I am not sure how many time I have edited this particular entry now. I think that by the time I will hit submit on the full, final version it will have seen more edits then my musical playlist when I am in a mood.
I have cycled through an impressive spectrum of moods, mindsets and thought-processes as I worked through this- even for me, and that is saying something since I consider my moods a Lovecraftian color wheel; for every one color there are so many different shades and hues that sometimes even I have to struggle to know where I am at on it. I have tried to attack this entry and the situation that gave birth to it from every conceivable angle- I turned it over and over, inside and out and then did it all again while standing on my head. No matter how I turn the situation I still boil down to one central emotion, which seems to be my base-setting at this point when it comes to where I work:
Anger.
I would start out in varying moods- some of which were good and that good mood would be reflected in my edits...but by the end of the edit I would be right back to being the mayor of Pissed Off Town, population one. So I would take a break from it, let it gather a little bit more dust, thinking that backing off of it would give me some perspective.
Nope. Still angry.
So since nothing I do seems to squeeze the rancor out of what I am about to post, I humbly go back to the original way I had decided to show to my dear online friends (and those few offline ones I know who read this) exactly what it is that has so thoroughly and completely irked me.
I have decided to tell you this situation as a story, because a coping mechanism I have picked up these past few weeks is a simple enough process (in theory)- to keep everything as simple as possible. To just let things- and myself- just be. So I strip away all but the most essential facts, trying to lay things as bare as possible so that maybe I could walk away not so mad about what I am about to share. Turns out, however, that my anger (like certain diseases and people) just will not go away, no matter how nicely I word things, no matter how gently I medicate the premise. So in the spirit of keeping things simple, here we go:
There once was a girl who got a job at a bookstore. This girl had a thing for the concept of working at a bookstore and, it turns out, in the right environment our girl- who tries to come off as her most beloved anime/manga character Integra Hellsing but in reality is more derpy then what she likes to let people see- is exceedingly idealistic and hopeful.
Reality does end up bapping the sense back into our girl, though...and roughly around the time when she is feeling that the apple she bit into had a worm in it she got a promotion from bookseller to co-manager. Basically assistant manager to the assistant manager. Swallowing the bitter apple and trying to ignore the taste of worm, she accepted the position because there were a lot of things going on and she plowed into the new position like the stubborn little Aries ram that she is, idealistic and hopeful that she could make a difference.
[REDACTED]
No one needs to see how badly things crashed and burn, let's just stress that things crashed horribly and burned beyond all hope of being saved and our girl steps down, stressing to her manager that she was overwhelmed to the point where she was sure she needed to see someone (but could not afford to do so even on the outstanding pay that the company was providing her as a co-manager), that her health and relationships and well-being (just to name a few things that are not terribly important to much of anyone else, as it turns out) were being negatively effected. She stressed- or tried- that she was a stressed-beyond-recognition introvert who had had enough of the stuff that one has to tolerate in order to work there (those of you who have ever done customer service will understand), let alone all the added duties and responsibilities of being a manager (a joyless job in the company I work for even IF you enjoy customer service) and she turned in her keys repeating over and over how her current stress and emotional turmoil was making her sure that if she kept going at the rate she was going she would end up getting fired because she was not just burned-out but she was having to literally hold herself back from going off on the next customer who cussed her out/threw something at her/smarted off to her/touched her/called her a name (even if she does deserve the title, hearing herself called things from someone who obviously is what they are saying she is still tries our girl's patience dearly). Due to things happening in our girl's personal life that pushed her to the brink of having a breakdown the added stress of where she was working was the straw and her ability to deal well and gracefully was the camel's back.
So her keys were turned in, her manager "privileges" were revoked and there for a few weeks the girl was able to...not find satisfaction in her job again (oh, no- those years are far gone) but not vomit before every shift. There was no happiness but there was no ripping and tearing misery, so our girl was able to start scrapping together enough energy to fake like she was having fun at her job once more.
Now. We get to the part of the story that concerns us at the moment.
The hierarchy of the store where our girl is a bookseller is as follows: General Manager, Assistant Manager, Co-Manager...booksellers.
The Assistant is pregnant. She is due to have her baby...oh, she could be having him right now for all I know. I am sure that contacting our girl will be the last thing on her mind as she is having him. She told the GM back when she just thought she was pregnant, back when she only had a few lines on a stick to tell her the good news. So our Assistant did not just...get nine-months pregnant overnight.
Our girl stepped down...oh, a few months ago. After giving nearly a month's advance notice that she was stepping down. She did not just walk in, throw the keys down and say "HAVE FUN NOT HAVING A CO, GUYS. PEACE, FLARE OUT." No, she announced weeks in advance before stepping down.
Between then and now we have went through three Co-Managers who refused to do the job. We are now on the fourth.
One lasted not even a month (and never did he work as many hours a week as our girl did- so his weeks were abbreviated as hell and one of those weeks was entirely on vacation...so let's do the math. He worked about two and a half shorter work-weeks doing what our girl did for nearly three years.) and one lasted not even one shift.
The third got so fed-up with the bull he got before he even got started training and lasted maybe a grand total of two hours (beating the one-shift chick for shortest tolerant level). Yeah. Think about that. He got so tired of the BS that he was getting before he even started training that even though he had quit his job to work at our store he walked, not even trying to pretend he was sorry.
We have a new girl now. She's lasted almost four weeks, I believe; been out on the floor about three. Already dropping hints that she thinks some things are just not right.
So. Let's sum up again- we have three management positions, one about to be vacated as our Assistant goes on pregnancy-leave, one extremely new to the position and company.
And three booksellers. Yeah- we only have six people on our staff; we are about to have only five.
But wait, there is more!
For weeks now our girl has been doing her old job.
But, Flare- wait! You just said there is a new Co-Manager!
Yes, that is because there IS a new Co. But she has been in training and we have a very pregnant Assistant who has doctor orders to not work over thirty hours a week. She is salaried so her usual scheduled hours were anywhere from forty-five on up; we limped along with her working thirty because we had to.
Our girl- showing just how very, very, very stupid she can be- agreed to take some shifts off her GM's shoulders just because she felt that guilty over how much work and stress was on the GM. So she worked a night or two a week as a manager. It was fine because she knew there was going to be a new Co soon and once the Co was in and trained she could pick up the slack.
Right? I mean, after all, it is not like our girl was getting paid to be a manager- yeah, so she had her keys back and she was basically doing her old job again but it was only supposed to be a temporary thing. More of a filler position. Meaning temporary. Meaning filler. Meaning not supposed to be permanent.
But our girl gets the news from her GM that the District Manager (the boss to the GM) has good news for the store and for our girl: as soon as the AGM leaves to have her baby our girl can work at least forty-five hours a week!
Because our girl really really really really needs to hear that! She's already doing her old job, most of the time FOR the person holding the official title, so why not work more hours, especially when she specifically stepped down to put some distance between herself, the toxic store and situation and a position that was doing nothing but bring her down! Yay!
...At this point our girl has blown both a logic circuit and something emotional became fundamentally broken. It has become painfully clear to our girl that what she had hoped to achieve with the company is impossible- mainly, she stepped down to work as a bookseller and had decided to stay with the company until her fiance enlists and they move to wherever it is they will end up moving to. She had decided that after being loyal to the stupid company for as long as she had, and putting up with so much, that leaving completely when the end is near enough to feel relief...well, it just seemed silly somehow. But now it looks like she is going to have to end up walking before her planned exit just because she is clearly being the joke of the store, the company, and is having her patience and kindness sorely tested. Not just tested...but as it turns out, wrenched to the point where she can not stand to think of the place. Having to go in to every shift is worse then ever, simply because our girl has pride, damnit, and this is like having her face completely rubbed in a pile of poo.
But then the enraging news of the extra hours and the fact she came to realize just how much of a joke she was to the rest of the staff...and she could no longer shy away from the ugly truth: she has been a welcome mat again and everyone thinks she is a fool. Usually our girl is not one to care about how others thinks of her (unless she actually cares about them) but it turns out that this really irks her. It does not sit well with her. It's wrong, to have stepped out of a position that made her so unhappy just to have to do it again for less money...and to know that everyone either thinks she is so sad that she would put up with it, a tool or welcome mat for letting it happen...or an idiot.
In all of this shitstorm the GM did say she had talked to her DM about giving our girl a small bump in pay for the work she had been doing. The GM recognized that it was not fair but our girl stressed that her reactions have had nothing to do with money. Because they have not been. Our girl loved her job so much at one point that she did not even think of it as work. She stuck things out through thick and thin with the company and just wanted to be a kickass bookseller...something she was very good at and excelled in when she was in the damn mood to do so.
But all of this...It just makes our girl feel sad.
That's where I am now. As of this last and final edit I just find myself...sad. And a little numb about the entire thing. I will be furious soon enough once more, I am sure (especially after these past few days...but that is an entirely different matter). I know this temporary numbness is nothing more then a by-product of having some time away from the place (just yesterday I was talking to Strawberry and he said he had noticed I always got stabilized once I was away from the place long enough...those are my words, not his, but they sum up the fact that I am fine when I can get away from the place long enough to get my breath and my bearings back.) and that I will undoubtedly be right back in Pissed Off Town within two shifts (if not two hours, since my GM believes in dumping the worst on me as soon as I walk through the door, which I actually am fine with; I want to know what I have hanging over my head as soon as possible. Don't mince around, just rip the damn band-aid off.) but as of right now I have edited this and typed out a scathing PM to a friend of mine about the situation that really helped to vent the poison. I really let the anger out in that PM and while I wish I had not come off as hateful and petty as I did (once I read back over it after a nap I was shocked at how the rage oozed from the lines) it was so, so nice to just...not prance around the truth but get right to the ugly heart of it and lay it all out.
I am not sure what comes next. Our AGM (if she is not having him already) will be leaving on or around the eleventh of September, so the end is close enough to dread. Not that it counts for anything, but three or four checks have went by and there is no bump, little or otherwise. Again, it is not about the money but the POINT of the matter. It makes me mad because I can see how the company is screwing its workers (and customers, but that is another story) across the board and it just makes me sad. I'd not be so damn angry if I had not once loved the place so very much. Isn't there some old saying, something along the lines that the only way one can truly hate something is to have first loved it? That holds true here.
I am thankful for my job, which is just what makes all this so much worse. I am very thankful for it. It led me to people, events, and experiences I never would have had if not for it.
I guess I am just more then a little bummed that it's ending as it is. I wanted the bookstore job to mean so much more then what it is turning out to have meant. Then again, I guess this has been a huge lesson on what to let matter to one. I went into the job with stars in my eyes when I should have just viewed it for what it actually is: a stepping stone to get me from point A to point B and what meaning I put into it is mine and mine alone.
I guess I have settled into the philosophical turn in the adventure. There's nothing left to do at this point but ride it out and prepare to write it off. I can continue to focus on the negatives- which I have been doing for way too long- or I can focus on the positives. I got to experience some great things and met a few great people, had some really awesome adventures.
No matter what happens next there is always those nice things to fall back on. They can take my days off away (for now) but they can't take the happy memories away.
...Now if I can only keep this mindset when I go back, maybe I won't fantasize so much about walking around with a stick and giving people thwacks when they annoy me. twisted
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Rick Grimes 2020. Because this isn't a democracy anymore.
Things don't get better because you want them to.
All things serve the Beam.
Destroy your reputation. Be notorious.
Always up for a Walking Dead RP. PM me for my plots or toss me yours; nothing ventured, nothing gained.
Buying art of my OC.
Things don't get better because you want them to.
All things serve the Beam.
Destroy your reputation. Be notorious.
Always up for a Walking Dead RP. PM me for my plots or toss me yours; nothing ventured, nothing gained.
Buying art of my OC.