Yesterday, I was too busy to notice that I'd disabled Facebook. On the flip side, I was also too busy to write.
My morning started at 5:00am, which is not the hallmark of a good morning. I work at a dog daycare, which is fantastic. I love the work, I love (most of) the dogs, I really respect my boss and coworkers. All around, it's a great place.
But.
It opens for customers at 7:00am.
Which means the staff has to be there at 6:30 to feed and care for the boarding dogs.
And it's around 45 minutes away from my house.
So. Morning shift = waking up at 5:00am. That's fine. I'm actually starting to get used to it. My body has been waking up at 4:55 for the past two weeks in anticipation of my alarm going off -- that's a good sign, right? But there's something that feels viscerally wrong about waking up before the sun has even thought about kissing the horizon. Going to bed then, sure. But waking up? What am I, a fucking rooster? I am NOT. We civilized folk are very firm in our disbelief in the hours between 4am and 10am. No self-respecting college student has ever seen them. We believe them to be mythological.
So I hauled my sorry ass out of bed, more sorry than usual because of the hour. Showered, fed the pups, got them both ready to go to work with me (reason #97 why my job is better than yours). Normal morning.
There was construction on I-85, and I remembered the godawful traffic jam from the previous Thursday morning. Thinking myself quite clever, I took the alternate route through town. I even remembered to leave early so I'd have time for stop-lights. I was responsible. It was a novel feeling.
I worked with Stephanie yesterday. Steph's pleasant to work with -- socially, she's much closer to my level than most of the other employees. (Except I'm about a thousand times more awkward, but that's just how I roll.) We got the dogs fed very quickly and everyone was playing politely. Nice morning.
Time passed. I started to feel uneasy. Shouldn't the daycare dogs be here by now? After a few more minutes, I voiced this concern to Stephanie. She was likewise confused. She went up to the front desk to see who was running the check-in portion of the business while we were taking care of the dogs.
No one.
And that was when my whole mind started shouting "OH SHIT."
It's not just a little fuck-up, dear reader. I checked the clock -- it was 8:00am. Our doors are supposed to open at 7. Roughly 90% of our customers for the day arrive between 7:30 and 8:00. At the absolute minimum, we lost $150 in daycare sales that day.
And then there's boarding. At least two customers were scheduled to start boarding stays yesterday that never arrived -- I can only assume that they tried to drop off during the hour when Stephanie and I thought someone else was running the front desk. So there goes another $40 per dog, per day.
And as the shit topping on the shit cake, it means our customers had their dogs in the car with them on the way to work. Were half a dozen people late to work because they had to drive their pampered pooches back home? Did Camp Bow Wow get a sudden business boost down the road? Did people spontaneously celebrate Bring Your Dog To Work Day? All I know is that we royally fucked up.
And as soon as I realized this, Nicole the store owner's face appeared in the door window, looking frantic. "Why are you both down here? Why is no one up at the front desk?"
"Because I've never worked the front desk before and I didn't know I was supposed to." Even though it was true, it sounded so lame, even to me.
"It's 8:00. Weren't you curious when none of the daycare dogs came in?"
I swallowed. "It was storming. I thought they might have.. left... their dogs at home..."
To make matters worse, Nicole had texted me and Stephanie while we were working in the room. Mind you, I don't have a texting plan on my phone. It charges me a ridiculous amount of money per opened text, and everyone in my life knows not to text me.
Except Nicole.
Like good employees, Stephanie and I both had our phones off in the dog playroom. Neither of us received the texts that said one of us should run the front desk while the other worked with the dogs.
It was pretty much fail in all directions. I guess that's what I'm saying.
I'm panicky about being reprimanded. Even a mild scolding, if I feel like I deserve it, is enough to completely shatter my sense of confidence for several days. I could feel my body locking up when Nicole was talking to us. I like Nicole. She's a fantastic store owner. Barring this one incident, I've never seen her get angry with someone. She's very level-headed and rational, which is an amazing trait to find in someone in a management position. I work harder for Nicole than I've worked for any of my previous jobs because I don't want to disappoint her -- she sets a very high standard. So historically, I had no reason to be terrified of her. But I was. I wasn't QUITE at the stage that I would call a full-blown anxiety attack, but my whole body was slowly going rigid and I couldn't meet her eyes. A few minutes longer and it would have escalated into an anxiety attack. Thankfully, the scolding was brief, and she walked out of the room before I had to (which was important because, as mentioned, my muscles lock up when I'm afraid and I was having difficulty walking with any semblance of dignity).
I spent the rest of the day cringing and ultra-submitting any time anyone so much as looked at me.
Got home and went to sleep at 4pm in an attempt to unwind. Dreamed that I was late to work and got fired. Woke up and saw that my alarm clock said "10:30." Panicked. Panicked so hard. Then I realized that the light in my room was coming from my lamp, not the window. 10:30 PM. I resumed breathing.
I was only awake and at home for 3 hours yesterday, between 10:30pm and 1:30am. The desire to check Facebook wasn't particularly strong. Nor was the desire to write, though -- too emotionally drained. My plan was to sleep until I didn't care any more.
Instead, I just ended up sleeping until this morning's alarm clock went off. Woke up at 5am. Got to work by 6:30am. Didn't fuck up today. I guess that's good.
Nicole's still mad at me. I can feel it. I don't blame her, either. I'd be livid. What if I lost her a regular customer? What if someone was so disgusted by that customer service that they decided to never come back? Because I was stupid. Because I didn't question the fact that none of the daycare dogs had arrived at the time they usually come in.
And now I'm just angsting. That's what I'm here for, I guess. I'm going to open Scrivener in an hour or two. I want to have most of TEP outlined closely by the end of the week.
I'm glad I just wrote that sentence. It reminded me that I have a paper due in 5 hours and I have absolutely no idea what I'm writing about (and it's for my most demanding professor, whom I adore).
Can it just be November already?
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