Nothing puts the month into perspective like making the store’s schedule through Christmas Eve. The schedule, at least two weeks out, isn’t set in stone. It’s a kind of guestimate, an ideal for how I want to schedule the store. There’s every possibility that the schedule for the week beginning the 18th will need someContinue reading “On Making December's Schedule”
Category Archives: Work
On Christmas Songs
They’ve begun to play Christmas songs on the muzak at work. It’s not all Christmas music — we still get the insipid Hillary Duff and Kelly Clarkson songs every twenty minutes — but there’s a nice mix with maybe one out of every three songs being a Christmas song. And they’re not old Christmas songs,Continue reading “On Christmas Songs”
On the Day After
I’m so glad I no longer work in a mall. The day after Thanksgiving is, traditionally, the busiest shopping day of the year, the start of the Christmas shopping season. The company wanted its stores in strip malls to open at seven. I got to work at six, brought the registers up, and at 6:15Continue reading “On the Day After”
On Pre-Thanksgiving
Yesterday. The XBox 360 launched. System allocations were extremely tight. Microsoft cut allocations twice in the weeks running up to the November 22nd launch resulting in a few customer service issues. But by Monday customers who knew they wouldn’t be getting a system on Launch Day seemed pretty accepting of the fact, and yesterday’s launchContinue reading “On Pre-Thanksgiving”
On Heading Back to Work
Yesterday morning I got back from our annual manager’s conference in Las Vegas. After four days in Vegas I needed sleep. I’m now feeling mostly refreshed. I had a good time in Vegas. I didn’t plan on playing the slots, until I found a slot machine with a Munsters theme. I kid you not. LostContinue reading “On Heading Back to Work”
On Work and Scheduling
Nothing makes the year seem shorter than it is than doing a work schedule. Specifically, four weeks’ worth of schedules, taking us from Labor Day until the first of October. It’s not even the end of August, and I can tell you who will be working when on October 1st. Working the schedule that farContinue reading “On Work and Scheduling”
On My Day
I felt as though I were spinning my wheels at work today. Friday’s I work a late shift, not coming in until 1. Not thirty seconds after I stepped through the door I received a phone call–today’s conference call is at 3, and call the other stores in the district to pass along the message.Continue reading “On My Day”
On an E-Mail Annoyance
I don’t own a digital camera. I like film. It’s the texture–film has a texture a digital photo just can’t capture. Don’t get me wrong, I understand the appeal of digital photography, and being able to spread photos far and wide and fast is something that film photography can’t compete with. For myself, if I’veContinue reading “On an E-Mail Annoyance”
On Schedule Making
Today I wrote up the store schedule for the next two weeks. Good idea, no, considering I leave next Friday morning for vacation? There’s no magic to making the schedule. In a way it’s like building with LEGO bricks–this person goes here, that person goes there. But there are limits–payroll is this much, this personContinue reading “On Schedule Making”
On Memory
A man came in the store today. I was a bit on the harried side–one of my employees called out distraught, the other wasn’t due in for a few hours–and I had customers on all sides. He asked me a question, I told him I would be right with him, and he began to browse.Continue reading “On Memory”