|
Here Goes Everything! And Nothing... |
|
|
|
|
|
|
So, I come home again and realize for the umpteenth time I haven't done anything in terms of the writing-ness, so as I come in and grab a can of soda and some Cheetos, I notice the computer is half on, in screensaver modey or whatever. So I sit down and decide that yes, at 3 in the morning I'm going to write out something so I can feel like I've been doing things.
I slept in the worst I think I ever have. I guess because I've had the cold for the longest time I told myself if I slept it off it would go away. 2 weeks later and still no luck, I still feel like crap. I guess because I had no school and work today it was my chance to really wake up and feel better, I'd sleep in a lot. When I got out of bed, the sun was coming down, let's just leave it at that. And I still didn't feel free of the sickness. I got the flu last week for I guess the first time, since I can remember I've always envisioned it as just a more terrible form of the cold, when it's a whole other big deal entirely, so Wednesday I even got a vaccine even though it seemed kinda pointless, I don't ever want it again.
Because of it, I missed a lot of school, but I still came to work, I didn't want any money lost or grouchy supervisors, and there's a strict no time-off policy in effect now that we're in that Holiday Season. However, when I grabbed my check and then reviewed my account online, I was a little disappointed at how little I had gotten, even through all that overtime, but I guess because the beginning of that week had been less that 20 hours, it made sense.
So school and work have just been place markers in the "Stuff That Kills Time" folder in my "Life Cabinet" if you will. I never see the family, and if I do, it's on my days off and my dad's whining at me to do some laundry. It's my day off and he wants me to do laundry. God I wish being 18 gave you more leisure to say certain things to older people, even if they're your kin. Excuse me for finding the only point of my room is it being a place to sleep in now. Not to mention that the new bus schedules are ramming me on a table with my hands tied behind my back, so now I'm not getting home to nearly 1 in the morning.
God, I'm so bitchy. I guess it's because the only time it seems like I feel like writing is when a lot of s**t boils down on top of me and I don't wanna just sit there and stew in it anymore. I just wanna know when it gets better.
The past few weekends at work I've been in the Garden Center, with this older guy named Tony. It's funny because while we talk he tells me I come off as a quiet calm guy, which is kinda a lot of wrong, it's just that when we talk I never get a word out because he talks so much.
I hate to say this about someone, but to me when I analyze the situation here, it seems like they put Tony in the Garden Center because it's quiet, and people tend to forget about you when you're out there long enough, and because he's old and almost into retirement, it seems like they put him to just sort of "die off". It's not the nicest way to put it, and of course I'd never say anything like that to his face, but whenever I hear him talk about futures or personal situations, it lingers in the back of my head like a little parasite chowing down.
Anyway, I've been working the 12:00 - 8:30 shift, which means I'm there when the Garden closes at 7. Personally, I love it out there, if they could put me there everyday working 8 hour shifts, that'd be alright by me. There's not much to do besides water the plants, sweep the floors, and help out customers. And generally, they go there knowing what they want, there's not much in the way of browsing for plants, patio furniture or garden tools. That, and I just love having an entire area like that all to myself, I consider it "my garden" or my "territory", and when it looks all nice and swept and clean, I'm proud to say that. There's this statue in the center of the garden that is for sale, but sadly I don't think anyone wants her, so I have claimed her as my own, and I even named her Chloe.
Yeah, that sounds really stupid and weird, but I've always had that sort of sentimentality for things, inanimate or otherwise, like when I was little, I always had a problem with even throwing away old shoes, especially after that episode of "Doug" I watched. But she's Chloe, and she's the Garden Guardian, and as dumb as this sounds, I swear the next day after I named her it looked like her smile got wider.
I'm paranoid at work now because of a situation last Sunday. Now, I'll admit, because this is my first job and I'm naturally the kind of person that cares what people think, I've done my best to be a really good person to everyone I come in contact with, be they Team Member or Guest Customer, so that I don't have any problems with anyone, and if a situation arises with s**t being thrown, I have a clean slate and no one can point fingers and say, "Well, Emiliano did blah blah blah...".
I'll even go on and apologize for things that I know aren't my fault, and some of my co-workes have been saying I'm a really nice guy and that I always do a good job and all that cool stuff and I appreciate that, I want to be the kind of person people are happy to see at work, or at least crack a smile if I wave to them. I also am pretty good at brushing off the "nasty customers" who seem like they're just looking to ruin someone else's day because misery loves company and all that crap. So Sunday, as I was locking up the Garden, my LOD (Leader On Duty or my Supervisor, whichever your prefer) Justin started asking me these questions like what ethnicity I was and all this. Most people don't recognize either than my name that I'm Mexican, because I don't have even a drop of an accent, I talk like a white-boy, and I was brought up by my Scottish mom, so I do have some -isms of that, if those count.
So he goes on to say what a nice guy I am, and without trying to sound too smug or flattered about the compliment, especially because for the most part, I don't really like Justin and it was weird to hear that kind of thing from him. He says a few more things, like how I always do a good job and I'm a hard worker, and I try to be modest about it, basically repeating what I said earlier about being dependent on people not having problems with me and needing this job and enjoying the fact that people like what I do and/or who I am. For the most part I feel nice about this, because like I said it's Justin here, and I don't feel like he's bullshitting me.
Out of nowhere, he ever-so-nonchalantly tells me he figures I know he was buttering me up so that he could ask if I would be able to do some overtime and work a few more hours until we close instead of leaving at 8:30 like I was supposed to. Without skipping a beat (smooth as always sweatdrop ) I tell him I have no problem with it and I could use the money anyways, while inside it feels like I took a punch to the kidney. I don't know, I forget how cruel the world is sometimes myself even though I tell myself not to get pushed around and s**t like that, but with this a ton of other instances where I've done a little more or I didn't need to, and suddenly I feel like this nice guy stuff I'm giving people is making me look like a pushover and a "Yess'uh Mastah" person who will do anything for anyone.
It just felt like s**t, and I thought about it the whole rest of the night like I had been hung out to dry, I had sucker written on my forehead, you get the idea. Now it's like I don't even know if I should take praise seriously or anything, like yesterday when they needed me to go between areas to help out because we were short a few people because of call-outs, Justin said, "I know you can pull through Emiliano, you're my All-Star guy." He also manages to say this while we're doing our Team Huddle so everyone sees this, and it makes me look like a suck-up, and I'm scared that will distance me from people, that they won't wanna work with me if they know I'll out-do them. WHY DOES THIS HAVE TO BE SUCH A BIG DEAL?! I GET PUNISHED FOR DOING A GOOD JOB?
I just want more money for the Nintendo Wii. I only got like $325, and if I buy the system and a game, I'll be like cleaned out, not to mention I've still got a week to go before it even comes out.
Edible Substance · Sat Nov 11, 2006 @ 11:14am · 0 Comments |
|
|
|
|
|