My New Job

You'll have to forgive me for the excessive blog posts today, but I have a lot of catching up to do. I have a good excuse though, I swear. I got a job!

Once we finally got about as settled as we could be at this point I really got down to searching for jobs. The job field in Tacoma is a lot more blue collar than it is in Seattle so I realized pretty quickly that I probably wouldn't find any office jobs around here. I wasn't really keen on going back into the food industry so I started looking at the local companies around here. I noticed that Next To Nature was hiring so I emailed my resume on June 8. The next day was our anniversary so Glenn and I were out and about when I got a call from the manager of the store. She asked me to come and pick up an application to fill out. It worked out pretty well because we were actually picking up our foster dog from her surgery and that is right down the street.

I was scheduled for an interview on the 23rd at 2:00pm. Apparently the manager told me 2:00 when she actually meant 2:30. Of course I arrived at the store early so I had to hang around for about 45 minutes before I actually sat down with the manager and the owner of the store. It was a casual interview so I felt pretty comfortable. Thankfully they didn't ask me about any retail experience I may have had, because I have none! Glenn said that I would have an "in" because we brought our foster dog in with us earlier and of course they would love that. I was able to sneak that in to the interview as well, and obviously it made a good impression. As the interview was coming to a close the owner told me that they would be making a decision in the next week and a half or so. She said they had a lot of applicants and would not be able to call everyone individually so if I didn't hear back from them by the next week, I should assume I didn't get the job. I kind of assumed that was a bad sign. The usual good sign of "when can you start" was nowhere to be found.

I left feeling pretty good, but a little resigned. It was okay to me because I figured they had to have found a handful of people who were more qualified for the job than me. Based on my previous job searching, most retail stores will not even give you a second thought if you don't have any experience. That weekend I ended up playing phone tag with the manager. She had left a message on my phone asking me to call her back because she had a couple more follow up questions for me. I was a little surprised. Then one morning I was woken up by my phone ringing, and it was Next To Nature. Hmmm... Turns out she wanted to follow up on something I had told her during the interview about hurting myself at my last job. I'm an honest person and I felt like that was something important that I should disclose, especially since it was the reason I only had my last job for a few days. I explained to her how and why it happened and that I don't foresee it happening again, primarily because the situation would have to be identical for the injury to reoccur. Apparently that was exactly what she wanted to hear because she offered me the job! I probably sounded like a dork because I was still waking up as I was talking to her so when she said they wanted me, I stupidly respond with "Really?!" I felt like an idiot afterwards. Obviously I said yes.

I was scheduled to start after the holiday, on July 5. My training schedule for about a month or so is expected to be Tuesday-Thursday. On Tuesdays and Thursdays I work 12:00-7:30 and on Wednesday I work 11:00-7:30. I just finished my first week of work and I really like it! I was a little unsure of what to expect but it is really pretty cool. I can wear whatever I want, as long as it is clean, so that is pretty awesome. The people I work with are very cool and I get along well with all of them, so that is always very nice.

My first day began with me filling out a bunch of paperwork. I was given a brief tour of the store and then given little things to do, but mostly it involved observing. I was told to jump right in and greet customers and ask them if they needed any help. I'm sure it was a little annoying when a customer did want help and instead of me giving it to them I had to go and ask someone else. Oh well. The rest of the day involved taking care of the four cats we have in the store (feeding, watering, and cleaning poo) and a bit of stocking to make room for the next day's big shipment.

Wednesday was quite a day! There were three pallets of pet food, treats, and other things that greeted me when I walked in the door. I immediately got to work lifting giant bags of food back and forth across the store. It wouldn't be as tough if we didn't have to rotate our stock. Since we're dealing with food, all of the dates need to be checked, the old stuff gets moved to the top and the new stuff gets moved to the bottom. That usually involves removing everything off the shelves and then putting it back on. I was so exhausted by the end of the day. It was a lot of work! Later in the day I learned how to price merchandise and I spent the rest of my time trying to memorize the locations of everything.

Thursday was a lot more relaxed. We only got a very small shipment in. I spent the majority of the day making food samples. Something I thought would only take an hour ended up taking most of the day! I also got to put some new merchandise out on the floor and I got to put it wherever I wanted. I suddenly felt a lot of pressure to put it in the right spot. It turned out alright. I think I will actually be buying one of the toys that I put out for Rally, it was pretty cool. Later in the day we had to rearrange one of the cat cages because we were getting a new foster kitty named Foster. He is a beast. He's one of those tuxedo cats but he weighs about 25 pounds! Poor thing is so fat, but he is an absolute sweetheart. We all loved him pretty much instantly. That brings our in store cat total to 5.

A fun detail about my new job is my employee discount. I get any food I purchase at cost! AND I still get to use the frequent buyers card. How awesome is that! It also just so happens that the food we buy for Rally is also the cheapest food we buy so my normally $37 bag of food cost me $26. I am not going to complain about that for seriously high quality food. I also get 20% off everything else. Pretty sweet setup if you ask me. Anyway, if you would like to know more about our store, check out the website. It really is an awesome store that Glenn and I had frequented long before I got the job and I am really excited to be working there.