If things keep continuing like they are at this hectic pace, then I will most certainly burn out by the end of July. I think I have enough energy to make it through to the end, to close out the lease on our current house. The only thing getting me through this right now is the knowledge that after August 1, I will have peace and quiet when I want it, a place where I can revel in solitude. Because yes, I need solitude right about now.
Saturday I spent time with some friends and saw Transformers 2, after fronting money for my new apartment which I will move into on the 17th.
Yesterday I had to work from noon until 3 o’clock. Lacking anything better to do, I went over to my regular office and killed time until going back around 6. Then the meeting I was attending lasted for nearly four hours. The upside to this was that I got free food (Olive Garden lasagna, breadsticks, and salad) and was paid for basically a full shift.
We talked about everything familiar, but the people around me haven’t worked for Hallmark as long as I had.
I hate to sound unmodest, but it’s true. Even the manager at the store has only been with Hallmark for three years. I worked at a Hallmark store and lived and breathed the Hallmark environment for about five.
So as we talked about Ornament Premiere, there were the same comments that I remember making as a new person too, years ago. The crazies line up at eight o’clock to get their ornaments… I can’t believe that customers fight over ornaments the day of… The displays get really messy… All of this said with the air of, ‘oh no, what did we get ourselves into?’ Well, to be quite frank, I already know. I did it for years. I know that it’s long hours and unhappy people and ridiculous demands.
Other little things failed to impress me. My new manager couldn’t stress how much business we’d get on the day of Ornament Premiere. “Last year,” she said, “we did $1200 in the first hour. That was $4000 for the day!” The others looked overwhelmed. I was unimpressed. I wanted to say, at my other store, we regularly did $4000 a day. On Ornament Premiere we do at least $20,000, right?
Yet the thought that we won’t be so overwhelmed the entire day with crazy people and copious amounts of cash… it’s comforting.
Being responsible for far less product (about 1/4 the amount of things we had at the other store!) is comforting. Knowing that when I take over my duties as keyholder, I won’t have to count more than $500 or so on a Sunday at closing time is comforting. That while we do have corporate Hallmark looking over our shoulders with their stringent regulations, we don’t have to deal with the contradictory policies and subpar (or embarrassing) product of LB.
Another interesting thing to note is that my previous coworkers have apparently said nice things about me. And my new manager said she had me pegged as a Hallmark employee the moment I walked back through the door.
This scared me. Not the glowing reviews (I was flattered by them). Scared by the fact that she thinks I am “Hallmark material.” When she said this to me, I had a spiraling moment of panic. Most of the thoughts in my head were something like, oh no! Have I really become like them? I say this with a bit of irony, since I don’t even really have a set definition for “them.” Maybe the “them” are the sales associates you see in the videos, the ones that are happy and truly seem to live the Hallmark vision.
After thinking about it a while longer, I came to the conclusion that either a) I have changed a lot in the last few years, or b) I simply have a good game face, quite possibly enhanced by point A.
Most of me is thinking it’s B. It may be a good thing. At Hallmark before, I was an okay sales associate. I’d do what I was told, could get things done, always got us out of there at a reasonable hour at night. I had a good time with the employees and tried my best to be nice to customers but if I really had to rate myself, I would never have said that I was a stellar sales person. While I don’t care much about people in general (other than friends and family), I don’t feel right about pushing things on people that they don’t want. Since that’s the purpose of being in sales, it would seem I’m ill-fitted for Hallmark.
But I have changed a lot in the last few years. It brings back something I said to my step mom after I moved down here. She had asked me what I was thinking these days and mentioned that I’d grown up a bit even in the few months I’d been away. Without thinking, I said to her, well, if anything, I feel like I’m better able to control the way I feel. My emotions are still strong but I don’t let them interfere as much anymore. She seemed impressed. “I can tell,” she told me.
I’ve always been quick to anger (especially in the face of irritating customers and ridiculous demands made of me), but instead of blinding rage like I used to feel as a teenager and youth, these days it’s more a slow, burning annoyance, one that I’m more easily able to put aside.
I think this has helped with my “Hallmark” facade. Because that’s what it is–a facade. I feel no more like a true “Hallmark girl” at heart anymore than I did before. But I suppose the differences between me as I was back in Maryland and me as I exist now is that I can uphold Hallmark standards at work, while still understanding that in my life (which exists separately), I uphold my own. Some of these ideals are the same, but most are different (this is a topic for a separate post entirely). But I am comfortable wearing both masks.
And both masks I’ll be wearing for a while, mostly because I need the money. I’ve always worn a mask while working… even at the other Hallmark. But the difference between working under LB and now working under corporate is that after a few months at the other store, I felt comfortable removing that mask in front of my coworkers. Because all of them wore one too, and we were all in clandestine agreement that what we did wasn’t really what we believed in.
But now… corporate Hallmark seems to have ways of finding out if you’re disloyal to them in your heart. Trust me. Many things are fire-able offenses. So I don’t think, even though my new coworkers already seem to feel the same way I really do about things (apathetic/indifferent), that I’ll be lowering my mask at all while I work there. It will remain on as long as I’m within the bounds of the mall and only lowered when I am safely in my own home, where I know Hallmark won’t be watching.
June 29th, 2009 | Category: adventures, the job | Leave a comment
