I'm excited.
A bit of trepidation, to be sure, but mostly excitement. Tomorrow as of 7:00 a.m. my professional title will have the word "manager" in it for the first time ever.
I've been a "co-ordinator" and an "operator" and an "in-store trainer" and a "senior sales associate" and a few other things that said "manager" without saying "manager". I've led teams, assessed productivity, won contests for both sales and merchandising, mentored troubled kids (by far the most rewarding part of my career so far)...and when it comes to dairy and frozen foods, I've seen and done it all at this point. Even as an overnight stocker where I am now, I'm in dairy/frozen nine nights out of ten. I have been out of my comfort zone fairly often, and that's a literal as well as figurative comfort zone. I'm perfectly happy in the cooler or even the freezer clad in nothing but a T-shirt (okay, pants, too, smartass) ...as long as I am moving. Put me anywhere else and I'll sweat myself silly in short order.
I'm grateful to say that my new job still involves coolers and freezers.
I am, as of tomorrow at 7:00, the meat department manager.
I know my frozen inventory like the back of my hand already; I've been stocking it and building displays with it for the past sixteen months. The refrigerated stuff--well, some of it comes in on the dairy truck, so I've seen the packaging but never stocked it; the rest of it (to my knowledge) comes in on the produce truck at 3:30 in the morning and so I've dragged scores of skids the three and a half miles from receiving to "my" cooler.
But of course knowing the inventory is, instead of being all I need to know, suddenly and once again, the very first step. Now I have to familiarize myself with sales patterns; ensure that we have what we need when we need it; grow sales and reduce shrink; and manage a team to do what I do. All things I have years and years of experience doing. Just not here and not with (some of) these products.
I'm excited. I'm going to grab this and RUN with it.
I don't know my schedule for sure, and won't disclose all I've been told. I can say that at this point it looks like straight days.
Days, as in, not nights. No more graveyard shifts.
I can't even remember what that's like at this point. I've been working nothing but nights since April 1, 2015. My struggles with this schedule have been well, probably too-well, documented here in this Breadbin....for the longest time, I felt utterly removed from the world at large. Eventually -- relatively recently -- I started pushing myself on weekends (I've inexplicably been getting Saturdays at 7am to Mondays at 11pm off for the past eight months or so)....staying up and living on catnaps. I got used to it. There are things that could be said here. I'll settle for: now I know how you parents of newborns do it. A newborn entering your life is something like being hit by lightning, isn't it? A lot of energy in a lightning bolt.
Last night was the first night I slept with--I mean s-l-e-p-t, not the euphemism you automatically thought of--Eva for an entire night in SIXTEEN MONTHS. I'd often go to bed with her and get up as soon as she fell asleep; even more often I'd just tuck her in, bedtime for her being the equivalent of ten in the morning for me. And last night, let me tell you, I SLEPT. I'd worked Friday night, and forced myself to stay awake through a day that was by turns intensely rewarding and physically and emotionally draining. I woke up once at 2:14 a.m just long enough to tell the clock to go play with its digits and then blinked and it was almost 8 in the morning.
I'm sorry. I know you don't care. I do. People are supposed to sleep at night. At least people like me. I'm a natural lark--once I've flipped for sure, getting up at 4:30 for a 6:30 shift is going to seem like the most natural thing in the world for me.
It will, however, mean adjusting my routines. By now I'm used to tucking people in and gently waking them up, textually. I'll be hitting the hay early once again and will be on my way out the door precisely at wake-up time. Ah, well, wasn't I the man who needed to be shown that his friendships were more than virtual? The computer is a crutch. I don't need it to walk my path. I hope.
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I want to thank the people I've worked with over the past sixteen months. Many of the ones who really made work worth going to have since moved on (hi Jason! Dwayne! Glitch! Ferda! Carolyn!) Others are still there, and at least I will see them at the tail ends of their days. A special thank-you to Gloria...who understood.
All in all, this is going to be a very good thing for me. I'd steak my watch and warrant on it. It's been a loin time coming.
Up and at 'em, Ken! Chop-chop!
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