Last Work Day... Ever!

Work did not go very well today until more than halfway through my shift.

I went into the job extremely frustrated since I've forgotten all the pre-calculus that we learned last year. It wasn't a random burst of stress. I was working on the summer assignment with Courtney before work, and I couldn't do half of the problems. (Hope and Timmy were there too, so I guess you could say it was another fried rice day.) I don't know what is going on. I pray that it's just a summer thing that will go away when school starts... but then again, I did spend this summer working a brainless job, painting and repainting my nails, and getting smacked in the head by people at the pool. (You know who you are. Ahem. :-P) You know. All the stuff that takes away from your academic time while taking away brain cells. So, if I've completely lost my ability to think, I can understand a little bit. It's still no excuse for the ridiculousness of how many problems I couldn't do on that calc packet. For shame!

My first two hours working today was a disaster (grammar?! like, should it be hours..were..disasters? or hours was a..?? =/). First, I was already frustrated from my homework. Secondly, it was my last day, so I was feeling a little slack.. okay extremely slack, and I didn't want to tag anymore clothes. I half-heartedly stuck tags on clothings and stared at customers like they were idiots when I ran the fitting rooms. (Yeah, I know. How can I be so horrible? I'm not sure.)

Well, two hours go by and my assistant manager comes around to tell me that I tagged a whole row of pants wrong. So, I say in a pretty crappy mood that I would fix them. And I did. But then a few minutes later the manager (I guess she got tired of sicking the assistant on me and decided to take care of this herself) comes to scream her head off at me because, apparently, I did not fix the pants correctly. She didn't make me redo them, but she started checking me every ten minutes and screaming "sensor!" when I wasn't working on tagging the clothes. (Yeah, you know, those scary Korean lady types.) I'm pretty annoyed by this point because I thought I had definitely fixed them the second time around. Everything was going badly, so I went on a break when I finished tagging the last rack that was out. I didn't understand why she was so angry. Yes, I tagged them wrong the first time. But the second time, I promise I really didn't do THAT badly.

During break I called Jwong, and I decided (which he agreed to/suggested) that it would be best for me to just suck it up, fake positivity/happiness, and get the job done right. It would be awful to leave on my last day with the manager completely angry at me. That was definitely not the last impression I wanted to leave with the store. Then I went back to work and acted happy and worked diligently. But I got demoted from the tagging position (good riddance) and had to work on putting back clothes and fixing the folded shirts which were a complete mess.

I didn't feel completely better because I knew my manager was still mad at me. So after we closed, I went to talk to her about it. I apologized and told her that I really appreciated her giving me an opportunity to work at the store. In turn, she explained why she was so angry. The day before, I tagged something that was wrong. (Ugh! I don't know why I keep messing up this week! But obviously, I'm not perfect. At anything.) Which completely threw off the merchandise putting out. She owed it to her boss to have all the correct boxes of clothes out everyday, and because I messed up yesterday (whoa harsh, but I deserve this I guess.) we were two boxes behind schedule. Then she said she couldn't get mad at the manager yesterday because he said they were too busy and he couldn't watch what I was doing. What a load of crap. He is just too pansy to take any blame for himself. (Sorry, I don't have much respect for him since I've seen his... people "skills" when it comes to dealing with customers. Anyways, I shouldn't be bashing.) But at least she cleared that up with me. I hate it when people are upset with you or annoyed with you and you don't know why they are that way. I just feel like if I know what is going on, I could at least care more which gives a better chance at fixing or preventing problems. After she told me all of that, I completely understood her anger, and I totally deserved getting yelled at. We aren't on great terms, but at least she knows how sorry I feel and she understands that I didn't mess up on purpose. The fact that I took the effort to talk to her about it probably makes it seem less... horrible. Or not. Who knows. Who cares. I tried my best, and I am done.

Now that all of this is out of my system... let me just say something. (Yeah okay, I'm going to get all preachy. But this is mostly for myself.) No matter how much we dream, life is never going to go the way you want it to. We may wish for a perfect job where you get a raise every other month and do perfect on everything, but we'll never get that. We may wish for wonderful people to work with and great customers who come, but we'll never get that either. Leaning around (which is what I did for two hours) with a frown on your face and a negative attitude isn't going to help situations at all. In fact, it will probably make them worse than they are. (I guess I can relate this other county organization thing to this too. If you know what I'm talking about.) If we ever want to get close to a great experience or an awesome job, we have to suck it up when things are frustrating and put a smile on. That's the only way to get through sticky situations in life, and it works. Even if you have to pretend like you are having fun. I promise it eventually rubs off. We are transparent, no matter how much we hide it. Especially me. I tend to wear my feelings on my sleeves. I am a genuine person, and I hate being fake. But it's better to be fake with a good attitude in situations that you don't like than to show how angry or upset you are really feeling. A good attitude not only rubs off on other people, but it especially rubs off onto yourself. Take heed (whoa, Hope, I see what you mean by "sometimes you type a word and you didn't know you knew the word but you actually nailed its meaning right on") and smile.

Now that I've just about spent half an hour on this post, I need to finish up a couple of things and go to sleep.

1. Clean room
2. Organize things
3. Schedule for Thursday

I hope everyone has a wonderful evening. Remember to be positive and show passion. It will take us farther than we can ever imagine...

If you need help feeling cheery:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqHfser_9_s&feature=related

:D It'll knock your socks off.

<3Emily

(P.S. -- sorry this entry was so long. And sorry it is filled with grammatical fallacies... tense shifts... verbosity... etc. I really need to jump on Elements of Style.)