Kate’s Rants

so today i went to work at Dunnes department store. i got to the little office area where we had our orientation, and the other two new girls were already sitting there. so i joined them and we chatted for a bit and sat around for about 25 minutes until someone finally remembered that we were there. one of the girls had to go back to poland for a couple of weeks on tuesday so they told her to just check back in and reapply when she gets back. (poor new girl. already got the boot.) anyway, then they let us into a different office and gave us our uniform shirts and showed us where the locker room was so we could try them on. joanne and i both tried on a couple of shirts and found ones that sortof fit. they were clearly used before, because both of our shirts were missing a button (but we both had other t-shirts on underneath so it wasnt a big deal) and my shirt has a rough patch on one of the sleeves, like someone rubbed the fabric on something too many times. weird.

anyway, we put on our used shirts and then someone showed us the futuristic time clock that we’d be using to clock in. you have to SCAN YOUR HAND to clock in! it’s seriously like a science fiction movie. talk about star trek. (not that i would know because i highly dislike star trek- i only saw bits of episodes when i lived with jessica because she LOVED it and whenever she was flipping channels and she’d find it she’d yell “star trek!” and get really into it and i would sigh and stay for a few minutes but ultimately give up on the corniness and leave the room cause i can’t stand that show.)

so yeah, futuristic hand-scanning device. crazy!

that doesnt go into effect until after easter though. but for me it doesnt matter because i havent gotten my finacial things set up yet because i dont have a bank account yet because i dont have a PPS number yet because i dont have my immigration card yet because the machine that prints the cards was broken when we went to the immigration office and now we are just waiting for them to come in the mail. who knows how long it will take?

anyway, so i’m not going to actually be able to get paid until all of those things happen. which could be awhile. yikes. but oh well.

tomorrow i should really call the immigration office to find out what happened with our cards.

ok well back to day one.

after the hand scanning thing (which amazed both joanne and myself) we were taken upstairs to the clothing area. (the ground floor is the grocery store.) so we go up this moving ramp thing. imagine those moving floors in the airport. now tilt it up 30 degrees. that’s what we went up. it was strange. i’m used to escalators cause at least you have a step to stand on that is flat. but this was tilted and i thought i was going to slide down. there’s even a sign that says “don’t walk, hold hand rail at all times” which i wasnt doing until i saw the sign. and also explains the feeling like i was going to slip.

so we get upstairs and get passed on to someone else who hasn’t a clue what to do with us. so they page the manager, who doesnt come right away. so the girl decides to show us around. right after she begins the tour, Catherine comes running over and says “don’t steal my girls!” introductions are made, we find out that we are being designated areas. they ask us who is full time and who is part time. joanne says she is flexi, so they look at me and go “you must be nights and weekends” and i go “uh. sure.” and so catherine says “that means your MINE!” and then she asks me if i’ve ever worked in a shop before, and i tell her yes. and she asks if i have ever worked in a childrens department before, and i say yes, it was my first job. so she looks at me all delighted and goes “perfect!”

now, i’m going to rewind to this morning when i was talking to brad. telling him “i hope i’m not in the kids department. i hated working in kids! they always messed up the toys and stuff. i dont want to work in women’s either though, it’s always the messiest. men’s would be good. nobody ever goes in there.”

but of course i got put in kids.

so i spent the day “merchandising” which means i organized the clothes on the racks with the smallest size towards the front and the largest in the back. i also cleaned up the toy area. why must there always be a toy area?! at least this one is in the corner, wheras in sears it was right in the middle so i had to go clean it up every five minutes whenever any kid came over and messed it up.

i was thinking to myself “this isn’t that bad” when my shift was almost over. the store closed early today because it is good friday. so starting at 6pm someone kept announcing that the store was almost going to close. (it closed at 7.) but that did not keep out the straglers. there was this young mother with her maybe 2 year old son and probably her friends in the kids shoe department. the kid was SCREAMING because he wanted some shoes, and she kept telling him they were too big for him. (they really were.) but he’s 2, he doesnt listen. he just screams. so she finally lets him try them on. meanwhile it’s 7pm, one of the girls in the department walks past them and says to me “if anyone asks ALL THE TILLS ARE CLOSED.” and i was like “oh, ok.” basically trying to tell these people to get the heck outta here.

but i think the screaming kid who was making the mom really mad forced those words out of the area around them so they did NOT hear it and tried to checkout later, which caused problems and mean looks from customers because we clearly closed the till too early and didnt tell them. (oh, customers. they are all silly.)

so, i’ve regressed to my very first job ever, that i got when i turned 17. i’ve regressed to my 17-year-old job. wow.

also, i’m only part time. what a bummer. i need to get another job now.

but hey, the upside is that now i have at least SOME sort of income. well, not REALLY yet since i dont have the appropriate tax/immigration/bank documents that i need in order to get paid. but once i DO get them, then i’ll have a nice little paycheck every week. horray!

oh, and the photo progress. well i’ve been trying to upload my pictures from the highlands trip into bubbleshare for about 4 days now, and it is just SLOW. brad said i should just go to a cafe with free WiFi and do it there, it would probably be faster. so maybe i’ll do that. meanwhile i’m uploading pics 2 at a time and i’ve gotten about 30 of the 200 or so pictures that i want to share with you all. one day i’ll have them all on there so i can post it. seriously though, it will probably be awhile.

ps: brad and simon have a very funny love affair or father/son thing going on and i will post about that in the near future. stay tuned!