the validation never stops
It's a quiet day at the office today. Thursday has been the traditional day of the week that Merchandisers do store tours, which has been the case since long before the pandemic, so that has made this day the quietest of the week for a long time already. But, with so many people still working from home—my small section of Merchandising desks is otherwise next to IT and Accounting, and I see only three of those people at their desks today—that makes it even quieter. Not even Tracy is here today. She's the Private Label Manager, so I have no idea whether she's store touring or not; she could be just working from home today, or even meeting with vendors or whatnot. Who knows! I just know that I am one of the very few people in this department who never has any obligation to tour stores as part of my job. I just deal with the item data.
I had a phone call from Gabriel the other day while I was at work, and he asked exactly what I was doing at that moment, as he has little idea of what I actually do for work. (Few people do.) I mean, consider my evolution of job titles; does any of these give you any sense of what I actually do?
Merchandising Assistant (August 2002 - March 2008)
Merchandising Specialist (March 2008 - February 2012)
Assistant Merchandiser (February 2012 - March 2016)
Center Store Support Specialist (March 2016 - present)
I remember having a conversation with Hadley, ages ago, maybe around 2007, when she worked as POS at one of the stores, and we distilled our respective jobs to their most basic premise: "I hang tags," she said. So what I could say was, "I change prices."
I mean, there's a hell of a lot more nuance to it, but that's still the basic gist. I do data entry and data maintenance, specifically for the Grocery department. After Kibby left last year, I think there might be only two people left in the department who have been doing the same job here for a longer period of time than I have: Joe the Produce Merchandiser, and Jeff the Beer and Wine Merchandiser. There are others who have worked at PCC longer, but they have changed positions. Although my title has changed three times and my job description has evolved a great deal over 19 years, the position itself has never actually changed. In any case, for the "Center Store" (hence my current title, my least favorite of them all), whatever data you see on shelf tags or on register receipts—I keyed all of that into our system.
Say, that reminds me. I had a Facebook Messenger conversation with a Facebook friend, Carrie Ann, who I am pretty sure used to sing in the Seattle Lesbian and Gay Chorus when I did (my tenure was 2000-2004; I'm going to a reunion event this Saturday). She told me she happens to live only blocks from Stephanie S, the Grocery Merchandiser who hired me and who left PCC ten years ago yesterday (Carrie Ann did not know this); I guess she picked something up from Stephanie not long ago, probably from a free share group or something. Carrie Ann sent me a screenshot of a message exchange they had back in April, which I found very touching:
Stephanie: I hired him at PCC. Best hire I've ever made. EVER. 🥰 I'd say don't tell him or it'll go to his head, but forget it- he'd just say he already knows!!
Ha! I quite liked what Carrie Ann wrote in response as well:
Carrie Ann: Oh how cool! And yes, that sums him up wonderfully. 😊 And is part of his appeal. Such a vibe in most people I might find off-putting, but with Matthew, it's charming and only makes me love him more.
She certainly didn't have to include that in her screenshot, but it was sure nice that she did. As I responded to her after she messaged the screenshot to me, I legitimately think everyone should love themselves the way I love myself, and with all due humility (HAHAHA), I think that might be the thing that sets me apart there. When it comes to healthy self-esteem and recognizing my own value, I legitimately don't think of that as only about me. My intent is to lead by example for others to do the same. I often can hardly get over the amount of crippling insecurities and lack of self-worth people have in their daily lives.
And by the way? Anyone who has a problem with how often I talk about how much I love myself can just take it up with all these people who keep regularly validating me!
In other news, yesterday Shobhit was feeling congested, and being the paranoid hypochondriac that he is, he decided to schedule a COVID test at 11 a.m., at the same place we had gotten tested as a precaution right before traveling to Idaho in August of last year. I was talking to Tracy about this over lunch yesterday, and wondered two things: first, would the test results get back more quickly this time? Even last year they came back more quickly than expected, by the afternoon of the next day. Secondly, if he were to test positive, would that alone mean I should work from home again, for say, at least the next two weeks? I honestly wasn't sure what the policy or best practice would be there, aside from maybe getting tested myself.
I figured that odds were he didn’t have COVID anyway. I know there's all this Delta variant news about fully vaccinated people getting the virus, most of them asymptomatic but spreading it to unvaccinated people remains an issue. But even with that in mind, odds were low—and I was right: he actually got his results back yesterday evening. It must have taken all of six hour or so for him to get his results, and they were negative. So for now, I guess I won't worry about it.
I do often think about how quickly a lot about my life could change again. The spread getting so out of hand that for that reason alone I have to go back to working from home, or whatever. I'm very cautious about thinking of this return to the office as a reliably permanent thing. I sure hope it is, but you just never know.
Otherwise Shobhit and I watched the Presidential Town Hall from Cincinnati with President Biden, which left me still pretty impressed with that man. Ivan keeps talking about how he "shows signs of senility," but Biden was very much with it in that town hall, with specific information at his fingertips with no aid of any kind, giving detailed and—if not necessarily as realistic in my opinion—deeply empathetic answers to questions. That empathy is a key detail, as it's the polar opposite of everything his predecessor, President Fuckwit, stood for.
And then we watched three episodes of season five of The Expanse. Only one episode left and we're all caught up! It will leave an empty void, I love that show so much. At least the sixth and final season is coming later this year, or so they say. I know they wrapped production in May.
[posted 12:33 pm]