Friday, July 10, 2009

I'm still alive...

Well, let's see if I can breathe some life into this here blog...

A lot has taken place in the month since I wrote anything.

Most notable...Shanee came! She got here June 22 and left today. Not as long of a visit as I'd hoped for and we'd planned, but it's what's best. She needs to work and she grew bored alone in my apartment each day. I did not take vacation time during her visit because I want to save my vacation time for my birthday, for Atlanta pride, and Christmas. I don't think Shanee minded that I didn't take days off work strictly to hang out with her, but she did kind of make me feel guilty for leaving her alone in my apartment for 8 hours each day. Anyhow, we had a good visit. We spent some time really doing some face-to-face talking...it was needed. We resolved some things and are on a better track. We spent some time with my family...it was nice. I was every bit the proud auntie when I got to introduce her to Damien. Too bad he acted like a stinker one of the nights we went to see him. He screamed and cried like never before. We went to Chicago for the 4th of July weekend. It was sooo much fun. We had a blast. I messed up my diet horribly...we ate so good. Highlight of the Chicago weekend: meeting Desiree! We met up with her on a street corner and she came with us to the Taste for a lil while. It was really good to finally get to meet someone that I've interacted with online for 2 years. I was commenting to Shanee after we parted ways that she was every bit as talkative, genuine, warm, and fun as I'd figured. I now have new reasons to go up to Chicago when I get a few spare days in a row! Much to Shanee's chagrin, I shopped my ass off. I was a mad woman on Michigan Avenue. I bought some athletic clothing, a bunch of puma socks, a polo, some fragrance, and some other things. The funny thing about the fragrance is that it's ck one. I wore ck one in 6th grade. How funny that 13 years later, I decide to wear it again. All in all, it was a great time.

Today has been kind of tough...Shanee left and I'm anticipating tomorrow. Tomorrow is my father's birthday. Tomorrow is also the anniversary of the day my parents got married the first time. July 11th will always and forever be a sad-ass date for my family. I don't know if my mother plans to work or not, but I already know that she will be deeply sad tomorrow, if she isn't already. I honestly don't even know what to say to her. I know that I should call her and acknowledge the significance of the day, but I don't have any words to comfort her.

My job is still just work. Some drama has ensued. I now officially cannot text or tweet or do anything on my cell phone while on the clock. One of my associates was a no-call, no-show one day. So I wrote her up. She didn't agree and sent a letter to the district manager of personnel. It was investigated. I was right, she was wrong. The write-up stood. She got mad and wrote a letter of resignation to the managers and quit. The letter was intense! She was gunnin for me like no one ever has. Said she didn't respect me, I'm a poor leader, she can't work for me any longer, it was obvious that I didn't want her in my department by the way I threw her under the bus, I was never around, I didn't train her properly, I spent my whole day texting and on my cell phone, on and on and on. Anyhow, because of that...I really have to be on my shit. My manager pulled me aside and said that anytime someone has that strong of an opinion, it typically gets looked into. They can't ignore such a strong letter...even though it's obvious that she's just very disgruntled because she got wrote up...she didn't have any complaints until disciplinary action was taken. I decided to take her accusations as constructive criticism...I made the decision to not even touch my phone unless I am on break and I basically just stepped my game up overall. Everything in her letter, I've just made a conscious effort to really pay attention to. I'm not sure if it ever really got looked into very far, but the general manager made a comment to me about them having me on camera going to the restroom a lot...but I'm not sure how serious she was. The comment came after I submitted a complaint about the water cooler always being out of order. She laughed and told me that I don't need the water cooler anyhow because they have me on camera going to the bathroom an awful lot. I kind of got the hint that they were watching tapes to see what all I'd been doing...nothing else has been said to me though, so I'm guessing they didn't find anything worth firing me over. 

This situation has kind of lit a little fire under me. I enjoy working at Sam's for right now because I set my own schedule, I get paid a decent wage, I do very little work, and it's easy work. Life is very simple there. When I clock out at the end of the day, that's it. There is nothing about that job that I have to think about at home or work on at the crib or anything. I just do my shift and it's over. I like that. But I know that I'm supposed to do way better than that. I have skills that are not being used at all. I have more talents than it takes to print and package some photos. I'm not functioning at my fullest potential. And I guess I haven't for the past 2 years. When I first graduated college, it was kool to just work part time and spend the rest of my time traveling to go see Shanee and just hanging out with friends and playin around and doing whatever else sounded kool at the moment. I loved having all the time in the world to just read, write, and do whatever I wanted. After I became supervisor of my department, the rest of life got a little stressful. My father's health was up and down, Shanee and I were up and down, I began to really hate my living situation...a job with zero stress and zero influence on my personal life was what I needed. I needed to just do my simple hours and go home. But now I'm officially at the point of really not being satisfied. I want something new. And I'm tired of retail. I'm tired of dealing with customers who think they are always right. I'm tired of being micromanaged. I'm tired of standing all day. I don't want the same back problems that everybody at my job has. Walking on straight concrete for 40 hours a week will fuck your body up. I'm ready to have a desk and actually deal with clients and patients that truly need my services, not just people who expect their pictures in 20 minutes. I'd really like to go back to school in the next 2 years or so, but in what city?

I'm sure I'm missing something that's blog-worthy, but oh well...I'm tired.

Anyone heard from the brown girl..??

2 comments:

Black Girl Meets World said...

Oh I am so glad you got to Michigan Ave - so so much fun!

You and Shanee were the bomb, lol. Made my lil summer. Hopefully you guys can come back so I can properly entertain and show you some other parts of the Chi!

I hope your mom was cool on your dad's bday - and you too.

E said...

Dude! Thanks for catching us up I was wondering why you've been so extra-low-key lately.At first I thought it was because Shanee was in town but then I noticed you weren't on twitter even during work hours.Now I know it's because of all the stuff that went down at work. It's a good idea to lay off messing with your blackberry while on the clock, gotta set a good example right?
Sorry Shanee had to leave so early but it was probably for the best - a short sweet trip versus her being there for an extended period of time and you two ending up getting on each other's nerves.You'll see her again soon.
You got through the first of your dad's bdays/anniversaries without him and you're still alive and functioning so that's good.I hope it gets a little easier from here on out.

Keep your head up dog!

PS - Like I'm really worried about browngirl!