The Tour of Duty at TRU pt1

Sorry it's been so long in writing. Between getting the migraines everytime I attempted to write in here and the fact things got ultra-busy at home (ya know...the job and the move and the new job hunt) I felt it was just wiser to stick this on the back burner for a bit. However, a quote in a Coffee News paper and a comment on one of my pix on the **starshine** MySpace made me think that it was time to freshen the page a bit and while Im at it maybe I'd have the drive necessary to do another entry. With any luck I'll have enough drive to do more than just this one. My luck, I'll get a call for a job and have to place it on the back burner again. Ah well.

When we left back in October, I'd just gotten a job at TRU. The assistant that I thought was a grouch and a half was simply having a bad time of it the day I'd come in with my resume. When I came in for my first day, he certainly remembered me from that day though. Yes indeed, it pays to have a good first impression. I was trained by the gal who had the position I was heading into. Needless to say, she wasnt too happy about training me and had made the crack of "Im probably training my replacement". *sigh* So no, I didnt get trained as good as I should have been. There was alot I was responsible for that I ended up having to train myself on. It really kinda ticked me off but it's prepared me for other jobs because now I can say....as long as there's a manual showing me how to do something I can pretty much learn how to do anything in a store.

I started off with 40 hours a week. By the time we got into September I was put on 45 hours a week. I was responsible for returns, receiving, emails, repairs, auditing the electronics department, and several loss prevention issues. I'd get home and I'd be beat from the 6am-5pm shifts but then would still be expected to type all idiot's shit and cook and clean. Now excuse me?? He worked 7am-3pm and was home by 330pm at the absolute latest unless he went out with southernmomma. You mean to say he couldnt type some of his worksheets or quizzes himself while I was at work?? Or how about learn how to cook something for supper?? By the time October came around, I was on 50 hr weeks. The shipments were really piling up and I fought hard to get everything checked in on the day it came in. The hardest ones to get done were the ones for the electronics department. They were all software games and some of those boxes would have near 100 or more pieces in them. The gal that trained me had said to just check piece counts and get it over to the department so that's what I had been doing for a month or so. The gal in the department had other ideas though. She sat down with me while I was checking the order in one day and told me that the way I was trained wasnt helping her department out any because there were shortages bigtime when she went to do her audits. She said the best way to do it (albeit a slower way) was to check it line by line and make sure the right stuff came in. Well duh...that's how I thought it should be done, but not how I was trained. The very next box we did together had a problem....and it would have been a $75 loss for the store. She said they'd been taking losses for a year because the freight wasnt checked in correctly in the first place. I started doing it her way and found scads of errors....some in our favor and some not. Everyday I was filing reports on the errors I found...what we should have gotten according to the invoice and what we actually got. Everyday those error reports got sent to the LP and the LP started cracking down on the warehouse that was shipping the orders. Sounds like Im doing some good for the store right? Ok...so why is it I get pulled into the office and hollared at for "all the errors, we never had so many errors when so n so was doing the job"?? I told them that so n so wasnt doing it right in the first place and pointed out that although I had more error reports the inventory was more accurate because of it. *sheesh* Last thing I need is them busting my chops for doing the job right and then to go home and get my chops busted because I dont have time to do what I "should be" doing there.

By November, I was running a 6am-8pm shift 5 days a week. Oh, dont get me wrong...the money was really good...I was out earning my darling idiot at home (yeah...that sat ~really~ well with him). When we hit December, I was there from 6am-9pm (sometimes later) 6 days a week. Do you think anything changed at home? Nope. He'd pick me up at whenever and immediately get to bitching how late it was. Then when we got home he'd bitch that he was hungry and hadnt eaten all day. Excuse me...ummm whos fault is that? At this point I'd had exactly 2 meals all damn day, did a live unload on one of the warehouse trucks (it's where you're given exactly 2 hrs to get your freight off the truck while the driver waits impatiently so he can get the next shipment that's on the truck with yours to the next store), unloaded a second truck, checked in the days worth of directs shipments (direct from vendor...shipped by UPS and FEDEX) and took care of all the day's worth of damages. I'm hot, sweaty and the last thing I feel like doing is cooking or eating. All I want is a nice shower and straight to bed BUT in order to keep peace in the house I have to start dinner, get my shower in, handwash out my uniform shirt and type up that last minute pop quiz he decided the classes just HAD to have. Many times I wouldnt get to bed until after midnight and I'd be lucky if I got a couple hours in before I'd have to be up at 5am to be ready to go so he could drop me off at 5:45am. Thank God for uniforms...at least I didnt have to plan on what to wear...just make sure they were clean. Fk being wrinkled....they'd look worse by the time I got to lunch anyhow.

*small back-up* In November, it must have been just before Thanksgiving or possibly just afterwards (when the PS2s were being released), I had an accident at work. I saw my boss at the end of the hallway in the stockroom and had some info he needed like....well right then. So I hollared down the hall at him to give him the info when the pallet of PS2s (about 50 cases worth with 2 selling units in each one) I was dragging behind me knocked the back of my right leg. I had completely blanked that I had the pallet with me. Chalk it up to having a boss that it was hard to keep up with or being excessively tired or distracted with homelife or something like that. In any case, I completely blanked and forgot to turn the handle to make it stop and the momentum took it right into my leg....right into the same spot I had hurt earlier in the year at the school. *sigh* Did I mention I had been unloading a truck and inside the trailor had been roughly around 90 degrees or more? Yeah...I think you got the visual. I got the pallet pulled to the front of the store and into the electronics department. Man I thought I was going to fall over I was so tired. I took myself over to the service desk, grabbed some supplies to patch myself up with and headed to the bathroom for a quick patch job. The gal at the service desk asked if I wanted to fill out an accident report but I told her that it was more than likely no more than a little scrape, no big deal. I knew better though because I knew EXACTLY where it had hit me and I KNEW what was going to happen. I really should have filled one of the reports out but that meant a trip to the drs office again. She'd simply tell me how to care for it and put me on bedrest for 2 weeks. We were in season at TRU and I'd *JUST* gotten this job. There was noway in hell I could afford 2 weeks bedrest for something this stupid. When I got to the bathroom and got a good look at it , I knew for sure it was going to a problem again. It was already weeping, swollen and hot to the touch. I cleaned it up as best as I could and got back to work. When I got home....yeah ya see it coming already dontcha? He was fit to be tied and angrier still I didnt report it. I told him that if I reported it and went to the drs, I'd be out of work for 2 weeks and we couldnt afford that....why should I go when we both knew how to care for it anyhow. this time, instead of 2 weeks of recoup...it took 10 weeks. *sigh* It got bad enough where I was limping at work but for the most part I hid it well. The only person that noticed was the gal in charge of the night crew....she fussed me bigtime over it. I told her about the spring incident and how long I was out of work. Then I asked her what MrJ would do if his head receiver had to be sidelined for all of Christmas while the injury healed. I then followed it with a "I cant afford to lose this job". Although we couldnt afford to lose the job....the real story was that I didnt wanna be stuck home with MrWhinyBaby 24/7 during the Christmas holidays.

All through Christmas and into January I ran those hours. There was just so much to do at work. When Christmas was done we went straight into inventory phase. We had until February to get things ready. All the damages needed to be gone, all overheads cleaned out (the little storage spaces on the floor for the departments), all shelves in the stockroom precounted....not to mention all the paperwork in order. Top things all off...idiotboy at home.?? Well he was headed into the next semester for the school and needed all his syllabi typed up for the remainder of the year. He also needed the first half of the semester's worth of tests and quizzes typed and ready. Geeez thanks !! As if I didnt have enough on my plate already. By some miracle, I managed to get it all done anyhow.....I was exhausted but got it all done (and the cooking and cleaning too).