Tuesday, October 24, 2023

It’s done and my job at HD ends in two weeks. In November, I’ll be selling at Macy’s and working there through the holidays. At the new year’s start, it’s anyone’s guess as to where I might head workwise. I’ll simply play my cards and keep my powder dry.

My future of working places may be cloudy. However, acting and deciding brings huge relief, because an initial conflict is history. Big decisions encourage optimism and excitement about moving forward.

Nonetheless, change always is edged with doubts. I’m bolstered by reading the tea leaves (these days, referring to the larger economy). They encourage the sense of interesting working opportunities continuing beyond the year-end.

The upcoming months at Macy’s will help me know what types of sales work I prefer. I’m a descendant of selling types, who successfully sold clothing, jewelry, and shoes. I have an inherited me-too sales talent and look forward to learning at Macy’s.

Dear Friends: In the nature of a personal experiment, this all feels cool. Diana

Monday, October 23, 2023

Yesterday, I wrote about giving notice at my steady part-time job and planning to start working at Macy’s. Thanks to readers who wrote and, while cautionary and encouraging, offered good advice. Most of us know how challenging it is to leave a safe working environment and enter the relatively unknown. Especially if one’s not young and in today’s mega-confusing economy.

The Macy’s gig would be a short commitment lasting through the upcoming holiday season. There, selling clothing and related items will add sales-specifics to my working experience. Clothing experience would enhance my resume and heighten my candidate appeal in job searches.

Moving forward will, in early January, have me again job hunting. This community’s retail environment has seasonal shifts that affect the availability of jobs. I wonder about opportunities for clothing and hardware salespersons after the holidays. If such isn’t available, my fallback could be cashiering, a skill on my resume and usually needing applicants.

My game plan for seeking more interesting work in 2024 seems reasonable. Widening my variety of hands-on working experience would increase my resume’s appeal to most local businesses, which are retail establishments.

Regardless of reasonableness, saying goodbye to my current and nice employer is a tough call.

Dear Friends: We face challenge after challenge, and none a drop easier. Diana

Sunday, October 22, 2023

Today approaches the deadline for deciding whether to stay with or quit my current part-time job. On the positive side is the safety of continuous employment in an excellent company, and on the tippy-toe side is the potential to expand my retail experience and pursue more challenging and interesting jobs.

During the past few years, I have gone from zero retail skills to some, having learned to cashier, work in a large garden department, and sell hardware and tools. Now, I can reference some sales experience and want to add clothing sales. To this end, Macy’s has hired me for employment during the upcoming seasonal rush.

I have accepted that position. No later than tomorrow, moving forward means giving my current employer notice.

Yesterday, I checked out the local Macy’s, the store hiring me. I found it huge, well-stocked, clean and attractive and filled with racks of mostly discounted clothing. While wandering throughout, I was struck by the store’s very few shoppers and its overall quiet. I left wondering what a sales role there requires with so few buyers. I’ll stop in again and take another look.

Meanwhile, because of its closeness, I went to Ross Dress For Less, another shop I rarely visit. The place was swarming with customers. I could see how its informal help-yourself arrangement accommodates high customer flows and facilitates a self-choosing of merchandise.

On coming home, I discovered my online job feed carrying an opening at Ross. I applied for it.

The jury is out on what I may do tomorrow. Macy’s is upscale and seems low on energy. Ross is downscale and demonstrating consumer energy for “making finds.” Seasonal employment is a two-month gig; either company could provide a leg up for new jobs.

Dear Friends: The current hiring frenzy creates many new working opportunities. Diana

Saturday, October 21, 2023

I scrambled outside with a camera early and captured this lovely dawn. It’s maybe our last pretty one before the weather shifts and gives dawnings a more wintery look. Yesterday, my friend Rachelle and I took our dogs out to run and play while we hiked with them. The weather was almost perfect. To grab more of this great weather, today I’ll again take my dogs out to run, and hopefully, also tomorrow morning.

The daylights are shorter. My chickens are responding by laying fewer eggs, and often, there only are two or three from some still-laying hens. Soon, I won’t find any eggs, and Good! Hens in a stretch of time without rooster interferences can gain weight and regrow stripped feathers.

I’m trying to decide what to do myself over the next couple of months. Right now are lots of seasonal job opportunities, and I wish to beef up my retail experience by selling clothing. Macy’s would hire me, but I’d have to leave my current part-time job–a dilemma. I’m conflicted over whether to play it safe and stay put, or be bold and step forward. Time for deciding is short as I struggle.

Dear Friends: Cashiering, gardening, hardware, and clothing–all retail standards. Diana

Friday, October 20, 2023

The header photo is from the aisles and of a twelve-year-old Golden–a sweet guy. His face has turned gray, but overall he’s in superb condition. And that expression! He’s irresistible.

I have this day off from my part-time job plus two more days. This weekend might end our local good weather, a pleasant type once known as an Indian Summer. A weather change might be dramatic in its suddenness, which is what we’ve learned to expect. Already, I’ve sheltered my small motorized vehicles and on-hand tools against possible rain.

This morning, my friend Rachelle and I plan to head toward the mountains and run our dogs. This afternoon, I’ll work on my horse fencing, doing some straightening and strengthening, to combat its chewed and battered appearance. Sometime this weekend I will ride horseback, maybe here in the neighborhood.

Here in what might be summer’s last gasp, I will take a walk and have Cockatoo Peaches on my shoulder. We need more to go out walking. He’s delighted when his cage door opens and he’s invited to step onto my arm. Peaches’ feathers are not trimmed, so he’s fully flight-capable, but he loves to be riding on my shoulder or forearm.

Dear Friends: Just some of my plans for these work-free days. Diana

Thursday, October 19, 2023

At HD, I am learning to use its powerful and user-friendly registers to become a backup cashier. I’m receiving hands-on training with real-time practice using the touch screens.

I am interested in this secondary position because it will break up normal workday routines. During customer-heavy periods, the lead cashiers call for backup cashiers, and by responding, I’ll brush up my register skills while gaining broader store-related know-how.

Learning has had me shadowing very experienced cashiers. I’m finding they know many repeat customers well. I had forgotten that pleasant aspect of cashiering–continuing old discussions, sharing wider observations, and telling new jokes. Of course, “unpleasant” occurs, too, when a customer rattles on and seemingly endlessly about worldviews that are opposite to a listener’s own.

Working in retail, or any other kind of business, requires one to sense situations that could become stressful and know how to be unresponsive and appear nonjudgmental. When someone goes off on views way different from my own, I listen politely, might even nod, but never comment. Hopefully, as a customer’s unpleasant thoughts and words drift off, so, too, may that person.

Dear Friends: I’m betting on demonstrating soon that I can manage a resister. Diana

Wednesday, October 18, 2023

Interestingly, there’s little evidence of individual political interests among my several hundred co-employees. Many have visible tattoos illustrating their affinities for nature, wildlife, and such, but none particularly are controversial.

I’ve considered this while rummaging mentally about wearing my favorite pair of socks to work. Each sock’s top sports a clear image of Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s face. She’s one of my favorite public figures and her image suggests my political learnings. I love the socks but haven’t worn them to work. Recently, I realized that such caution is wise.

I work with a woman who has an admirable understanding of the construction industry. She is able to weld, grade classes of wood, and can comprehend more construction-related technicalities than women in general. She explains that her dad had managed a welding company and got her started welding when she was a small child. He emphasized attention to technology and safety and always supported her. She became adept with skills that led her, on turning twenty, to join the military. There she spent a couple of years before becoming pregnant, a condition that in those days forced her to retire. Her skills and knowledge had lifted her from the rank of Private to that of Master Sargeant.

I have admired all that, but this week working more closely alongside her got an earful of her politics and world views. They’re draconian! She’s a solid Trumpian, believes the world is close to collapsing, saves fresh water, and stocks long-shelf-life foods. She loves her many guns; doesn’t hunt with them but goes out and shoots.

I listened not feeling completely astonished but disappointed, to learn where her working skills journey had taken her, politically and socially. At least, my socks didn’t initiate her disclosures. Maybe she was curious about my personal world-related views, but I never opened my mouth. I did, however, grasp the value of not wearing my RGB socks to work.

Dear Friends: The 3,300 cells in our brains guide us on unique life journeys. Diana

Tuesday, October 17, 2023

The header photo, taken yesterday for my “Dogs In The Aisle” collection, is a mini-Labradoodle. That’s how his person described this total cutie. He’s super friendly, and irresistible, and his coat is as soft as a bunny’s.

I enjoy playing with the dogs Home Depot customers bring into the store. Look, here’s an adorable pair of mini-Aussies.

Most dogs enter the store expecting treats that many employees carry. You can see those little Aussies totally anticipating my hand to dip into my apron pocket. Of course, it did.

Yesterday, my favorite hugger might have been the Rottie, Brutus. He’s a super sweet giant.

Brutus is much larger than my part-Rottie puppy, Chase, but there’s a resemblance in their looks and personalities.

Dear Friends: Ya gotta love shopping and working where dogs are allowed. Diana

Monday, October 16, 2023

This week our local weather will warm up. That will create a window of accommodation for a couple of horseback rides I’m planning. This change is serendipitous luck, as locally and lately, there’s been more overcast and gloom than sunshine. Heralding that upcoming change is this morning’s gorgeous rosy dawn.

Throughout this week, I’ll work in the afternoons and, later, come home in darkness to feed the large animals and medicate my donkey. So far, the news about medicating isn’t good. In the first place, she is refusing medications by avoiding me. That’s not my biggest problem. It’s that syringes tend to become vapor-locked, which locks a plunger and prevents liquids from releasing. My attempts to strong-arm locked plungers had made meds suddenly spurt into the air. Medicating the ground is expensive learning.

I’ve asked both AI and YouTube University how to combat vapor-locking in syringes. Their responses might satisfy typical human medical needs using small syringes but not my veterinary needs with large syringes. The alternative for medicating equines is mash dishes, which my donkey steadfastly refuses to touch, regardless of how attractive they are with grains, pancake syrup, and etc. She smells and/or tastes buried medications. So, I’m stuck managing her meds with syringes.

Anxiety-ridden as this conundrum may be, it too will pass. Because I’ll learn, so help me.

Dear Friends: Enjoy this beautiful start to the week. Diana

Sunday, October 15, 2023

“Crisp air, golden leaves, Nature’s beauty surrounds me, Autumn’s warm embrace.”

I didn’t conjure up the opening phrase; it’s an AI-generated haiku. In experimenting with the technology, I sometimes receive pleasing results, but more often, they’re disappointing. Getting the best from AI requires wording each question or comment correctly or exactly to achieve the desired response quality. If I ask the same question multiple times and reword my request slightly each time, the responses increasingly become pleasing.

I wonder what draws me to this, for I can independently imagine and write. Maybe it’s because AI is a bigger component in modern communications than could have been imagined. It makes sense to learn at least a little about accessing the technology.

For starters, I felt that poetry and weather were a good combination. I had to revise my question several times before AI could generate that likable little haiku.

I want to mention that researchers have discovered that there are 3,300 cells in the human brain, and those are grouped into 461 clusters. That’s our individual “smarts” capacity, which becomes used however one does. All that’s confusing anyway, and oh, by the way, “Howdy, AI.”

Today’s header photo shows Peaches with a grilled cheese sand, one of his favs.

Dear Friends: Everything’s about preparing to roll with the punches. Diana