So Friday morning I left an hour early, planning to get to the store at nine a.m. to set up for our ten a.m. training. There are two main roads that leave the harbor side of the peninsula and the city is doing road work on the one I normally take, so I thought I’d be smart, avoid the delays and take the other. Of course, so did most of the other more than 80,000 people who live in the area.
So getting off of the peninsula was slow, and when I hit Sepulveda Boulevard things slowed down again. I arrived at work stressed out and only twenty minutes early….or so I thought. Apparently, the training was supposed to start at nine a.m. not ten a.m.. The trainer, who had driven down from Modesto was already there along with two employees from the Thousand Oaks store….. and I had a new employee starting on Friday, and I’d told her to be there for her first day at nine thirty a.m. to fill out paperwork before the training began. So I arrived at work only forty minutes late…well, an hour and forty minutes because I should have been set up by nine a.m.
As my boys would say major “fail”.
I rushed in the door, apologized to everyone, threw paperwork at my ‘new girl’ Janice, apologized some more, grabbed a cart, and went out to unload the lunch that I had made for everyone attending the training. Janice cheerfully pitched in and helped since I was so late. First I unloaded the cooler filled with drinks from my trunk, put it in the shopping cart, then grabbed a slow cooker of hashbrown casserole, and a second filled with BBQ pork, and put them on top of the cooler, I grabbed a bowl of ramen noodle salad and a lemon cake to hand to Janice, when I realized that in the less than five minutes that it had taken to run into the store, apologize, throw papers at Janice and grab a cart, the glaze on my lemon cake had melted and seeped out the sides of my cake taker, as I’m lamenting the melting frosting, I realize the drain spout on the cooler has popped open, and water from the melting ice is spilling out. I can’t roll the cart into the store this way, so I put the cake and the salad on the trunk, Janice grabs the slow cooker with the potatoes in it and puts it on the ground, I quickly grab the slow cooker with the BBQ pork and of course….I spill BBQ sauce all over the cooler and parking lot, and I think Janice’s shoes.
So luckily Janice is laughing and I’m just getting more nervous by the minute, I have people waiting inside and all of this food in the parking lot, so I grab the roll of paper towels that I always keep in the trunk for emergencies, at least I should get points for knowing that I need to plan for the emergencies that I sometimes might be responsible for….and I clean up the cooler and cart as best I can, put it back in and put the slow cookers on top.
I turn to shut the trunk and the water spout pops open again. This time I am much more careful with the slow cooker, I pull out the cooler, shut the spout and decide to turn it around because I can see that it’s hitting a metal rung on the end of the cart.
Janice is so sweet, she tells me she can see she is going to enjoy working in the store. I laugh, and give her high marks for her attitude.
So, we get back into the store, Karol and Lori have arrived, Karol is going to run the store so that Lori, Janice and I can have serger and software training. Did I mention that Karol already knows everything?? She’s amazing, and I’m so sad that she won’t be working at the store much longer. I have Janice and Lori grab some sergers while I plug in slow cookers and put food away as quickly as possible, and we are finally ready to begin.
Just as I’m about to sit down with my notebook and pen in hand, slightly disheveled, majorly embarrassed, and very apologetic, I realize that I’ve left my laptop at home, which I will need for the afternoon software training….thank goodness software isn’t the morning class. Now I have to slip out of class discreetly (you all have been paying attention and know that I’m the true Queen of the Run On Sentence right? And that you should read my blog very quickly because that’s the way I talk!) or at least making great effort to be discreet and call Hunky Hubby to ask him if he can leave work early today to bring me my laptop because I can’t leave the training that I’m “hosting”. Please honey….pretty, pretty please?
So lunchtime arrives, and with it Hunky Hubby and my laptop computer. Which luckily I have already set up for the training….with the help of another manager (Stephanie) and the very patient lady on the other end of the phone at our company software support line. My new laptop has Windows 8, so this was extra challenging.
Luckily, I learned to thread the sergers, do a five step demo, and lunch seemed to be a success. Janice handled her chaotic first day of work with graciousness and a sense of humor, so I know she’ll fit in, and Karol and Lori? Well, they’ve been working with for a while now, and choose to continue. Karol was supposed to leave months ago, but thankfully has stayed…and stayed to help me out. She has no idea how much I appreciate her and all of the ‘girls’ that I work with at the store!!
So I got a ‘real job’ last October, whether they let me stay after this, remains to be seen. It’s time for me to get ready to leave, so I’m not going to bother editing this story!!
I’ll let you know if Janice comes back for day two!!
Taris Thread 