11/1/2016
This should be a shock to absolutely no one that I’m just beginning this post after 11:00 pm on the first day. I’m going to be real lucky if I can manage to make it to 1667 words before midnight. Not only am I waiting until the last minute, but I also have absolutely no idea what kind of topics I want to cover for today. I have a lingering feeling that a large part of the entries I make this month will be complaining and whining about various work related things so I’m not too keen on starting off that way but that’s all I have on my mind at the moment.
We’re barely into November, and we’ve really had to dive into planning for Green Week and the upcoming holiday season this week and I’m not fully mentally or emotionally prepared for this yet. I’m not sure if many other retailers use the term Green Week, but if you’re unaware it’s the week leading up to and including Thanksgiving and Black Friday. Tiny retail history lesson if you didn’t already know how Black Friday got the name, most bookkeeping and accounting is broken down into colors for positives (black) and negatives (red). With the day after Thanksgiving being the official full transition into the Christmas holiday shopping season, companies would see such a huge lift in sales that it would usually be when they would start turning a full profit on the year after expenses. Profit would mean marking things in black, hence the title Black Friday being adopted. Apparently “Green” Friday sounds more appealing and positive to the retail culture, so that term has been adopted by at least the company I work for. We started using the term Green Friday/Green Week about 3 years ago, but after nearly 10 years in retail I still find myself using Black Friday more often than not. It’s fine. Also to be noted I’m never 100% sure that’s the correct/best way to explain that but it usually sounds good in my head so I’m just gonna roll with it.
I think we figured out we need something like 40 total staff members for that holiday week, and we currently have 16 on hand I believe. None of our management team is convinced we’re going to make the goal by that week. We have a little under 2 weeks to hire 24 people, and at least 7 of those hires have to be actual seasonal staff that we can utilize during the entire holiday season, not just for the Thanksgiving and Christmas weekends. It’s terrifying. I’m responsible for making our schedules on a weekly basis, and I’m already struggling to make ends meet there because the staff we have can’t even fill out the hours we’re given every week. It’s not just our store/company struggling though, it seems to be everyone we talk to in any store. There’s only so much recruiting and passing information along that we can do, if you’re not getting applications in it doesn’t make a bit of difference.
Keeping in line with the holiday theme here, this was the first year I’ve experienced Halloween in a neighborhood different from the one I grew up in and also the first time in about 7 years that I’ve been home on Halloween to actually experience it. The last 3 years I’ve been at work because most of the rest of our management team has kids and I’ve never been one to really care about being home since my parents enjoy handing out candy more than I do. Years 6 and 7 ago I believe I was at Wrockstock which put me out of state and nowhere close to being home for that one. I’ve never been great with kids, especially the tiny young ones and somehow I was the one that ended up actually handing out the candy and interacting with everyone while the boy stood back with the dog (who had a costume of his own even though we didn’t bother dressing up) and observed every awkward moment. Tiny children plus interacting with strangers meant a whole lot of weird vibes. We also ran out of candy just about an hour into the evening, which of course was a bummer for everyone involved. I was kind of surprised at the number of kids that still came up and either rang the doorbell or knocked on the door even after the lights were off and the door was closed. We were always taught growing up that unless the house is lit up and the door is open, it’s off limits. Dark houses mean either they ran out of candy or they’re not participating, which is the opposite of an open invitation to come up to the door.
Guys, it’s only day one and I’m already struggling with content. Yes, it’s my own fault for waiting until the end of the night and putting myself on a tight deadline. It’s also my fault for not taking notes during the day of things I wanted to talk about. At least 3 or 4 times today I made a mental note to remember something I wanted to talk about on the blog and clearly my mental notes were absolutely useless as I have no idea what those topics were.
On a completely unrelated topic since I’m already fully aboard the struggle bus, I’ve recently discovered the snapchat video/picture filters other than just the overlays and it’s been a life changer. I don’t know 1) why it took me so long to figure out how to use them or 2) why I find them so entertaining, but I spent a large part of my lunch break today making stupid faces at my phone and saving screenshots of various snaps. I think my friend Shannon was the lucky recipient of a few of the more ridiculous ones. I kind of wanted to touch on social media at some point this month, but I might save that for a different day when I’m not pressed for time. I don’t know why I can talk about various social media related things for ages, it’s not a topic most people care about. But it’s a huge interest to me.
I think I’m just starting to brainstorm ideas for topics this month so I have something to come back and reference when I’m struggling for the day. This coming weekend should be pretty easy for that, I have a 3 day weekend and the only plans we actually have are to go to a concert on Saturday night. Sunday’s post should be an adventure all on it’s own, we’re seeing Yellowcard on their final tour and I’m already prepared to cry like a baby. The last two “farewell” tours I’ve seen have been nothing short of crazy emotional, and I’m sure this one is actually going to be worse than those ever were. I saw Anberlin go out a few years ago, which was an amazing show as it was the first (and obviously last) time I saw them live. Every Avenue was the other one and I’m still not over that. It’s a super sore subject to this day. Timehop is the worst for reminding me of these things this time of year, Every Avenue always did a string of holiday shows at the end of December and they also chose that to be their last tour one year so this was the time of year I would be buying tickets and getting excited about it. Stupid bands and their stupid “hiatus”. I think I angrily tweeted that at some point, hiatus is the worst word ever.
I have two minutes left and still about four hundred words to go. This is probably some kind of foreshadowing for the month to come, barely missing the daily goals. I’m not sure what would be worse, struggling to have a 1,667 word blog every day or fighting to pull 1,667 words out of nowhere and have to create a story out of them. I’ve done the noveling thing every time I’ve tried to NaNoWriMo so this is definitely a different attempt for me. We’ll see how this comes along. I’m already well aware there are going to be a few days where writing anything just doesn’t happen, but I’m going to make a damn honest effort at pulling this out. I’m already trying to come up with bribes and rewards for myself to make it through the month, and I feel like it’s too early for that. About 5 minutes ago I heard the boy crack open a new beer downstairs and that’s all I can think about now. There’s a beer and Anthony Bourdain waiting for me in the living room and I won’t let myself partake until I’ve hit the requisite word count for the day, even though technically it’s past midnight and I’ve already missed that goal. I tried.
We sell a travel coffee mug at work that says “I Did My Best” and I think I need to invest in that for use while I’m writing the rest of the month, if nothing else. The company that makes it also sells a planner and a notebook with the same phrase on it I believe, and maybe a pencil case as well. I never liked it when we first started carrying it but it’s definitely become relevant to my life lately.
At this point I’m just stringing this out so I can hit the 1,667 words I need and get that first badge for the month and feel like I accomplished something before I go to bed. I need to not let this stress me out over the rest of the month, I have more than enough to worry about that actually concerns my real life, but I’m sure that no matter how hard I try to put it to the back burner it’s going to haunt me every day. And with that sounding way more ominous than it should or needed to, I’m done for the day. I’m still jealous of the people that can manage to crank out multiple thousands of words on their first day (although there have been years where I’ve accomplished that), or the people that can literally double the 50K word count during the month (I don’t understand that one at all), but if I can at least hit the basic milestones or even just manage to somewhat consistently put out some kind of content this month I’ll be satisfied I think.
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