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I will begin today's entry with one of the many work-related Haikus I have written in the last few weeks. Ahem. I hate Christmas songs "Come on it's lovely weather..." For me to kill you
The day after Thanksgiving, our store replaced our regular, not extremely annoying easy-listening music with Christmas music. I am tempted on a daily basis to jam pens into my eardrums. Having to listen to the same 8-10 Christmas songs several days per week for 8 hours at a time should be a licensed form of ####### torture. There is a particular diddy that gets stuck in my head...it isn't a classic Christmas song, it's a long ### Land's End advertisement. This advertisement plays once every 15 minutes. I am not ######## around when I say that I feel a glimmer of hatred for everything on earth when I hear the first few bars of that song.
Customers have not been too bad, though there have been some real winners. The good part about this season is that people expect to have to wait in line. They're more forgiving about that sort of thing. The bad part is that some people think you'll give them whatever price they want because they know you're too busy to go see if the sale sign they claim they saw is actually there. There are so many new sales each day that it's hard to keep up. Sometimes someone will pick something up that was on sale 3 days ago and ask for the special price from 3 days ago. We don't honor that. We do have a policy for price adjustments, but "special sales" don't qualify for price adjustments. That pisses people off.
One lady tried to bring in a pair of pants she bought over a month ago because she paid $30 for them and this week they're $10, according the the flyer. I told her I couldn't adjust the price because it had been longer than 30 days AND it was a special sale. Well, she almost leaped over the ####### counter. I told her that the only thing I could do (in order to avoid her holding up my line any longer) was have her return them, give her back her money, and then she could repurchase them. She didn't want an additional pair of pants. She just wanted THOSE pants for the $10 price. She said THAT WAS CRAZY! She said, "You don't even HAVE these freakin' pants in this color or size anymore!" Uh, hey dip####. You are holding the pants. You have the receipt, and the tags are still on them. I will do a return and you will rebuy this pair of pants. I could not, for the life of me, get that concept through her big, angry skull. She wanted to talk to a manager. Whatthe####ever. The manager tried to explain the same concept to her. He even stated that, technically, we shouldn't even do what I suggested, but we would anyway in the name of customer service. She threw a hissyfit and said she would never spend another ############# dime in OUR STORE! ##### US! She left with her pants. If she'd have stopped screaming for ten seconds and let her brain work out the simple solution to her problem, she'd have left with her pants and $20. Those are the customers I want to beat with the nearest blunt object. Oh, and there are also the ones who come up to the counter with a bunch of #### and while you're ringing them up, they wander off to get more ####. So you get to the end of the sale and you're like, "Your total is $2398742...uh, where'd you go?" Then you see them slowly making their way back to the register with another armful of #### while everyone behind them in line glares at YOU like you told her she couldn't be present when you rang her stuff up. "Sorry, ma'am, I'm afraid you can't watch me work my magic. Please, wander away for a while and grab some more stuff. Make sure you take your time."
I feel like I'm no longer making sense. I don't know how to adequately explain how annoying some customers are.
I'm off today, but the next 3 days are going to be ####. I work 10 hour shifts and I'm scheduled with one of the seasonal employees I want to shake like a baby. This girl is 16 years old, fat, and has goose lips. I don't know who has been telling her that she is cute, witty, and thin enough to wear extremely form-fitting clothing, but I'd like to have a word with them and possibly rough them up a bit.
I'm jittery and nauseated from too much coffee. I'm off to clean the apartment.
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I'm still around. Not doing so hot lately. The American Cancer Society counselor called me three hours late the other day and I wasn't home. I called back to reschedule and was basically told that my schedule doesn't sync up with any of their counselor's schedules, which seems really weird and useless to me. So I guess I'm doing this on my own. I thought the point of this was to prove that smoking cessation with the aid of phone counseling worked better than going it alone? So...now what? Does this mean I'm done? Am I going to be deleted and kicked out of the challenge because the Pennsylvania chapter of the quitline is incompetent? I'm not really sure what to do/say/think here. I'm not trying to dis something that could potentially help a lot of people, but shoot, man...I want to be helped, too, and I'm following all of the rules. I called back and was pretty much told "Oh well, tough luck." WTF kind of support is that? I will stick to www.quitnet.com
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Working retail during the holiday season has it's pros and cons. Mostly cons, but I like to focus on the positive things in life. The pros: A lot of people are happy. A lot of people are kind and friendly. A lot of people are patient and understanding.
The cons: Some people are really ###### nasty. Some people don't know the meaning of the word friendly. Some people are so impatient I want to shake the #### out of them.
I had an extremely impatient customer today. Now, there wasn't a line or anything. She was the only one there. She had a coupon for $10 off her order over $50. The problem was that the coupon was for JC Penney's. I work at one of their competitor's. Obviously, I couldn't honor a coupon from a competing store. This woman went into a long and loud speech about how PENNEY'S would take OUR coupon if the situation were reversed. No, they wouldn't. They'd do the same thing I did. They'd say, "I'm sorry, ma'am...this coupon is only valid at Whatever Store." The woman wanted to talk to a manager. I called one and it took him nearly 15 minutes to get to us. She was more engraged each passing moment. She kept calling me stupid and incompotent. I didn't take it personally at first, but after a while that kind of #### wears on a girl. When the manager finally came over, he told her the same thing I did. "Sorry, this coupon isn't from our store." She screamed, "######### What do I have to get you people to DO to take a ####### COUPON?!" Calm as anything, my manager said, "You have to produce a coupon from our store." HA! Take that, meanie.
The bad part of my day is that I smoked a cigarette. I went on my lunch right after we finished up with the customer I just mentioned. I was walking to my car...I spend my 30 min lunch in my car reading and/or writing. I passed the smoking area and the guy from the Optical Center asked if I wanted a smoke. I said yes, because I'm #######tarded. I took 4 puffs, got dizzy as ####, and stubbed it out. Ugh. UGH. I'm so mad at myself.
I came home after work in a pissy mood because I smoked. T-diddy pointed out that I didn't stop at the gas station to pick up a pack. He pointed out that I didn't bum any for later. It helped a little. Now I realize that I need to figure out what the ####l to do when I get into a situation like that. I mean, it was a little stressful, but nothing compared to other stresses in life. I certainly wasn't desperate for nicotine. He asked if I wanted one and I just said, "Yeah, sure" and lit up. I thought I learned to say no. I've been practicing. WTF?
Why am I so weak? It feels like I'm starting all over. Bleh.
Tomorrow is another day, right? Pfft.
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A few people in my life have died of cancer. When I was in 6th grade, my best friend was diagnosed with Leukemia. When I was in 8th grade, she died. When I was a sophomore in high school, my grandmother was diagnosed with colon cancer. She'd had a bout with *** cancer a few years prior to that and she recovered from it. My gran died shortly after I graduated high school, when I was 17. When I was 25, my boyfriend of 3 years told me that he'd been diagnosed with testicular cancer. He noticed a problem with his testicles 2 years before that, but was too scared and embarrased to tell anyone or to see his doctor. He died on March 4. 2004. None of the people I mentioned above smoked. None of them ever took one puff of a cigarette, nor did they have any other unhealthy vices.
Seeing people I LOVE die slowly and painfully wasn't something I expected to go through before I hit age 30, if ever. I thought old people died. Even when young people died, I had no idea cancer could've been what killed them. I lived a lot of my life oblivious to that particular disease, probably because I smoked and I was kidding myself.
The first time I tried to quit smoking was when Mike, my deceased boyfriend, was going through his 2nd or 3rd round of chemotherapy. He begged me to quit. I tried for a whole day (pfft) and then I used the stress of his illness and treatment as an excuse to keep up my nasty habit. That was the first of many quit attempts, but the first is the one I remember best. There was so much going on in my life and so little of it was good. I wish I'd have tried to cultivate a positive attitude back then. Maybe I'd be further ahead now.
My current boyfriend is amazing. He's so supportive. Since the beginning of 2006, I must've "quit" a dozen times. Every single time I tried, T-diddy (the boyfriend) was right beside me telling me how great I was doing, even when I felt ######## than ever. He endured days and even weeks of me biting his head off for no good reason, all in the name of nicotine.
T-diddy is a little wary of my "new attitude". He isn't overly confident that it will stick, although I've made it clear that I will do my very, very best this time. The worst part of quitting for me is the way I act during the process. The way I treat other people, especially those closest to me. I don't want to bite my man's head off, and I don't want to pick fights with my parents or sister. I'm working hard right now to see to it that I remain positive. Anyone have any suggestions as far as relaxation goes? I'm open to just about any method. I currently do deep breathing and meditation, and both techniques help me a great deal. If there's something I'm not doing, though, that I might benefit from, I'd be very happy to hear about it. :)
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So after three days, nicotine is supposed to be mostly out of your body, right? Oh man. One more day to go, I guess. The day I started my quit, 12/07/06, I read a lot of material. I read quit smoking websites, I read the pamphlets sent to me by the American Cancer Society, and I read e-mails from friends and family encouraging me and supporting my quit. I read a quit smoking book months ago that states that a positive attitude is EVERYTHING. I laughed it off then, because I'd much rather be snarky and sarcastic. I recently realized that my attitude needs a lot of adjusting.
I want to see this quit as a positive thing in my life...because it IS a positive thing. I am doing my best to remind myself several times each day that I am doing a wonderful thing. It's good for me, it's good for my boyfriend, it's good for my shih tzu (his name is Turd Ferguson, but we call him Ferg)...quitting is most definitely a positive action. It took me a couple of weeks to develop the positive attitude, though, and I'm still not sure I have it quite under my belt.
I've attempted to quit smoking in the past using the patch and the gum. I was allergic to the adhesive on the patch. The gum made me nauseous, but I chewed it for 8 months. That's a long time. I realized I was spending as much on nicotine gum as I used to spend on cigs so I thought, "To hell with it...I'll just smoke again." Smoking was even a little cheaper. Pffft...only monetarily. I never considered the emotional, physical, and spiritual prices I've payed.
When I learned about the Quit Now Challenge, I wanted to be a part of it because I KNOW I can do this. I also know that if I can do this, I can help other people to do this, too. That's a huge part of it for me. I want to support my fellow quitters...whether you're quitting now, you've already quit, or you're thinking about quitting...I want to go through this with more than just me. I need company here! We have to support each other.
I have a lot more to say...I never shut up. :x Hahaha. My dog, lucky for you, needs to go outside. I'll stop for now, but I shall return...muahahaha. :P
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I am 28 years old. I’ve been smoking since I was 14. All through high school, while friends participated in sporting events and high school chorus and all that fun stuff, I slinked off into the background with my “friends” to smoke. I’ve spent my whole life learning (and perpetuating) nothing but self-destructive, bad habits. I am at a point in life now where I want to change all that and create good habits. I am in love and I want to live a long and healthy life with my boyfriend, my friends, and my family by my side. I want to rid myself of anxiety and negativity. I am convinced that most of my anxiety and depression issues were cultivated in part due to the horrible habit of smoking.
When I try to quit smoking, I can’t get cigarettes out of my mind. Try as I may I cannot see a light at the end of the tunnel. I fix on needing a fix. I see someone smoking and I want to scream. I smell cigarette smoke on a coworker returning from a smoke break and it simultaneously sickens me and makes me jealous. I want this bad habit to be over. I want nicotine withdrawal to be easy, but it isn’t. Not even close. I want to be able to walk 3 miles a day again. Right now I can’t walk the flight of stairs to my apartment without wheezing and feeling my heart pound like thunder inside my body. I want to quit because I want to live. I want to breathe. I want to quit because I want to inspire other people to quit. I know that if I can do this, I can help someone else do it, too.
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