AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Today was one of those days at Lowes, where I was really questioning how badly we need the money that I make there.

I swear I really considered walking out the door shortly after walking in, or else calling Jerry and asking him to call the store and say that he needed me to come home.

It started with the fact that on Friday I looked at the break sheet for today, and I was to work in the garden center from 9 am to 7 pm. Its a LONG day, and one that I kind of question since I am not in management, but I have been told that since I can only work Friday nights, Saturdays and Sundays that they can and need to do it.

Really since I was going to be outside, and the weather was nice, I was looking forward to it. Because it would be BUSY.

I get there this morning and the break schedule had been changed by the head cashier on duty.

She changed it so that I had to work self checkout ALL DAY LONG, for 9 hours.

So not fair and not right on every level.

Self checkout is the lowest form of low that you can have a cashier doing in that store.

It is boring, repetitive and the customers HATE self checkout, so they take it out on you when the machines don't do what they want them to do, treat you like crap.

Now if the break schedule had said that I was on self check out from 9 until my lunch at 1, and then I went somewhere else, I would have been fine.

But no, she changed it so that I had to work self checkout the ENTIRE 9 hours that I was there.

I politely asked her to change it so that at least part of the day I could work anywhere else.

She snottily told me she would see what she could do.

Then when the break schedule came out, it was the same, PLUS I was stuck cleaning the bathroom. This was the straw that broke the camels back so to speak.

Because I could see all of this nonsense if we only had a couple of people working today, but we had more cashiers working today than I have ever seen on a Sunday in that store.

After about 1030 and until about 5...

We had 4 people for outside.

We had 2 people for commercial sales/lumber.

We had self checkout, customer service, 2 head cashiers, and 2 middle registers open.

And yet, I was stuck on self checkout, plus had to clean the bathroom while some people, had nothing to do to help out.

I finally decided that I needed to talk to the head cashier about it again, and ask her what I did to make her so mad at me that she made the work list the way she did.

She told me, nothing and wanted to know how I figured that she was mad at me. So I told her, and started tearing up.

Not just because of the whole schedule, but because of the last week.

And the fact that I had just had 90 minutes to just stand there and think about the past week, and everything with Jerry. Plus a caring friend sent me an email with a bunch of links to things that could be wrong with Jerry. I know they meant well, but I didn't need the reminder of what all this could be. So I had just been standing there thinking, because goodness knows I didn't have anything else to do, because why go to self check out when there is no one in line at a live person?

She understood, told me not to cry, because I was going to make her cry, and she went and worked out the schedule so that I could go outside.

I feel like an idiot, because I let it get to me, but I don't think that anyone should be punished to stand at self check out for more than 4 hours a day. Trust me it feels like you are being punished!

When our department manager came in for her break, and I was at lunch, she and I talked. I told her that I just needed to be busy, and standing at self checkout wasn't cutting it.

I know that the people that ended up on self check out today, got to trade in and out, because every time I went in there was a different person working it. So why that couldn't have been scheduled that way to work for the day to begin with, I am not sure.

I hate to say it, but some times it feels like reverse discrimination and/or favoritism is alive and well in that store. Because the people that had the big parts of the work list (break room, bathrooms, mopping and sweeping the front) all are of a certain demographic, and it happens this way more often than not when certain head cashiers open and have the power to change the break sheets. Their "friends" suddenly have nothing to do on the work list.

I really wish I could get off the registers and onto the floor. I know I would still get stuck with crappy work lists, but at least on the floor, I would be always moving and helping someone. Doing something. Plus the chances of true favoritism, like today, would be slimmer. But NO since I can only work the weekends, I can "only" be a cashier, which is crap, since down in Florida, I was only working on weekends and was on the floor, because hey it meant if someone that was a regular in the department wanted or needed the weekend off, there was no problem, because I could work it.

If I could get a job making more money, that I could start tomorrow I would quit in a heart beat. If I could count on tutoring online to be as many hours as I am working now, plus the hours that I work at Lowes from now until August, I would do it.