It was an extremely boring day.
Just like any other time I've been there, it made me feel incompetent, because no one asks me to do anything and when they do, it's usually something incredibly simple, because I don't know a fucking thing about furniture!
Even though Laura works there and she's my sister and if nothing else, a work colleague, she still doesn't talk to me. I've tried really hard to you know, just be friendly and talk to her as if she was just another person I work with. But no, she refuses to make any effort on her part, not even asking would I like a drink, when she goes and gets one for herself, even though she asks Gary who is sitting right next to me. That's simply not nice.
At 1pm, Gary asked me to go get an Echo, which is a newpaper for Liverpool. He had put an advert in there for the shop and wanted to see it. So, off I went and returned with three Echos. Gary wasn't really that happy that his advert was on page 6 instead of 7, i.e. a left page instead of a right one. I could understand why he wasn't happy about it, as right hand pages are the first pages you supposedly see when you open a newspaper.
My mum visited around 3:30pm. I wanted to make it clear to her that I felt really crap working there because of how useless I felt and that it was really affecting my mental health, but she wasn't really interested that much. She asked why was I still working there if I didn't want to and I explained that I had to so I could get back some of the money I'd spent while Sasha was here.
Around 4:20pm, Gary left the shop, leaving me, Laura and my mum in there. I decided that I couldn't take much more of being there so I said I was going and left, coming home and getting in bed for a while. Doing nothing for 7 hours a day makes you tired.
I ended up going to bed at 4am last night because I had had a sleep, meaning that when I got up this morning, I had only had less than four hours. Still, even though I was tired, I managed to get up and go.
I've recently found the joys of having a full English breakfast every day, thanks to the people at Sayers. Well, not a full English breakfast, but two pieces of bacon, two sausage and beans is good enough for me! I go there just before I go to work and it's kind of like a small incentive for me to actually go in the first place I suppose.
Once in work, only Peter was there. Yesterday, a girl came in asking if she could leave a bunch of booklets for the Mathew St Festival and another one for the other stuff that was going on around Liverpool over the summer. They were on the desk and I knew that no one would bother picking one up if they just sat there so I spread them about the shop instead on top of chests of drawers and whatnot.
Laura wasn't in work today. Apparantly she was having a day off. I was kind of glad in a way because it meant that no one could ask her stuff instead of me which meant that I could actually feel useful instead of just sitting there being bored.
Around 10am, Gary arrived, before Peter was sent on deliveries. There were a few customers and I tried my best to help them, and to my surprise, seemed to be just that little bit more helpful than on previous occasions. Nothing amazing, but still, I felt good.
It was still fairly boring. I mean, customers aren't exactly in and out of the shop all the time, but maybe one every 25 minutes. There were a few occasions where there might be two customers in the shop, but they just look around, browsing and then leave.
Although there is a phone in the shop, it hasn't been working and today Gary phoned BT and they sent a guy out to fix the line. Once the line was fixed, the phone started ringing quite soon after, and phone orders were being placed for the furniture that had been in the advert yesterday. In addition to this, there seemed to be a surge of customers towards the afternoon.
After dealing with a customer, they asked for a business card from Gary for the shop but he said he had none and instead, wrote the contact information down on a piece of paper. I used this chance to ask him whether he would like me to make some business cards for him. He said yeah, but it was like "yeah, whatever, i'm not bothered", although that's his tone with everything a lot of the time I think. I explained to him that I'd do a few samples for him, but that I couldn't print them off myself, as my printer is five years old and the quality is terrible. He then asked me what printer is compatible with my computer and I said any, and he replied, saying that he'd get me a printer.
A while later, I asked him what he'd like on the business card besides the obvious and he explained that he'd like a picture of some furniture. Again, I told him I'd get it done, but there was still a problem regarding printing them. In addition to this, it was running across my mind as to whether he intended to pay me for this service I was going to provide him with, as I didn't really want to do it for free. However, to my delight, he then said "Yeah, I'll buy you a new printer". Deal! A new printer is more than enough payment for me. Sweet. I know that he'll only be buying it for me because he knows that he can then ask me to print off all kinds of other stuff in the future, but still, a new printer is something I've wanted for ages! He better bloody go through with it.
About 2pm, Colin, Colin's son Tom and Peter arrived at the shop. Tom is only about 12 or something, and I've never talked to him, but he's been in with his Dad before. Colin introduced us, though and then just as Gary said he had to leave to go do some stuff, he said that I could assemble some stuff if I wanted something to do.
So, Colin handed me a flat pack. Colin also gave Tom one. Tom began assembling his upstairs, while I went downstairs as there was more room, opened the pack up and took the wood out, not forgetting those all important instructions, although once I had taken it all out, I realised that it was simply a nest of tables and that all I had to do was screw some legs onto the table part. Not hard at all.
Colin then gave me another pack and one to Tom. This one was a box, a kind of rectangular toy chest. Again, I assembled it downstairs.
I felt seriously pathetic. It took me fucking AGES to assemble it. I had to ask Colin twice for help with it. Finally, after about 30 minutes of assembling, I had finally finished it. I was kind of proud, even if it was only a simple box.
Next up, around 20 minutes later were two drawers. These proved a lot harder and I had to rely heavily on the instructions to get it done. I got very frustrated a lot of the time, having to take a step back from it and just sit down and look at the mess of wood in front of me. It took me at least 20 minutes to figure out how it all went together and then another 15 minutes to put all of the screws in place. I also had to put four runners on the bottom of the drawer and drill screws to secure it which proved FUCKING HARD. I mean, it's very, very hard to hold a runner in place, along with a screw AND a drill at the same time. It slipped a hell of a lot and it annoyed me so damn much.
After doing one of the drawers, I moved onto the second and since I knew how to assemble it now, managed to complete it in about two thirds of the time. However, it was still pathetically slow, as Colin had managed to do both of them in about a quarter of the time I had. Still, it was something to do and it passed the time and since I have been complaining about the lack of things to make me less bored, I was glad of this task.
While me and Tom were sitting on a cane furniture couch together, some guy came in. Man, he looked like an ape, the amount of hair he had on his face. He hardly HAD a face! And his beard was huge, along with his hair, all puffed out. And, the guy was only like, 25! I saw Tom laughing and I wasn't really sure why until I actually seen this guy. He was trying so very hard to contain his laughter, but because he was laughing, I began to as well, and then I looked at him and started giggling, trying hard to not make any noises, since the guy was very close by. The guy then came quite near to us to look at some chest of drawers, before returning to where he was and Tom burst out laughing, doubled up, tears coming down his eyes and to top it off, he then began choking on his Coke from so much laughing. Funny stuff.
I left the shop around 4:30pm and headed home, before getting in bed at 5:45pm for an hour. However, an hour has turned into FIVE hours and I didn't actually wake up till 11pm. It's now coming up to 1am and i'm desperately hoping I'll somehow manage to get to sleep tonight. I don't know how.
I forgot to bring Gary's advert home with me so I could see the style it was done in so I could emulate it in a business card so I'll have to give him the samples on Monday when I see him now.
It's Stan's birthday tomorrow. He wants me to go out with him and i'm not really sure if I should, as it would mean spending money which I don't really have. I really want to go, but the money for which i'm working now is simply so I have a small buffer to fall back on when college starts and I don't want to work and then blow it on going the pub when I need it for other stuff. It sucks that I can't have fun without money.
I might just go the pub, but not out to a club with him. I want to see all of my mates again, tell them about my weekend with Sasha. I guess I could do that. I wouldn't spend that much then. We shall see.
