job interview success followed by my first day of work

After a couple of okay interviews that didn’t get me hired, and one job interview fail, I finally met success. I was hired and I had my first actual day of work today. It is a retail job, at a medium sized store (I’m not going to say which one, so don’t ask, thanks). Yesterday I went in for training for three hours and today I actually worked, stocking, starting at 5am this morning. Crap, that is early. But I was done by 10am, which is kind of cool. It is minimum wage, which is $9/hr here in California. That is not that cool, but I’m just happy to be working again, so I’ll take it.

What do you mean I won’t be paid in large bags of cash? What kind of job is this?

I don’t have any funny story about my first day on the job. Maybe there is a way to put a humorous spin on it, but I’m too tired to think of what that might be. Just wanted to get that out there so you can move on to something else if you want. You don’t have to read this. I mean that.

When I showed up this morning, I was told right away that some outside company had been there the night before and “done the floors” whatever that means. And that they had used some new product or process that had filled the store with fumes and due to the fact that the store doesn’t have decent ventilation and we can’t leave the front doors open when it is still dark out in the mornings (safety) we would just have to deal with it. But we were to let our MOD (manager on duty) know if we needed a breather.

A couple hours in, I developed a headache and mentioned it to the MOD and we all stepped outside together (safety, it was still dark) for a ten minute break to breathe some fresh air. Well, it helped in the moment, but not really overall. I had a terrible pounding headache for hours after I got off work today. NO fun.

The good news is that, so far, my coworkers seem nice and friendly and helpful. I hope that stays true as I get to know everyone better and longer. Good relationships with the people you work with can really make or break a job experience. Another good thing is that I get to wear a walkie talkie to communicate with the other team members. That could be fun, especially if I were still ten.

I pray this floors-getting-done thing is not a weekly problem, because I don’t know if I’ll be able to handle it if it is. And I really want to keep this job. I don’t want to do any more job interviews. After finally nailing one, I’d like to just rest on my laurels for a while.