The Reset

How was your day?


Mine was eventful. I knew it was going to be because Mondays always are. I try to be in at 6am, because I have to file two reports about the readiness of my c-store for conducting business. I also have to close out last week's payroll, plug in the previous day's sales/lottery/cash-register-over-short data (broken down by shift). There are two special lottery reports I have to compile. I have to stock the cooler, prepare an order for my Red Bull vendor so that when he comes in, he knows what to order for Tuesday's delivery. We get an ATM delivery that I have to count. We get a delivery from our grocery vendor. And, this particular day, the same grocery vendor was doing a reset of the store, which would take hours.


A full load.


So you can imagine how I felt when I walked in this morning and my opening cashier handed me the keys, said, "I quit," and walked out.


Normally (and today was no exception) the store is staffed by one associate and me. So if someone walks out, it's just me, to do all of the above and work the cash register, which between 6:30 and 8:30 is jammed.


I'm not going to say I saw this coming, but I wasn't shocked. Unfortunately, life sucks.


But also, life is what it is sometimes.


All I could do was start working the register, and at the first available opportunity text my boss, who was gracious enough to come in for a few hours and take some of my workload off, particularly gracious because he also has seven other stores to worry about. And my night cashier was gracious enough to come in a couple of hours early.


Everything got done. The reset people came and went. The store looks better than before. And I still got out early enough to make it to kickboxing class at the gym on time.


Also, I got home in time to write this. I find lately that I'm at my most prolific as a writer when I'm angry. Hey, it's a much better outlet to channel my anger. Twelve hours ago, I was pretty pissed at life. Now I feel great, not only at finding out what I can accomplish when under fire but also because I had a great story to tell. The store has had its reset, and so have I.