Frustration

I come from a long line of bitter and angry women. I work hard to not be bitter.

My problem, recently, has been too much unresolved and unfocused anger. Mostly about work. And some about the Toad.

I should be used to the work thing, but I'm not.

This is how work is:

If the temps are 95+ degrees, intense humidity, gallons of water unleashed from the skies, cool to cold temps, I am outside. On gorgeous sunny-but-not-too-hot-or-humid days, I am inside the store, battling lumber or returns. If it's a holiday weekend, I'm guaranteed to be inside, usually in lumber, by myself on a register with no one to run a second register when needed. Why? Because they have 3 cashiers standing outside saying things like, "I don't know." and "No, we don't carry it." (Much of what they "don't know" and "don't sell" are easily remedied by either picking up one of the phones--mostly because they do work now--and/or having a clue.) I end up with people who have wandered the legnth of the building to bump into me, and then having them tell me, "Those girls out there said you don't have it." And when I explain that we do, indeed, stock the stuff, the customer is put out with ME. As if I have any control over where I'm told to be. It kills me that I can't have the help I would need, because the people who should be available to help are busy bumping into each other a la Keystone Kops. Instead of an ASK ME button, I want one that says, "Go tell management. They don't listen to me."

The other criteria for where I will be for my shifts seems to be whether or not I've criticized the Princess. She's a thin little thing, who is, apparently, worshipped by management. Management actual expects the rest of us to cover for her by doing the things she refuses to do. She SITS during her shift, hiding behind the customer service desk. She flat out ignores any requests for things that you need to do your job. Case in point: Last weekend, I had a register lock up. Or slow down to the point of being immobile, if you prefer that description. I was running the return desk, checking on the snail's pace of one register, while running transactions off the other. The Princess was at customer service, alone, with nothing to do but look pretty. I asked her to find and send someone to help--I was going to have to call to get one register unlocked, and I couldn't do both--call to get it working AND do returns for the 6 people in the line. She nodded, then called to get a second person behind customer service with HER. So they could BOTH help each customer as he or she approached the desk. There was never more than one actual customer there at a time (if there were two, they were together.) Ended up that a manager had to come run the other register at returns for the deluge of customers I had. And then, when I pointed out to them what happened, I was informed, "She probably meant to call people over to her." Well, I'm (not) sorry to say, if that's what she intended, she made NO ATTEMPT at all to do so. I told him, "I don't think so--she never came near here, never said anything, and YOU ended up being here."

I pissed them off in my critique of the Princess. Too freaking bad. If I wasn't right, I wouldn't be dragged inside and made miserable. And then they wonder why I get so pissed off.