Seriously, Is This Really Happening?

Today is order day at work so we had three people scheduled in the cafe. I get to work at 7:30 this morning and start getting the cafe ready to open. Soon after that, the store manager tells me that the 8 o'clock person called in sick and she asked if I could stay till 3. I had been scheduled to leave at 1. On the plus side, that's an extra two hours of pay! However, this also meant I'd be by myself for two hours since the third person doesn't get there until 11.

Is this my only trouble for the day? I wish it was. We had some wood paneling in the cafe that needed to get worked on and they came to fix it this morning. That in itself is a good thing. However, for them to work, the closing crew last night had to move all of our retail coffee bags, chai and green tea boxes, the syrups and our espresso machine. For me this meant everything was squished on our side of the counter which means annoying to deal with. Also, one of the soup pots wasn't scrubbed completely clean last night so it had to be washed again. So I took it to the back and filled it with hot soapy water. I'd worry about it later.

Is this the end of my troubles? Sadly it wasn't. Usually the order arrives anywhere between 11 and 12:30. Sometimes a little earlier. Today he arrived a little after 9.....when I was still by myself. Luckily someone from the book floor was sent to help when I was checking in the order. However, she doesn't know how to make the drinks so I had to go help a couple of times.

The next step for the order is dating all of the delivered food and then putting it in our walk-in freezer. I had decided that it was best to simply stack everything in the freezer and let our lead do that when she got in at 11. I never would have gotten it done with having to stop and make drinks.

Since I didn't have to be in our back room anymore, I sent my co-worker back to the book floor. I planned to put up the non-food products of the order but that didn't happen. The cafe got too busy with customers. It wasn't busy enough for me to call for back-up but busy enough where I couldn't get anything else done.

I went on my lunch break at 11. When I was in the break room, I noticed that the schedule for next week had come out so I went to look at it. Apparently, my cafe manager had forgotten that I requested off this coming Sunday for my birthday. I was not a happy camper at that moment. Luckily I'll see her tomorrow so that can get fixed.

I am happy to say that my day got better after that. Nothing else major happened and I went into a much better mood. Although I was really happy when 3 o'clock rolled around. I was so out of there!!

Work Ramblings

This is for you Luz...Blog updated.

Okay seriously. Tonight I closed at good old Barnes & Noble and I was in the Children's Department which thankfully wasn't bad. From the few times I've worked back there I have mix feelings about it.

Here's why:

1) I like it because seeing books I grew up with take me down memory lane. If I wasn't working, I would be tempted to read all of the Berenstain Bears books. Seeing them make me wish I never got rid of the ones I had growing up.

2)I like it because it keeps me familiar with the section. Before I started working in kid's, I hated it when a parent or a kid would ask me if we had a book. I could look it up on the computer and tell them if we probably had it or not. Finding it was another story.

3) I don't like it because in a short period of time, it can be destroyed. It does depend on how busy the store is though. If it's busy and I'm gone an hour or more because I'm up at customer service, checking people out at the cash register, my lunch break or covering the cafe lunches...oh dear....it might take me a good while to clean it up.

Thankfully, tonight was a slower night. So after being at customer service, I didn't have too much to clean up. There were some books that had to be reshelved but it was still fairly nice, neat and organized. That made me happy.

Books

One day at work I was ringing a customer up and he made the comment that he had to return a book because it was defective. At once I wondered how a book could be defective. Defective means it doesn't work and how could a book not work. Even if a page is torn, you can still read it. The book is damaged not defective. The customer answered my question before I could ask. There were two chapter 13's and no chapter 14. Yes, I realized, that is a defective book. When you are reading a book, you cannot read chapter 13, skip 14 and go straight to 15. What if chapter 14 is the most pivotal chapter? What if it has the climax of the book? Without that chapter, it just doesn't work.