11 days...

A little background music, please...

start at the beginning? With chicken and a blue checkered shirt, looking like a greasy tablecloth and eating bbq'ed potato salad sandwiches to avoid another bite of chicken?

or the beginning of retail sales -- would that fall under the category of
"Blessing" or "Curse" ? 22 loooong years later. Wait, how could it be 22 years? That's impossible! Hmmm, recheck my math... 40 (but a youthful 4o) minus 18, carry the 1, divide by # of promotions, add 6 for each midnight shift... yep, 22 years in retail. Shoot me now.

or the beginning of my current post, my banishment to the outskirts of the city. Who knew there was a mall in El Cajon? Feed stores, pawn shops, trailer parks sure, but a shopping mall? But there it was, right off the 8, my new temporary (I thought) place to work until transferring to a cool and beautiful store in Fashion Valley or UTC. Then came the customers, the man with the tiger face, the superhero in a yellow cape and waaaaaay too small tights, and all our special friends dropped off by bus every morning to hang out at the mall. Throw in a few insults, questions regarding the sexual orientation of a male working in a department store, and I was wondering what I had gotten myself into. And I had not yet been exposed to the other personalities of The Boss, the yelling and throwing, the notes written in red ink letters 6" high underlined and tearing through the paper, the withering glare, the "No, no, no, no, no, no!!!"

But the best was yet to come, and I mean The Best: the people I worked with every day. My co-workers, my associates, my partners in crime, my teammates, my friends. We won't count the flakes & weirdos, the thieves & losers, the liar & the gossip. Not worth the time and energy. The people that are worth remembering are the people that made coming to work each day worth any and all black clouds that may have come along. The people I worked hard with to get projects done, the people who worked together to get through busy days, who helped each other through midnight shifts, working on Christmas Eve, working during 9/11 and earthquakes and personal tragedies. The people I laughed with, counseled and commiserated with, cried with, laughed with some more, disagreed and argued with, bitched and complained with, celebrated with, and always kept laughing with are the reason I came to work every day and those are the people I will never ever forget. How do you forget family?