28 November 2009

Turkey Day to Black Friday

Thanksgiving was nice around my place this year. I got to relax, watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, catch the Packers-Lions football game, and eat a bunch of great food Mom prepared. We had turkey (of course), stuffing, mashed potatoes, au gratin potatoes, banana bread, pumpkin bread, cranberry sauce, green bean casserole with French fried onions, jello and marshmallows, and pumpkin pie and apple pie. Delicious!

Hopefully, my readers all had a nice Thanksgiving with their families too.

Yesterday was Black Friday, the busiest shopping day of the year. And after all that relaxing and turkey-eating I did, I had to work. I was scheduled to work the calendar kiosk from 8am to 5pm with a one hour break for lunch in between. I was also scheduled to have a partner to help me out during that time from 1pm-5pm. Both aspects didn't really materialize nicely though. My break was only scheduled from 2-3pm, after 6 hours of work, and since my partner didn't come down to the kiosk to help me and instead stayed on the book floor, 2:30-3:30pm was the ONLY relief I got all day. No water breaks, no bathroom breaks, no get-away-from-the-annoying-shoppers-and-clear-your-head-for-five-minutes breaks. It was frustrating to say the least.

But, on the whole, besides being completely drained and exhausted when I got home, I got through it okay. I am really glad that only comes once a year, and truth be told, it went better than I expected. The Black Friday shoppers really were not bad at all to deal with, save for one or two. One older gentleman came in to look at the Maxim and Playboy calendars we sell and I asked him if I could help him find anything. His reply: "Yeah, how 'bout $50 million so I can pay off my mortgage and shit?" My immediate reply without missing a beat: "Sure, sir. It's in center court right next to Santa's Workshop." I still don't know what that means, but that guy gave me a grunt and left - quickly. (This was at the very end of my nine-hour shift, and I was kind of done dealing with morons at that point.)

My fabulous schedule now allows me to work today for seven hours, tomorrow on my birthday for 4 1/2, Monday, and Tuesday before I get a day off. I'm getting almost 30 hours a week the last two weeks though, so I am hesitant to complain about hours and days off at this point. It would have been nice not to have to work on my birthday, though.

If you're by the mall, come feel free to stop by my calendar kiosk and say hello!

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