I’m feeling a little troubled and want to talk a bit, or write but don’t have anyone at the moment. They’re on normal people time.
I’m on “fuck you and die” time.
Suppose, I could talk to my cousin, since I know he’ll be up but we don’t really have conversations and he’s drunk and you can’t get a word in edgewise.
Today I worked with the woman who violated my privacy. I didn’t yell, I didn’t shout, or give attitude over it. I didn’t even bring it up. I have no idea if she’s realized yet, but I also found myself not caring if she had.
I also realized that I’ve never really, like really paid attention to her. She used to work my current position, but not all the other management positions I’ve worked, just mine, just in this location. She hasn’t expanded beyond the management skillset they taught her, which was probably nothing really, let’s face it. But, because she’s held my position in the past, I have left her alone and it wasn’t until today that I realized that was a mistake.
I cannot account for anything she did. There was one thing, one little group of things which is a task the area has to complete. That got done but… when? Hours before closing, I’m sure.
The thing that I had a strip taken off me for, by the other co-worker? She didn’t start it until after 8:30, at which time I’m almost certain she returned from a half hour break since she said she was going just after 8 and then said she was returning after 8:30. At about 8:15 I walked past her area and saw the lights were out and assumed she was or had been doing the other task on the floor.
It’s retail. You take the items moved by customers and put them back where they belong.
If you’re reading this and you’re one of those people who moves entire shelves of stuff, for the love of god, stop it.
The way our company is set up, there are three areas and one person responsible for fixing an entire third of the store. We all have other things we need to do on top of that responsibility. An entire third of the store, every night, no exceptions.
It takes me two hours to go through the whole thing, but I’m told I’m a special fairy of a fuckin’ princess and no one else can do that. So when I hear someone say, “I’m starting now,” when I ask half an hour before close how that job is going…
It’s a frustration.
But. I’m supposed to leave that area to be and do that area. They know the expectations, I even had the previous person go over the expectation with her to reiterate: it has to be done.
And it didn’t get done.
I’m only saying this as the most glaring example of Aya not doing her fucking job.
Me, I’m Aya. My name is right up at the top of the page.
I should have been paying more attention to her. I just should have, this entire time, I should have. That’s on me.
I’d be all “dumbass” on myself, but I’m still human, I make mistakes.
After we closed, customers kept trying to come in because the doors are broken, so I did announcements, which admittedly we aren’t supposed to do and I almost never do them. I think this is the third time in as many months and the second time was last night when a group of hipsters were wandering up and down the aisles talking loudly as the lights were about to go out overhead.
So, the person in question mosies to the front with what appears to me (but might not be) to be absolutely no get up and go, like she doesn’t care how long she takes. She walks up to the cash and leans on it, putting her butt in the way of customers who have to walk around her to get out of the store as she starts gossiping with the mother of one of the workers.
And I’m like, “Guys, I want to go home.”
And she says, “Oh, you guys. What are you going to do when Christmas comes and you have to be here until ten, cleaning everything.”
“Then we will be here until ten. But right now, I want to go home. I’m exhausted and my bed is calling me and this is day twenty-nine.”
“I’ve done that before. Oh well.”
Then she proceeded to mosie out of the store with the worker’s mother and talk at the doors, keeping them from closing for several minutes.
Which is against policy.
I stood and watched rather than approach her because I knew I was angry and I knew my tone of voice would convey that.
I was upset, she upset me, I’m allowed to have negative emotions toward someone.
Of course, I’m the crazy person who gets upset because she was leaning on the counter rather than working, gossiping and getting in the way of customers, and making my other bodies tonight do her work because (near as I can tell, but again, it might not be the case) she can’t be bothered.
And she dismissed what I was thinking or feeling, how I felt because in the past she’s worked many days straight.
Therefore fuck me.
Oh no, there’s not but or maybe tacked onto the end of that. She is un-empathetic toward my working so many days in a row against my will and against my wishes and protests. She knows, because I’m certain I told her last week, that I had said no, but that it was made out to me like I had no option and that none of the other managers could be bothered to rearrange their schedules.
Yeah… so that’s probably also out and about in teh store.
Fuckin’ stupid Aya.
Soft skills are important, you nitwit.
Swearing at myself makes me feel better, don’t question it too much, just roll with it.
As we left the store, she immediately walked off. That won’t be happening again, each night I will call them back and they will wait with me. The doors didn’t quite want to close but, poof. All of a sudden she had a speed faster than a mosie!
There’s a word for people like that.
Frustrating.
So, I get in the car waiting for me and my cousin is wearing his school dress code so I get super confused, think it’s Friday, and ask him why he was at school so late.
And he starts talking.
At first I was bitterly annoyed, I’m tired, I just got passively aggressively walked over by someone who just a week ago was claiming we were friends. I didn’t want to hear about how someone else had a good day.
But he was excited, and full of energy. And… maybe full of alcohol as well because part of his day was taste testing drinks.
And I just sat there, trying to remember the last time I sounded like that. Just so fucking excited about something. And then I thought about my day, because I was really upset when I got into the car, like on the point of tears because I was tired to the point of tears and then that happened.
And I got to thinking.
Today… wasn’t a bad day. I had an extra body that I don’t usually have. In fact, I had a literal person who I don’t normally work with. And despite how exhausted and worn out I was, she still made me laugh.
Because I asked her to do something and she responded with, “Sure, doll, whatever you want.” with all the assurance of a man twice her age, and I could almost hear her wink at me even though it was said over a radio.
Everything but that person’s (the one who violated my privacy) area looked great. Better than it has in a while. Customers were happy and not mean at all, not rude. Messy as all hell.
Who the hell makes a mountain out of baking supplies, honestly? Don’t you have a phone? Play on that while your girlfriend shops, don’t make more work for us!
This morning, I got some edits done, did some driving practice.
Today was not a bad day.
But because I’m so wrung out already, an unempathetic body brought me right down when she had no right to.
Being made to work for more than a month in a row is not okay, and it is not something to talk down to that person about. I’m doing work a favour by working through this. If I wasn’t there, if I was just my position, if I was the one who talked down to me even, the co-worker or the one who violated my consent, I would not be working through the course of the month.
Because none of them are capable of doing what I can do. And that’s really the kick in my pants, isn’t it? The fact that I’m in this situation because I’m reliable and hard working. When not overly tired I’m super stable and don’t gossip or whine or anything.
When I am tired and worn out, I eat a piece of apple pie and a bun and two pieces of chick and then just feel ick because my stomach would now like me to die.
I’m also impulsive, whiny, bitchy, bitter, and can sometimes have mental breakdowns for like an hour before I pick myself up, dust myself off, and act like nothing happened.
However.
I tell people that. In fact, going into school, I told my boss that if I get too tired or worn out, if I don’t get the time off I need, then I will get lippy. Which was the closest word to bitchy and crazy I could use given where we were standing at the time.
I know this about me, I know how I act and I’m not determined to change how I act when I’m tired. Instead, I’m determined not to find myself in those positions. I go to sleep on time, I feed myself, I leave positions that would expect too much of me or relationships that are batshit crazy.
But I never want to change how I act when tired. I’m a human fucking person. We aren’t built to be rational when tired. We don’t have control over our moods when we’re tired, our emotional intelligence drops to that of a two year old and we do things we wouldn’t normally do.
Like cry because someone was a meany head.
What we do have control over is our compassion and empathy toward our fellow humans. And as of tonight, I feel as if these two women who I have now had issues with, are lacking that key component.
Empathy.
Everyone else I work with understands. This is day twenty-nine, I’m tired and I’m not built for this. I didn’t ask for this. I certainly didn’t want this. I went into my school year with a promise for a day off every two weeks.
Then someone quit. And the boss had vacation booked from months before.
I actually can’t list anyone besides those two who have put their noses in the air because They did just fine when they had to work such and such and so on.
So… how does one deal with the un-empathetic when one must see them often and speak with them?
I’m supposed to be bright and open, but not a doormat, so I can’t just go to pretending like nothing happened, as that would make them feel like it’s all right to speak to me like that and I’ve decided it’s not.
I know I’m at the end of what I can sustain. End of rope, or cliff, or road, or whatever metaphor you want to use. I know this is a limit for me. But all they think is I’m some stupid little girl who doesn’t know how the world actually works.
Except, in our country, that’s not how the world actually works. So, you know, there’s that.
Where’s that magic lottery ticket when I need it?
Anyway, I’m not even quite sure what the point was, besides to get the words out of my head so they’d stop swirling around.
Now I’m just left with the question: how do you deal with un-empathetic people without starting a fight, but also without becoming a doormat?
Aya DeAniege 