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A little earlier this week I was on my own, as our Manager was taking a well-deserved couple of days off. As such, it was technically my first day in the store without the Manager for backup. I was nervous and hadn't slept well the evening prior, but I figured that's par for the course for me. My mind tends to think of all the possible negative situations that could happen, and then when they don't happen, I heave a sigh of relief.
So, Monday at 8am, I arrive, and I'm the only one on the Sales staff until noon, and then there's another to cover for me at 4. Fair enough, I get out all the signage and merchandise the product, and things are looking good.
Around noon, one of my co-workers comes in, and he's a good worker but we've had a little trouble with his short fuse. He's recognizing it but it'll take some time for him to lengthen that cord a bit. In any case, the two of us work well together, but while working one of the cupboard covers falls off at our feet. Thankfully, no-one punctured their feet on the screws or anything, but that was odd and I noted it down.
A customer comes in to order some German Rye Bread for the following day, and wants to pick it up around 10. I know from other stores that if a special-order bread comes out early in the day we need Manager or Baker approval, but as the customer said that if we couldn't make it, she would buy something else, so we put the order down for the Bakers and crossed our fingers. (I'm happy to report that it's an easy bread to make so they made a batch of 5, the customer got their loaf, and someone later came in and bought 3 of the loaves almost on-sight, so I'd say we did good. :D)
The repair guy came in to look at a few things - one was the slicer (dull blades, easy replacement later) and the other was the mixer (bearings were going, and that's obviously a critical piece of equipment that takes a full day of work!). Since it was just a visit to look at the equipment, nothing was fixed that day but I signed-off on the inspections/reports.
Here was the real issue. At 4pm, when I was to head home and a co-worker was to arrive, she called in sick. Unfortunately, I had no luck in finding a replacement, and so I had to start calling other stores. However, when I realized that it was 5:30, it would take an hour for someone to arrive, and then it would only be for an hour of work, I decided that I had no choice but to stay the whole shift. It shouldn't be too bad, I did want to go to TOPL that evening as it was the final evening for a pair of good friends before they moved to Nova Scotia (!), but I figured I can wait for the store to close and then go to visit. The store closes at 7:30 followed by cleanup, and TOPL started at 8, so I wasn't going to go for the gaming portion, but at least to pop my head in and say hi.
So, we manage to make it through the shift, it was a rather busy day for a Monday, all things considered, and then the Charity is supposed to show up at closing (7:30) to pick up the leftover bread. Supposed< to, guess who didn't appear? O_o So here we are with our end-of-day stock and nowhere to dump it (and I really felt bad about dumping it in the bins, we donate it all to charity every night, even one night of wasted food sucks). So after half an hour of waiting and cleaning, I made the decision to open the doors again and just give the bread out to people. For free. You would not believe the people's eyes when I told them "It's on the house - the charity didn't show up tonight so I'd prefer to give it to you rather than throw it away". And within about half-an-hour, we had mostly cleaned-out the store. People must've been telling others because the store was never busier that day. XD Heck, who can pass up free bread? :D
Once we finally managed to lock the door back up at 8:30, we bagged up the leftover breads, binned the buns (it was pretty much all that was left), and closed up. I took the leftover bread out to TOPL and offered it to anyone who wanted it - after all, the TOPL people were my inspiration to the name behind the Silver Ball Bakery, and I hadn't been around for a long time, so it was good to catch-up with them, see what they were up to, and hand out some of the product. :)
Despite the issues that happened that day (and as Charles refers to it, my "Trial By Fire"), I think I did alright for my first day on my own. I know I have a 10-day streak at the end of September when the manager goes on vacation, and that will involve me making orders, keeping track of inventory, and paying people, so I gotta get myself all prepared to learn for the next few weeks! :D
~~
Y'know what's kinda cool about making this leap? (Aside from everything?) I'm not that hurting for money as I thought I would be. Compared to when I was working at Bell, I'm only less $400 a month. Taking into consideration that Bell had benefits (which haven't kicked in for me yet at COBS), stock options, and a pension plan, I'm still making a decent amount of money and I'm in a lower tax bracket. When I did my initial calculations, I thought I was going to lose closer to $800/month through a simple math calculation, so to have $400 more than expected is a nice little bonus. I would almost say that I'm making similar pay with an enriched life. :D It's kinda insane that I'm able to work here and not have to be concerned about the money! It takes such a weight off my shoulders...
So, Monday at 8am, I arrive, and I'm the only one on the Sales staff until noon, and then there's another to cover for me at 4. Fair enough, I get out all the signage and merchandise the product, and things are looking good.
Around noon, one of my co-workers comes in, and he's a good worker but we've had a little trouble with his short fuse. He's recognizing it but it'll take some time for him to lengthen that cord a bit. In any case, the two of us work well together, but while working one of the cupboard covers falls off at our feet. Thankfully, no-one punctured their feet on the screws or anything, but that was odd and I noted it down.
A customer comes in to order some German Rye Bread for the following day, and wants to pick it up around 10. I know from other stores that if a special-order bread comes out early in the day we need Manager or Baker approval, but as the customer said that if we couldn't make it, she would buy something else, so we put the order down for the Bakers and crossed our fingers. (I'm happy to report that it's an easy bread to make so they made a batch of 5, the customer got their loaf, and someone later came in and bought 3 of the loaves almost on-sight, so I'd say we did good. :D)
The repair guy came in to look at a few things - one was the slicer (dull blades, easy replacement later) and the other was the mixer (bearings were going, and that's obviously a critical piece of equipment that takes a full day of work!). Since it was just a visit to look at the equipment, nothing was fixed that day but I signed-off on the inspections/reports.
Here was the real issue. At 4pm, when I was to head home and a co-worker was to arrive, she called in sick. Unfortunately, I had no luck in finding a replacement, and so I had to start calling other stores. However, when I realized that it was 5:30, it would take an hour for someone to arrive, and then it would only be for an hour of work, I decided that I had no choice but to stay the whole shift. It shouldn't be too bad, I did want to go to TOPL that evening as it was the final evening for a pair of good friends before they moved to Nova Scotia (!), but I figured I can wait for the store to close and then go to visit. The store closes at 7:30 followed by cleanup, and TOPL started at 8, so I wasn't going to go for the gaming portion, but at least to pop my head in and say hi.
So, we manage to make it through the shift, it was a rather busy day for a Monday, all things considered, and then the Charity is supposed to show up at closing (7:30) to pick up the leftover bread. Supposed< to, guess who didn't appear? O_o So here we are with our end-of-day stock and nowhere to dump it (and I really felt bad about dumping it in the bins, we donate it all to charity every night, even one night of wasted food sucks). So after half an hour of waiting and cleaning, I made the decision to open the doors again and just give the bread out to people. For free. You would not believe the people's eyes when I told them "It's on the house - the charity didn't show up tonight so I'd prefer to give it to you rather than throw it away". And within about half-an-hour, we had mostly cleaned-out the store. People must've been telling others because the store was never busier that day. XD Heck, who can pass up free bread? :D
Once we finally managed to lock the door back up at 8:30, we bagged up the leftover breads, binned the buns (it was pretty much all that was left), and closed up. I took the leftover bread out to TOPL and offered it to anyone who wanted it - after all, the TOPL people were my inspiration to the name behind the Silver Ball Bakery, and I hadn't been around for a long time, so it was good to catch-up with them, see what they were up to, and hand out some of the product. :)
Despite the issues that happened that day (and as Charles refers to it, my "Trial By Fire"), I think I did alright for my first day on my own. I know I have a 10-day streak at the end of September when the manager goes on vacation, and that will involve me making orders, keeping track of inventory, and paying people, so I gotta get myself all prepared to learn for the next few weeks! :D
~~
Y'know what's kinda cool about making this leap? (Aside from everything?) I'm not that hurting for money as I thought I would be. Compared to when I was working at Bell, I'm only less $400 a month. Taking into consideration that Bell had benefits (which haven't kicked in for me yet at COBS), stock options, and a pension plan, I'm still making a decent amount of money and I'm in a lower tax bracket. When I did my initial calculations, I thought I was going to lose closer to $800/month through a simple math calculation, so to have $400 more than expected is a nice little bonus. I would almost say that I'm making similar pay with an enriched life. :D It's kinda insane that I'm able to work here and not have to be concerned about the money! It takes such a weight off my shoulders...