What Matters Most...

After working for almost a decade with a certain retailer, I have comet to realize that what matters most, is my sanity. One would think after reading that line, that my job drives me crazy. However, it's not that my job drives me crazy. It's dealing with the public and their ridiculous questions that drives me insane.

I am currently a Customer Service Supervisor at Wal-Mart. My job is stressful, and at the same time fulfilling, because I solve a variety of problems everyday. I can do this because, one I had a very good high school education, two, I was trained by seasoned cashiers when I had just been hired to work at Wal-Mart and I paid close attention to them, and three, I have a willingness to learn. Because of these above factors, I can make keys, pierce ears, mix paint, solve money transfer issues, and ring up customers with an average of over 600 items an hour, all while making sure that the breaks and lunches of my front end cashiers, people greeter, cart pushers, and service desk are staying on schedule.

This being said, enter the people of the world who do not have a willingness to learn, who are lazy, think they are entitled to whatever they want, and want to tell you how stupid you are. I've had people curse me, and threaten me, and tell me I'm stupid with a vocabulary and mentality of a sixth grader, all while I stand their smiling at them like a fool.

On top of that, add to this environment a few college drop outs that have just turned 21, and whose biggest ambition right now, is the bar fight they will be in on their way home from work. I worked out at a gym to blow off steam. These people brawl, with alcohol. Not only are they confrontational but they also seem attention starved. Because it's the same ones that are always asking me questions that they already know the answers to, as if all of a sudden they forgot.

So it's for these reasons that I find the fact that the Obama speech about to all the school children across America being a cause for parental panic to be outrageous. It was as if people were saying to each other, "How dare a rich and powerful man, who is well-spoken, and has made history tell my children to stay in school! Of all the nerve!"

By all means, children need to hear that they need an education, and they need to hear it many times. I'm 28, and still in college. I have classes with 19 year olds that can barely go through a class without texting. Not only do they need a better education, but I will gladly pay taxes towards some etiquette classes for the children of this country.

What does this have to do with my sanity? While I may or may not be working for Wal-Mart after I graduate, I will still have to see these people when I shop, or go out to eat, or for any form of public entertainment, and it scares me. I've had people ask me questions that just make me want to look at them and scream "Read the package you idiot, or did you even get that far in school before you quit?" Lazy, uneducated people trying to function in society is a plan for disaster. It takes up time, and energy better suited for something more important, and usually ends up with someone screaming.

So parents, please for the good of the future of our country, and my sanity, do your kids a favor and get educated, and lead by example. Your kid might not be a future CEO, or president, but reading comprehension skills are key, when they are faced with a debit reader, and it asks for their pin number. Save them the embarrassment of asking their cashier, "When do I put in my pin number?"

to get old, and to witness it first hand.

I have always worked with, or lived with or even gravitated towards people who are way older than me. My mother has explained this by saying that it's because she and my dad had me later in life, and I've grown up around older people. My grandmother, and a variety of older women have raised me. Like oracles they are it's these older women that have built a foundation for my life.

I currently work with Miss Janet; I think she said the other day she was in her seventies, but she could be older. She is one of the people that keep me going at my job. She is a pistol. She is the woman who would wear purple and a red hat, until the red hat society made that wonderful poem into a weird trendy clique.

Miss Janet is what I inspire to be when I am her age. I prefer not to be working; however, I have found out the reason why she is still working. She explained to me the other day, that the reason she is still working is because all of her appliances are over forty years old. This cracks me up. She's holding down a full time job on the idea that if she didn't and her refrigerator, stove, and other appliances were to all fail at once, her financial world would end.

Miss Janet is the kind of woman I want to be to a point when I'm her age. Despite the fact that sometimes I can't tell her anything, and as of late, she's driving me crazy, I would still like to have her attitude, and be at least half as healthy as she claims to be when I'm her age.

The fact is though, is that she's not that healthy, and as of late, it seems like her mind is going.
She does and says peculiar things. Today, asked me to do evaluations for our cashiers, and at 6pm when it was time for her lunch, she handed over the walkie, the hand-held palm thing that gives me cashier requests, and the keys, and told me I was fine and fixed up until 6:3o. What she neglected to tell me was that instead of staggering the breaks and lunches, she sent both at 6, and left me with one express, and two belts open on a Saturday evening. That's not enough registers, and it was vital information. She also left me with less that $200 dollars in singles, (we usually try to keep $5oo), and around $2oo in fives( we usually keep around $1000).

She left me in a bad way. It could have gotten bad, but lucky for me it didn't, but it could have.

At Kimball, I worked with a variety of older women, from ones who had no clue about how anything worked, to ones who kept up with everything, and sometimes made me feel like I didn't have a clue. Here lately, it seems like I'm continually having to explain and re-explain my actions, or how systems work or how computers work, or any other number of things, that
seasoned employees should know.

I never thought that I would have to explain things like this to Ms. Janet. But here lately, I'm having to. I had to stop my evaluations today, to go pull up a warranty that she couldn't pull up because she couldn't see it. Which I suspect is why I had to do the evals, because she couldn't see them. I never want to get to the point where I hide things from people, and play them off as other ailments just because I don't want to slow down.

I have always said I will never color my hair when I go gray. I will have earned those gray hairs, for whatever reason, other than life itself, but I will earn them. But that's just me talking.

I am getting older, and I'm noticing it more every day. The crow's feet, and the deeper indentions of the "nasal-labial" fold are getting worse. But, I'm not one for botox, or even the Beyonce treatment of caviar masques. I just wish to grow old gracefully, and to possibly look good for my age, always.

But I'd also like to be able to think well, and act well for my age too.

I am a means to an end.

I work with a lot of people that have different needs and wants in their lives. I work with a bunch of older people that have complicated medical treatments they have to follow, or are caring for someone that have complicated medical treatments. This said, in my almost 10 years at my dead end job, I have found through working with people that when you care enough to head a problem off at the pass, you do just that: you prevent the problem.

Preventative care is a wonderful concept this whole country needs to embrace before it is to late.

One of my cashiers just came back to work after being rushed to the hospital in December for a heart attack. She died three times en route. After a very easy week, it has come to my attention, and the attention of my co-workers that she can't really handle working a six hour day.

Another of my cashier has experienced loss four times since April. She lost her dad to health problems, an uncle to a somewhat mysterious suicide, and a cousin. Today she lost another cousin. She's also very lonely, and she has a little boy that she thinks needs a dad. We think she is currently involved in a money transfer scam where she is being swindled out of her money, what little she makes.

Both yesterday and today my managers, the gentlemen above me (i use the term very loosely right now), have decided that when I ask for something over the walkie-talkie, they think they are to question it, even though I've never called them to solve a problem without their being a problem their.

And today I have found out that the second week of school, I am to work on a Monday from 2pm to 11pm. That will make me get home at 12am, and get back up at 5:30am in order to go to class. They do this every semester and I'm tired of the sabotage.

I am a means to an end. To this company, I am no more than a warm fleshy body, that serves the purpose of doing the work they didn't want to do. To the managers above me, I am the one that solves to problems, so when I have a real problem and need help, I'm not serving my purpose.

It's taken me along time to learn to ask for help. I am a former overly shy and self-conscious person. I hate group projects, and I would rather do everything myself than trust someone to do an assigned part. Call me a control freak, but it has taken a long time for me to learn that even though I love to solve problems, I can't fix somethings. I can't save some people from themselves, and I can't make people make better decisions.

Knowing these inabilities can make a person mad with frustration. Not being able to fix the problems adds to that.

I don't know where this need to solve problems came from, or how I got to be good at make decisions on my feet. I know I'm an excellent judge of situations, because in my experience, I had almost every situation one can imagine. And I've dealt with it.

I am my own means to my own end.

It is because of these puzzles and problems that I've had to solve that I believe in preventative measures.

Don't send money to people you've only met online who promise to marry you, you'll be broke in more ways than one.
Don't continue to abuse your body when you have had 40 pound of fluid drained off of you.
Don't dress like a whore and expect to be treated like a queen.
Don't let people walk all over you because you are too polite to tell them not to.

It's these little preventative measures that let a person know just how far they can go with their self.

I am a means to an end because, I have let people use me for just that.
I am the the employee that will stay past her shift and cover their mistakes, so let's not worry about whether she sleeps or not.
I am the employee that never complains so let's see how crappy I can make it on her.
I am the employee that can make people see both sides of the argument, and she has more than once covered my ass, so why not let her continue to do it.

She is also the employee who is 12 hours away from a college degree, a wedding, and a possible move to another state.
When she goes, she takes with her old knowledge of how registers work, the mechanical workings of a scanner and scale, and knowledge of how to solve any situation that is thrown at her. She knows these things, because she was not trained for it, nor was she handed a guide, or just given the answers by an older associate. She figured it out for herself.
You can't train a thirst for knowledge and a desire to prevent problems.

I am a means to an end.

I am the associate who can load mulch, mix paint, do a fishing license, pierce ears, solve a contract phone problem (in Spanish), and make sure 12 associates get their lunches and breaks on time, and that there are no more than 2 people to a line.

I am a means to an end. Just like my cashier who is going to end up with a broken heart is a means to some one's financial difficulties in Nigeria. Or how my other cashier who can't really work is just a hunk a flesh to cover the service desk, because apparently, the four people we trained to take her place, didn't count.

I am a means to an end.
But what happens to a place when a person refuses to be one anymore.
Do they struggle to make do or does that struggle just make the ones left behind the new means?

I can't continue to work for drivel. It's not fair to me. My ends are not being met, and it's unacceptable.

"I saved bees today" (previously posted on my livejournal.)

Last year while reading one of the many Hobby Farm Magazines that I love to find at the bookstore, I found out that bees of all varieties are in trouble due to a thing called Colony Collapse Disorder. I have yet to find out exactly what happens, but I assume that the colony collapses.

Bees are extremely important to the environment, because they are like the nurses at the fertility clinic for plants. They make more plants possible. While butterflies and a host of other insects are responsible for this too, if you were to put insects into human bodies, I'd take intelligent bee nurse Hazel any day over air-headed butterfly nurse Tiffany any day.

I can actually speak from experience because lately I feel as though I work with butterflies. Not necessarily that the people that I work with are beautiful, but that they are flighty. I cannot get them to stop standing in group, like butterflies, gathering the moisture that is the neighborhood gossip, or the store gossip, or just how their dates went the night before.

I have no problem with socializing at work, but I don't think customers are to be ignored while people discuss the intimate going-ons of their lives while bagging the groceries of complete strangers. Strangers who, from time to time, stand there, wide-eyed and shock because a cashier has just admitted that the previous night they went to a bar, and do not really remember what they did, and have the bruises to prove it.
This just shouldn't be happening.
Butterflies should not be on my front end.

I found out this week, that I could quite possibly be moving to Huntsville, Alabama. Mike could be getting a promotion to Sous Chef which would involve him being moved to a store that needs him.
This is huge news, and I'm extremely excited, but I am also terrified by leaving everything that I know is by the hand of God beautiful to go live in a city, in a cramped apartment either.

This is where MIke and I diverge in opinion, and it's my biggest fear in our relationship. I think where I live is the most beautiful place on the earth, hands down. Mike agrees that it's beautiful, but I'm not sure he appreciates it. I on the other hand enjoy the convenence of city living, with everything being 10 minutes away instead of an hour, and I love the variety and the graffiti, but it's more a place to visit than live.

I need crickets. I need bees.


I saved bees today. At our hopeless Memorial Day Cookout, I noticed tiny baby bumblebees flying into my grandmother's pet taxi. Her dog is so fat, she can no longer sleep in it. She finally told me the other day, that there are a nest of tiny bees living in it, and I need to come see them before she "gets rid of them."

Getting rid of something, in my grandmothers language means to kill it. This woman has a blood lust that would make Genghis Khan jealous.

So I moved them. I fearlessly picked up the purple towel that they had attached their tiny nest of pollen columns to and I put them in a cardboard box and took them up to my house, where I found them a suitable shelter. I hope they survive and that it does not mess up some internal mapping system that bees are said to have.

I don't see killing something that tiny and delicate. The smallest bee was the same size as my pinkie nail. It was adorable. The black and yellow fuzz and the shiny little wings with the wonderful little buzz sound that they make. The bigger bee was teaching them to fly, and mom said it would have been a couple of weeks and then they would have been gone. So why my grandmothers need to massacre the adorable? To declare war on something that wasn't hurting her?

"She's just that way, she's old."

I return to work tomorrow after a difficult day on Sunday, where every attempt I made to make my butterfly cashiers into bees, were twisted into attempt to make me seem petty and underhanded. Apparently me telling a cashier that she was in dress code violation by wearing shorts, meant to her that I was offended by her knees. Mature butterflies I have.

Oh to be a bee. To dance delicately on the breezes and to drink and eat sweet delicious things everyday.
I could only be hoped to be saved myself.

Maybe I am a bee in the wrong place, and God is just trying to move me to a better place.
Who am I to fight it?

I can lead a nation with a microphone...

After months of preparations and excitement, the day has finally come.  Since November 3rd, this country has watched and waited for the president elect to show his true colors, to, by any chance, give them a reason that they shouldn't have trusted him.  So far, I must say he's handled the pressure pretty well.  And today, it becomes official.  Aside from the obvious historical moment that will occur in this country today, we will also bear witness to the eloquence and class that we have come to find synonymous with Barack Obama.

What I can't help but be afraid of is the fact that this country is lazy and not easily motivated.  With our previous president leaving his crumbled legacy amid questions of failure, it makes me wonder what would any of us have done when faced with the events that this man had to go through. I, myself am very good at thinking on my feet and coping with stress, however, I do think that faced with countless international incidents, a home front attack, and several natural disasters, I would be in a room, vomiting in a corner when faced with the things this man has had to deal with.  I'm not saying he's without fault, but I'm not sure when put in his shoes, I could do much better, so who am I to judge?

What I can say is that Mr. Obama conducts himself and his family with that befitting of a great dignitary.  I only hope for his sake that the people of his country will not be so willing to throw him under the bus they way we did the last one.  The attitude of this country seems to be to give up when the going gets tough on one problem, and look for another to try and tackle.  If we can't get something right, keep looking until we do.  I find this to be lunacy.  We cause so many of our own problems, then when they come back to bite us, we look for someone else to blame.  Why is that?

As for the inaugural address, it was wisely short.  But at the same time, straight to the point.  It's amazing to me that when the subject of terrorism was addressed, Mr. Obama said pretty much the same words;  "We're not going to have it," yet it was so much more constructive.  It just seems to me that to hear what he's saying about how this country and the world will have to change to move on and progress.  It's a wonderful idea; but I'm worried that this country will give up when it gets to tough for some to handle.

Hope in itself is a wonderful idea.  Change is a wonderful idea, when it's for the better.  After almost a decade of an administration that either didn't make the best decisions, or was not given the opportunity to make those, a change is of course the gut reaction of most people.  I only hope that this man, along with his family will set a good standard for the rest of us to follow.  Maybe next time, I'll actually register to vote.  Only the next four years will tell; I only hope that the ground moves and shakes as much as was figuratively described today.