Tuesday, July 17, 2007
More updates
Now that I’ve taken care of the long and protracted saga that is my Denmark journal, I can update you on what else has been happening to me lately. After I got back from Denmark, I had just one day to recover before it was time to start my new job at Somerfield. My first day was Thursday, July 5. I went in at 1:30pm and took care of some paperwork and whatnot before being taken down to the tills. I shadowed someone for an hour, and then was put on my own register while somebody watched me. However, after only 5 minutes or so, the queue was growing, so my watcher had to be put on a till himself, and I was essentially left all alone. After the queue was dispatched with, most of the cashiers left. So, for the next 5 ½ hours, I was left all alone on a register on my very first day! And, to top that off, at one point, I was the absolute only person on the kiosk tills, which meant that I was the only one to dispatch cigarettes (I only recognized 2-3 brands, as Scotland has so many more cigarette brands than I’ve ever seen in the U.S.) and lottery tickets. It’s a good thing that I’m a fast learner, otherwise I would have completely drowned. I think my past cashiering helped a lot (and my short stint at a gas station helped even more when it came to figuring out how to work the lottery machine!). I managed to only make one mistake, and Charlee (my friend and, coincidentally, my supervisor as well, later told me that aside from this error, my till was only a couple of pence short, which is great for a first-day worker!). I was even coerced into agreeing to take on overtime before I had even started my first shift! Lol, I said I would work the next two Sundays, even though I had no idea what I was doing! Crazyness. Luckily for me, I had the next day off to recuperate from my trials. I was not used to standing on my feet for such a long period of time, as my last two jobs over the last eight years had been sit-down jobs, and the 1 ½ mile walk home was torture that day.
Friday night I went over to view Charlee’s new flat, which is much closer to me than her previous one, which makes me happy, as it really sucked walking home drunk from her flat on previous occasions when it was so far away. She had a couple of other mates over and we all sat around drinking, laughing and playing Cranium. I love that game! I would definitely recommend it to everyone who is in need of something to do with a group of people (especially if you’ve been drinking). We all had to work the next day, so the party broke up around midnight or so.
My second shift on Saturday went much smoother than my first, as Charlee was my supervisor that day, and she is great at her job. Every day I learn more and more, and I haven’t made any other major errors. I was beginning to regret my decision to take on extra shifts so soon though, and started to dread my extra shift the next day (not to mention that I was drafted into adding a couple of hours onto it as well!). Is it bad that I had only had two shifts and already I didn’t want to come back? Lol.
The rest of my shifts over the next week went as smoothly as can be expected. Again, I managed to finish each one without any catastrophes, and I’m starting to get to know more and more people there. Of course, I’m still the oldest one of the group, but what is a person to do? No matter how hard I try, I cannot seem to find anybody over the age of 25 in the country!
Last Monday, on my blessed day off, I decided to go see a movie called The Flying Scotsman. It was actually really good. It is essentially the story of Scottish cyclist Graeme Obree, starring Jonny Lee Miller. Okay, I’ll admit it, I initially only went to see it because Johnny Lee Miller was the star, but was pleasantly surprised when it turned out to be a very engrossing film. I’m glad I decided to go on the spur of the moment, and I would definitely recommend it to anyone who has the chance to see it!
On Tuesday, I enlisted Ali and Scott to come see Shrek the Third with me. Although there were some funny moments in the movie, overall, I would definitely say that they missed the mark on this one. The Shrek 2 definitely tops this one by leaps and bounds. I suppose I would recommend it to anyone who has seen the previous two installments and wishes to finish the trilogy, but otherwise, no, it’s not really worth the money. I noticed that Scott was busy texting people through the second half of the film, as he was so bored with it. I wasn’t as bad as that, but I can see where he was coming from.
Sunday saw me waking up at 6am (what…there’s a 6am now? When did that happen?) in order to get ready for my extra shift that started at 7:30am! I am so not a morning person, so it looked like I was doing a grim death walk to the store that morning. It was eerie, as there were no people out on the streets (but honestly, why would there be at that time of morning on a Sunday?). I had not yet worked a morning, so I wasn’t sure of the procedure and how the heck I was supposed to even get into the store, as it doesn’t open until 8am. Eventually, a cleaner opened the door for me, and I clocked in, but as my supervisor had not yet arrived, I was forced to wander aimlessly around the store trying to figure out what I was supposed to do. Eventually she showed up and told me to take care of the newspapers. Unlike in the States, store employees are the ones who are supposed to put the inserts into the Sunday papers…and there are way too many freakin’ newspapers to have to do that! It took me the better part of ½ hour to do that and try and find out where the papers were then supposed to be placed. By this time the store had opened and customers were already beginning to stream in (why the *beep* would you be up that early shopping?!). Luckily, I wasn’t put on the registers straight away, and got to do odd jobs around the front of the store. At about 8:05am, this guy came into the store and asked me when we sold alcohol. I told him 12:30pm, and he got mad and marched off in a huff. Why in the world would you need to be drinking at 8am on a Sunday morning? I swear, some people are just crazy! I had to work until 12:30pm, and the day went by so slowly…at one point, I think that time literally stopped and reversed itself!
FINALLY, my shift was over and I got to go home! Whoo hoo! I figured that I’d take a nap or something, but I ended up reading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix instead, as I always read the book to refresh my memory before seeing the film. At 2pm, Charlee text me and said to meet her and her boyfriend Bobby at the cinema at 3pm to see the new Harry Potter movie. So, I got showered and changed in record time. We bought our tickets and then went across the street to a pub to have a drink before the movie. I was a bit disappointed with the new movie. This is one instance where I think that my own imagination far surpassed anything that was shown on screen. I never had really high hopes for the movie, as I think it was my least favorite book, but I still thought it would be better than what it ended up being. I suppose not every movie can be a gem. After the film, Charlee and Bobby invited me to go to dinner with them, but as I was completely knackered, I declined. I went home, popped in a frozen pizza and watched some telly before going to bed.
On Monday morning, I was pleasantly surprised to get a text from Ross. I hadn’t heard anything from him for almost a week or so, and then he appeared out of the blue asking if I was busy in the afternoon. Although I did have a busy day of cleaning my flat planned, lol, I told him he was free to come over if he wanted. I managed to clean the flat before he arrived (I hate to have a messy place when company comes over!). He brought me a belated birthday present, which was really nice of him, and I was happy to get it (especially because I love prezzies! Lol) We just hung out for a few hours and talked and laughed. It was nice, as I hadn’t seen Ross in a few weeks…sometime before I went to Denmark in fact. It turns out that he was working an absurd amount of hours at work (a Somerfield store as well), so he had very little time to do anything else. The funny thing is that now that I also work at the same store (different town though), we can swap war stories, as it were. I now understand what he complains about all of the time, because I’ve begun to experience the exact same things! Ah, you’ve gotta love working life! Lol. I just hope that Ross doesn’t keep up the same grueling pace of extra shifts, as that would mean that I wouldn’t be able to see him much over the summer, which would be terrible, especially seeing as how for the first time since I’ve met him, we won’t have any classes in common once uni starts in a few months, so I don’t think I’ll get to see him much over the course of the school year either. Well, I guess I’ll just have to wait and see how things turn out…no use fretting over something that has yet to happen (or not happen).
And so, you are all now caught up on what has been happening in my life over the last several weeks. As you can see, nothing too spectacular has been occurring, especially due to the fact that I now have to deal with the rigors of working life (yuck!) yet again. What can I say though? Something’s gotta pay the bills! At least I won’t be dead bored all summer with nothing to do…I suppose that is one bright side to working. But, for now, I shall bid you all goodbye and wish you a pleasant day.