Long Ass Rant

All this talk about Edward Cullen (and therefore Twilight) has made me feel all reminisce-y, warm and fuzzy inside. In honour of that, I want to write a list of things I want to accomplish this holiday in honour of the first one I did before the year 12 holidays.

Before I get into that, I want to talk about how having to resit the musculoskeletal clinical skills assessment is destroying my life. I got invited to a campfire at my new bff, Chloe's, house in the hills this Thursday. As an end of exam celebration and all. I was so excited; I was already planning on buying tonnes of marshmallows (because I love marshmallows... Or at least I think I do then I buy them and realize I actually really dislike them). And then I got an email this morning that I have to go to remediation on Thursday and the resit is on Friday morning. Which means I can't go to the campfire and eat lots of toasted marshmallows.

Sigh. I'm actually pretty devastated. Anyway, I told this to Chloe and we exchanged our mutual disappointment. Instead, I invited her to go rockclimbing with Francesca and I later this holiday and she sounded keen. This was encouraging.

Why else is this failure of mine ruining my life? I was supposed to go shopping with my mum on Friday to hit the stocktake sales. Now my resit has ruined this entire plan. I'm being dramatic; we're still shopping but we're meeting in the city after I finish my resit. Which is good because it'll be close to 11pm by then and a totally acceptable lunchtime. Anything that brings me closer to mealtimes is a good thing in my book. I'm so excited to go shopping. I'm such a girl but I love the luxury and excitement of a newly bought garment. And shoes. I'm also loving my new lace-up boots I bought from Target a few weeks back. They are comfortable as shit, awesome grip, exemplify all-round badassery and I'm channeling Daria so hard in them.

Okay, I know that every girl and her best friend has a pair of lace-up, wannabe Doc Martens. But just shut up. I've wanted lace-up boots since I was about 13 and started getting into Evanescence. See, Amy Lee has these sick pair of knee high lace-up boots (I think she's still wearing the same ones some 10 years later) and she inspired me to get my own. Then Caitlyn got some for her 13th or 14th birthday (I forget) and I was completely enchanted. They were from Spendless Shoes if you must know. They were $50. I remember all these details because I was obsessed. I demanded my mother bring me to Spendless so I could spend less on these boots (I thought $50 was pretty cheap for a pair of such spectacular boots even though that was a helluva lot of money for me back in those days).

We went. I tried them on. I looked ridiculous. I almost bought them anyway because I had already made my mine up before we went. Fortunately, I didn't. Since then, I have bought over $50 worth of McDonald's soft serve so I think it's a fair trade.

This post was intended to be a list of sick things to do this holidays but it has not transpired to be so. Quick, I have to fulfill that promise:

1. Go rockclimbing with my new bff. When I first found out I'd failed the musculoskeletal exam, Chloe asked me about it the next time she saw me because she remembered me being stressed out and upset after I did it, thinking (accurately) that I'd failed. I told her and she offered to help me practice after exams and was very sweet and encouraging. I was so touched. However, I also remember that Big Michelle texted me literally a few hours after I blogged about it offering to help me practice and generally being incredibly supportive. Even though I am sure she was incredibly stressed with exam preparations (as she always is). So, whilst I jokingly refer to Chloe as my new bff, my true bffls have forever & always (Taylor Swift style) been there for me.

2. Plan for Europe. Hard style. There is so much booking and money to be spent this holidays. It's going to take a hit on my bank account like cray but I'm really excited to actually put plans into practice.

3. Eat lots of buy one, get one free Baskin & Robbins.

4. Eat lots of burgers.

5. Catch up with UWA Kiddos. Must involve that new froyo place in Warwick because we've literally been talking about this since last holidays. Which was about 14-15 weeks ago. Also, they have melon flavour. While I usually hate fresh melon (rockmelon tastes like rock), melon froyo is so enticing to me for some reason. I just imagine it tasting really mellow and smooth.

6. Exercise and eat healthy. I haven't run in almost a week (on Thursday) because I've been trying to repair my injured left leg. First, it was shin splints. Next, I started feeling a muscle strain in both of my inner thighs (and it wasn't from other activities either. I wish). Finally, my left knee started hurting quite sharply. I've always had troubles with my knees (or at least I pretend I do because my crepitus is amazing and my knee caps are as nubile as a fresh gymnast virgin) so I decided enough was enough. I had to take a break from running otherwise I was going to injure myself more seriously. So I haven't run for almost a week and my leg is feeling a lot better. Coolest story ever. God, I'm like fucking Hans Christian Andersen.

7. Make fish tacos. I just really want to make fish tacos.

8. Watch Man of Steel. Because he has a nice chest? That's reason enough. Yeah.

9. Watch a late night movie. Like, late late night. And then sleepover and gossip with girls. Sleepover Club style. Just really hardcore badassery like you've never seen it before. I wish I had my own soft serve/froyo machine. God, that would be great. And a fantastic source of income as well. Don't worry, Little Mishelle. I'd give you at least a 10% discount.

10. Invite Wynn and Sarah over for another period drama sesh. Unfortunately, I can't even think of what to watch. Usually, I have a pretty lengthy list of movies to watch. But that has been slowly depleting.

11. Get jiggy with R.

That's the list so far. As my final topic of discussion, I want to bitch about work the other day. They only scheduled three people plus one manager to work all of Sunday. And that manager stayed in her office all day. So there were only three people on the entire floor all day. And I only worked 11am-3pm so for two hours there were only two people on the floor.

At one point, the guy doing technology/furniture (yes, both. Zoe and I were both at POS because we don't know how to do the rest of the stuff) went on lunch. Customers started asking for furniture help and technology help. The manager was no help at all. Literally, she doesn't know how to do anything and just hid in her office all day even though we were dying out there.

I took it upon myself to help out with furniture because I'm such an outstanding citizen (seriously, I have many testimonials all over my facebook wall to prove this). It took me half an hour to help one lady. She wanted to return this table. Then she wanted to exchange it for this massive glass table. I have no idea where they keep the furniture flatpacks or if there's a system. It took me 15 minutes to find the right one. Two boxes, 25-30kg each. No one to help me. Just me and a trolley. I'm pretty sure I jacked my knee trying to carry those boxes.

Thankfully, the lady was super nice and patient. She helped me with moving the boxes around and was very appreciative of my help, realizing I was filling in for furniture help because we were fucking deserted.

In the time I was helping that lady, at least five other customers asked me for help with big things like, "Hey, can you get me that massive desk from the back and hey, what sort of cable do I need to attach this very vague description of a technological item to this other non-existent technological item?" I told them all I couldn't, I was with another customer. There was this one lady who I told I would help after this lady. Every time I walked past, she just glared at me. We got two written customer complaints that day.

I forgot to mention (maybe?) the best part. R called in sick so print & copy was closed. For the whole day. No print & copy for a whole Sunday because the one guy they had scheduled on for the whole day was sick. I'm pretty sure there's some protocol that you need at least two people there. I mean, what about lunch breaks? Who covers the other person then?

I had one old guy come up to me and complain that it was absolutely ridiculous that print & copy was closed because the guy was sick. That we should have called in a replacement immediately. I nodded.
"I absolutely agree. It's ridiculous," I said.
"I need help with the photocopiers! What are you going to do about it?!"
"I'll send over my manager and she can help you," I said, knowing full well she has no idea how to work the photocopiers.

I didn't end up sending the manager over because I was hauling 50kg of desks and glass around the store and forgot. I'm pretty sure he was one of the customer complaints.

The thing that kills me is that there is so much hate directed to the lowly floor staff and check out girls because the store is consistently understaffed. I am fully aware the store is understaffed. I am aware of this every time a customer chucks a shit at me (which happens at least once every hour) because they have to wait for help from a technology or furniture guy. And every time I have to bounce a call around on hold for 15 minutes until they hang up with some choice words when I ask them if I can take a message instead and get the guys to call them back.

Please, complain to the managers so they'll actually do something.

The store has gone downhill so hard ever since most of the old managers left. It's killing me. My devotion to Officeworks is waning. Work is exhausting now. I've come home crying twice from stress now. Hello, I don't think check out chicks are supposed to be driven to tears by their crappy job.

J