they come and they go...

... while some of us stick around for years and years: managers in the workplace. Store managers and departmental guys are periodically shifted from store to store, for reasons us lowly workers are not privy to. When the higher-ups take a notion to stir the pot, the guys who tell me what to do, supervise department ordering, staffing, budgets: suddenly, spontaneously disappear and a new one pops up, generally unannounced. Catching the lowliest of employees (me!) completely by surprise.

They will shift store managers around, as well as send department supervisors from one store to another within the same geographic area. Or send someone who is jockeying for a promotion to some place at a great distance as a test, make them prove how badly they want to climb the ladder, show how determined they are to move up. Since I have been in my little niche for nearly two decades, it is apparent I will not be climbing any ladder of success, and have a marked lack of ambition.

But what I believe I am good at: being good. Doing what I do well, and over time, proving that I am willing and flexible to work pretty much any time I am needed. There are lean times of Biblical proportion: working four hours a week back in January, feeling really short-changed and put-upon with a minuscule paycheck. And times of feeling inundated: the week leading up to Valentine's Day where the maximum of forty hours is a certainty.

Or the upcoming week, as usually happens on a federal holiday: some kind of crazy 'what were they thinking' sale to bring customers in like swarming locusts. Buying stuff to cook on the grill, things for picnic-ing, and fresh cut fruit like it was survival food. The fruit will be something we cannot keep ahead of, so everyone available will be cutting melons, pineapple, berries trying to meet demand.

It all evens out. Plus I try to condition myself to remember:' if I am not on the time clock, I am on vacation.' The 'up' side of all this, while occasionally feeling like a second class citizen is that I can request to be off, ask for time away, and there is not much they can say. It is not 'vacation' or 'paid leave', so there is no remuneration, but I can usually negotiate a compromise, come to agreement and get my way, when I start making plans. I would never ever remotely think of telling them that they are pretty well trained, to let me do what I want. Work when I want, off when I don't want to be there because I am: wanting to leave town without any flak, for fun!