I'm free!!!!

Well for about 2 weeks anyway. My last day of work was Saturday. On Feb 12th I start my new job. I'm way excited about it but really nervous too. The grand opening is on the 26th, store staff training starts the Monday before that. The week before I'll be training at a store in a neighboring town.

I can't remember if I ever posted that I got the job I applied for way back in August. So I'll be the general manager of a new optical shop that's opening up. Although I get to have a little bit of a hand in the hiring, I luckily don't have to do the leg work for it for the initial employees. I'm really excited about EVERYTHING being brand new down to the carpets and the ceiling tiles! There will be a lab with state of the art equipment. I'll have about 4-5 times the amount of staff I have now. I really hope things go as well as I expect. I really think I'm going to like it. The operating principles of the new company are exactly what I was hoping for and opposite the company I was working for.

I know the new job will come with challenges but there are so many headaches that are going to be eliminated and things that I came to really dislike about my job will be eliminated. So wish me luck! I'll let you know how it goes.

I got big plans for the next few weeks. I plan to get a bunch of blog posts done. I have a ton of them partially written up but I have been lazy about getting pictures off my camera. I still have Christmas on there. So be sure to read back over the next few days. I've got a lot of work to do!

I also plan on clean sweeping my house. I'm trying to clean and de-clutter a room everyday. I'm starting in the kitchen because it's the worst. So far that's been a 2 day project. But I've really been putzing around truly enjoying my vacation. So far the kids are only driving me a little crazy. I'm sure by the end of 2 weeks I'll be ready to go back to work. I give you stay at home mama's a lot of credit. In theory I'd love to be a stay at home mom, but then I have a rough weekend and I'm really ready to get out of the house.

Some days it doesn't pay to get outta bed!

Today was definately one of ~those~ days!
~ Late night with lack of sleep because Jayden was up 4 times in the night wanting to nurse and I gave in because I knew she was feeling icky
~ Doubly late night because I was feeling icky and apprehensive about hopefully a job offer I should be getting anyday
~ Hit snooze too many times so I was up about a half hour late and in a big time rush
~ Trevor would not cooperate AT ALL this morning and threw a fit coming down the stairs, changing him, getting dressed. Refused to eat his breakfast then threw a fit when I went to get him down because apparently he decided he wanted to eat his breakfast 10 minutes before we needed to be walking out the door.
~ Jayden soaked through her diaper head to toe and had to be cleaned up
~ Already about 5 minutes late and I can't find Trevor's shoes anywhere. After about 10 minutes of ripping the house apart I find them in a basket on the bookshelf. Huh? I suppose that might be a good spot for them and it is but it would have helped if I knew that was the new spot to keep his shoes.
~ Stubbed my toe as I'm running crazy around the house
~ Get into the car and realize that the car is pretty much out of gas, praying that there was enough fuel vapors to get me to work because no way did I have time to stop
~ Getting Trevor out at daycare was all kinds of fun because they were chopping down a tree or something and Trevor wanted to look at the "tra-tor" and didn't want to go in. He also threw a fit because I wouldn't let him take a book into day care with him.
~ Get to work 1 minute before I have to open the store when I usually need a full 15 to get everything "ready" for the day.
~ A whole slew of people waiting for me to open the door and 2 of them were extremely cranky/irrate and made a big scene. They were extremely mean to me. Lovely way to start the day.
~ As I'm working on someone's glasses I managed to stick myself with a push pin and it bleed like crazy and wouldn't stop bleeding. I soaked through 3 bandaids
~ About an hour after the push pin incident I slammed my finger in the file cabinet drawer (other hand) and shortly after that I hit my elbow on an open desk drawer. It was pretty dumb of me to leave it open to begin with.
**** All of the above happened before 12:30pm****
~ And then the phone rings and it's daycare. My heart jumps into my through because they never call. I thought something bad happened. Jayden had a 102 temp and needed to go home. Not good but a lot better than what I was afraid of.
~ Love my job... I'm working solo and neither of my other 2 girls was able to come in. So what the h*ll am I supposed to do.
~ Called Travis who was in a middle of a lab in surveying. He was frustrated because they were most of the way through their lab and had to pull up all the stakes or whatever when he would have been done with the lab in 45 minutes. 3 hours wasted. But he can pick up the kiddos
~ I hate my job I hate my job I hate my job
~ The phone rings and it's Travis he says, "Dawn... did tell daycare that the kids had flu shots yesterday?" If they would have known they would have given her tylenol and not sent her home. If it had been any other morning I probably would have remembered but I was rushed in just getting them in the door and telling them about Jayden's thrush treatment it didn't even cross my mind. Plus they were both fine all day yesterday.
~ I explained to him the sequence of events and on top of all of that how crappy I was feeling. I felt bad that he had to leave class for no reason because of my goof up. I was in a fowl mood because how customers had been treating me. And extremely annoyed that through all of this that there was customers stacked up and I hadn't even been able to escape to go to the damn bathroom!
~ I hung up the phone and had tears in my eyes because the day had been so sh*tty. The wonderful customer who I had been helping pick out glasses when I excused myself to answer the phone was so sweet and asked if everthing was ok. I gave her a much briefer (than this) synapsys of day and she sympathized with me and said 'I hope your day gets better"
~ I was supposed to be off by 4 but because the day had been so nuts I hadn't had a chance to get any orders keyed and had a ton of other stuff to do when my other girl came in at 3. So I didn't get off til 5:30.
~ All day I was hoping to get above mentioned phone call as the guy called on tuesday and asked alot of questions about my current wages and benefits. He said he'll work some numbers and call me back. Here it is friday and he hadn't called back so I was getting anxious. One way or another I just want to know and be past this waiting game. My intial interview was in August and finally had a second (phone) interview last week. So now I'm sure I'll have to wait at minimum over the weekend.

On the bright side. Trevor was an angel tonight. He was soooo happy, singing, dancing, and ate a good dinner . He also went to bed without a fight and we snuggled for awhile in his room and "talked" about his day and what a good boy he is. We sang some songs and shared lots of hugs and kisses. He was being super snuggly. I live for those kind of moments. It's what being a mommy is all about. I really really needed that tonight. Jayden was really sleepy tonight and kinda cranky but I can tell she's not feeling good. Hopefully she sleeps though the night!

I'm a donkey on the edge

Gaaaahhhhhh stress is my middle name these days.

I ~LOVE~ my job. Note the sarcasm. Ahhh the power of positive thinking. Does it work? Ummmm nope! I'm understaffed and working a ton of hours. I'm not sure when my one girl is coming back from medical leave and I'm training a new girl. So far so good with her, I've got my fingers crossed. My regional sales manager is breathing down my neck. I am EXPECTED to make sales plan for the month. (I'm a optical store manager.) If I don't we are going to have a "documented conversation" (IE write up) at month end. Not to mention that my $ sales plan is big time ridiculous. And for the year I'm down about 66%. I try not to think that there is no way I'm going to do it. But really there is no way. I'm trying my hardest and it pisses me off that my boss only focuses on the negative. He's seriously the biggest jerk I've ever met and there's been a lot of turnover in my region because he's such an ass.

So then my optometrist lands in the hospital with a minor heart attack. He's a wonderful guy and I'm worried sick about it. And what makes me even sicker is that I'm worried that him being out is just one more hurdle that I have to jump to avoid the inevitable write up at the end of the month. No Doctor = No appointments = less sales. I feel like crap that I'm worrying about myself when he's in the hospital.

And so begins the job hunt. It makes me sad because 2 years ago I really thought I would retire with this company. I loved my job and never used to have a day where I hated to go into work. Now it's a struggle every day just to be there. I've had an interview with a company I would love to work for that is opening a new store in my town. I really hope I get the job. I think the interview went well but they said it would be 3-4 weeks before they make any decisions. The suspense is killing me. I've spent my entire day off on monster and yahoo jobs with a squirming baby trying to eat the keyboard and wishing I had earplugs to at least somewhat tone down the constant whining of a 2 year old.

I think Jayden is teething so she has been cranky all day. Nothing keeps her happy for very long. I don't know what is wrong with Trevor. He hasn't eaten much of anything in 2 days and throws most of his food on the floor. He whines all.day.long.

I've never been one prone to anxiety attacks but I think I've been having one constantly since last Wednesday when my boss said he would be in my store the next day and we have to have a serious conversation. I just have this sick feeling in the pit of my stomach, constantly on the verge of tears, super cranky and can't sleep at night. I was so thankful I had a few extra Ambien pills from my hospital meltdown with Jayden because last night I really needed. Too bad I felt the same when I woke up this morning. But at least I was able to sleep.

I know my problems could be a lot worse and they pale in comparison to what so many others are going through at this very moment. I know that I'm being a whiny baby. But venting makes me feel just a tiny bit better along with job hunting that I did today. So maybe tomorrow I can go to work and not be a puddle of tears and maybe just maybe I can go to sleep tonight without the drug induced coma.

A girl can dream right? LOL, on a side note, I'm just wondering if 2 is too young to watch the baby while I go take a long hot bubble bath and enjoy a glass of wine. Of course I'm kidding...I drank all the wine last night and Trevor poured all the bubble bath down the drain. Tee Hee.

Busy!

I've fallen waaaaaay behind in blogging. Life is pretty hectic at the moment. I'm short handed at work and training a new girl, so I'm working a lot of hours. Add to that needy kiddos = 1 mama with no free time.

Since this isn't just a blog but our family journal I plan to go through and back date some posts. So some of the stuff will be old news but I'll be working from the back to the most current hopefully in some sense of order. Good thing I take lots of pictures and save little mini drafts to blog about later. :o)

Oh, and keep your fingers crossed for me! I had an interview last Tuesday! I'm soooo excited and hope I get it. I think the interview went ~really~ well. Without spilling too many beans... here's a bit of the scoop. I'm being recruited for this position. They are opening a store in my town and there was one that opened in January and was VERY successful. It is in my "area of expertise" and I'm being considered for the position of General Manager. I'm under the impression that it would be substantially more $ and some (maybe most?) of the negatives in my current position would be eliminated. Especially the micro management factor and expectation to sell the Cadillac to the customer who can't even afford the Escort. And the beauty of it is that they actually have STAFF in their store. It's hard to give good service to the customer when your a 1 man show half the time. Not to mention if you're busy, impossible to break away for a potty break, or a mommy break in my case.

I went and "shopped" their other store before my interview and I was very pleasanty suprised. It exceeded my every expectation. :o) I could definately picture myself managing that kind of store. Drawback is that it would probably be a bit longer of a work week being that the position is salaried but they're closed on Sundays, so I'd never have to work on a Sunday. The person whom interviewed me said he was very impressed with the intiative I showed in driving to another city to shop them to know what the company was about, plus he was impressed with the internet research I had done into the company. Then 2 days later their recruiting Doctor came in to talk to my Dr. and I knew right away who he was when he said his name. I introduced myself and he said, "Nice to meet you, _____ told me all about you. He seemed very impressed." I'm not going to jinx myself by saying it's in the bag. But, I have a really good feeling about it.

Well, that was way more detail than I intended to go into. So anyway... don't forget to scroll down to see what we've been up to for the last month or so!

Trip down Memory Lane

I'm a little slow in getting this posted so I'm backdating. I've had it typed for awhile now, I'm just poky in getting pictures uploaded.

This weekend we went to a extended family reunion in Northern Missouri. It's a tiny little town that holds many fond memories for me of weekends spent at my Grandparents house. It was a 8 hour drive round trip for us but well worth it.

I really enjoyed seeing some of my cousins I hadn't seen in probably 15 years or so. Some of them were just little kids themselves when I last saw them now have children of their own! It was so much fun catching up with everyone. It's so wonderful to be able to get every one's email addresses, look at their family websites, etc. It will be so much easier keeping in touch with everyone now. I've never been much for letter writing in spite of my best intentions.

Two of my cousins had babies within 3 weeks of Jayden. I thought that was pretty interesting. Another cousin had a son who is about 4 months younger than Trevor. It really put Trevor's size into perspective. He was quite a big bigger than Trevor, in height but especially in weight. He looked so tiny compared to Wes!

Jayden was so smiley all weekend. Everyone asked if she was always so good and happy. I only wish. She was only happy because she was held the entire time. She seems to need constant interaction whereas Trevor was for the most part content with either hanging out watching a mobile or in his bouncy. She gets mad if left alone for more than a few minutes most days. She was fine with all the "pass the baby" until we stopped in Washington for a visit with a friend and she wanted none of being held by her. Mom really enjoyed holding her pretty much nonstop and didn't want to put her down even when she was sleeping. She sat in the back of the van all the way there and back so her and Jayden could "chat."




Anyway... It was a fabulous weekend. We even stopped at a small ice cream shop in a tiny little town that we always stopped at when I was a kid taking the same trip down the same roads. It's next to a playground beside a river. It was nice to get out and stretch our legs. Trevor enjoyed swinging and climbing up the slide with a little assistance from daddy. I think the playground equipment was the same as what I played on when I was a kid. I wish we had pictures of me as a kid at that park. It would make for a nice scrapbook page. I don't think I've ever seen one though. I'm a little more camera happy than my mom was. This weekend did make me think of my dad alot and I really miss him sometimes. :o( Good times were always had when we "went down south"




While in Washington we stopped to visit my grandparents. My grandpa is in the nursing home. He's always been a prankster and in good spirits. It's hard to see him like he is now. He's really sad sometimes. He did say something funny though... not sure where this comes from. He was in his wheelchair by the nurses station and he said he was waiting for someone to come pick him up because they were kicking him out because of his denomination. I guess now that I look back even that is kind of sad because he's kind of lost his grip on reality. But it was funny how he said it. Maybe he got in a discussion over religion with another patient? I dunno. He's always been a devout Catholic and regular church goer so I suppose it's possible.

My grandmother on the other hand is doing very well. She is recovering from an aneurysm that she was stricken with over a month ago. She doesn't hear very well because the University hospital lost her hearing aid and her glasses. I'm getting her a free pair of glasses via the Gift of Sight* since she's really not able to get new glasses on her own. It's a blessing that I work in the career that I do that I'm able to help. She hasn't had an exam since 1997. So I guess this is a example of why people should have regular eye exams and keep their prescription up to date. She was very happy to see Jayden and Trevor. Trevor was extremely cranky as he was on the tail end of a very long weekend and hadn't had much to eat in about 2 days. He's soooo picky! Grandma recognized everyone, even Travis from across the room. It was hard to carry on a conversation though with her because of her lack of hearing. I was so happy to see her in better shape than she was the last time when I saw her at the Surgical ICU at the University.


I think Trevor's ice-cream-face is hilarious. These are just a tiny sampling of the pictures I took this weekend. If you want to see the rest you'll have to ask me for the link to the Kodak gallery. :o)

* Gift of sight is a non profit organization organized by the company I work for. I encourage you to donate your old eyeglasses to your local optical shop. When collected by retail shops in my organization the get directly to the foundation. Others are collected by Lions club and still get there in a more round about way. My charity work these days are many hours spent cleaning and repairing glasses on my kitchen counter and reading/labelling the glasses to be inventoried by RX by the company. Someday hopefully I'll be able to go on an international mission to be able to make a huge impact in the lives of thousands of people. :o)

If ya can't take the heat...

So today I was leaving work. As I was walking into the parking lot a kid asked me if I was just getting off work. I was a little confused and said, "ummmm yeah." He said do you mind if I looked in your bag." (I was carrying a tote bag.) Turns out he was loss prevention for the store. LOL, he looked like a high school kid. I said "Sure go ahead, I don't mind."

As I'm unzipping my bag he says snottily, "You know you can't bring a bag like that into work, you have to use a clear zipper pouch for your stuff." Ohhh man was it on so I let 'r rip. I was perfectly polite though. I said, "Well you see, I'm a mommy and I breastfeed my baby. I have to pump my breastmilk while I'm at work so I have milk to feed my baby while I'm away at work. So I use this bag to carry my supplies for my pump." I said this as I'm fishing stuff out of my bag so that he could see I had no contraband. I said, "By the way, I'm Dawn, I'm the manager of the Optical Department. I don't think we've met." By this point he was about 10 shades of red. I finished with, "Oh this is my cooler for my milk. Do you need to peek inside that too?" He said no that would be ok and turned around to go back inside. Hee hee!

Now I don't make it a point to be rude to authority but he started it by being a jerk to begin with. Normally I do play nice with others, especially those I work with. I'm going to be really ticked though if he reports me and I catch flack for carrying a bag into work. A couple of the managers are jerks and probably would try to say something about it. Somehow I don't think it will come up.

LOL, poor guy, I think he was new. But I don't think he's going to ask to see in my bag again.

My day... Murder, Mayhem, and terrorism... WTF???

Current mood: Enraged, Drained, scared, and a little depressed :

~Chanting ~ I love my job... I love my job... I love my job.

Ok.... So let me start by saying as weeks go this one has been really shitty. Bar none, the shittiest week of this entire year. It's been pissy customer after pissy customer. Major problems to straighten out. They say bad things come in threes, well this week is multiples of multiples of threes. Lovely week to be a manager. ~deep breath~

So after yesterday I was about at the end of my rope so I told G that I would be taking some time off today and coming in at 4. I had a nice relaxing morning surfing the net and hanging out with my guys. When the time came for me to go to work, whamo my headache comes back. Hmmmm tension headache maybe?

So that brings me to the events of today. So I come into work and G is dealing with a person. There is a confusion on what his insurance covers and is upset that he had to pay $40. I told him to call his insurance company and that there wasn't more I could do. That we could give him a receipt to submit to his insurance company and he should get some $ back from them.
Soooo... this asshole gets this furious (scary) look on his face and his hands get kinda shaky and this guy says to us, "Now I know why people walk into pizza hut and kill a bunch of people and why people blow up places like the world trade center" OMG!!!! That was extremely scary and so I told him not to threaten me and that he needed to leave. I also paged security. He said, "I'm not threatening you, I'm just saying..." and he said it again. I told him it was a threat and he needed to leave. He said the same damn thing several times with me telling him with more force every time that he needed to leave.

He finally left just as one of the managers was rounding the corner. It didn't freak me out so bad when he was there, but after he was gone and it sunk in that there was a tiny chance that he could come back with a gun or something for real and shoot up the place. I kinda lost it.

Somewhat of a mental breakdown after the week that I had. I couldn't stop thinking that he was going to come back and kill us. It made me think about all of the crazies that have done just what he said, what took those people to the brink, and didn't he have to be at least a little bit crazy to say something like that? I mean come on, what kind of person would do something like that over FORTY DOLLARS!!!!!

I don't think I have ever been that shaken, I couldn't stop crying. I was scared to death to be alone in the store. So then G and I went and talked to the manager of the sears store. So we called the police and they came and got our statements. Thank God she told us to close early. So after it all we went home at about 6:30. It took awhile to get everything taken care of... statements written, security camera installed, statements again given to the police.

Funny thing is, he was not an anonymous person. He had come in for an exam the day before so we had ALL of his info, name, address, DOB, place of employment, etc. So the psycho is getting a visit from the police tonight. I wish they'd haul his ass to jail, though I know that isn't gonna happen. I told the cops to tell him he is never welcome back in the store. They said if he does to call them again. So he really was a dumb ass... making threats like that when we know who he is.

So the silver lining is that I worked a really short day today... worked only from 4-6:30 and got home earlier than I have in a really long time. God, I'm ready for this hell week to be over. I only got tomorrow left and then I'm off for 2 days. Yee haw... I can only imagine what tomorrow will bring.

I dread going into work tomorrow... I don't love my job anymore and that makes me really sad. I used to love going into work for the most part. I haven't really liked my job for the most part since I came back from maternity leave. And not only just because I have a baby now. Things have just really sucked hardcore since about December, and have only really started to get better in the the last 3 weeks or so. I started feeling better about things and then this week happened.
I guess I can only hope that next week is better

Mean people piss me off

Current mood: aggravated
Today was all and all an irritating day based solely on a single comment from my regional manager. Mind you that it isn't only this comment that angers me... but a culmination of all the shitty things he's said and done in the whole 6 months or so that he's been my boss. He's a dick plain and simple. He acts like a nice guy in group settings and such but one on one he's some days he's Satan in a Born-Again-Christian-Suit. Not meaning anything against Christians, I'm one myself. However, if you are going to talk the talk, you need to walk the walk. I could go on and on about all of the really crappy things he's done in the 6 months or so that I've known him, but my fingers would get too sore.

Last month I drove 6 hours to this stupid ass regional meeting with the director of Human Resources for his "new manager assimilation." It's purpose was to get us all going down the path of working together as a team and accepting him as our manager. We provided feedback, and from the sounds of it, not so nice feedback. I went into the meeting disliking him but keeping an open mind. I left the meeting hoping that I had judged him too quickly and optimistic that his demeanor would change.

ummmm... not so much. Walk into work and get a message to call him, so I did. Turns out a customer complained about our service and said they'd never shop again. The whole basis of complaint was that said customer waited on Friday while I helped a few other customers and my other associate keyed in her orders so she could leave. (she was 45 minutes late beyond her scheduled time off already, lives 45 minutes away, and there were tornado watches with a nasty storm on the way) I don't blame her for wanting to bust out of there, some days it's impossible to get out the door even close to your scheduled time off. Seems the customer felt that her presence in the store took precedence over all other happenings. I even explained to her the situation and why she was not being helped by my associate, hoping to at least get a little understanding, if not a little sympathy. If I was in her position I might have been a little frustrated with waiting but definitely would have understood why and not freaked out about it.

Mind you we told her when she called to say she was coming to pick up her glasses that she really should set an appointment and the time she was coming in was already booked solid. Ohhhh no, she was coming to get her glasses at that moment, hell or high water!
Her other gripe was that another day she came and was told that she would have to come back a half hour later because we were closing for lunch... We often close for lunch when only one person is working on slow days. We are, ya know, legally entitled to a break. But we have NEVER told a customer that they would have to come back later while we walk out the door. We wait til the store is clear put up our sign and book out the door. If a customer happens to come in as we are leaving we say something like... "oh you just barely caught me, I was just getting ready to go to lunch" And either the customer will say... Oh I'll come back later or we stay and help that customer and hope that all hell doesn't break lose and that we miss our break that day, which happens all the time.

Well, said customer when I was fitting her glasses let me have it and said how terrible our service was, on and on. I was nice, I empathized, I bit my tongue, apologized for her having to wait, again explained the situation, and then sent her on her not-so-merry way.

Fast-forward to today, my usual day off. My boss tells me what she said which was exactly what she told me. I explained to him the reason the customer waited and that we would not have told the customer we were going to lunch, that possibly we were already on lunch and an associate in the main store told her that we would not be back until 2, which is quite possible.
He went on a bit about customer service. Then he asked me, "What do you think had to say about this?" I said, "I don't know." I'm not a mind reader. I truly don't know what she had to say. So he repeated himself and I repeated myself. Then the f'r says, :"I don't know means I don't care." Ummmm noooo... I don't know means I don't know. If I intended to say I don't care, I would have said I don't care.

was my boss before him and she got promoted and hired him. I like her, I respect her, and she respected me. She could be a hard ass, and wasn't very personable. But she spoke to others with respect and courtesy. And very honestly I do care what she might have said. We don't have complaints very often, and in my reviews written by her I have always excelled in customer service.

So I don't really remember what was said after that, I pretty much tuned him out. So I think I'm going to call her and ask what she had to say about it, since A-hole never told me what she thought about it. And while I'm at it, I might voice some frustration. I'm not a tattle tale... and I don't like confrontation. But somethings got to give before I fly off the handle at him and lose my job. Damn I hate that man!!! And I really do get along with most people. There are many people that I dislike (hehehehe mainly rude customers) But very few people in this world that I can really say I hate. But that jerk is at the top of the list.

I'm making this private because I know that there's another manager on here that has her head up his ass on a daily basis (and she's in my dislike but tolerate category) And she'd probably tattle on me. Plus, I don't want just anybody knowing all the gorey details of my life.

Wowzer, I really didn't intend to ramble on like this. But somehow it's therapeutic. And if you stuck through to the end, you've got more patience than I... I probably would have skipped over it myself if I didn't write it!

Ya got anything to add "G?" I'm sure you do!