Wordsmith Dee

I'm not even exaggerating. Not even in the slightest. First hour was okay, deceptively so. Hour two was when the mid shift manager got back from her break and we discussed the plan for the evening. Then I started with the checklist.

First thing is to check our change fund and make sure it's where it's supposed to be. The fucking thing was 240 dollars short today. 240 DOLLARS! When in the past three months I've worked at this store, it's only been over/under like three times and never more than 20 dollars. So we start panicking cause three of us did the count. After calling the manager to report it, we discovered that when our manager dropped off the deposit at the bank this morning and got our change fund, she forgot the move the change fund money to the correct bag. That was literally the only easiest fix of the night.

Which says a lot cause it was 240 fucking dollars. Second thing that happened is my original closing manager ended up having to leave to go to the ER because he never should have been at work anyways, which is a whole other thing that just makes me roll my eyes because of stupid prideful men. Of course this happened right when the mid shift manager was due to get off. She's my new work bestie cause we just click. Instant friendship. She ended up staying so our dumbass co worker could go see what the fuck was wrong with him that had him so messed up.

And while this was happening, I was counting down a till and it was coming up almost 5 dollars short. Again with the money and this time there was no easy fix cause it wasn't some easy explanation as to what happened. The cashier genuinely said she couldn't pinpoint a time period where she messed up and gave back too much change. It happens often, bills stick together, confuse one denomination for another, and various other common mistakes. So that's a write up because it exceeded the acceptable amount of being over/under on your till.

So WB stayed and was basically invisible. She was there to have my back when problems that I couldn't handle came up. Other than anything extreme, she was going just chill and rearrange our coloring book/activity book section. I was going to be the one in charge. Cue my anxiety, which was already bad today because it's Uncle's birthday, the first since he passed.

And almost immediately after that, our gas pumps fucked up. By the time we ran through all our options. Needless to say, we didn't sell any gas tonight. And gas sales are a major part of our business. So it was slow. Incredibly slow.

During my break, we discovered that the latest hire for closing shift hadn't been properly trained for the floor cause she was doing it all wrong. So a mix of miscommunication and assumptions there from all parties involved. Fair enough. But then we found out that she'd been ringing up the unpackaged produce all wrong. Unless you have manager powers, we have to ring up multiples of anything one at a time. And with some produce we have to put in a code, we have to enter their code rather than scan cause the barcode is super tiny and our scanners are shit.

So for the last two weeks, the new hire had been selling bunches of produce for the price of one. Because it never fucking occurred to her that when you scan a bunch of unpackaged fruits/veggies, only one price rings up and it's not multiplied by any weight amount. That was her explanation of why she never asked any questions, because she used to work at a big chain retail store and their scanners had scales and she didn't realize ours do not. Which I don't understand at all knowing what shows up on our screens and receipts. And considering the price for say one banana is like forty cents, I can't see how a woman who is like 4 years older than me and who worked at a chain grocery store would think that 6 bananas was forty cents by weight. Not in forever. I feel very strongly about this because she's not a naïve teenager/young adult working their first job ever. Will not change my mind.

And there's a whole thing between the new hire and WB that is causing some issues. And it's really not WB's fault. The new hire knew her when she was a kid and seems to still consider WB like a kid and is always questioning decisions and shit. Plus tonight, even knowing I was the manager in charge, New Hire kept going to WB with questions and updates on her progress. Not me, not once.

Yeah I was suitably distracted the first couple hours, but after the gas pumps were shut down, I was less occupied and definitely spoke to her several times, including instructions for closing since they were a little different than normal considering she got off 30 minutes before us managers. NH also was very aware that I was in charge and WB was just there in case I needed help with order of operations and the money, since it was just my third night in training and I was kinda sorta being thrown off the deep end unexpectedly.

I was really annoyed when WB told me that NH was going to her because I was under the impression that I had a good handle on things since the gas pumps, which who could predicted that the one time in three months of working all eight pumps would stop working and oh yeah because my ID only just got updated TODAY so I finally had access to the new training videos that I need because of the fucking gas pumps. YEAH IT REALLY FUCKING GETS ME THINKING I'M FUCKING CURSED OR SOMETHING! Those were the first videos I was going to watch once I could. I laugh about it now.

It actually settled down once I got back from my break. The only other thing that happened and it's actually hilarious. One of the bundles of preweighed/wrapped fruit wouldn't scan at all and our manager (third call of the night because the system was wanting us to do something to fix it that was most assuredly above our pay grade) and she was just like, pull them and stick them in the cooler. I will deal with this in the morning cause I think that's a Corporate fix. She was very much giving off 'this is a tomorrow vibes' by that point. I think WB and I carried that attitude forward the rest of the night.

Anyways WB and I both were annoyed by NH. A lot. But between my anxiety over Uncle's birthday and the anxiety of the first three hours of my shift, I wasn't willing to get into it. I just wanted the night to end. But I'm pretty sure that WB is going to talk to our manager about NH's assumptions. Because a few of her missteps tonight were directly related to assumptions she made in comparing our small store to a much larger one. Its a whole thing now.

But thankfully despite the money issues, the deposit and everything else came out perfect and I only forgot one step and it was like the second to last and I was just a bit overwhelmed and anxious over money at that point. But easily caught and explained and done and done. I survived. But I am so drained on all levels. And hopefully I got the next two days off. May get called in on Friday, we'll see.

And I'm so chatting and share happy right now because I took a fucking edible as soon as I got home for work. I am finally fucking relaxed and sometimes when I'm high I get really fucking chatty and everyone is asleep and I'm low key hyper fixating on all the negative stuff that happened today and need to work it out of my system. Looking back today had a kind of low key sitcom kind of feel. Because yes some pretty big bad stuff happened, it definitely wasn't on the scale of being shut down cause the gas pipe exploded after we left (yes my brain is literally telling me of this possibility at this very second) or losing thousands of dollars. Cause you know when my anxiety and ADHD work together, they can take over a high. And this is the first time it's been this bad since Uncle passed in June.