B is for Bad Employee

A few months ago, the toy store where I'd been working as a cashier went out of business.  Luckily, my boss there helped me get another cashier job in a pottery gallery where she happened to know the owners.  For the most part, the transition into my new job has been pretty smooth, except for the fact that I seem to be cursed.

On my very first day, I was supposed to be there at 10:00 AM.  To allow myself plenty of time to get ready, I set my alarm for 8:00 AM.  Hubs also gets up at 8:00 AM, so I figured if all else failed, he'd make sure I was awake.  We have both been known to set cell phone alarms as backup, but for some reason, neither of us did that on this occasion.

I was annoyed when our phone rang at what felt like the crack of dawn the next morning.  Hubs got out of bed and answered the phone while I rolled over and refused to open my eyes.

It was one of Hubs' co-workers calling to make sure he was alright, because it was 9:45 AM and he still hadn't come to work.

As Hubs scrambled toward the bathroom, leaving a trail of hastily discarded pajamas in his wake, he explained in a garbled panic that our power had gone out overnight, both our clocks had reset, and I should definitely consider getting out of bed very soon.  I raised my head from my pillow and blearily glanced at my clock, only to see that it was uselessly blinking random numbers.

I somehow managed to cram food in my face, stuff my body into clothes, rip a comb through my hair, send a text to one of my new bosses explaining what had happened, and still get to work at 10:20 AM.

When I arrived at the gallery/studio, the boss who was there was not the same one I had texted, so I apologized again.

"Wait, what time is it?" he asked.

"It's 10:20," I said.  "I'm really sorry--"

"Huh," he said, glancing at the clock on his iPad.  "Oh well, don't worry about it."

I was immensely relieved that no one was angry, and I swore to myself that I'd be nothing but an exemplary employee for the rest of my days.

A few weeks passed, and the awkward memory of being late on my first day began to fade.

Then one day, my phone died at work, and I didn't have the charger. 

I primarily use my phone as a clock, and after its sudden demise, I couldn't find anything else in the store with which to tell time--there was no computer (more on that later), and my boss had left for the day and taken his iPad with him.  Finally, I discovered a 24-hour clock on the credit card machine and used that for the rest of the day.  At 6:00 PM, I closed the store and came home.

Apparently, the clock on the credit card machine was 30 minutes fast.

I spent that whole night in agony over the fact that I had closed the store 30 minutes early.  The owners live near the store; what if they drove by at 5:40 and noticed I was gone?  When I got to work the next morning, I explained what had happened and was on the verge of apologizing when the owner stopped me.

"Oh, I've done that before!" he laughed.  "Don't worry about it."

Fortunately, I will probably never accidentally close the store early again, because a month ago we got a shiny new touch-screen point of sale system.  Up until then, we'd been handwriting all our receipts on carbon paper, so, yeah, I'm basically in love with this new computer. 

I've only ever had one issue with the new point of sale system.  As I was getting ready to make the cash deposit before closing one day, the cash drawer wouldn't open.  My first thought was that the coin tray had come ajar, and now it was jammed.  I really wanted to go home, but I needed to make the deposit, and to do that, I needed to open the cash drawer.  I rummaged around in the workroom and finally found what looked like a tiny metal crowbar.

After at least two solid minutes of straining, during which my desperate prying accomplished absolutely nothing, I noticed something.  There was a key in the lock on the front of the cash drawer. 

No, I thought.  I did not just spend the past two minutes trying to pry open this brand-new cash drawer only to discover it was locked the whole time.

It was.  It was locked the whole time.

I decided to just not mention to anyone that I attacked the probably-very-expensive piece of equipment with a tiny metal crowbar.  Except I'm mentioning it to you now, Internet.  But you won't tell anyone, right?

This is why you should really consider buying the book I illustrated--because I am clearly unfit for any other form of employment.  Or if you can't buy the book because you're broke like I am, just pick your favorite post on my blog and share it a bunch of times so I'll become a famous Internet person.

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