Soul Survivor

Work. That which gives meaning to our lives. Job. Occupation.

After ten months of not having a regular job (which is a separate story) I have returned to gainful employment. For many years I worked at a mall store (the mall being the afore titled "beast"). Not a big deal, really. Most of these seasonal shops will hire just about anyone, and usually do. So, it's not a huge surprise that they would hire me.

Truth be told, I'm a good employee. Every boss that I've ever had would tell you the same thing. Except for my first boss who fired me in lieu of his friend who messed up on her cash register and they blamed it on me, even though I wasn't working on that register the day the drawer came up short. That was when I was in high school. First job, first disappointment regarding a non-relative, adult whom I trusted. Same goes for my second boss. The week after I graduated from high school, I was hired by a lawyer. I thought that I was going to be a file clerk, but when I arrived on the first day, I found that I was THE entire office staff. I instantly knew that I was in deep, deep, really and seriously deep trouble. I tried to explain that the only experience I had was a typing class in my junior year (Um, didn't we discuss this when you interviewed me?), but he assured me that I would be just fine. I remember smiling and agreeing that "Yes, I'm sure that I'll be fine," but inside I was wide-eyed, frantic and whimpering, or was it shrieking. He was very kind when, at the end of that first day, he told me that I had made a valiant effort, handed me a check for that day's wages and wished me luck in my future employment. So, except for those two bosses, one a classic creep and the other kindly (but what was he thinking when he hired me??????), all of my other bosses loved me. I work hard. I don't waste time or resources. I arrive on time and stay the whole day. I don't make excuses and am more than willing to do more than my share of the work. I am imaginative, kind, clean, thrifty and cute. And every single one of the six of them was sorry to see me move on, wished me luck and said that they would take me back in a heartbeat if I wanted to return. That's not so many bosses, especially when you consider they cover a period of thirty-plus years and I frequently worked for more than one of them at a time. I know that this sounds boastful, and, honestly it sort of is, but it's true. I am still friends with all of them. Honest.

Which is how I got my new job. Which is really my old job. It is a company for which I have worked, on and off, for more than fifteen years. It is a bookstore that has many subsidiary businesses and one of them is a seasonal calendar store. In a mall. In the belly of the beast. In the sucking black hole that is the mall.

Now, the mall, or the store for that matter, hasn't always been the beast. Fifteen years ago it was a nice mall, with a nice, local management company. They ran a clean, friendly place. The bookstore was nice, too. In fact, it was great. Great managers, great co-workers, great customers, great stock, great corporate support. Great everything. The discount wasn't too shabby, either. But, like everything else, things change. Gradually things changed. Some for the better, but some, sad to say, for the worse. I'm not of a corporate mindset, so it is ridiculous for me to even try to comment on all that, much less try to analyze that aspect. Besides, it's not my financial resources that support the whole system, so what the heck to I know anyway? I'm just a worker with, often, more opinions than sense. That's pretty accurate. I have lots of opinions.

So. Now I'm back. This is going to be a very interesting experience.