The week that was. At work.

So my week has come to an end. Well, it was 2+ hours ago as I write this, and I have to say. I had fun. The boss may have been away (wasn’t that the reason i was working in the first place??) but my friend and co worker, senior person was a good teacher and she showed me lots of things as well as learning a few herself. Sometimes when you are teaching others – especially if you have been recently trained yoruself – as your are explaining things you suddenly realise the ‘why’ of certain jobs and then it all becomes clear. Knowing this made my job easier as I was able to understand straight up why I was doing that particular job.

Of course I can’t go into too many details but let’s say my customer service training was dredged back to the surface.
Mondays are always the busiest and it was this week. Thankfully only a couple of nightmares arose and we made it through. Ringing the boss – as was expected – only twice to sort out a couple of minor details.

If we can survive Monday we can survive anything.

Each day I was able to do more and yesterday I did more than I thought I was capable of. When Kelly first mentioned that she would like me to help out when she goes away I was like ‘ok, sure, no problem’ then as the weeks and days got closer it was more and more like, ‘help, what have I done’ I needn’t have worried, we had a dry run a week ago and only had one small but very important issue.

Kelly also asked me as our other friend works elsewhere on a casual basis and if needed cannot always be available. This way, if all hell breaks loose, I can step in with some confidence and help.

I am now more useful than just being a mail sorter.

Having not done this kind of work before, take away shops, waitressing and merchandising is not quite in the same league, it was a steepish learning curve to learn new systems and ways. The basics, while quite easy, need to be very precise in their execution.

Being some kind of local I have seen many people while propping up the counter chatting to Kelly collecting my mail but had no idea of names. I found while sorting letter I could put names with box numbers, but unless I knew them from way back, had no idea of faces. I have now added a few new faces, names and box numbers to my head – whether I remember them next time I see them is another thing altogether – but there are a few that only came in once this week and I can recognise name and/or box number.

And that’s the great thing about this place. The locals are all pretty freindly and didnt mind at all when asked what box number or to be patient while I was learning how to pay their bills.

Will I do this again, well of course, that was part of the point, but knowing I am more than just the letter sorter and having my new skills makes me feel good.

My kids were all well behaved. Mr 9 had a very social week with 3 out of the 5 days being with friends, and all other jobs were done to a satisfactory level. I don’t have to chase my tail next week, which was the plan.

I have a whole new respect for Kelly now and what she does. Aside from it taking teo of us to fill her shoes, she works damned hard, and has the memory of an elephant (a very good one!). I have no idea how she does it. We had trouble with the most basic things (like working out our lunches), and I was planning on hitting the gym each day while I was in the area. Ha, well laid plans and all that. I did take the dog for several runs at home though.

While I dont have to I will be going in to help the sort on Monday. Her usual helpers (daughters) will still be on holiday interstate, and knowing what it’s like, well, I can’t let her down plus there is her ‘de-brief’ from our week of messing her space up.

Have a great weekend and see you next week.

Jen 🙂

ps. I have not added any links so if there are highlighted words they are not my doing, and I hold no responsibility if you click on them.