do things fast and furious and wear myself out, and then I'm tired and cranky and I just want OUT and that ruins everything. Mom said I need to learn to pace myself; I said I don't know how, and she countered with, "That's why I said you need to LEARN." I was a little exasperated - learn from WHOM?
With regard to my goals, I've really only gotten the cards printed. I think they're kind of nice, all pretty font for my name, with a plainer font for the URLs and email/phone. The NovaCon got moved, so I didn't do that yet, either. I've applied to be staff at DragonCon, but I have a bad feeling they might turn me down since I've never been to DragonCon as a fan before. It's early yet, but we'll see. Nano was a bust, as seen above, but I have a pretty good outline of a fantasy story. I'm giving thought to self-publishing it POD (maybe even through my CP shop). I'd like to think it's better than the average self-published story, but I have to finish it first.
I've overhauled my LJ layout, because I can't stop tinkering with it. (If I could get paid to tinker with LJ/Blogger/CP/WP layouts, that would be GREAT, but most folks aren't looking to pay for that) I haven't figured out how to do everything I want with it yet, but I'm working on that. I may have to get into the code to find a way to display my public friends groups, since I don't want to hard-code links for all of them. I have too many communities and RSS feeds on my friends list - I need to separate them by category to make it manageable. If you've looked at my friends page, you may have noticed it's just people, not communities. That's because I found out how to make a default page and specified only the people, because otherwise you'd have to go back twenty pages to get to yesterday;)
Anyway, that's what I've been up to for the last three months or so;)
