family shifts
I guess it truly was smart of me to sign up for two four-hour shifts next week at the Central District store the very first day the call was sent out by the office. It's really no surprise that several more calls have been sent out and, even though Eric's first email asking me if I would be signing up (which came after I had already done so, incidentally) said "No pressure at all," it's crystal clear at this point that they expect everyone at the office to sign up for something—as of today, "at least one four-hour shift." Had I not already signed up, I am certain Eric would now be changing his tune about that so-called "no pressure."
This was a lot easier to get away with avoiding in the early days for a multitude of reasons, but a key difference between my early years at PCC and now is that we have more than double the number of stores in operation. When I started in 2002, we had seven stores; we now have fifteen. And even though we also have a lot more office staff than we did when I first started, that number still falls far short of having doubled, which means we are spread far more thin when it comes to the call for office staff to help out at stores during Thanksgiving week. Honestly, at this rate, I won't be surprised if in the near future we'll be asked, maybe even required, to do more than just "at least one four-hour shift."
Just to be clear, I am already volunteering for twice that—mostly because it happened to be what I did last year: I'll work the CD store both Tuesday and Wednesday, noon to four. I had a specific rationalization for this last year, which Eric readily accepted: POS store staff still need office support, but they work very early shifts and leave by around 3 p.m., so this way I am available at my desk for whatever system needs they may have in the morning.
Also, I suppose to be fair, and somewhat to my surprise, I'd still be getting the shifts I want even if I were to sign up now, as there are slots for two people in every shift, and no one else has (yet?) signed up for the same time slots I did. I do have two overlaps, though: it looks like David, the Meat Merchandiser, will work CD on Tuesday 10 to 2, so he and I will be at the store at the same time for two hours that day (though, given his focus on Meat, I doubt we will interact much); and Zaira, the new Receptionist, actually signed up for a full-day, 9-5 shift at CD on Wednesday, which means she'll be there the entire time I'm there on Wednesday.
Usually the biggest help stores get from office staff working Thanksgiving week is bagging, but I'm not sure how that will work this year. Cashiers have been avoiding bagging people's groceries for them, at least with reusable totes anyway, for months due to the pandemic; also, at CD anyway, there are something like five "express lane" registers and only two regular ones, and there is really only space for an extra bagger at those latter two. Also, even last year at Columbia City I never did any bagging, so although it's certainly still possible, I feel like there's a good chance I won't be this year either—I've never done it, and would likely not be as quick or efficient about it as established store staff would be. My general expectation is that it will be similar to last year: sweeping; fetching shopping carts from the garage; walking around as a resource for customers to ask where products are located. Maybe slightly less of the sweeping since we are selling a lot of our bulk items packaged now. But, who knows. We'll see.
I'm not looking forward to it, even though I already know from experience now that it will be fine. I just far prefer being in the comfort—and, this year, certainly the relative safety—of my home work station. I am beginning to wonder what kind of enforcement PCC will be doing next week regarding the state requirement of limiting the store to 25% capacity. Will there be lines down the sidewalk just before Thanksgiving? Even if there are, they'll probably want to keep things moving as quickly as possible at registers, just to get those people in line inside the store more quickly.
Last night Shobhit and I drove to Mayuri Foods in Redmond, the Indian grocery store. Afterward we bought some takeout at the restaurant/deli two doors down that is owned by the same company. Shobhit asked me to drive so I drove there and back, and we ate while watching episode 3 of season 4 of The Crown. There was a half-hour break for Shobhit to attempt a Zoom meeting with the Braeburn Condos board, and then we watched episode 5.
That was essentially the long and short of my evening, really. Otherwise uneventful. Oh, I did get confirmation on Twitter by the Point Defiance Zoo that they plan to open for ZooLights on schedule, just with none of their indoor attractions open—which we weren't going there for anyway. So that was kind of a relief, though I basically expected that to be the case anyway. It's going to wind up being the one time through the holidays year that a good number of my family will be together, and, unlike the gathering in Leavenworth in September, this time we'll all be required to both stay outside, social distance, and wear masks. Given that it will also be highly photogenic for me, I see it as a perfectly good compromise under the circumstances.
In the meantime, speaking of family, I continue to read the book gifted to me by now-retired former coworker Marilyn, Mother's Secret: A Nutritionist's View of Family and Alzheiner's Disease. Marilyn had this book about the passing of her mother published back in 2017, and soon after learning of my mother's death, she emailed me offering to send me a copy. I replied with appreciation and my address, and put it on my list to read once the two library books I'd had at home since February were done.
Anyway, Marilyn thought it might offer some measure of comfort to read about her own complicated relationship with her mother—not complicated in any way similar (or, in my view, to anywhere near the same degree) to my relationship with my mother, but she was still right, to at least some extent. I did figure there would be a lot that was not comparable, as my mother did not have Alzheimer's or any sot of dementia. But, then: there does come a point in Marilyn's story where her mother is hospitalized with a stroke. And this passage has really stuck with me:
"It's like all the brain's information is kept in a card file," Mary Catherine described. "And with a stroke that file is dumped out on the floor. When your mother is asked a question, her brain reaches into that pile of messed-up cards on the floor and pulls a card. It may or may not be the right one. Sometimes there's no card to be found. Eventually, with therapy and healing, some of that card file can be put back together. But usually it's not exactly like it was. Often some cards, information or memories, are never retrieved."
Now that I understood perfectly. In fact I'm not sure I ever heard a more perfectly succinct description of a person's experience with a stroke, or certainly what happened with Mom after her own stroke in 2014. In the end, I guess Marilyn's inclination to share her book with me was well founded: the book is worth reading on its own merits, but for me personally, that passage alone made it worth it.
[posted 12:45 pm]