Why I go to work.

I spend a LOT of time complaining about people on this blog, don’t I? Although for some of you, it doesn’t seem like I can ever do enough. Seriously, with the nagging and the phone calls and the “Phil, write another post already!” I have a lot on my plate right now, okay? The last thing I need is you hassling me to add one more thing, something that I do out of the goodness of my heart to entertain and delight millions, to that over-crowded towering pile of food on my plate! In fact, I need a second plate! My first plate is full! No more room for food on Phil’s plate, but still you demand that I add that one more side dish.

I kind of lost track of that analogy, didn’t I? Oh well.

So anyway, like I said, I spend a lot of time complaining about people on my blog, so I decided that, in honour of some special guy’s birth (My cousin Cameron, who’s birthday was yesterday—happy birthday Cameron!!!) I would write a few things that I really love about my job.

1) The guest-stars:

There are some people that I see on a fairly routine basis, such as the fed-ex delivery guy, the couriers who travel to all of our locations every day, the people who work at our sister companies, the other mall staff (especially the managers at Cookies by George and Second Cup) who always manage to make my day a bit better. I don’t know a lot about these people, but what I do know is that they actually make me have faith in humans. When the Second Cup manager gives me a free coffee or cookie, or when our courier Mary makes sure that I’m wearing something orange, or when the staff at our sister company congratulated me on my promotion and said “It’s about freaking time!”, I realize that despite all of the drama and stupidity, most people are fairly decent individuals. They actually want to make sure that the people around them are having a good day, they do little things to try to make people happy (and they always seem to do it right when I need something to cheer me up), and they are just generally good people. So while I may not know their last names or where they grew up, I do know that they make each day a bit more awesome.

2) The awesome customers:

I know it seems like the only people who come in to my store are a bunch of inbred rednecks with severe brain damage or are simply angry, ignorant little people, but a lot of the customers I see are simply too nice to be all that funny.

For example, there’s this one family consisting of a mom, a dad, and their two sons, and they come in every few weeks to get the kids’ glasses fixed (they’re boys, things happen!), and they have got to be the nicest family ever. The mom and dad are easy to talk to, the kids are energetic but well behaved and are so polite that they even say thank you to us without ever being told to. The parents make conversation that doesn’t involve yelling at us about how kids’ glasses should be indestructible, or how they are never buying glasses from us again. They are just kind, reasonable, personable people who I actually enjoy seeing, and they always make us feel like we’re doing a great job, which is always a plus.

Another one of my favourites is a lady I sold glasses to about two years ago, and at first she had a lot of trouble adjusting to them (it was her first time wearing progressives). She was understandably frustrated, but kept thanking me for all the time I was taking to help her out. She went back to the doctor without argument, and agreed to take the time to adjust to the new prescription, agreeing that it must take time. After a few weeks and many adjustments, she came back and thanked me for all of my hard work, gave me some chocolate, and then proceeded to send friends and family to see me.

She came back in a couple of weeks ago knowing that she was due to get her eyes checked, and we spent an hour looking at frames, joking, catching up, and when she had her eye exam done and realized she didn’t need new glasses she was crushed. But then she brought in her husband to buy glasses from me! She’s one of my favourite people.

There is a whole mess of other customers who have made my days awesome throughout the years; the lady who had shopped around and came back to get her glasses from me because all of the other sales people were annoying, but I was the “least offensive” (she was joking! I hope…); there’s the amazingly nice and down to Earth former Calgary Flames player and his wife who get their glasses and contacts from us; there was the guy who gave one of my co-workers chocolate the other day because she had his glasses rushed; and all of the others who just have fun trying on the ugly frames, or tell me that I’m good at my job (duh) or simply make my day better by making fun of the asshole who was in 30 seconds before them. I know it sounds like I deal with a lot of crazies, but I deal with a lot more great people. They’re just harder to make fun of, which is why you never hear about them.

3) The other stores:

I work for a large chain, and we have several stores throughout the city. We all wind up talking on the phone or emailing each other on a daily basis, looking for frames, calling for help, or warning each other about a potential awful customer headed their way. There are some people who I have known for years and recognize their voices, but wouldn’t recognize them if we walked past each other in the street because we’ve never met in person. These are the people who I can rant to, tell a funny story to, and who do the same with me. They are the ones who know what the day is like when it’s dead and you have nothing to do or when it’s been insanely busy and you’re short staffed, or when all you get is complaint after complaint.

Some of these people are also past-co-workers, people who worked with me, or who I worked with at a different location, and then we transferred. These are the ones who I can start talking to on the phone and then wonder where the last half an hour went. I miss these guys at my store every day!

4) My co-workers:

Sometimes we fight. Sometimes they are stupid. Sometimes I’m a bossy asshat (I’m sure most of them would agree). But these people are my second family, and I love them despite the occasional drama, minor mistakes, or the fact that I wind up cleaning up after them every day. These 9 people are the reasons I show up every single day.