Tired

Things seem to be catching up on me. I've been feeling so tired lately. I keep getting calls from work, asking if I can come in. Sometimes I can, sometimes I can't, but I've been getting calls almost every day for the last week. We're short staffed right now, so I guess it's no surprise. I'm getting a lot more hours than I expected to get, and it's making it difficult to keep up with things at home.

Saturday really messed me up because I had an 8 hour morning shift. I don't normally work mornings at all. It meant trying to go be bed earlier, which never works well. I miss working midnight shifts and sleeping during the day. I slept so much better then. Ah, well.

Today, I was supposed to work a 5 hour shift, but first thing in the morning (so much for sleeping in), I got a call asking if I could start earlier and work later for a full 8 hour shift. I said yes this time, though to be honest, I really didn't feel like it. I'm glad I did, though. I'm not sure what they would've done if I hadn't. We were still short staffed, and it was a busy day. I had several customers commenting on how busy it was - and not just at the grocery store I work at, but at other stores. Everyone seemed to be out and shopping today.

It never ceases to amaze me just how many people go shopping late at night, though. We close at 11 pm. By 10:30 - normally - there's only 1 cashier and 1 "front end" person. Today, however, we didn't even have a 10:30 person (that would've been me had I worked the shift I was supposed to). That meant the front end person, who is supposed to be doing a whole long list of other things, had to go on till - and we still both had long line ups! The produce manager even came and tried to help out as much as he could, but he's really not familiar with our department.

My poor front end person today, though! I really felt for her. She was not only completely able to complete the tasks set for her, but she also had a lot of problem customers giving her a hard time. With how busy things were, I missed a lot of this. I just do my thing and every once in a while I'll come of for air and notice what the lines look like. Mostly, I just focus on the person in front of me. Even so, there was one person I saw giving my front end person a hard time. Being the last till open, I was working express. With less than 15 minutes before closing, the express limits are ignored. This costomer had a cart full of groceries and he didn't want to "waste my time" and stand in the long line in express, insisting that someone open a till for him! My front end person was eventually able to do so, but she had been in the middle of her closing duties at the time and really should've have been on a till. What got me, though, was hearing him say that "it's like this every time." All I could think was that, maybe if he did his shopping earlier in the day, when we had more cashiers (even a hour earlier would've been enough), he wouldn't be having this problem.

I was telling my family about this after I got home, then commented on how I seem to be really lucky. I don't seem to get the difficult customers. Sure, I get some that are impatient and maybe a bit short, but I've never had the complainers or yellers, or even just rude people. My husband pointed out that part of it is that fact that a lot of this stuff just sort of sails over my head. He's right. A person could say something to me that might be considered rude or whatever, and I don't even notice. I just smile and do my job. I think I unknowingly nip potential problems in the bud simply because stuff that bothers other people, I don't even notice. It really does take a lot of phase me these day. I guess it's hard for an irate customer to stay irate when it has no effect on the person they're trying to take their frustrations on.

Then my husband said something that really surprised me. He said something along the lines of, who would dare give me a hard time? Huh? Surprising enough to hear it from him, but my girls immediately echoed his statement. Double huh? Apparently, I'm an intimidating figure. Me? Intimidating? I told my husband that I thought all a customer would see in me is a short, fat woman who's always smiling at them. He just laughed, then asked, who do you think a customer would give a hard time to? Me, or some other cashier? He then said all they had to do was look at my arms and they'd realize I could probably bench press most of them. *L* Well, I'm glad he thinks so - I think - but the whole idea that *I* could possibly be intimidating to anyone is something I found totally flabbergasting. Matronly, perhaps, but intimidating? I doubt it.

Ah, well. Whatever the reason, I'm glad of it. As tiring as it is, I do enjoy my job. I *like* my customers. I enjoy dealing with them. It's just that, being the introvert that I am, I really need my down time to recover my energy, and that's what's becoming harder and harder to accomplish.

Tomorrow I've got a day off - I always have mondays off so the kids and I can take in our weekly home schooler group park day. Before that, we have to go grocery shopping (it happens to be staff discount day), then afterwards, we're going to a mall and, hopefully, will be buying a couch. Real furniture instead of folding temporary stuff! Wow! *L*

Meanwhile, our days will be filled with getting ready to meet our home schooling facilitator on thursday. We've never had to do this before - previous provinces we've lived in didn't have them - and we've got to have the girls' portfolios ready. I've no real idea what to put in a portfolia, even though I've printed off a five PAGE list someone had sent to an email list I'm on of what they had in theirs.

Now *that* is intimidating!!

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