A Triumph of the Human Spirit

Guess how many hours I worked yesterday/yesterday night/this morning? 13.15. That's 13 hours, 15 minutes.

IS THAT SHIT EVEN LEGAL?

I worked from 12.30pm yesterday afternoon to 1.45am this morning. Counting. Just counting. Do you know how many pens Officeworks has? Or the folders? The folders are what really killed me. Aisle five, just endless stacks of folders. Not the chunky binder type folders that are easy to count. I mean the flimsy little slimpick wallets and the plastic presentation folders where even a small stack is like 100. Try being faced with a WHOLE ROW OF HUGE STACKS.

That being said, the fact that we were able to count pretty much everything is amazing. When I left, they were still working. I was one of the last of the "junior/casual/part-time" staff to leave because I'm obviously a boss. Z left because she doesn't drive and said her mum was coming to pick her up at 10pm. I said I'd give her a lift home. She told me to be quiet.

R and his boob buddy, K, left about 1am because they both had to work again at 8am THAT SAME MORNING.

So, why was this experience a triumph of the human spirit? First of all, I didn't think I could work 13.15 hours straight (except for a half hour break) but I did. Second of all, I didn't think I'd be able to spend so much time counting (said in Little Mishelle voice) but I did. Third of all, I clearly thrust myself so much into completing the task that I was literally rolling around on the floor, fishing crap out from underneath the shelves and in between the shelves. I was sitting on the filthy, disgusting, public floor ground because I was so tired of bending over (ruh roh) and counting packets of sharpeners. I lost every last shred of human dignity (but gained human spirit in the process, faced with this massive adversity) and handed it over to Officeworks.

Back to R. Obviously. I think a few noteworthy occurrences occurred that are worthy of note.

Firstly, I was walking through the middle of the store, back from the toilet. It was around 12am at this point and I was kind of looking for him because I really needed a pick me up. He is like my coffee/drug. He heard me walking and turned around. I had already turned into another direction to go to my aisle... and then I looked back. He smiled and waved a peace sign.

Later, I was counting files in aisle five with another guy (Short, Slightly Grumpy Guy that I may or may not have thought was cute earlier but dismissed due to height discrepancies... and then found out he was kind of grumpy and unpleasant. But after last night, have since found out that he's super cool). We had so much left to count and R and K were done. So they come into aisle five to help us. I'm sitting on the ground (classy) with my back to them when they come in. I feel a pat on my back/shoulder and here a, "Sup bro." I turn around and R is kind of crouching/bending down near me. With his hand on my back. We are in close proximity. If I wasn't wearing a shirt, there would be skin-to-skin contact.

Note to self: must not wear shirt to next stocktake.

That's pretty much it. He sets fire to my rain, guys. Just seeing him makes me feel happy. That peace sign thing earlier? It made me smile for like 10 minutes straight. I probably wouldn't have been able to survive stocktake without the knowledge that he was in the same building.

I need to bitch slap myself.

J