work2

may 7

I'm a bit late, but I manage to clock in just five minutes after 1:00 pm. There's just a small wave of us starting at this time, but we get the team meeting underway. On the way there I hear the word "closing" get tossed around the air, and I quickly worry that I've got the wrong group and this group is ending their shift. I catch up to a girl in front of me and I ask her,

"This is the opening shift right?"

Now you see, the opening shift is the one that starts at 7:30 am or whatever ungodly hour they assign, but I'm trying to confirm that the group I'm with is the one that starts at 1:00 pm. The way I word it makes it sound like I'm asking if we're the 7:30 am group.

She looks at me a bit weird and smiles and I trip over my words as if I'm falling down a flight of stairs. After it all I finally manage to ask, "This is the group that starts at 1:00 pm right?" to which she confirms. She beams at me and gives me a few pats on the back while saying, "You okay buddy?"

After going over some numbers and stuff, we're dismissed and I head off to my first assigned location at the fitting rooms.

When I walk in I recognize one of the people there (though I can't remember her name) and smile and say good morning. She (not the same one from the morning) takes in my outfit for the day and nods while saying,

"You look better with glasses."

This morning I was putting together my work attire and I felt that my face was too... vulnerable or something. I put on my glasses (which I usually keep off when I work) and it put together the outfit so I went with it. Anyways back to work.

For a moment I'm taken aback, but I recover and joke about how it hides my ugliness or something dumb like that. Banter from the staff at fitting rooms flies across the small and confined front desk space, and when it clears the girl says,

"You look better because it hides how tired you always look,"

Later in the day I'm on the registers, and as I'm getting ready to go on my break, I realize I lost one of my pens. Fortunately I keep an extra around, but it still sucks to lose a pen you like (pro-tip: don't bring your favourite pen to work ever). I remember that the staff on the register next to mine picked up the exact same pen I had (the basic Muji transparent one) before going on break, and I thought about asking if that was my pen.

It'd sound accusing, and not worth a positive relationship for a dollar, I thought.

During break I find the pen in my breast pocket, and I'm glad I didn't ask.