ugh, i have finally awoken from my slumber and cracked myself out of my tired stupor. guess what, y'all. it's sunday! i'll tell you about my shift yesterday.
since my brother goes to tennis on saturday mornings, we had to leave at 8am and get me to work about 20 minutes before my shift started. which meant that i was up at 5:30am to allow myself the time in the shower, time to eat breakfast, and time to get my hair dried and straightened out that i need in the morning when my reflexes are about 4x slower than usual. so i rocked up to annandale central at 8:10am feeling like crap. i didn't have any sleep the previous night because i'm an idiot, so getting out of bed wasn't the issue. it was fighting the urge to not just drop.
so we opened up the shop, and 8:30am rolled around fast enough. it was then, that i realised: 20% off storewide. 50% off christmas ware. 30% off toys.
needless to say, my dreams of a nice quiet saturday with minimal customer traffic were smashed in front of my eyes when i saw the sign out the front. it was one of the busiest shifts ever. we made almost $11,000 in sales yesterday alone. halfway through the day, we ran out of the 7ft christmas trees and the one that was on display was the only one left. of course a lady wanted the display model because it's easier to buy the one already assembled with all the lovely decorations, tinsel, fake snow and lights: collectively a 2 hour effort last month by yours truly. so that was another hour of my day, disassembling it and breathing in ten tonnes of false snow (to give you an idea, its just like sticking your face in a box filled with glitter, sneezing in the box and having to inhale all of it again, rinse repeat) so by the end of it i looked like i'd been rained on, or i had really bad dandruff, haha. so i ran out the back and grabbed a flatpack trolley, wheeled all this lady's stuff to the registers and sculled the rest of my waterbottle.
that was memorable customer number one. she thanked shantell, said her girls were excellent, "this little one in particular" (moi ;D) so that boosted my mood somewhat. i then went on my ten minute break and went to investigate what was left in the lighting section. obviously this is completely impossible when i'm in my work uniform, every fucker wanted a price on something. then a lady asked if i could take down one of the moving reindeer displays instead of her buying one in a box to save having to assemble it later. asked manager, received negative response. so she asked if i could assemble one for her. asked manager, received mixed negative response. i did it anyway, and that was another hour of my shift gone. those things are so much harder to put together than they look. so once that was done, i brought her things to the registers once more and helped her to her car. she tipped me $10. that put me into platinum mood, and i finally went to go on my break. good timing too, my parents happened to stroll into crazy clarks so i got to lose the professional attitude and browsed the lights with them, pretending i was helping them out so people wouldn't attack me for more prices.
dug out three packs of blue icicle lights and the inflatable santa chimney display that i wanted, paid for mum's stuff, grabbed two bags of bird seed and ended up only spending $75. wicked. grabbed a waterbottle with $5 cashout because i'm poor as christ and had lunch. then i was back on the registers and i had a lady come through with a stroller and a naughty child. she looked at me, looking as stressed as possible and said "autism. attention deficit disorder, sensory disorder".. and seriously recited about ten different disorders.. "..you name it, he's got it. VICTOR STOP, COME HERE NOW." paid for her stuff, and walked out. i gave her half a smile and told her to try and take the rest of her day easy. she left her credit card in the EFTPOS terminal in a swarm of anger and that parental rush that just spews "i'm busy today". fortunately the next lady in line was a nice enough woman, and offered to chase her down. i set the sale up so she could just pay by debit card and grab her things and leave, took the previous customer's card and chased her down.
god, i don't think i've run faster in my life! she moved so fast, i had to sprint to catch her before she drove off. poor thing, i felt bad for her. so i ran back to crazy clarks to deal with the fifteen mile long line of angry people banked up behind register two for the next half hour.
the rest of the shift flew so fast, it was incredible. closed it down, counted the registers, and got right out of there. i then met up with my family and we went to coles to grab a few groceries. we then headed home and had dinner, and dad had three one-nighter movies for us to watch last night but i fell straight asleep when i sat down to watch them. i felt terrible, but really i was running on empty and would've fainted either way. that was the end of my saturday.
sunday started with me being forced awake from where i'd fallen asleep on the couch last night at roughly 9am. i was completely immobile; my body just wouldn't move from where it was. i was stuffed from yesterday, and it took my dad physically pulling me off the couch and a hard landing on the floor that i swear nearly cracked my teeth to get me to move. so i wobbled around vacantly trying to figure out what i should do, thinking i'd slept until like 4pm, when i realised what time it was and felt better about the fact i hadn't wasted the whole day as i'd previously thought. work is great like that, it makes me sleep in regular patterns, just like normal people!
i can't believe i've worked a collective 24 hours this week, that's awesome. i'm feeling it though; i'm not used to work having money for me. it's kinda ridiculous. i love the current management layout though. i must have done something right to be getting more hours than most other crazy's casual people at the moment. ahh. well, i might let you know how the rest of this day pans out if i have time later. for now, i must depart. mother's been screaming at me to tend to my birds for the last two hours. au revior!
