free clothes stampede

I posted a bunch of free clothes on Craigslist. I just wanted to get rid of them. It's a full day later and I had to delete the post because of the overwhelming response. I had a very full mailbox when I went online. The clothes are getting picked up tomorrow by the first lady to email me. She has three girls under the age of 3. I'm thinking triplets but you never know. I hope she gets many happens uses out of them. I wonder if she needs any pots or pans...

Santa may have been too good to us...

Wow. I actually get a day off. The girls and I bundled up and went out on the swing for a bit. It was super windy and a bit of rain was falling but we needed out. We can't move in our house. We have two rooms out of commission while the house is being redone. I had to take every toy out of the girls bedrooms and put them in the living room. There is no room to walk. You are stepping on something no matter what you do. And yes, I did just give some toys to a friend of mine who is expecting soon. I also gave her clothes but we have tons of that as well. I feel like I am drowning in excess but what do I get rid of? I cannot just throw the girls things away. They are not mine and it is not worth upsetting them. I would love to throw away all of the stuff in the basement but they are worth too much money. I need to get a pile together to donate. Do you know anyone who needs pots and pans?

On another note, we have gotten very tight at work with the registers. We audit them a few times a day. Ten dollars was missing twice. I was the only constant between those two days. This scares me. Luckily, I had my register audited before leaving a couple days ago so when a check was missing, it wasn't my fault. I hope this blows over and never happens again. I know that I didn't take the money but I have no way of proving it. Because other people used the register as well, they can't prove it was me so I am being suspected but not in trouble yet. I have already told the boss that I will not share a register for a while. I just don't trust that I won't get blamed for someone else's mistake.

Wow, those girls can whine. When they cannot get even the simplest toy to work it is naptime. Good night.

Bad Evening

The til was $10 short today. There were four of us using it. I have no idea what happened. I honestly do not believe it was stolen. I believe that it was a case of too much change was handed out. Or it could have been misplaced. Either way, we are short.

work, the girls and mirrors.

Still love my job. I am learning a lot. Right now, everyone likes me. We'll see if that changes.
My girls leave tomorrow to spend a week with Nana and Grandpa. I am sad. They have been getting to be extremely good friends. Their giggling is so contagious. I feel sorry for people who choose not to have children. They are tons of work but I was so happy today just watching them. When I pretend to fall asleep they both tell me to wake up. Heidi says, "wake up Heidi!".
I met up with Tom at work today because I needed to work before his VMware group was over. That meant that the girls had to go to work with me until he could pick them up. Since he was a bit late getting there I clocked in 15 minutes late. No big deal. My boss knew that I wasn't blowing work off. The girls danced in front of the big changing room mirror. Then they started hitting it. I had to wash all of the mirrors and doors when they left. What is it with kids and touching everything?

oops

I was at work an extra half hour yesterday trying to correct a closing mistake that I made. It was still unresolved when I left because I needed the store manager to sign some paperwork. Otherwise I covered it okay. I added $0.20 instead of $20. I do not like the calc that we use. People keep resetting the number of decimals making it difficult for me to know how to type stuff in. I thought I figured it out but I was obviously wrong. Stupid mistake too. It could have been avoided by slowing down and rechecking my numbers. I feel really small right now.

tired

Big shock here. I have been working until 10:30 or later at night. It takes me a bit to unwind so I haven't been falling asleep until 1am-ish. My Youngest woke up at 6:30 this morning wanting to play. My husband is working nights this week so I need to let him sleep until I leave for work. Yep. I'm tired. Yawn. I just hope that this isn't one of those days where they are convinced that they don't need a nap. I want to take one.

She may not be a theif but I don't know that...

Royally pissed off my first customer today. She came into the store with a shopping cart from a neighboring store. We have a rule about no carts. When I tried to tell her about the new rule she became upset. I tried to explain that we where implementing a lot of rules to combat theft. She thought I was accusing her of being a thief. I was not. She left in a huff. Talking loudly about how she was going to buy something and how the store obviously didn't need her money. Etc Etc...
I think she doth protest too much.

working with kids

I like my job. I love my children. I don't want to miss watching my children grow up because mommy needed to pay the bills. Right now, I am fine. When they start school and I close most days, I will only get to see them on my days off. I hope that is not how it happens. I got really nervous about it yesterday. Don't worry about the future. I don't know yet what is happening. Argh. Wish I could just "not think about it".
Heidi is sick. Terrible head cold or allergy or something. She isn't sleeping at night because she coughs too much. Which means that I am not sleeping. I can't tell if I am this cranky from lack of sleep or the new medicine. I bet the medicine would work if it wasn't going against waking up every other hour to rock a sick baby. I need to wait another hour before I call the doctor and make her an appointment. I know what they'll say: it's a virus, just let it work itself out. Meanwhile, she is on edge from not sleeping at night.

Why is the register in the back of the store?

Fun day. I worked my first full shift. The regional manager and someone she was training were in today as well. They made the store manager nervous by just talking amongst themselves and pointing all day. They did help during a ten minute period when we were extremely backed up but the rest of the time they just whispered and pointed. I understood that The RM wanted to show the guy what to look for and point out. Since she was in the store yesterday and already told the SM what she needed, she didn't need to repeat it today. I just wish that they hadn't stayed for so long. I stay up front to great the guests and make sure that the merchandise stays inside the store until it is paid for. The SM worked the back of the store including the registers.
Now, why are the registers in the back of the store? Doesn't that invite theft? When my grandfather moved the registers from the back to the front of the store, he lowered shrink in his store by over 50%. That is very significant. I wonder if it is just an aesthetic thing. If it is, they need to change. It could be to force customers to go through the store and admire the clothes before they do a return but honestly, the amount of theft vs convincing a customer to buy one item is just not enough in my opinion. Of course, I don't have any hard numbers with which to compare the theft vs returns gained. Oh well. I'm just an assistant manager anyways. What do I know.

I wish that I could convince the world to leave me alone some days. I woke up in a bad mood. Granted, it was at 5:30 this morning to a 3 yr old yelling that she needed dry clothes, sheets, blankets and stuffed animals. I was calm until everything was changed. All I needed was for her to put on her shirt and get back into bed. She wasn't putting on her shirt so I put it over her head. She started screeching at the top of their lungs. I may have lost my cool at that point. Tom took over. I still say that I had every right to yell back. I tried to nap this afternoon but everyone needed to talk to me the second I started to dose off. Yep. This is a great day off work.

Boring Sunday

Work was dead yesterday. We had maybe 15 customers all day. This could be due to the fairly heavy rain or the fact that most people did their shopping on black friday and saturday. We actually would have lost money if the returns were not mostly exchanges.
I learned how to open the store and close it. I learned how to do a lot of the management type jobs. I learned how much it sucks to tell a customer that we cannot accept her return because the coat doesn't have the tags on it. It is not her fault that she received it without tags. She bought it over the internet and should have been able to return it to us but we did not have a code for it to put it in our computers. Now she will have to pay shipping just to return a coat. That sucks. There should be a way that we could have accepted it. I can't think of one though.