Employment Update

I (Tim) have not given an employment update in a while, so here it is.  Since September 1, I have been officially unemployed.  After a couple months of searching and a few interviews, I accepted a part time job at Costco and kept sending out resumes and interviewing.  I was at Costco as a seasonal employee for six weeks and then was let go, along with the other seasonal workers.  It was supposed to go for two more weeks, but the money flow was not enough to keep us.  Now I continue to job search and hope to find something soon. 

I learned a few things working at Costco, which was the first retail job I had done since 1995.  The following  are a some of them:

-          - A big part of my job was to go around returning items that customers had left in the wrong spot.  They would decide that they did not want it and leave it in some other part of the store.  That drove me nuts.  C’mon, people.  Put your stuff back where you got it.  Especially when it needs refrigeration.  Don’t be so lazy.

-         -  I also spent a couple shifts collecting carts from the parking lot.  On Christmas Eve, I spent seven hours on cart duty in a snowstorm.  I got annoyed when people would leave their garbage in their cart.  There are no magic elves that go around and pick up trash.  It was me.  I did not want to do cart duty when I started but I enjoyed it more than I expected.

-         -  Most of my time was spent going around with a scanner to get info from the customer’s membership cards and convincing them to upgrade their membership.  As you can imagine, most people did not want to upgrade.  A few were jerks but that was the minority, fortunately.  I was good at it but never enjoyed it all that much.

-          - One woman got the award for jerky customer of the year.  When I was on cart duty in the handicapped section, I woman drove up to me and rolled down her window.  I leaned down and she asked me if we used all the handicapped spots, many of which were empty at that moment.  My response was that when the store is busy, all the spots are filled.  She said “hurump” or something like that and drove away in a huff.  Anyone who complains that there are too many handicapped spots is the jerk of the year.

-          -  I got to run into some friends that I don’t get to see often, so that was a nice side benefit of the job.

I am grateful for the Costco job but I am looking forward to full time employment with something that fits my gifts a little better.  I appreciate your prayers and will give an update when I have any news.