You better work it, girl!

Okay, Christopher says I didn't really explain how I ended up working the back office instead of the floor so I will back up a little bit at Beall's.

Let me just say this for anyone who has never worked in Retail or in Customer Service, it's hard work. That person who takes your order at the counter of your favorite fast food joint? That woman with the smile who finds you that next size of jean to try on? The guy out there getting you three different styles of shoe to see which fits better? They are working HARD. A full day is a 9 hour shift, because you don't get paid for your lunch hour, and you are on your feet for basically 8 of those hours. You are smiling, you are taking orders, you are restocking, you are cooking, you are cleaning, you are moving...constantly. It's tough.

So when you are working the floor in a retail store waiting on people and hearing for the 20th time as a customer returns a dress that smells of smoke and sweat and has deodorant stains on the tags that were obviously tucked into the bodice so they could wear it and return it...that it just didn't fit right after they got it home...and you still have to smile and act like you believe them and not tell them that they are thieves and just stole that dress. Well...after doing that a few times as well as just being dog tired at the end of the day and feeling like you used up all of your smiles on strangers instead of the people at home you really want to smile at, those ladies sitting in the back office look like they have it pretty sweet. So I started campaigning for a back office job. Mark, my floor manager, was my first target. I let him know I wanted the position as soon as one opened. My next target was one of the ladies in the office. I would have her show me everything I could get her to do, and I started covering her for breaks. This moved into me getting the job part time, part time on the floor, then eventually full time in the office, along with overtime hours for the merchandising.

I learned a few extra things working in the office, one was people making payments on their store credit cards are not very happy to do it. Once someone is walking in a check by hand they have missed the deadlines to mail it in, which usually means that they are not sure that check is going to clear. Policy was to call the bank and verify funds right then and there. People don't like you to do that. They get testy. And you still have to smile at them while they call you names. The other thing I learned was how to wrap a present. One of our services was complimentary gift wrapping and it was the job of the people in the office to do the wrapping. I learned very quickly how to wrap a gift neatly, professionally and quickly. Before I worked retail I was a fan of the more tape is better method, now I can wrap a gift with 3 pieces of tape and have it look tight and have patterns matched up and everything. The scene in Elf where the store manager lectures Jovie about the length of a ribbon curl? Yeah, we had to pre-cut the ribbons and they had to be measured out to a certain length, don't ask, I don't remember!

So anyway, I was in the back office balancing tills, making bank deposits, taking payments for credit cards, entering inventory, all of that good stuff. But best of all, I only had to deal with cranky customers for a small portion of my day and I got to sit down! So when we moved to Idaho Falls from Florida I made sure I was hired at a department store as the office help instead of on the floor. And that would have worked out except they wanted me to start right away covering someone else's floor shift, for only two weeks, then they would move me into the office. I never did get moved into the office, spent the entire time I worked at Lamont's on the floor. They felt that I was "too valuable" on the floor to lose to the office. Oh well! What did I learn there? Not to agree to doing a job you don't want because you might never get moved into the job you do want, no matter what they tell you. I should have turned down the job at Lamont's and kept looking. But I did get a great wardrobe, excellent employee discount program.

After Idaho Falls was the move to California and after a time out to get my degree in Accounting it was on to Full Charge Bookkeeper at a wholesale pottery company. This was the most challenging job I had experienced up to that point. I was the only bookkeeper in the place, would send my information in to the accountants at the end of the month and they took care of taxes and such things, which was great. But the part that wasn't great was that there wasn't a lot of money in the company at the time. They are still in business and have moved to a larger facility, so I am guessing time has been very good to them, but at the time it was a struggle. Balancing who to pay with what check while keeping enough in the bank to cover the salaries of the 5 of us that worked there (okay, 4 of us who WORKED there and the owner who showed up once a week to pick up his check) and keep the suppliers happy and shipping pots was a daily nightmare. But it was a good job experience.

First off David, Sherma, Sam and I were it on a day to day basis. There were a couple of other warehouse guys that would come and go but the four of us ran things. Once a week the company picked up lunch. This might seem like a silly perk for a company struggling with money, but it was really well received. For about $25 it was a huge morale booster. Sandwiches from the deli down the street or Mexican from the place up the hill, these were big deal lunches to us! Good things for managers of departments to understand, the money doesn't have to be big for your employees to enjoy the perk. But the most important thing I learned from my time there was that people just want to be heard. Our suppliers knew that money was tight. They knew we were holding on just by the skin of our teeth. And they also knew that when I got invoices I was going to call and let them know what they could expect to be paid on right away and what they were going to be waiting on. If I had ignored them we would have been cut off and that would have been the end of the company. But I developed pretty solid working relationships with all of them and they knew if I said they were getting a check on Friday, they would get a check on Friday. But they also knew that it did them no go to ask for a check on Friday if I told them I couldn't get them one.

I also learned that sometimes you just have to stand up to your boss, no matter what the voice (Dad's) in your head is telling you! Brent was out to sea a lot of the time we lived in San Diego. He had been out the entire time I was working for the company and was on his way home from a 6 month cruise. I had cleared with my boss and the owner that I was going to be taking off from the Tuesday before Thanksgiving through the following Monday. The ship was pulling in on Wednesday and I wanted Tuesday off to get ready. And because I knew I wouldn't be any good to anyone that day, just too excited about him coming home to focus on numbers. So Monday I am on the phone with the owner and he gives me a project he wants to go over with me the next day. I told him I was off, and he said, no. He had changed his mind. In fact since the ship wasn't pulling in until late morning on Wednesday there was really no reason I couldn't just take off around 10 on Wednesday and then have the Thanksgiving Holiday with Brent. I was livid. I had gotten that time off cleared, there was no way I was going to work the MORNING the ship came in let alone the day before! But there was still that voice (Dad's) in my head, telling me that if my boss said I had to work, then I had to work. But I listened to the other voice (the 6 months without my husband screaming banshee voice) and told John that I was taking the time off as planned. He threatened to fire me and I told him that would be his call. If I came in on Monday and my key didn't fit the door then I would know what he had decided. And I took the time off. He didn't fire me and didn't even mention it again.

Okay, so back to Idaho Falls again after this time in California. But I cannot possibly sum up what I learned from my next job in a few paragraphs because my next job was Mom. I was blessed to be able to stay home with Christopher for the first three years of his life due to an extremely low cost of living in Idaho. That particular job is ongoing and I am continually learning new things. So my next section will wrap up the jobs after I went back to working outside the home.

So far, working for the family, working as a cashier, working in fast food, working in retail front and back of house, working as a full charge bookkeeper for a wholesale pottery company and working as a stay at home mom...and I was 24 when Christopher was born. :-)