MY LIFE - NOVEMBER

Friday, November 24, 2000

Today was a pretty easy day for me, if not incredibly boring up until the time I got off work. The roughest part of the day was negotiating some tricky traffic in the morning that made me a half hour late for work and could've really put a bad spin on the day. Thankfully, nothing major happened after that and I was able to relatively enjoy my day.

Of course, it helps when you don't get any calls from your home store asking if you can help out for a few hours because it's busy. I didn't get that call from my store though and was able to go home at 5, a half hour earlier than I was supposed to, but because I didn't take a lunch, I was allowed to leave early. I went home and cleaned myself up to get myself ready for the second part of my day, which was to go and buy some clothes.

I am not a shopper. That much is certain. Unless I'm with someone else, I do not feel comfortable sitting in a store looking at clothes that I don't really want to buy even though I might like them or even need them.

I cannot tolerate crowds very well since I don't like trying to move past swarms of people who have no clue what they're looking for.

Of course, I choose the start of the shopping season for christmas to go and try and find some clothes and some new boots/shoes for work. I never said I was going to gain points for doing overly intelligent things all the time, but I was grateful just to find a parking spot in the mall. It was reasonably close too so I didn't have to walk six miles, then walk back because the place is closed by the time I get there.

Of course, I didn't actually buy anything at the mall since I'm not a really big fan of the clothes offered in any of the stores. I don't particularly care for Tommy Hilfiger or Nautica, or any of the other ones for that matter. I'm not paying $50 for one shirt. Not even if it's on sale for $15 or $20 off. I'm not blowing that much money on a shirt like that.

It may sound like I'm cheap, but I needed at least two or three shirts and spending $150 soley on shirts does not sit well with me, especially with bills well up over $400 a month, and that's not including my car insurance which I pay every six months and is $600 for half a year of coverage. So I'm not going to go out and blow my money on shit like that.

It would kill me right away.

I ended up going to Kohl's where I was able to find three button-up shirts that I could at work and when I'm just hanging out somewhere, plus three new ties to try and give myself some more variety than what I have right now. Oh, and I also bought a pair of Sketchers to wear to work that were under $50. I ended up spending $149 at Kohl's and got a whole lot more than I would've been able to get at the mall.

Then I went off to Target to buy some cat litter, see what CD's I might be interested in buying they had, and look at some other things as well like gloves. I even told myself walking in to make sure I buy some gloves so that I could shovel snow when needed. I was immediately distracted upon walking in and completely forgot about the gloves until I was leaving.

In the meantime, I picked up some cat litter, a bottle of motor oil for my car, and Wu-Tang Clan's new CD, "The W." Then, as I was walking out, I suddenly remembered about buying gloves, but said "fuck it" and kept on walking since I didn't really feel like going back in.

I still had one more stop, but if I ever wanted to make it there, or home for that matter, I would have to go and get some gas for the first time in a week and a half. My car amazes me how much gas it doesn't use up. I used to have to get gas every three or four days for a couple of reasons. Now I go once a week, at best. The shorter trip to work is helping, as is the fact that I'm not driving as much as I did when I first bought the car.

My last stop was at Tops to get some subs and a couple dinners for me to eat at work next week. I also picked up the latest "Nintendo Power" and had to go through a little discussion with the female cashier who was around my age (who also was very happy to have a boy come through her line, as she put it) on why I was buying a Nintendo Power with Pikachu on the cover. I had to explain that I didn't actually like Pokemon and that the magazine was for another reason and she let it go at that.

I went home, tried on my shirts (they all fit thankfully), and spent the rest of the evening resting and watching a little tv. It was after 11 when I got home, so I wasn't really interested in doing a whole lot. After all the working I've done this week plus everything extra, I really don't have a whole lot left in me and I have four straight days of work coming at my store.

I've worked almost 53 hours this week and that's an absurd number of hours to be working no matter where you work, especially if you're an hourly working in retail. 53 hours and I should be getting paid for the holiday as well, so I'll be getting paid for 61 hours. The money sounds really good and all, but right now, I just would like a little bit of a break from all the action.

Sunday's probably going to be the longest day for me. I work 4pm until midnight and it's usually pretty quiet after 8 or 9 at night. I don't think there's anyone else tech-wise working after 8 either, which means it will be Steve and myself for four hours.

That will give me a chance to go over some things with him on the lead tech mess and some other issues I want to bring up. I also want to make sure it's clear to Steve that I don't intend to use certain tactics as a way for me to get what I want.

I bring this up because earlier this week, there were whispers that a couple of techs and at least one of the pharmacists were threatening to quit if more help wasn't brought in. I do know of at least two techs that would qualify as people who would threaten such a thing and I know at least one of the pharmacists has talked about quitting for any number of reasons.

It would take an awful lot for me to just up and quit the job. I knew what I was getting into when I agreed to transfer, so the lack of help is an inconvenience for me at this point and not something that would make me quit. I also think it's rather gutless to threaten to quit over a lack of help because there's not a whole lot Steve can do accept keep trying to get people in.

I also think the finger pointing and backstabbing of Steve is stupid. How is the store supposed to function when I hear a pharmacist make a comment like "This might be my last night. I can't stand to even look at Steve anymore." How is that helping the situation? This all stems to a script a few weeks back that he took care of too. One pharmacist seems to think that Steve likes to break the law because of what he did one night.

Apparently someone brought in a script that was fraudulent and Steve called the doctor on the script to check it out. The doctor ended up okaying the script after all, so Steve was legally bound to dispense the medication. The pharmacist upset over this seems to think that because the script was fraudulent, Steve should have never filled anything at all. The problem with that though is that Steve did what he was supposed to do and the doctor ended up okaying the medicine anyway.

If this pharmacist is upset at anyone, it should be the doctor for okaying it, not at Steve for doing his job. But that will never happen as this pharmacist is very stubborn in what they believe and likes to take everything as personal. I would personally just like to smack them once and tell them to get over it. It's old news so stop bringing it back up like it's a joke.

I would never quit over a dispute myself, nor do I drag things on. I get over it and move on with my life. There are more important things in life than holding a grudge over something stupid like what I've seen go on. Yes, I do get mad at some things that go on, but I move past them. The same person I'm mad at one minute is the same person I'm joking around with the next.

I'm not a quitter. I don't like to give up. It's not who I am. This store is not going to make me crazy either, aside from the little experiment I pulled in yesterday's entry. That was just me being weird.

There's a difference.