My mum argued with me that Laura doesn't make more than me. I argued that if she's getting �38 and i'm getting �30 then it's pretty clear that she IS making more than me. However, my mum then added that the reason Laura is getting a raise is so she can give my mum it to pay the bills. That's why Gary is giving her a raise. This was fine with me and I understood that, but even without the raise, Laura still earns more than me and I understand why, since she's been there longer and stuff, but I bet you any money that she was on �38 when she started working there.
It's not that I think I currently deserve to be paid more, but it's that I don't get much of a chance to show that I can do the work that would deserve to be paid more, since Laura is the first to be asked for help with something, or to do something. I'm relegated to second position, doing the grunt work, like carrying and lifting with Colin. I don't mind doing that, but it's not like Laura would ever be asked to do stuff like that.
My mum didn't really appreciate the fact that I thought I was being treated unfairly. She just kept referring to the fact that Laura isn't being paid more than me because Laura will give it to my mum, but that's most definitely not true.
In total, including Gary himself, there is five people working in that shop and i'm the lowest paid out of all of them. Doesn't do much for my self confidence. Not the fact that I don't get paid as much as the rest, but simply that I don't have as much responsibility as everyone else does.
I also told my mum that Gary had said that he'd next want me in work in Wednesday and that I was disappointed by this because it meant that I wouldn't be earning as much as I'd expected to. She then told me that apparantly, Gary had said Laura could have the day off work on Monday, but that if I wanted to work, then he'd probably let me so I said yes. My mum called me the next day from Gary's to let me know that he'd said yes to me working on Monday.
So, yesterday, I arrived at the shop at 10am. Town was completely dead as it was a Bank Holiday and I began to wonder why exactly the shop was even open, since none of the main shops were. When I got there, the only person about was Peter. I said hi and sat down, asking him was Colin downstairs. He said that the only person in was him and that today was a "Paper day", meaning that's all that would be done today. Neither of us were expecting many customers, and we were right. For about 45 minutes, no one even bothered to come into the shop. However, one the guy who me and Tom laughed at on Thursday then walked into the shop and he bought a chest of drawers. After that, there weren't any customers for ages.
Since there was nothing else to do, I began asking Peter about himself. Even though i'm pretty against the fact that he had marajuana plants in his apartment and the fact that Gary said he stole from him, I was actually warming quite well to this guy. Also, I asked Gary last week about Peter and he said that he'd confronted him about it and Peter had denied it, giving times and dates to account for the money that Gary had said had been stolen. I had asked if he belived him and he had said only 50/50. However, as I was talking to Peter, like I said, I found him interesting. He can be quite funny at times too.
Around 11:45am, Peter said that he was going to go and see if there was a match on in the pub and that he'd be back at 2pm at which time I could go home early.
"Wait, you're going to watch a match?", I asked him, anxiously.
"Yup. You'll be alright on your own here. If you need me, call my mobile."
This was not quite the responsibility I had in mind.
And so two minutes later, there I was, sitting in a furniture shop, on my own, expected to serve customers, when I know hardly anything about furniture. I started doodling after about 30 minutes, for ten minutes. Just a simple doodle of a hand. It passed the time. About 1pm, I called Stan to see if he wanted to come keep me company in the shop since I had no one to talk to but he said that he was working. I tried Dave, but got no answer. Even though I was pretty bored, I thought that my time on my own in the shop was proving easy, as there hadn't been any customers in. Ah, how wrong I can be.
Suddenly, for the second hour on my own, the shop became rather damn busy. From the time I arrived at the shop till 1pm, there had been 1 customer. However, within just twenty minutes, there had already been three customers looking about. And then the second two customers that came in ended up asking me about the furniture and I had to look like I knew something about it...and failed miserably. A couple asked whether a cot came with or without the matress and I didn't know so I had to call Peter to see. Straight after they walked in, another couple walked in and asked me about a wardrobe and again, didn't have any real answers for them, making it up as I went along. In the end though, they wanted to make an order. I've never taken an order before, but thankfully, I had made it a point to watch how Gary, Peter and Laura had done them and so doing it was not such a problem for me. I was actually quite nervous writing it all down though. They asked if they could pay with their credit card, but the shop has no facilities to do that so after I had written the order, they then said that they'd have to go get some money. After that, the first couple wanted to order something too so I took another order, first having to ring Peter again, to ask what should I do because we didn't have any order books left. He told me to use another type of book instead and I took the order, but they too asked if they could pay by credit card and then after I'd written the order out, said they'd have to go get money. So even though I'd written out two orders, no one had actually given me any money!
There were even more customers after they'd left too and for the rest of the hour I was alone. Thankfully they didn't ask too many hard questions though.
When Peter came back, I updated him with the orders and whatnot. After a while, we began discussing movies and what ones he'd seen. He said the last film he'd been to see at the cinema was Harry Potter. I had to laugh. I mean, he's gotta be at least 40. It was amusing.
More customers came in. Peter talked to them and while he was, the people who had made the first order came back with the cash and I followed through with their order, forgetting to give the guy �1 in change after he had paid for a wardrobe that was �249 with �250. He corrected me though and I felt stupid.
Around 2:45pm, Peter said that I could go home, but I told him I was actually quite fine staying there.
"Right, well if you're staying here then i'm getting off. You can lock up.", he said, dropping the keys in front of me.
"Wait, no! I didn't..I don't..I didn't mean I wanted to stay here, like, ages. I was just staying for a bit. I was going to go soon.", I replied.
"Well stay till 4" he said, "Give those other people a chance to come back"
"...Yeah, ok then..."..."Might as well lock up now?"
"Give them 15 minutes to come back and then you can go"
"Ok"
So once again, he had left me in charge of not only sitting in the shop on my own, but locking up too. Again, I wasn't too worried, as I had made a note of when Laura had locked up and knew what to do. After waiting 15 minutes, I decided it was time to go so I switched all the power off and locked the door, and then the gate in front of the door, before attempting to bring down the metal blinds over the windows, but when I turned the key, they weren't moving. I was confused and worried, as it wasn't like I had anyone to turn to right there with me. I called Laura to see if she could help me, but she couldn't. She could only offer me Peter's number, which I already had.
I unlocked the gate and the door and went back inside to call Peter on the shop phone. I told him that I'd switched off the power and then tried to bring the blinds down, but he said that I shouldn't of turned the power off, but just the lights. It had dawned on me just before calling him that perhaps the blinds were conected to the main power, but had decided to call him anyway. So, I flipped the switch back up but turned the lights off and this time, the blind came down.
After locking up, I then went to McDonalds and ate my food in there, glancing over often to a really hot girl, sitting with her boyfriend. I'm allowed to look...especially when he's not noticing.
Then I went home.
I was so damn tired when I got home, but managed to stay awake till around 7pm, before climbing into bed for two hours. I woke up around 9:30pm, however, walking over to my computer to see who was online, before returning to lay on my bed, and then getting back in it and falling back asleep till 5am. Once more, I fell asleep though, waking up at 8am, and then finally at 9am and got up. One hell of a long sleep.
I talked with Deborah for quite some time this morning. Lovely girl.
For most of the afternoon, I've simply been sitting here doing my usual nothing. Well, I've been messing around in Photoshop actually and in Flash. Mowed the garden, put shopping away, watched TV, sat here some more. The usual.
Jamie called me. He asked me if I was going to college tomorrow. I was confused and asked why. He said that our certificates for our final major project are ready to collect. I doubt that's true though, because I've had no letter to say that it's ready for collection. However, I'll go with Jamie anyway. Apparantly all of our work is ready to be picked up. Hm, so actually, if that includes our final major project work, that means it's been marked and sent back, which could well mean the grade is in college too? So tomorrow, I could find out how well I done with my FMP and that's the grade that I've been very curious about knowing. I'd like to think that I've done fairly well with it so i'm hoping for a pass. Jamie said he thinks I'll get a distinction, but I think the most i'm hoping for is a merit.
Then, next week my course starts. I'm quite excited about that.
I'm also in work tomorrow. Joy.
