Poor Planning

As you may have gathered from numerous posts on the topic, but I am less that satisfied with my current employment. I find myself in the position of being up to my eyeballs in work due to poor planning by the Project Manager and not giving a rats arse.

I spent an extra three hours last night writing a document at home. I've spent several hours in meeting that have absolutely no relevance to me because it's deemed (by the PM) that I be there. I could be writing the 45 odd page document that I have a week to write. Now, it's not just me that feels this is a bit wrong. Two other people on the project don't remember hearing about this document before Friday last week. Also, it's important to know, there are only four people on the team.

Today I was thinking about how I'm going to write my parts of the document, while in a two hour meeting for another document that didn't require my input, and did a couple of doodles I'm quite happy with.



Anyone know what doodles tell us about what the artist is thinking at the time of drawing?

Are You Joking?

Christmas Eve arrived, I got up, dressed in all black and went to work. The reason for all black? I had to do a three hour stint on the shop floor, from 2 – 5pm.

The store that I work has a credo. Surprise and Delight the customer

I think I may of actually have achieved that today during my shift.

I surprised the complete stranger who asked me for a coffee date by saying yes. I further delighted him by giving him my phone number.

Well, it's Christmas and I felt like giving.

Mannequin Smut

I was getting myself a cup of tea this afternoon when I noticed some off duty mannequins getting more action than me.

Another Moment

I had to do my Give Time yesterday. Three hours of standing on a shop floor being an information point for customers who don't know where they are going. I was dressed in the obligatory all black, comfortable shoes, armed with my name badge and big 'i' and a booklet full of hints and tips about which product lives where.

The first demand.

'Where's the Sorbolene?'

The second question, this time with a polite end.

'Where are the toilets, please?'

For three hours this went on. I was asked for brand name after brand name, where Santa was, the toilets and mens sunglasses. I was even asked where the competition (as in main rival) was. The time passed quite quickly, but I had a few minutes where I had to control my emotions and suck the tears back.

A woman walked past me as I was talking to someone about an hour into my shift. She had her red striped back to me and was walking with another woman. But the smell was unmistakable. Chanel No. 5 and cigarettes. The prick of tears stung the back of my eyeballs.

Then as I stood there, I saw her again. She was standing next to the Chanel counter. The other woman was younger and they were laughing about something. I looked at what she was wearing. A red and white striped t-shirt with jeans and dockside slip on shoes. I looked at her hair, it was just above her shoulders, blond and highlighted. She was slim and not that tall. The other woman was wearing a shirt and jeans and sandals. A thought came to me.

I will never go shopping with my Muv, ever again. Ever.

The tear sprung forward and I tried to fight them back. But I couldn't prevent them from spilling over just a little. I was saved by a lady taking a tumble as she stepped off the escalator.

A little later, I saw this pair again. They were standing and talking on the desending escalator. Once again my eyes burned, water welled but I managed to breath through it. I was really thankful they seemed to know where there were going and didn't feel the need to talk to me.

Feeling Unwell?

The place where I work relies on Lotus Notes databases for everything. And I mean, EVERYTHING! This has its painful side, in so much as you can’t find anything and most of the stuff is hopelessly out of date.

On the plus side, you can get lost for hours looking for stuff if you want to hide. It’s like a lovely big, dimly lit warehouse full of dusty boxes. You can walk in the door with the intention of looking for, say, stocktake documentation but end up silently giggling at Incident reports.

I did such a thing the other day. It was like one of those chain email joke thingies about insurance claims. It’s not just the incident, most are boring, it’s way they’ve been written up that makes you laugh. You get this picture in your head of someone falling over or whatever, not in itself funny, but when it’s written like this*…

- Customer felt dizzy while standing at the checkout
- Employees feet were sore from blisters on her feet while walking
- Xxx was at the register talking to her colleague when she noticed her nose was bleeding
- Long term issue with walking on right
- Staff member had panic attack (mental illness)
- Xxx was walking on the shop floor when he felt a twinge in his groin
- Staff member sprained his ankle at home whilst walking too fast on an uneven surface
- Member was playing football outside of work hours away from place of employment when member sustained a hard tackle

There are countless incidents of both staff and customers having sore and blistered feet from both new and old shoes, which tell me that if you are shopping or standing all day, there are no ‘comfortable’ shoes.

It made me realise too that every first aider is an amateur doctor. Terms like myocardial infarction and viral infection litter the reports like a tickertape parade, but they have no way of knowing the cause of the problem.

My personal favourite though has to be one that isn’t all that funny, but does have an element of ‘what the…’ about it.

Xxx has a personal illness. Returned from lunch and felt dizzy and had partial loss of sight. (brain tumour)*.

What the hell? IT'S PERSONAL!



* names have been deleted and slight editing of content has taken place.

New Job

My first three days back in employment have been entertaining. Actually maybe entertaining isn’t really the right word to describe my time so far working for one of the countries oldest department store.

Entertaining would imply I have experienced some of the following emotions or feelings; charm, cheer, delight, enjoyment, fun, pleasantness, relaxation, when in fact I’ve experienced more of these; disgust, awfulness, disagreement, horror, nausea, objection, outrage, repugnance and overall feelings of yuck!

It’s a culture thing I think, it’s just the old-fashioned 'Are You Being Served?' work environment/ethics that turns my stomach, and my hip into a pain centre.

So the first thing giving me a problem is the lack of flexibility of working hours. There is NO room for manoeuvre. You start at 8.30, have one hour for lunch and leave, not before 5.30. You can only leave early if you have prior permission from your manager. Anyone who actually knows me will know I’m not a morning person and the wake up time for this time schedule means my alarm is set for 0645. This is not good, I've already forgotton to put in earrings and clean my teeth. In previous roles I have had understanding managers that have realised I do not need to be treated like a child to get my work done. I do the hours, effectively but at a slighter later time. This has meant they haven’t seen me in before 9.30 unless I actually have a meeting to attend and if I am at an early meeting I'm not sat there like a zombie nursing a massive cup of caffine.

An unforseen problem with the start time is the travel issues. The trains at that time in the morning are chockers. I have had to stand on every trip so far, bar one. OK it sucks that the train system here is woefully under capacity, but for me having to stand on a moving train that lurches and stutters means footing can be lost and results is sudden and forceful pressure put on my hip. Today this showed itself in a shooting pain from my hip to my knee and through my groin, resulting in a limp that I haven’t had for over three years. Continuing to limp is the start of pain throughout my body and general extreme grumpiness. Lack of sleep will only compound this issue. By having flexible work hours I can get a seat and not have hip issues. Makes for an all round happier interaction for everyone involved.

Here's the other thing…a little scheme for head office staff so they can share the shop floor experience and see what the sales staff deal with on a day to day basis. It involves giving time as an information person standing at the top or bottom of escalators and assisting customer with enquiries. I’m sorry, but I know what shop staff goes through. I’ve done my time in retail and I left it because on a whole, customers are wankers and they are rarely right. I’ve been lucky so far and been ‘allocated’ weekday slots but weekends could be assigned. You’ll find me manning an escalator for the last three trading hours on Christmas Eve.

Don’t get me started on the no paper towels in the bathrooms or the not allowed on the shop floor during work hours or if your bag is bigger than a pea you have to leave it in an open area by the staff entrance or the no bins under desk policies…

All that said…the projects and people I’m going to be working with/on until I get the flock out of there, look like they could be interesting.