My Bad Day

Let me just tell you about yesterday and why it sucked.

First, I had a, well..."conversation" with my friend Kyle Carey. Without going into details, basically it all started when I changed my status on Facebook because I thought it was funny that President Obama decided to retake the oath of office "just in case." Apparently he was trying to have a logical political discussion but he came across to me as arrogant and brutal. Needless to say that conversation did not really end well and soured my mood. From that point on I could not focus on my work (hence my last blog post). I tried, Lord knows I tried, but I barely got anything done. I go home at 1 pm, and somewhere around 11:30 I was able to knuckle down enough to get a little bit done. I was lonely, though, because I was all alone in the office.

My co-worker, Caleb, came in sometime around 12:30. He has class Tuesday and Thursday mornings and doesn't get into work until then. On a normal day we get along great. He's a member of the LDS church, a return missionary, and a newlywed, so we always find something to talk about. Anyway, I'm working on getting these prize boxes put away because as soon as that is done, I can pretty much pack up and go home. So I finish the last of these stickers I had to put on this load of boxes and pick them up to carry them upstairs to the cabinet. Right in front of Caleb's (open) door, I one of the boxes falls out from the stack I am awkwardly trying to carry toward the stairs. He looks up at me and I say "Could you help me please?" thinking that he would at least come and help by picking up the dropped box, but maybe even do the more gentlemanly thing and help me carry them upstairs. All he does it look at me and say "you can do it." I thought he was being funny so I made my sad face at him. He says "don't look at me like that." I stood there for a couple minutes waiting for some help, but no, he says he's too busy, I need to do it all myself. Now I understand that he has been at school all morning and therefore is not where he would normally be in his work at that time because of his recent arrival, but there is this thing called compassion....I can't think of any work I would be doing that would keep me from jumping up to help someone, especially someone who asked me for help. I was so stressed and ready to go home that I almost cried as I put ALL the boxes down, picked up the one I dropped and staggered up the stairs. By the time I came down, though, I was a little angry, so I slammed my door. I collected my things, shut down my computer, and then got the money out of the safe that I had counted earlier that day. I wrote my own deposit slip (which I usually ask him to do) and didn't say a word, because I knew he knew I was angry and was waiting for him to say something. But no. Needless to say, I was hurt and more than a little ticked at his cold shoulder.

So I go to the bank like always, just wanting to go home. To explain a bit, because we are a cash business, we make daily bank drops. Well, I make daily bank drops. There are some days when there is not any money to count, but at least 4 days a week, there is. Although I handle lots of quarters, I handle several thousand dollar bills as well, and these are what we take to the bank (Brinks picks up our coin). I spend 30-45 minutes every morning counting all the money, which involves using a counting machine, and bundling the $1 bills by 100. The leftover 1s are then bundled with the 5s, 10s, and 20s, and this is called the "mixed bundle." When I go to the bank (where they all know me), I give them my deposit slip and the mixed bundle, which they run through the counter while I unpack the other bundles. Then they assume my bundles are all 100, see how many there are, and then set them aside. They give me my receipt and they count the bundles later, calling us if any mistakes are found. I have been with this company since August and they have found an error only ONCE (my very first week). Since then, I have always been perfect in my deposits, and they know that.

So I get to the bank and there is this new girl. She waves me over and so I give her my deposit slip and the mixed bundle as usual. As I begin to dump the other bundles on the counter, she looks at the money like "whoa!" Then Stephen, one of the managers, who happens to be standing right next to her, explains how things are normally done. She then says "Well, it's my cash drawer so I'd rather count them all." She then proceeds to tell me that I won't get my receipt until she counts ALL my bundles (there were about 18). Not only does this mean that I have to sit around and WAIT while she RE-counts all my hard work, but my day was already sucking and I felt a bit of a personal blow because even with a manager telling her that they knew us well enough that X was the policy, even when she KNEW that there was a 99.9% chance that her count was going to be identical to mine, she still insisted on making me sit there and wait. I am ashamed to say that this was the straw that broke the camel's back, and I started crying right there in the middle of the bank. I tried to be discreet about it, sitting in the chair, shielding my eyes with my hand, but the other employees of the bank, they know me, and they noticed that I wasn't my usual self. Stephen (the manager) came out from behind the desk and asked if I was OK. I was so embarrassed! I just told him I was having a bad day and that my co-worker had been kind of mean, blah blah blah. That was the one good thing that happened, because just when I thought no one had any compassion, this guy showed me that there are people who care about other people and will take the time to make sure people are OK.

So I went home, David was wonderful, as usual, but I was just feeling like crap, so I watched Game Show Network for a few hours. Nothing makes you forget your troubles like people jumping around and winning thousands of dollars.

The evening was better than the day; we played Phase 10 Twist with some friends (awesome game, by the way). That helped me find a reason to smile. So overall, the ENTIRE day wasn't bad, but it was tough and it pretty much sucked. However, writing about it helps a great deal. Yay for blogs! Now it's the weekend, so everything is better. David's parents are here until tomorrow, staying with us, but I think that will be pretty fun.

P.S. Does anyone know how to make my blog so the posts are wider and reach to the left side of the screen? I can't figure it out...