Bunch O Stuff

Well I've completed my first work week. I've worked every day this week, eight hours each day. Next week I'll work five days again, eight 1/2 hours each shift. Then I'll settle down to working just four days per week. I'm learning quickly. The other day my boss came up to me and told me she's just thrilled with me! She told me she'd had a good feeling about me from our first meeting at our interview, and planned from that point to hire me. She said "I can see I made a good choice." I get along well with my co workers too. Upstairs from the store is a large room full of cubicles where people are sitting at computers, making catalogue sales etc. for the store. It's a big place. I'm getting to know some of them too. When I go outside to take a smoke break, some of them are out there, and when I take my lunch break in the staff room I sit at the table with them. After just a week I already feel part of everything. It's just really great.

It's much slower paced than it was at Sears. I've had to learn to work slower - from my days as a dishwasher where I had to literally run upstairs if I needed to use the washroom, and fly so fast through the dishes as they piled up all around me, to Sears where I could be more relaxed during the slow times when I could fold sweaters etc., but fly through the transactions the rest of the day when customers were lined up by the dozen, to Taylor Office Products where there are fewer customers and so I can move through my workday very slowly. I've discovered that my boss approves of me just wandering through the isles, checking out the paper and staplers and the dozens and dozens of pens. I'm "getting to know the products", so ... wandering is part of my job description! As long as I keep an eye out for customers needing my help, it's all good. I find it quite interesting actually, learning all there is to know about paper and pens and other things related to office work. I guess that makes sense since I'm a writer.

I've noticed that one by one my shoes are breaking apart. My shoes and boots are all from the second hand store, and, I guess because I do so much walking in them, the heels are coming away from the soles. I have all these shoes and they're all broken! Yesterday I was allowed to leave work a little early, so I could take care of some business. I walked and walked and walked. On my way home I decided to take the bus. I had a bag of MacDonalds food meant for my dinner, and my umbrella (it had stopped raining), and my purse, and a bag with stuff I'd bought. I was cold, and tired from working all day and then walking all over creation. I stopped at the bus loop, and asked a boy when the next bus was leaving for my street. He happened to be taking the same bus, and told me it would arrive at the loop in about twenty minutes. I told him "I'll just walk. I'll be home in twenty minutes!" I walked and walked and walked. I passed my old apartment building where I lived a month ago. Where I froze in that one room suite, and suffered from window leakage. I looked up at the window where I used to stare out, saw that the drapes are still stapled crookedly at the hem (I did that while drinking one night, to "fix" the torn sewing). I finally reached my street and as I waited for the light to change so that I could cross, there came the bus! I would have arrived at exactly the same time if I'd just waited! And there was the boy sitting all comfortably in his seat! He was waving! LOL.

I've been thinking about my fear of phones. My boss tells me I don't have to answer the phone quite yet (until I know more how to help people who are phoning) unless there isn't anyone else nearby when they ring. Today I answered for the first time since I started this job. I find it isn't so terrible once I've picked up the receiver, but my initial reaction to the ringing, is to get as far away from that thing as possible. I've made it my goal to get over this. It's silly.

In grade seven I actually volunteered to work in my school office every other lunch hour. I sat at the secretary's desk, answering the phone. I put people on hold, I had three lines, I took messages for the principal, I used the rolodex. I was even paid for this at the end of the year. I loved it. Obviously I hadn't developed my fear of phones yet. Somehow (actually I know what it was), I developed this phobia during the ensuing years. Now I need to fix that.

I received a wonderful gift this past week. My great friend gave me a link to a site where I can download music and all kinds of other things. We've both downloaded several fantastic programs to work on photographs. I just love discovering new ways to work on my art! It's incredibly exciting to me, to be able to learn a new way to enhance my pictures, and turn them into something completely other than what they were when they came out of my camera. I've also downloaded a ton of Leonard Cohen songs. I bought some very cool blank C.D.'s today at Taylor's. I need to get these downloaded songs off my hard drive and onto C.D. These that I bought look just like little vinyle records.

And ... and spring is on its way! Soon it will be warm enough for me to sit outside, behind my little fence that encloses my patio. I'm looking forward to planting up my window boxes that I have arranged around the border of the cemented area of my patio. There's a little grassy strip around the edges of the cemented area, that I'm going to dig up and sow with some wildflower seeds or something. I have to get busy in making my gate, to cover the large opening into my patio. Without a gate, anyone walking by can see right into my patio. I want to have privacy. I plan to create a beautiful space with plants and chairs, and a hammock where I can relax undisturbed. The cool thing is, now I have a job, so I can afford to buy stuff for my patio. Soon the stores will have plants and things for sale, and I will be there with my cash!

Last saturday I joined my two younger sisters and their three kids, for a swim at the local community pool. They'd all come to my apartment to swim in my building's pool, but when we all went down in our bathing suits, we found that the pool was closed for the day. So we went to the community pool. We had a wonderful time. That pool has a twisty tube slide. We went down again and again, laughing our heads off. When we came out of the chute we landed in a sort of trough filled with shallow water. There was also a whirlpool where we could just float as the current took us zooming round and round. In the main pool is a long floating mattress for kids to run across, so that they run on the surface of the water. My sisters and I tried it out, but the mattress wouldn't hold our weight, so it sank beneath the surface as we ran. We looked like elephants lumbering along. It was great fun. After our swim we went to the local Boston Pizza. I peeked into the kitchen to see the dishwashers hard at work. I remembered when I washed dishes at Boston Pizza on the Island, and was thankful that I was there now as a customer, rather than as a dish pig!

What a lot of changes this year has brought me!