I can’t remember a worst night I’ve had in a long time. In the past couple of months, as one can imagine working in retail, I am completely emotionally, physically and mentally drained when I get home. Honestly, I can’t think straight at all even when playing my game trying to relax. Last night, it just started with one thing and it went downhill from there.

As I have mentioned before I walk to work approximately two and a half miles one way. One my way I dropped by a convenience store to pick up some cigarettes. I fumbled around trying to take out three cards from my wallet (ID, points card and debit card). I finalized my transaction spilling my coffee on the counter. It was just a small spill and I went on my way.

At my first break I always by a Pepsi. I didn’t have my debit card in my wallet. Aww, crap I must have left it at the convenience store. I spent the a total of thirty minutes (with my bosses permission) on the phone trying to speak to a bank representative to place a hold on my debit card. No luck, didn’t speak to a soul. Lunch time came, did the same thing. Another thirty minutes, no luck, no live soul. I was getting really concerned.

Meanwhile, work itself was a nightmare. We have the typical people call out on the weekend but we also have a couple people on medical leave (suspected COVID). Out of a staff of 20-25, we had 11 call outs or people on leave. Thankfully, the truck loads were in the normal range.

Started my shift in soda, juice and water. Five pallets of freight. No a single person was helping me. At some point during the night, a co-worker said I was suppose to be doing something else. Apparently the schedule from the previous night was behind the current schedule. I usually look at the second page because its listed alphabetically. I never understand why managers leave the previous days schedule up. It’s not the first time nor the last. Then a team leader mentioned the same thing when I got to working after break but said I made the right decision anyway because they “forgot” to put someone in those isles anyway. Are you kidding me? UGH. It wasn’t until I got to my last pallet they began to pull people to help me.

Afterwards, I told to work with four other people in pets. Really? Five people don’t need to be working over each other in three aisles. Thankfully the boss make a decision to pull me to dairy. Good but it turned out to be really bad. The whole dairy department is so screwed up. There were products in wrong places, to much product in other places and products on shelves that weren’t even facing forward but instead backward. Grrrrr. It really annoys me. I have complained to management over and over how this affects us. No one really cares. So I just ignore it. There were three pallets of product that could be put on shevles sent back to the cooler. That’s just unheard of and our cooler is full of overstock product. It’s really insane.

At last break, we thought we were done. There was still one pallet left in the cooler but my coworker was told “no to worry about it” (which is typical). Another team leader comes by asking me about this “live” pallet still in the cooler. He told me he heard nothing about leaving it there, it had to be stocked. UGH. So my coworker and I busted our asses off to get the pallet broken down and stocked by 6 am when we open. Thankfully, my coworker worked like I did and we ended up taking about 20 minutes. The rest of the night I made a decision to zone (pulling product forward on shelves) because I wasn’t about do anything more.

On my way home, I stopped by the convenience store. The lady at the counter told me no one turned in a debit card to her knowledge. She called security just to make sure. Security said no. She pulled out a drawer nothing. Then she looked on the cash register, picked up something and asked, “Is this it?” Horray! The clerk from the previous night did tell anyone she had placed it there. ID check and bankcard back.

Though I had a really crappy night, I must of had someone looking our for me.

To Them, Thank you!