AshesFromStars

I’ve been so darn busy these past few days I’ve not even had the chance to come online this year really, aside from catching up on some Twitter stuff. Apologies, but Happy New Year everyone!

New Year’s Eve in itself was a very quiet affair for me and the boy. Our friends came over to the boyfriend’s house and we played MarioKart all night, nearly missed the change of year completely because we were so engrossed in the game.  Oh well. At least we spent the night indoors, warm and with the people we wanted to be with. I ended up staying awake until gone 5am so my body clock is a little screwed up now. I’m not sleeping til late and then getting around 3 hours sleep before having to get up for work, it’s not a good thing. It’s getting to the point that I’m wandering around work in a daze come 3pm and living on Relentless.

This stuff is evil. Actually, it’s not. It’s a definite life saver. I got this case in work for £3 yesterday. That’s 12 cans that usually sell for £1.50 each for just 25p a can.. I’m hyper because I’ve drank so much in the process of trying to finish my Management Training Program which is due in this weekend. Completely finalized. I’m tying together bits that are missing just now plus I’ve got one more module to finish, and it’s taking forever. But at least then it will done, complete, over… and I’ll be in line for a promotion. Hopefully.

In other news, I’ve switched from web host from VoNetwork to Dreamhost. No reason other than Dreamhost were running a fantastical promotion and I fancied me some major web space for my various projects. Of which I seem to have aquired a lot recently. Firstly, there’s my Project365 (which ironically I haven’t re-set up on this host), my photography domain to keep my words and pictures separate, web hosting site (which is majorly run by my friend but that’s an other story…and an other online identity that won’t be associated with me), various fanlistings and a new project in the pipeline. Plus my jewellery business, of which the WordPress installation hated being updated and I need to start from scratch again. Oh well.

For now, I’m going to update some stuff around the web, buy my mother her wine of the month and kick back and relax for a few hours before starting on my MTP again…
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Since my little brother is down from Benbecula for the holidays I decided to take him out for the night since I don’t see him that often. I decided that we were going into Glasgow to George Square for part of Glasgow’s WinterFest celebrations. Tonight, along with the outdoor ice rink, was a free gig by some local bands who were competing to play at the Glasgow Hogmanay party. The band that we stood and watched were actually really good but Jason was getting bored so he insisted that we went a wee wander around Glasgow.

Which was boring beyond belief since every single shop was closed. Saying that, the work that they’re doing on the St Enoch center was awesome. It’s weird to think that the big gaping hole above the old Argyle Street entrance is where I used to work and now it’s just.. well, bits of concrete.

Uploading some (rather rubbish) pictures to Flickr just now. Wish I had my new camera already, taking night shots with my P&S is rather hard as it’s rubbish!

So, a wee night out doing nothing but listening to a band cost us £20 in train and bus fare plus a McDonalds, cigarettes (from me), a bottle of Irn Bru and a can of Rock Star for me. I downed it in one and it made me dizzy as hell.. since I haven’t had taurine in my system for about two weeks!

Now I’m cold (feet anyway..my wellies let me down!) and will probably have a sore throat tomorrow. Bugger.

After goodness how long of not going out, ever I seem to be doing it a lot recently. Which I’m rather happy about. Take this week for instance, on Thursday night I was out with people from work which was a fantastic idea at the time until I realised it was nearly 3am and we started work at 6.45am! Friday during the day was spent half asleep and drinking a lot of Rock Star just to keep me awake. Not going to repeat that again.

Tonight I’m going down to my friends house. We were supervisors together in my old shop so it’ll be great catching up with him, missing working with him and talking random rubbish. It was his birthday during the week so am going to drop off his birthday present and do some serious catching up. No doubt he’ll end up getting me drunk which will not be good for anybody involved, I just don’t do drinking very well at all. I’m blaming him for the change in my taste in music, I’m listening to Clubland 14 at the moment.. what!? I’m a rock chick for goodness sakes. It’s due to him constantly playing Clubland CDs in work that I’m so into dance music these days. I use the term dance very loosely mind you, it’s just chav-tasticness at it’s cheesiest.

I’m really wanting to go to London to see Lou as well, or maybe it’s more to do with the fact that she practically lives in Beach Blanket Babylon and it looks gorgeous. And the small matter of who (used to be?) the executive chef there! Lou is an old friend that I know from way back… from GirLand.com. Gosh that takes me back. Anyway she’s living in London, is a fashion student and I’m generally 100% jealous of her life! We’re going to do a joint DITL just to see exactly how different our lives are, even though I know that they’re about as opposite as you could get. Interesting to see the results I think!

Eek! Running late, I need to go get ready to go out, and make sure that my new UGG boots from UGG Knightsbridge actually fit. They’re going to keep me nice and toasty tonight waiting on the bus!

I will try rather hard not to post an entry later if I’ve been drinking, but usually I can’t help myself posting rubbish that I think is amusing at the time…

I’ve gone from updating nearly every single day to barely managing to get online at all! Sorry, this is what working in retail at Christmas does to you, you work your ass off all day then come home and fall asleep in front of Lipstick Jungle!

Yesterday in store we had our quarterly director’s visit. They went really, really well as far as I’m concerned. You never know what they’re going to be looking for or checking so it’s a bit of a gamble…you know, wither you have this in stock or that advertising on the shelf. Obviously you should always have things in stock and have advertising on products but it’s not always possible… whatever, the manager and I got a compliment saying the shop looked better than ever and we briefly spoke about my move to that shop so all was good.

Now that the shop’s up to the standard of getting compliments from operations directors, I really want it to stay that way. It’s far too easy to let things slip and have a mad rush getting things back on track for visits.. why can’t it be like that all the time? I’m on a mission to make sure that the place stays as tidy and clean as possible - all the time. It won’t be easy, but who ever said it would be?

In other amazing life-of-Mel news, I’ve finished my Christmas shopping. Woohoo! I did 99.9% of it online, at about 3am last Friday. It’s still to be delivered, wrapped and whatnot but at least I’ve done it. And on a pretty tight budget to be honest. I’m impressed with myself on that one, since I always spend way more than I mean to because I just have to get everything that I think the person will like - no self control when I’m shopping what so ever.

What else have I been up to? Hmmm. I’ve started talking to my ex-boyfriend again, after not seeing him for about 4 years. Well, I don’t even think we spoke to each other then. I had gotten my job back in TK Maxx for Christmas and was sitting in the break room, talking to my manager about what I’d been up to since I left. And guess who walks into the break room? Yeh - my ex-boyfriend. Seriously think that was the single most awkward situation of my life, ever. No, actually working on a till right next to him was and trying not to laugh probably was! Anyway, I downloaded MSN messenger again after a life time of not using it, and could only remember about 4 email addresses of people that I used to talk to and he was one of them. It’s been interesting catching up!

I’ve had such a busy weekend, done more than I usually do and it’s made me so tired even though it was fun.

On Saturday morning I spent about 4 hours (and £30) finding charms, memory wire, pendants, beads, findings, chains, business cards, well everything really for my new website - honeybee-designs.com - where I’m selling all the jewellery that I make. I opened it on Saturday morning and I’ve made £20 already. Like, that’s crazy. I didn’t expect to make anything until I’d added all the stock and advertised it a bit more. The best bit? I only sold two items, a matching earring / necklace set to one girl. I’m thinking that I’m going to have to spend more time making jewellery than I expected. The fun bit is actually sourcing everything that I’m using to make my pieces, I’m especially into finding antique / vintage jewellery and giving it a new lease of life by updating it and making a brand new piece from it.

Later that night I headed down to the boyfriends house, where we started watching Law & Order Special Victims Unit. Gosh that program is sick but I actually really like it even although some of the cases that they’re solving made me feel ill. At around 8pm I had this sudden thought in my head that I didn’t have my shop keys to open up on Sunday morning, surprise surprise I’d left them in the shop safe - again. So I headed down to the shop to pick them up and decided to pop along to my friends Andy and Carly’s house/flat warming party. They’ve just moved into a flat just along from their work (my old shop) and 10 minutes away from my work so I couldn’t really not go see them. Part of me wishes that I hadn’t as I was so tired in work the next day and there were two people there that I don’t get on with (an other supervisor and his boyfriend, who I’d only met that night. Oh my god, camp as hell. Usually I love camp guys but this dude was overwhelming with his high voice and annoying habit of trying to talk to me when I wasn’t interested). The other part of me is so glad that I went - I love Andy to bits and I miss working with him so much. It was a great night, and I’m seeing him again on Thursday after a meeting at the work’s head office, yay!

Sunday during the day I was working, which was boring. When I was filling out the wage sheet I realised that I’d worked 54 ½ hours last week - that’s crazy. If you include Sunday (ie working Sunday-Sunday) that’s 64½ plus 3½ hours unpaid lunch breaks. No wonder I’m bloody tired.

Since I’d done so much in the shop over the past week I decided that we were having an easy day; everything was done and not much needed doing, just paperwork and tidying up. Although I did find out that my idea of an easy day and the staffs are two different things. It’s starting to piss me off how little they seem to do, or slowly. There’s two members of staff that are awesome and two that aren’t quite so awesome to work with. Funnily enough it’s those two that dislike me because I expect them to work. Hello, you’re in work getting paid, I’m going to make you do something for that £5.57 an hour. Like I’ve said before though, I’ve done the whole making friends in work thing, now it’s all about me getting my promotion and running a fantastic shop. I don’t care if they hate me, it’s my job to make sure that the shop’s run to the best standard that it can be and if that means I expect you to work stock then damn right I’m going to tell you when you’ve done it wrong and make you re-do it. Hah. No wonder I’m known as the bitch (in a loving way, you understand) with my ex-workmates.

I can’t quite believe that I’m still awake, even though it’s only 4.30pm. I’m amazingly tired, having worked the past four days and I’ve not got a day off until Saturday, then I’m in again for 4 days. Who ever said that working in a shop was easy was lying through their teeth.

Even though I was working this morning, it was only a wee half day in for stock taking which went wrong in every possible way that it could - goodbye bonus in February. Stock was missed, discrepancies were all over the place and the boss was stressed out so when he told me that I could go home at 11am I was out of there like a shot. It’s a good job too because an hour after I got home the door went, it was the postman with my Scotland hoodie, Radio Clyde t-shirt and various other novelty t-shirts that I’d ordered from the internet last week in a bid to start my Christmas shopping early this year.

This afternoon I’ve started making some of my necklaces and other jewellery for my website - honeybee-designs.com¹. I’ve got 5 necklaces and two pairs of earrings made already and I’ve bought a load more stuff to start making my jewellery out of; it’s really exciting me and the actual making jewellery bit calms me down after a long day in the shop.

I’m starting to feel that I’m neglecting the internet again - I can’t help it due to never having a bloody minute to myself. I’m out of the loop, again. But I’ve signed up for Rev.iew.me, which is a reviewing site… you know, like yoursite.nu used to be when Linda owned it. Anyway, it’s fun but I’m pissed off that I forgot to stick afs.com onto Maintenance Mode when I broke WordPress the other night and now I have two crap reviews. Gutted.

¹honeybee-designs.com has not launched, yet.

At long last, after ten years of ohhing and ahhing about what I want to do with my life I’ve actually realised what I was born to do.

In those ten years I’ve tried my hand at a few jobs, a few college course and 8 Standard Grades which have little relevance to my vocational calling. The good news is that I’m already on the ladder to my chosen career; and nearly finished a course in it. Of course - retail management.

Yes, I know I’ve been training to be a manager for over a year with this course that I’m on through work but I only applied for it in the first place because I wanted to learn more about the job I was already (and still am) doing and didn’t for one second think that it would end up in becoming a store manager myself in the near future. It was also something else to stick on my CV when the time came to move on as I’d done in every single job I’ve had before now. I always grabbed something from the company I was working for to boost my qualifications, experience.. whatever.

But now there’s an actual chance that I could end up as a store manager. It’s a slim one, but it’s there all the same. So now I’m applying myself even more to prove I’m the obvious choice for the vacancy which will be coming up in the not too distant future. This situation is a far cry from the problems I was having a few weeks ago which nearly resulted in me handing my notice in!

Point of the story is I’ve spent the last 4 hours reading online versions of trade magazines (some of which I already read in the shop) and realising that retail makes me quite excited. And that it’s an area where I can continue to learn things each and every day. We have problems in the shop with making money due to a Tesco opening up down the street and the local high school being rebuilt miles away from the shop so they’ve (I need to get used to saying we since it’s my shop now) lost all the customers from there. So I’ve been racking my brains coming up with ideas and it’s amazing - I’m finally comfortable with what I’m doing and confident about my job and my skills.

Not bad for a decade of wondering ‘what will I be when I’m older?’ and it certainly beats what I wanted to be when I was at school - a receptionist!

I went out for coffee the other night with a girl I used to work with, N. We met at 6.30pm, I got home at 10.15pm. As somebody who doesn’t go out with girls at all, I loved it all. It was great having somebody to gossip with, somebody to tell The Biggest Secret In My Life Right Now © and generally just be me for the night.

You see, at work I put on this act. For a start I’m Melissa in work. Hate that name, but they’ve started calling me it in the shop (probably because, you know, it’s my name) so I suppose it’s there to stick. I’m cool and confident (around 90% of the time), know what I’m talking about and put up this amazingly large wall around myself. In the space of a month I’ve gone from working with mates who I talked about nearly everything with to, well, not talking about anything other than date checks, orders or how short the tills were the day before. It’s getting to me quite a bit. Even if my previous workplace I had a wall up around me, but two people got the key to the gate and were the only people in the entire world that I spoke to about certain things. That’s quite a bit sad really.

At home? Yep another act, if only because me and my mother don’t really see eye to eye on anything. I barely see her, and if I do you can bet she’s drinking and I can’t stand people who drink. So I lock myself away in my bedroom, listen to music, read, browse the ‘net and generally act like a 15 year old.

So that leaves time with my boyfriend. I’m mostly ‘me’ with him but again, there’s things I don’t feel comfortable talking to him about, especially work because he’s just not interested in my job. I don’t blame him, as soon as he starts talking about his job I switch off too.

I don’t have any female mates. I get on better with boys, or so I thought. It was such a relief talking about stuff that’s going on in my life just now with somebody who’s sort of in the same boat. And hearing everything that’s going on in her life made me realise a lot. It’s crazy, meeting up for one cup of coffee has made me come to such a serious decision in my life.

If I haven’t been offered a managerial position within the company that I currently work for, and am training to do, before my 23rd birthday I’ll be looking for something else

I turn 23 in April. That’s 6 months; more than enough time for me to prove that my 18months of training has paid off and I have the skills to run my own store. Yes, I’m young. But so are a few managers in the company. I know that I can do this, it’s what I’ve always wanted to do. The company obviously think that I can do it, or I wouldn’t be on this course.

So much for me trying to make money this month, I’ve ended up paying out more than I have - typically. Although I’ve not bought myself anything other than new hair combs and hair extensions. But they’re for a party and I needed them (honestly.. it’s for Halloween).

I have raked in quite a bit of money but I’ve been buying Christmas presents already. I was planning on using my staff vouchers (money back when you spend a certain amount) in the shop to buy alcohol for some presents but they’re stopping them so I’ll need to use them before Christmas and I’ll end up buying cigarettes and boring things like bread and milk… darn, I’ve got quite a lot of the vouchers saved up as well.

I’m enjoying working in my new shop, but I miss my boys. It’s nowhere near as bad as I thought it’d be but I messed up a bit yesterday - my own fault for being so dizzy sometimes. I lost £100 from the money I was banking because I was paying for change at the same time as putting it together and looked absolutly everywhere - including the bin! Turns out it was in the safe the whole time, which I was sure I’d checked. Stressed me out, but it only happened because I was so tired.

So I survived my mammoth 15 hour shift on Sunday pretty well actually. I didn’t feel tired until I stepped out the shop and started walking down to catch my bus home and I only drank one cup of coffee all day and, surprisingly, only one can of RockStar Juiced the entire day. That’s pretty impressive because I’m addicted to that stuff, usually drinking 2 cans on a 10 hour shift when it’s on offer. Actually, there’s always an energy drink on offer, wither it’s Relentless, Rockstar or Spar Blue Bear, so I go through the stuff like there’s no tomorrow. And I wonder why I have problems staying awake if I haven’t had any?

The only problem that I had on Sunday was when I counted the safe just before closing time it was £10 short, which means it’s probably in one of the tills for the day and I screwed up giving out change. Ick, I hate when that happens. It’s so silly too, but sometimes it happens when I’m rushing about.

Yesterday I went shopping with my mother and bought the cutest hoodie imaginable. It’s by SoulCal and it’s green with lots of cupcakes on it and it’s just so my style. The best part was that it only cost me £5. I also got a pair of Crafted slouch jeans for £10 and a hoodie for my brother’s birthday. I could have spent so much more but I was on my best behaviour because I was with my mum. When we were in the ‘posh’ part of the shopping centre it was all I could do not to buy the boyfriend a Patek Philippe watch for his Christmas, or a Julian McDonald handbag for myself, but then I remembered that I’ve got no money this month so it’ll have to be put off til I next get paid and I seriously start my Christmas shopping.

Today I’m going to go for a sunbed (shh! I know it’s bad for you) and finish off all my coursework so that I’m ahead of myself a bit when I’m next at the office.

I can’t believe it’s my day off and I don’t know what to do with myself. I am supposed to be off tomorrow as well but I’m going in in the morning to do a quick stock take and then jump along to my old shop to pick up my wage slip, so it’s not really a day off. Can’t believe that I’ve been there less than a week and I’m already going in on my days off. I’m working the weekend and not looking forward to it one bit as weekends are supposed to be my time with the boyfriend.

The worst part of being off is the fact that there’s no milk in the house, and I’ve run out of cigarettes, and the weather’s horrendous so I can’t bring myself to walk up to the shops to buy them. It’s times like now that I wish that I could drive legally and had a car! I’m going to look into sitting my Theory test again next month when I get paid (I get paid tomorrow but have too much going out this month to even consider it) and then going for having my full license by New Year, just in time for finishing my MTP so that if I do get offered a mangeress’ job in a shop I can’t knock it back because I can’t get to it. Personally I can’t wait to get my own shop, because at the moment I’m hating doing everything somebody else’s way. There’s so much I want to change in my new shop but don’t feel I can do it - in my old shop I just would have done it because me and the manager got on so well and he knew I wouldn’t do anything stupid.

I’m still feeling really annoyed at moving, but I’m putting on this brave face and getting on with it. I can see myself putting in for a transfer just after New Year if I haven’t already been offered a manager’s job because it’s doing my head in a bit. Yes, it’s great experience and most of the staff are nice but it’s just not… well, my old shop with my mates and me knowing everything inside out! Can you tell I hate change?

I checked out my credit report online last week and it showed that I have an outstanding debt of £22. I couldn’t for the life of me work out where that was (as I’ve paid off all of my debts aside from around £1500 I owe my mum) but this morning I got a letter from Nationwide telling me that I hadn’t used my account in a while and there was an unathorised overdraft of £22 on it. I must have forgotten to cancel a direct debit when I switched accounts and it’s went into an overdraft. Oops. I’ll pay it off tomorrow and close my joint account, using the current account to pay my PayPal money into I think, just to keep them happy that there’s money going into it.

*sigh* I suppose I should get up and get ready to go to the shops, because I’m dying for a cigarette and coffee.

Today was my last day in the shop with my boys (other supervisor and manager), although I do have two more shifts left before I start in my new shop on Monday. Today should have been fun, one last day to have a laugh and whatever. So what did I do? Was in a bad mood all day, snapped at them for winding me up and felt really bad when I left.

It’s just so frustrating. It hit me about 9am that this was my last proper shift in the shop and that only added to my bad mood. I love working with those two and I had to go and act all immature about everything all day and turned into being really cheeky. I’m quite sarcastic and cheeky most of the time but I took it way too far today - when the boss asked me to do something I told him to piss off, I wasn’t doing it. Mainly because I was in the middle of doing something else and he could quite easily have done what he was asking me, but also because I felt he was only asking me because he knew how much it would annoy me. It’s not like him, either.

I’m by far going to miss working with him the most because we do have such a laugh in the shop while we’re working and get along brilliantly (so much so that some people have hinted that there’s more to our relationship than manager/supervisor); not to mention that he’s pretty easy on the eye! That’s not to say I won’t miss everybody else, because I will.

My rota for the new shop is probably one of the best I could have hoped for;

Sunday - 6.45am - 5pm
Monday - 6.45am - 5pm
Tuesday - Off
Wednesday - Off
Thursday - 6.45am - 5pm
Friday - 6.45am - 5pm
Saturday - Off
Sunday - Off
Monday - 6.45am - 5pm
Tuesday - 6.45am - 5pm
Wednesday - 6.45am - 5pm
Thursday - Off
Friday - Off
Saturday - 6.45am - 5pm

It’s a two week rota, thank goodness. I couldn’t deal with working a three week rota because I’d hate to have to work 2 weekends on 3 as that’s the only time that I ever see the boyfriend.

I’m still dreading the move, and don’t want Monday to come around. I hope the boys understand why I was in a mood today…

I’m not exactly proud of the fact I’ve run out of money less than two weeks after I got paid. I know exactly how I’ve done it…making a big purchase on the spot and not putting money aside for it. It was worth it though, it was all the things that I needed for my bedroom from Ikea and the paint. So I have a gorgeous bedroom again and no money.

So I’m sitting here with 16 days to go until I get paid again and all I have to my name is £40 in a savings account I can’t touch, £30 in my PayPal account that’s not linked to a bank and £15 worth of stuff to be returned to the shops at the weekend because they don’t fit.

Not a happy situation to be in really, is it? I had no option but to get a loan for the first time in my life. Although since I have a really bad credit history that I’m working on correcting I don’t have a good chance of being approved for a loan over a long period of time so I decided to check out some Pay Day Loans, and ended up going with one for £150 which I’ll pay back automatically on pay day. Plus I’m only paying £25 on top of the £150 loan, and it only took 5 minutes to apply and be approved. The money’s on it’s way to my bank account right now and it’s going to pay for my transport and pay off two bills due to come out my account at the start of next week. When I get paid in a fortnight I think I will have to give the boyfriend £100 to keep a hold for me so that I don’t spend it though…

It’s killing me to do this, but I have to. Since I’ve re-decorated my bedroom I’ve got no space whatsoever to store my excess books. Plus I could do with the cash. So I’ve decided to sell off some of my old books…

I’ll be continually adding books to this post over the course of the next few days, so keep checking back. Postage and packing covers materials and cost of posting the items to you via Royal Mail. Check with me first if you’re outside the UK, either via Skype (ashes-from-stars) or email (melissa(a)ashesfromstars.com.