Friday | Week Two Report: This Little PA Went to Market

A week ago tonight I came home from work crying and to say I was hysterically crying wouldn't be a lie.To say it had been a rough day at my new job would be a blatant understatement. Nothing made sense in my training (which had consisted of reading online lessons on the computer all day) and I felt like this was a job that I couldn't do. Being the "newbie" made that feeling magnified, I felt like everybody was watching me as I stepped up onto this semi-management stage, poised and ready to throw rotten tomatoes at me the moment I tried to do my job. It was crazy.

Maybe I was having an identity crisis, I have no idea, but I'm not even joking...I came home from work and had an full-blown emotional meltdown. That lasted all weekend. I prayed and cried and begged and pleaded with God to somehow get me from this new job, to provide something else, to allow me to just quit the job Monday morning. It was all I could think about; I was depressed and moody, half the time just staring off into space. It was literally some serious soul searching.

But fast forward one week exactly to tonight.

I just got back from a closing shift at my new job, my new job that I LOVE. Yup, I love it. I'm now actually out on the floor doing that think I was hired to do, although I'm still technically in "training mode." All those terms and Target jargon that made no sense to me last week now actually do make sense (although why they give special names such as "push" and "pull" and "QMOS" to things that really just mean "put on the shelf" and "take off the shelf" and "throw away", I'll never know) and I'm realizing all those things that this job has me do that absolutely terrified me beyond hysteria when they were just words in my head really are just very ordinary types of every-day routines.

I'm making new friends, building new relationships, stretching my skill-set, learning something new every day and drying my hands out from working in the freezers half the day. Well, that last one's not a perk, but it is a reality. :)

But what this job has been and is continuing to teach me is God's faithfulness. Wow, I have seen God in action. I stressed and agonized and literally wept over having to go back in to work all last weekend. I prayed my heart out and so many of my family were praying right along with me. I went into work again Monday morning, nervous, scared, worried...and had a great day. A really great day. It was in such utter contrast to the week before that there was no way I could chalk that up to anything other than God at work and in a big, big, big way. This week has continued to be amazing and here I am, one week later on another Friday night, excited about my job and not even nervous that Sunday morning will be my first day flying solo, no longer in "training mode" but fulfilling my duties as official Market PA.

Every day I've seen God continue to guide me, help me understand my job and it's intricacies, helping me to be bold, courageous and friendly with my new co-workers. He's sent me some great people who've trained me well, with patience, graciousness and total acceptance of me assuming a position of leadership over them. Which is still unbelievably crazy.

So, this post isn't here to entertain you or show case my recent photos (poor camera has been rather neglected as of late). Rather, I'm writing this post because God has done a big thing for me and that's exciting to me. And also I write this post because, in a way, it's me saying thank you to God for all the ways I've seen Him pull for me this week.

"My soul magnifies the Lord, for He that is mighty has done great things and worthy is His name."

Tuesday | Pictures Without Words: Auntie Days

Thursday | Adventures in Target: Days One & Two

 

This post could also appropriately be titled "In Which I Nearly Die of Nerves, Succumb to Hysteria and Abandon All Hopes of Retail Success."

Yesterday morning found me in a bad way. Like I'd-rather-die-than-go-into-work sort of way. I was so nervous, guys. I literally shut myself up in my room with the door closed, didn't even tell my roommate it was my first day of work, and I spent the whole morning and early afternoon psyching myself up for orientation. And when I say psyching myself, I mean just that - I watched back to back episodes of Psych because if I stopped and let myself think about what was coming, I'd die of spontaneous internal combustions or something horrific like that. Being unemployed never looked more beautiful than in those hours waiting for 2pm (time to go!) to arrive.

It was a crazy day, y'all. My khakis came in the mail literally at 1:30pm. Then when I was about to hit the road to get to orientation on time, I remembered that I was supposed to bring in my ID and my SS card. Which was at home in my mom's keeping. Cue the panic. My brain also though this was a good time to remind me that my gas tank was basically on empty. So, 2:02 found me in my car entirely NOT confident that my outfit was okay, speeding towards my paren'ts house which was the opposite direction of my Target to meet my younger brother at the end of the driveway with my SS card, where I drove the rest of the way with the "low fuel" light decorating my dash board like a malignant hello.

Yes, I was late. Me, the person who's completely and hopelessly OCD about never being late...was 7 minutes late for orientation. My epic fail moment. However rather than firing me on the spot with a twelve-gun rejection solute, they graciously didn't seem to even notice my tardiness.

So, orientation found me and three guys filling out paperwork and watching some videos with some hysterically over-dramatized and painfully over-acted scenarios and today found me and two of those same guys buddying up as the resident newbies behind a cash register which forever altered the way I will view check-outs for the rest of my life.

Moral of this post? I made it. Ha. Day three? Bring it on.

Tuesday | Announcement: The Red(shirts) Are Coming

Two things you should know about me: 1) I don't wear red and 2) I don't wear khakis.

My longstanding animosity towards khakis dates back to my days with a  traveling ministry where I couldn't wear denim during working hours. Oh the agony. The red shirt thing started in the past few years when I was obligated to wear red shirts every Friday to work because there was one person in the office who took patriotism to the next level. Please note that I am patriotic, but I'd rather display my love of country from the safety of a blue or white shirt.

Combine those two and you would find nary an item of red or khaki inside my wardrobe. My Gryffindor t-shirt with the red sleeves doesn't count. I just don't do red and I certainly don't do khaki.

So, you want to know why this is so funny? Because I'm now a Target employee. And pray tell, what is the obvious wardrobe of the Target employee? Yes, you got it - red and khaki. The irony of it all. And so I had to go spend the last of my life savings on two kinds of clothes that I abhor with a blazing passion of a thousand super nova's.

But take comfort in this, my friends, that even though I'm now doomed to a stint in the Dreadful Color Duo, I am quite prepared to do it with class, style and some seriously cute outfits. Where there's a will, there's a way. :)

So, yes, I got a job at Target and I'm scheduled to start tomorrow. Nope, in case you were wondering, Target was NOT my first choice but sometimes you just can't be picky. Although I'd have had to be out of a job for at least another 6 months before I'd have even considered any form of fast food. Shudder.

Anyways, so I'm actually the assistant to the manager of the food department, or as my official title is, "PA Assistant." Whatever that means. So I'll not be running the cashier or hanging up clothes, but running inspections, overseeing the food (ie. looking at food all day, what more could I ask?) and general "assisting" the foods manager. Kinda cool, huh? I'm excited about the opportunity to learn something new, but I'm growing increasingly more depressed at jumping on board a job that requires working crazy shift hours (ie. nights and weekends).

It's only temporary until I can find a job more along the lines of what I'm looking for and enjoy, but as far as retail work goes, it could be worse. Well, I'm not sure if my required work attire could be worse, but I can get over that. I never thought I'd say this but I'll give credit to Walmart for at least having blue (also known as my favorite color) as their slogan color.

So wish me luck, everyone! Thank you for all your prayers and kind thoughts as I've been job hunting the past month and a half! God has seen me through in so many ways and I'm so grateful.

Monday | Christmas in July

And the award for "Worst Blogger of the Summer" goes to....me! Cue the boos and raspberries.

It's true, though and you know it. It's been painfully quiet here on the blog but since my blog centers around my life, not my life around the blog, that's just the way it's been this summer. I'm still here, I still read your blogs, I even leave a comment or two, but posts have obviously not been a number one priority to me lately. But since I've never wanted this blog to run my life, feel like a job with deadlines or anything else other than a fun hobby to motivate me to actually practice photography and also to chillax with you amazing people, I guess it's okay.

 

So, I do have exciting news but that news is for another post. For now, here's just some slightly random, slightly purposeful photos of how I spent my Saturday. Remember how my family does Christmas in July? Yes, I know, we're just so cool like that. This year was our 3rd Annual Christmas in July celebration, complete with highly un-holiday-ish hamburgers with our gift exchange following the meal. And yes, we did Christmas in July in August, gotta be flexible with everyone's busy schedules, right?

The last two years we did desserts as our exchange theme, but we decided that this year we wanted something a little less overkill on the sugar, so Stuart came up with the idea of snack mixes. Each person secretly picks out a recipe, lets the Facilitator (me the last two years, Katheryn this year) know their ingredients, the Facilitator buys it and then we each make our delights in "secret." Or a secret as you can get in a two bedroom house with 7.5 people living there (I just counted myself as a .5, since even though I don't live there, my spirit still hovers over like a protective and slightly obsessive guardian angel).

And then...we do a white elephant style gift exchange of our carefully guarded and painstakingly wrapped items. This year mom got my snack mix and I got Scott's delicious concoction of cheesy ranch snack mix. Yumby.

Me waving "hi!"

 The ingredients to my snack mix of delight.

Can't be in the kitchen without some tunes to inspire motivation!

Sweet tea is my right hand man.

 

Walah! Now there's a snack mix of another color! Chex cereal, pretzels, Reeses puffs, peanuts and m&m's liberally coated with white chocolate. Yes, I'm sure it qualifies as a snack mix. :)

Stay tuned for a post with my exciting (at least for me!) announcement. :)

Tuesday | The Opposite of Crazy and the Epitome of Slow

Sleeping in late because I staid up late watching a movie. Tsk tsk.

Reminders that life is NOW, not when all my dreams come true.

Maintaining perspective.



Toy box poised and ready. Ahem, for my nieces and nephews, mind you.

A brilliant read I can't wait to finish and review.

Grieving the highly dissatisfactory news regarding a favorite tv show.

Movie night tonight with my favorite people.

Emerald green toes.

Strange but tasty favorite snack.