shelly-bean.com

The best and the worst

It's almost December. I don't know if I'm the only one that hasn't noticed it coming, but guess what? Next week it will be December. What that means is that the mall will be open for extended hours so that everyone has ample opportunity to go out and buy all the gifts they need. There are eleven other months in the year, why is it that everyone always waits till December to start their Christmas shopping?

The mall staff sends around this list of extended hours, and then they wish all the employees a happy holiday. Please explain to me how we're supposed to have a happy holiday when we never leave the mall. Seriously. The mall that I work at has these hours....

November 29 - December 2 10am-10pm
December 3 10am - midnight
December 4 9am-6pm
December 5 10am-6pm
December 6 - December 10 10am-10pm
December 11 9am-6pm
December 12 10am-6pm
December 13 - December 16 10am-10pm
December 17 10am-midnight
December 18 9am-9pm
December 19 10am-6pm
December 20 - December 23 10am-11pm
December 24 9am-5pm

And I don't even remember what the hours on Boxing Day are. I just think that the hours are crazy and that if people really want us to enjoy our holiday then they should close on time and just let the other people get to the store whenever they can. Most people work from 9-5 every day, so there are 4 perfectly good hours in the day for them to get to the mall, plus whatever hours there are on Saturday and Sunday.

But because we live in a commercial society, I will be at work until midnight almost every night of the week immediately before Christmas. And all day Christmas Eve as well as all day on Boxing Day. Did I want to see my family? Nah, of course not.

Anyway, all this started because Mike suggested that I write about my favourite and least favourite gifts. And I just went off on a small rant before I got this far. It gave me the chance to think about what I think the best and worst are.

Being that I'm spoiled, I have received a lot of gifts in my time. And, I'll be honest, I've pretty much loved all of them. I am very easy to please, it really is the thought that counts. Having said that, there was this year I got a lot of brown clothes for my birthday.

Brown clothes are great, don't get me wrong. But usually you like say a brown pair of pants and something to go with them, or a brown shirt to go with some other pants that you may have already. Or a brown skirt... I guess my point is, that when you think about buying brown clothes, generally you think about buying a single article of brown clothing, not multiple articles. I forget how old I was, but it seems that perhaps I was in high school. I got a brown t-shirt, a brown sweatshirt, a brown pair of shorts as well as a pair of brown pants. It was an entire brown wardrobe! Now, in of itself it wasn't an awful gift at all, but it just wasn't exciting. Mom didn't take too much offense when I said we needed to exchange the clothes. I ended up keeping the brown t-shirt and changing everything else for other things.

My best gift? I don't know. I've had a lot of really great gifts. My father in particular is great at giving me gifts. This may have something to do with the fact that I say to him "I must have this, and if I don't I will pout." :) But, probably it's because I don't usually give him a very long list. My parents also combine to give me some fabulous gifts too.

So I'm thinking about the best gifts I've ever got and I think about the bed my dad gave me a couple of years ago, the leather jacket he gave me several years ago, the camera my parents combined on a few years ago, or the DVD player I got for my birthday a couple of years back...

But it occurs to me that my favourite thing was a doll my grandmother made me when I was a little girl. I don't actually remember opening it up, but there used to be this picture of me from the day I received that doll. I was very young, 4 or maybe even younger. It was Christmas morning and I was lying on top of this doll which was two times bigger than I was. There was crumpled up wrapping paper, as well as ribbons and bows and other gift wrapping remains all over the floor. And I looked SO happy and excited. So, I think that must have been my best gift.

Resolution

So, my problems with the dentist?

Yesterday I checked my mail and inside the box I find two envelopes from my new insurance company. One I ignore because it looks boring, but the second I open because it looks like a cheque. Why the hell would they be sending me a cheque? I don't get it. I haven't claimed anything.

Well, it seems I have. I don't know how the claim got there, but my nightguard has been claimed through them and they've paid the bill. They didn't pay as much as the old company said they would, but it's a whole hell of a lot better than not getting anything, isn't it?

Now I just need to find out if the claim has been sent off to the old company too, because as much as I'd like to get two cheques for this, I also don't really want to be committing insurance fraud, or whatever you'd call this.

Overstuffed

Since it's November 11th, I should probably be writing a tribute to all of our fallen, and not so fallen soldiers. The ones that have fought in wars to keep our country safe, etc.. I'm not going to do that. Not because I don't feel appreciation, for what they've done, but because I wouldn't be any good at doing something like that. There will be a memorial service at the mall today, if it's not too busy I am going to leave the store in my co-workers capable hands and go to that, if it is, well, then I guess I'll just have to miss it. But, I do appreciate everything.

Now, onto something I know I can talk about.

For the month of December, we were supposed to lease an extra store across the hall from us to run a clearance store. We had the promise of all these great books which would be free to us, so the only costs would be the rental of the empty store, and fixtures, registers, and of course paying the staff. It doesn't sound that difficult, does it? Until you realize that you barely have enough staff to cover the store that's already open for the Christmas season, which means you'd have to hire an entirely new staff for one month. And you'd have to train them....sometime. Really it would be a huge pain. One that we didn't really need.

So, the manager and the Regional Manager discussed it and decided against it. We all breathed a sigh of relief. And then one day on a conference call the Regional Manager said even though we'd cancelled our offsite, he hadn't cancelled the books that we'd ordered. That's 15 skids of books.

Let me explain. There are approximately 30-50 boxes of books on a skid depending on who packs the skid. At the bare minimum that is 450 boxes, at the maximum 750. The boxes are about the size of a 24 of beer. Our backroom is about the size of...well, I can't think of what to compare it to, but it's not big.

On Tuesday we got a phone call from one of the other managers with a heads up. The delivery guys were coming with 5 skids for us. The manager went to the backroom to clean things up so that there were places to put these books. And we now have way more than half of our backroom stacked to the ceiling with boxes of books.

Yesterday I got a phone call from the dispatcher at the delivery company. He said to me "Now Michelle, before you freak out, I know the size of your backroom...." and I said "Yes, it's small, and full of 5 skids of books you dropped on us yesterday" He said "Yes, I know. I have 10 more."

Remember, this is 15 skids of books we no longer need. The Regional Manager didn't cancel the order because our region seems to be short on clearance books so he thought he'd get them and then we'd have a stockpile. In theory this is actually a great idea. However, they can't all land at our store.

So, I asked him to hang on to them and I'd call him back. I then called our RM and said "Help!" Well, I was a little more eloquent than that, but he called me back shortly and said he was working with someone at head office to find a storage space somewhere in the area that would hold the books. So he asked me to call the dispatcher back ("I don't know how well you know him", he says)and sweet talk him into holding the books until tomorrow. And that he would have an answer by end of day as to where they were going to go.

I thought to myself, I don't know this dispatcher, why would I? But, whatever, I can do this. Rick the dispatcher is fantastic, he has them on a trailer and will leave them there overnight and will wait to hear where they're to be delivered. I call the RM back and report the good news.

And all is well with the world. Although, the backroom is still stacked to the ceiling with books, which I fear may fall on my head every time I go back there. Now the only question is, when they come with our regular shipment where they're going to put those boxes. This worries me too.

Happy

Just a quick one today because I really should be getting ready for work, and not typing entries into my website.

Last week we got an email from one of the guys at our head office which proposed a contest which will run from that week until the week after Christmas. Which, I guess at this point is 8 weeks.

They've decided that if your store hits it's target for that week, plus 2% of last years sales for that week, that you win money. (The managers win money that is) The manager of the store gets $250 and then every memeber of their management team (that'd be me...every member of her management team ;) ) gets $100.

So far, I'm up $100! I LIKE this contest.

And then also our RM sent out a contest too. I'm not sure of all the details of this one (I have them printed out somewhere), but it's for 4 specific weeks between now and Christmas. And it's for things like the store with the biggest increase over last year in gift card sales will win $125 towards their Christmas Party. Which is good, because that almost doubles our party budget.

So, hooray for Christmas, it's going to make us all rich! (or something...)

I hate the dentist

I know, who doesn't, right? This has nothing to do with teeth though.

Background. On October 1st our benefits company changed. I knew this in advance. I had a pre-approval from the old company for a nightguard to keep me from grinding my teeth.

So, I go in for my appointment on September 1st, they take the impression and tell me that it'll be back in two weeks. Before she took the impressions I asked how long it would be, knowing that it could be a problem. She said several times, two weeks. So I didn't worry.

It took six weeks.

You can see the problem I'm facing here, can't you?

I now have this dental device that costs almost $500. And I don't have $500 from my insurance company to pay for it.

I called the insurance company today to find out what was going on, and they didn't have a record of the claim. So I called the dentist, they claim to have submitted the claim on October 18th. Yeah, that's 18 days after the last day they'd accept claims.

Anyway, I managed to get hysterical enough that the woman who answered the phone went away to get someone else. After I'd put much emphasis on the fact that they told me two weeks and it turned out to be a month and a half later when they called me, she asked me what had taken them so long. Shouldn't she know the answer to that, not me? She agreed to manually submit the claim, and backdate it. Though she did say "I hope they don't ask to see a lab report"

I hope to hell they don't ask to see a lab report. Please keep your fingers crossed.

And failing that, I am accepting donations.

I am having company

I love it when people come to visit me. It doesn't matter how long they come to stay for. I enjoy the company. I live alone, and without making a phone call or logging onto some form of instant messenger the only thing I have to talk to is my cat. So when there's an actual person here, I am happy.

The only thing is, I don't have a whole lot of room. My spare bedroom is set up more like an office than a bedroom. I have a futon, whose frame lives in the closet of the spare room and whose mattress lives underneath my bed. This futon will JUST fit into the spare room...just smack in the middle of the room. It's not exactly the best set up, but it's what I've got... I have a huge desk in there, a bookshelf and also my antique dresser. It kind of fills the room. Anyway, the futon is not comfortable to sit on, but it is actually pretty comfy to sleep on.

Luckily people don't come to visit because of the deluxe accomodations. Well...I don't think that's why they're coming anyway.

So, my friend Gail is coming to stay on the weekend. I went to New York to visit her and her husband in May and had a fabulous time there. We did all kinds of things. A lot of shopping, but also lots of other cool things. We went to the Today Show and on a tour of the NBC studios courtesy of Keith, we went to see Thoroughly Modern Millie, we went up the Empire State Building, and...we did all kinds of other stuff. It was great.

However, Toronto is not New York City. But that's ok, we'll find some fun. Even if we only wander around the corner to the pub and get completely and totally drunk. Stay tuned for photos of that! ;)

Christmas is coming!

Yeah, I know. It's only November 3rd. Christmas is ages away. However, yesterday I had to hang all of our Christmas signage in the store. If you go into a Coles store today you should see snowmen hanging pretty much everywhere! I work in a fairly small store, so I didn't even have room to hang all of the signs they sent, however, I'm sure some of the larger stores would have room.

In my tiny little store I have three banners, and 6 poster size signs hanging. That is a lot of signs. They're lovely and adorable, but I always feel like the ceiling is coming down on me when there are that many signs hanging around. But they're up!

The Christmas books are in. I have a table full of new Christmas books for kids, some of them are incredibly adorable too. There's one written by James Patterson that looks cute called Santa Kid. And of course, there are the others that are well known. The Polar Express, How The Grinch Stole Christmas, etc..

What I love most about Christmas though is the displays. Everything is bigger. The bargain tables are higher, the best seller wall is full, the piles of books on the end caps are big. And, the books are new! It's just a great time of year to be a reader.

Could I be a bigger geek? Yeah, probably not.

So, now that I've decorated my store for Christmas I am dying to put up my Christmas tree. Yes, I do realize it's too early, I realize that if I put it up now it will be so covered in dust by the time Christmas comes around that it will make me sneeze. I also realize that I don't have nearly enough decorations for it, so it's going to look ridiculous. But suddenly, I am overwhelmed with the Christmas spirit.

The wedding

On Saturday I went to a wedding. I knew before I went that there were going to be about 6 people there I knew, not counting the bride. Which is fine. 6 out of 160 isn't bad, right? :)

The bride is someone I've known almost my entire life. We went to school together from the time we were in preschool until we graduated from high school. I haven't seen a lot of her lately though. Her job takes her all over the place. On top of that she lives fairly far away.

I've only met the groom twice, and once was at the wedding, but it was absolutely fantastic to see just how happy my friend is when she's with him. The smile on her face absolutely lit up the room. I'm so happy for her!

Anyway, here's a couple of pictures, in case you may have been interested.