I’ve felt a little better the past couple days at work, but only because I see the light at the end of the tunnel, so to speak.  One of my coworkers mentioned to me that she indeed agreed to take over the position I have right now so that I can be demoted back to what I was doing before, and that means that there is a definite replacement.

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My dreams have been rather sinister and confused lately. Last night’s was something about a sailing trip gone awry, where some of the members of my old writing group from senior year in college and I became lost on this cruise. We sailed past strange yet familiar locations while aboard a yacht. There was a library with low shelves. The sky was far away and very blue, and although I knew we were lost and the faces around me changed, I didn’t mind. I wanted to be lost for a while and not found, because I could always just find my way home when I was renewed.

Grievances:

• T.A.G. has the most annoying voice ever. She works at one of the county departments we deal with, and every time she calls, I want to reach through the phone, grab her around the neck, and strangle that whiny, shrill, little-girl-voice right out of her.
• I’ve been snapping at people left and right. Every little thing grates on my nerves. Every phone call jars me down to the core, every favor that’s asked of me sends a cold, uncomfortable chill down my spine. I can feel the bad thoughts and feelings curled there, in between my shoulder blades. This is not the week, I want to say to them. Shut your fucking mouth and find your own answers. This is not the week that I have any. One coworker asked, “Have you seen another mouse pad?” And I smiled and shook my head. She might have been scared if she’d been able to hear the mental reply I kept silently from her.
• Friday I worked until 12:30 in the morning, on ornament set up. This pissed me off mostly because I was not asked or informed that I would be staying this late. Instead, it was simply assumed that I had telepathic powers and would accept the news happily. But in reality I felt an inner rage at this news that kept me quiet for a long while until I could find some time to myself to swallow it and fully accept. It’s not like there was any alternative. I did say to my boss that perhaps next time, foresight should be exercised, and the assistant manager should be the one who has to stay, not innocent coworkers who have not volunteered for the privilege. And while I scored some brownie points, I did not make any extra pay, so I did the job joylessly.
• Speaking of Friday night and those brownie points, which vaulted me into the number one Hallmark Pet spot, my manager also spent quite a bit of time confiding in me about the troubles of the place. (It is never drama-free, at Hallmark). The assistant manager sucks, apparently, just sucks. He’s lazy, self-serving, and doesn’t really seem to understand his role as assistant manager.  They tell me he does nothing in the back room all day, and only comes out when my manager is actually present.
  It’s interesting though, because he and I bonded a bit during my shift yesterday, spending part of it talking about True Blood. Then later he bought me a package of chocolate-covered cherries. I feel a little two-faced, sharing my distaste for lazy people with my manager, but then turning around a few days later and ingratiating myself to the assistant manager and with the knowledge that he may be on thinner ice than he knows. Oh well.

Things are painful right now, very painful. I am in desperate need of a vacation, or a job that pays much more than my current one does (so I can quit Hallmark and have weekends to myself again).

I’ve taken up drinking any substance with caffeine in it again, mostly because I find it quiets the evil part of my personality, the one that craves nothing more than silence and isolation, the one that thinks of rude things to say and do when I let my guard down. In June I decided not to drink as much as I had been and to cut back my caffeine intake because I felt like it was turning my insides to garbage and affecting how I slept. But now, since I’ve been working a lot, sleeping and eating less, and going to the gym more, I’ve been dropping some of the random weight I’d put on and feel like it’s no big deal to indulge. Especially since my job is to be nice to people day in and out, I can justify a lovely, sweet chai frappuccino on the days that I have not slept very well.

I feel abashed when I vent in certain arenas of my life, because I should feel lucky to have two jobs, when many people have none and are still struggling to make ends meet. My second job allows me to have a few hundred dollars extra every couple of weeks depending on how many hours I work, and this seems a small price to pay for fewer days off. But I feel run ragged, living my days from 6 AM to about 10 PM with little to no time in between for thinking, reading, breathing.

I suppose that things are going fairly well despite all of this. I will be able to afford this place, and it will be my own, and life is unfolding rather pleasantly now, even if I feel a few shades away from being completely nuts.

Well, a few days until the boy visits, and then a few more days until I have to have my act together. Then maybe I can let down the mental walls and relax a bit.

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.

The Hallmark store where I work now was eerily familiar but not, when I walked in tonight for my first night on the job. Familiar in the sense that I recognized instantly the product, the cards, the candles, the Hallmark insignia everywhere. Sure, some of the colors have changed, the product slightly different, but for the most part things are the same.

I suppose I will always be able to count on Hallmark in this way, even if the first store I worked in is over six hundred miles away.

My coworkers seem very nice, and although they were a bit wary of me, for the most part we just passed the time pleasantly and I helped what few customers there were until the night was over.

I have mixed feelings about it. On one hand, I need the money. One the other hand, it’s Hallmark again. I’ve been called back. Does this make me weak? Weak to go back to a place that’s familiar, whose policies I don’t necessarily agree with but that I follow so I can make a few bucks? Whose products I rarely buy (unless the mood strikes, and only with my discount) and sometimes don’t even stand behind?

I can’t think anymore. I have the next two days off, then I work Friday, and then I have a day off on Saturday. That gives me some time to set up appointments to look at some apartments and try to get my life in order. What have I started?

More later. And I also must note that this also begins the gathering of material for the Hallmark book once again, especially now having another different perspective to bring to it.  Here we go.

The city skyline today is beautiful, crisp and clear. It’s springtime without a doubt now.

I have a new job. I wake up around 6 in order to get to the office by 8. It’s going to be an adjustment, but I like the earlier hours, the prospect of spending evenings free or in the gym wonderful.

During the morning, I suppose I will be sorting faxes and answering the firm’s email. The rest of the day is spent answering phones, gathering resources and files to fax to the various Departments of Family and Child Services around the state.  I spend most of the day asking questions, questions about everything, from what to say to people to what paperwork gets filed where. I feel irritating, and right now I spend my leisurely hour-long lunches in the parking lot, poring over A Game of Thrones and eating sandwiches.

When I leave, I glide down the interstate. I can go to the gym every night of the week if I want, and although I won’t get paid for another month (while the payroll period catches up), I feel full of hope and plans.

I can only continue to hope that I can begin to save again. I have ideas for new accounts, how to budget for what I want and what I will need, and can’t wait to start.

Yesterday, I lugged three bags and a tripod out of my boss’ car, and up a couple blocks to the building that houses five floors of classrooms in downtown Atlanta (or is it six floors?). As we stood waiting on a street corner for the light to turn, I looked up and around me, neck swiveling, at the buildings, lit by the evening sun. I look ridiculous, like a tourist, and I catch an odd glance from my boss after I slip my camera back into my bag.

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What a nice break I had at home.

I’d write more about it, but apparently nobody can work here at the office while I’m away. So things didn’t get sent out the way they were supposed to just before Christmas Eve, and I was stuck cleaning up the mess. Here we are today, New Year’s Eve, still scrambling to pick up the pieces.

Once these things are off our plate, my life should quiet down again, enough to not feel guilty making time for the gym over time for movies, enough so that I can pick up a book more complicated than Harry Potter and thoroughly enjoy it.

Anyway, I have a few resolutions, but I’m hoping that my boss will give us the day off tomorrow so I can get some more things in order (and write a proper entry). Until then…  Happy New Year!

Looks like December is going to be high-pressure at work so that we can potentially have a week off at the end. Me being the skeptic that I am, I don’t think we’ll be able to do it. So I’m planning on just the already-decided-on visit from the 24th to the 28th.

I’m thinking I’ll need to change my schedule though. Go to bed a little earlier and get up earlier. If I get up earlier, at least I can go to the gym.

But I don’t know. The last week or so I’ve been extremely lackadasical about things. A profound feeling of detachment has sort of taken over, and I’m not sure why. Is it because I’m way overmedicated with allergy pills? (Probably.) Or because I’m just not excited about Christmas? This is also likely.

Anyway, it’s affecting the way I go about doing things. I’m not normally so boring, so hopefully at the end of the month I’ll have more things to say.

Oh.

Thanksgiving was all right. I saw Milk at the Tara yesterday, hung out with some friends, and that was it.

See? Boring.

It’s been a weird couple of days.

First, I’m super excited about President-Elect Obama, disappointed about Proposition 8 passing in CA, and saddened that Michael Crichton died yesterday.

Next, I’m glad it’s Thursday today, because that means it’s only a day until the weekend. Work has picked up quite a bit around here and I refuse to give into the mentality that all my coworkers seem to have–that there’s nothing beyond work, no life to be had after you go home. That I should continue working even while at home. No. Absolutely not. Are you getting nervous? My boss asked me this about the sudden increase in work yesterday. Because I am. I’m panicking.

Nope, I told her. I’m keeping a focused emotional distance from it, because that’s what I have to do in order to stay sane. When I need to, I can exist in a very small bubble, the best parts of myself reserved for the rare moments at home when I can let down my guard. Usually in the dark, just before I’m ready to fall asleep, to someone who’s far away and just a voice on the phone for now. So no, no I’m not worried because it’s only two months of hard work, and then it will be a new year and I can see about moving on.

Finally, my car is leaking something, and that’s causing me stress. Great. I suppose it’s time to email Dad and see what I should do (even though I know what he’s going to say…)

Well, time to get to work.

Oh, wait. One more thing. Are you still writing? It’s day 6 of NaNo, but the weekend is coming up. You should probably stay in on Friday night and catch up on your writing, like I will. If it’s rainy this weekend, why not stay in instead of going to the bar or the movies and write? Aside from playing Fallout 3, that’s what I will be doing (most likely), as well. Just saying.

I had such an awful day today. Sometimes at my job I want to scream at everybody, upset all the desks, and run down the hall and out to enjoy the day in the real world. We’re such a small company that people almost feel free to communicate however they’d like, which is ironic, considering right now we’re developing some modules on effective communication.

And the coworker who reamed me today about how my module sucked, was totally useless, and could not possibly be used, is the worst at communicating! Half the time I tune out what he says, because the majority of his points he never gets to; the rest are lost in the infinite tangents he rambles on about when you ask him a simple question.

Ugh.

So, tonight I self-medicated with my favorite game, cleaning my fish tank–it makes me happy to see them happy, swimming about and chasing each other, much improved from their depressed wallowing the last week or so–and watching Mr. and Mrs. Smith with a glass of wine.

At least tomorrow is Friday.