Welcome to Gaia! ::

So I finally get to start at Spirit on Thursday. I think it's still the set up phase and the store isn't actually open yet, but either way, at least I'm getting started. I bet anything the official opening day is September 1st. The GM called me August 2nd and outright hired me, and then said she'd most likely get a hold of me later in the week with a location and start date. I never heard anything back, so I called her yesterday to get a status update on location and start time.

Apparently one of the assistant managers was supposed to have called me with that information, and never did. It was the same assistant manager last year that I was supposed to set up an interview with, and wasn't there when I showed up, so I interviewed with another manager. So apparently I have that sort of thing to look forward to again this year. She's a nice person, that assistant manager, but she seems really flaky and not super committed to her job.

The location is in the mall again, but the unit is half the size of the one last year. Which probably isn't so bad since only half of the usable space was retail floor and the other half was absolutely VACANT and not utilized back storage area. So maybe it'll just be better organized and utilized. I'm going to try really hard this year and do a good job, the GM seems to like me well enough and honestly, that matters more to me than what the assistant managers think.

I'll keep you guys posted with stories, pictures, maybe even coupon codes or sales offers and such.

Hi how's it going?

Package update:

Confronted post office, brought in package to show them. They said it was not their responsibility to replace or pay for damaged packages that where damaged in transit. The sender should have reinforced the package better then it was.

I hate to U.S postal service. Sometimes I actually hate my fellow Americans and their selfish attitudes.

On another note, I paid the 20 dollars shipping to get my replacement. Told them to pack it extremely secure since the last one was destroyed by our incompetent U.S postal service. They messaged me back with a laugh and said they would make sure it's extra secure.

First day at Spirit and I'm exhausted. The store was absolutely barren and empty when I walked in at 8am, but we had a total of 7 of us there (all girls), the district manager, and 4-5 temp guys to help us unload the trucks full of all of our set up materials. So we wait about 40 minutes, the truck shows up, and we get started.

Turns out it's 2 trucks with storage pods attach to them to start with, but we get unpacking anyway. It's all boxes of peg hooks, plywood dividers, pegboard walls, support stands, all the "hardware" we need. So that was plenty of work, takes us all about 2 hours to unload it and by then it's maybe 10-11am and already really hot out, then the the trucks take off. Then the DM tells us that a second pair of trucks is on it's way, so we can just hang out and rest a bit until then. 3 hours later they show up, and the process repeats. These two trucks are full of mostly pegboard walls, which weigh probably 150 pounds each, and it takes two of us to haul in each one since they're so large and cumbersome. And there's easily 50-70 of them in total.

So I'm super tired now. These things were a pain in the a** to carry, through the Z shaped back hallway that was the only way to get them into the store, and those truck containers were nothing but giant sweat boxes sitting out in the sun all day. But it was a good day, all the girls are really nice and easy going and easy to work with, so I'm really looking forward to all this. We should be open sometime next week. ^_^