At my retail job, we borrow a catchphrase from the show Portlandia, and often say, "put a bird on it!" Birds were all the hotness a few years ago in everything from fashion fabrics to decorative accents to wallpaper. Sadly, their are still too many birds gracing pillows, bedding, bowls, dishes, mugs and cake-domes at my retail workplace. It's over, guys. Move on.
A few months ago, I predicted to Chad that snails are the new hotness in design. We have one ceramic snail on our bedroom dresser and one small ceramic snail in a terrarium in the dressing room. I found sparkly snail ornaments last Christmas. Indeed, I've seen snails popping up on fabrics and wallpapers too. Not so much gracing food serving pieces, unless you count escargot served on dishes. Eww.
I've been struggling with working 37 hours a week on average, but with no employee benefits other than my meager hourly wage. My retail workplace got fussed at by corporate last week for scheduling too many of us more than 29.5 hours a week consistently without giving benefits. Last week, I only worked (surprise!) 29.5 hours over five workdays. It was pretty nice. I almost caught up on housekeeping and actually cared for the pets properly. Next week I work (surprise!) 37 hours again.
A coworker unwittingly informed me last night that the full-time visual merchandising position for which I thought I might apply is already promised to someone else. The past month that I've been working with the visual merchandising team I was (unknown to me) merely serving as a placeholder until the other person can start. SURPRISE! & EWW.
That other person can have the full-time visual merchandising position. I've had a taste of that job. Very little of the work is actually creative. Mostly the job involves cleaning the store, making sure proper signage is in place for constantly changing sales, doing markdowns, toting 30 pound shelves up & down 12 foot ladders and dribbling water into dying plants.
I'm going to put a snail on my retail job, figuratively speaking, and slow down. I'm going to limit my available hours so that I'll truly be working part-time, hopefully 25 hours over four workdays per week. Maybe if I don't give so much of my time to a job I don't even really like, it won't feel so taxing. Maybe I'll have time and mental energy to find a job I like better. Maybe I'll just have more time to myself.
