The New job...

[Horsetuna]

Yes, I remember those links and did try contacting some, and got a call back from a consultation for low income people.

Sadly, I lost my phone soon after for an entire month, so missed any further messages. I've been working to try and get back in contact with the person however.

Thank you for the advice. I will once more try to look into it and stuff (and try not to lose the phone. In all honesty I'm thinking of pitching out the 400 dollars to cancel my cell and get a landline)

[Ree]

You're online now. This page has a direct clickable link to send an email to get info and help. http://www.cmha.calgary.ab.ca/gethel...Aadvocate.aspx

A landline might be a better option. Less likely to lose it.

[Horsetuna]

I'm at work now though. I will click on them when I get home, and call them tomorrow before work.


And yeah. I gotone of those 'clapper' keychains, but the things dont go off when I clap. It went off once - when the kitty jumped up on the table where it was sitting. (I'm returning that one if its still within the 3 months. I think it is.) Right now I never take my phone out of the house unless I may need it for directoins.

[PepperElf]

originally i was going to post that the boss sounded like a b***h... i do think that still, but... instead of harping on that, i'm posting something different instead.


i'd say... when it starts getting frustrating, there's nothing wrong with taking a break, say a soda break or whatever...

a reasonable boss won't fight you if you say, "hey i'm just going to take a 5 minute break, get a soda, just to get myself collected."

[Seshat]

I replay various bad scenarios over and over in my mind and basically work myself up into a panick... <snip>
I can usually punish myself via emotional self-abuse. :P

You're doing it to yourself. You KNOW you're doing it to yourself. You just need to break the cycle.

You've been offered good advice, direct connections to places that can help you, and good websites. I'm going to point you to another good website. Free online Cognitive Behavioural Therapy from a university in Australia.

When you recognise yourself working yourself up, or emotionally abusing yourself, STOP. Redirect your mind, make yourself think of something else.

Decide what you're going to give/make your family and friends for the next upcoming birthday or event. Sit down and paint your nails. Read an escapist book and make yourself stay 'in' it. If you're at work, really concentrate on the task - not how you feel about the task, but the task itself.

Noone can change how you think for you. You have to do it yourself.

All anyone else can do, even a professional therapist, is tell you how. A professional can help you find anything in your mind that's making it harder for you, and can help determine if there's anything biochemically or anatomically wrong in your skull - but even then, there'll still be a large chunk of 'fixing' that's yours to do and noone else's.

The old joke goes 'how many therapists does it take to change a lightbulb?' 'only one, but the lightbulb has to want to change'. And it's true. You'll keep having these panics and anxieties until you choose to change your thinking.

At first, you'll only recognise that you're abusing yourself after you've been doing it for a while. That's okay - don't, PLEASE don't, beat yourself up over THAT, too. Just accept it, be proud of yourself for recognising it, and redirect your thoughts at that stage.

As you get good at that, you'll recognise it earlier and earlier. Be pleased with yourself. Eventually, you'll recognise it just as you start, and be able to redirect it before it even happens. At that point, you'll be just about cured, and should be extremely proud.

One day, you'll think 'hey, that thing that just happened? Used to be I'd be a mess by now. I wonder why I'm not?' That's when you're cured. And you'll have cured yourself. Others may have helped you - ordinary people, therapists, websites like the ones you've been recommended. But you'll have done most of the work, and should be proud and happy.

Also, look at my sig. It's good advice, you might want to keep it in mind too.

[Shabo]

Best advice I've ever learned about dealing with emotions is this: Recognize the emotion, and accept it. Don't fight it, accept it. Come to terms with the fact that you are feeling the way you are, and move past it. If you fight it, it gets worse. Acceptance will help you move past the emotion. It's human nature to be emotional. There is nothing wrong with getting angry or upset, as long as you do not use these emotions to harm other people. If you get angry with yourself about making mistakes, stop fighting it. Accept that you get angry at yourself when you make mistakes, and you'll find the emotion weakening immediately. When your anger has faded some, look back at what you did and try to see where you can avoid that mistake in the future. Don't be afraid to ask someone to go over all the steps with you again for your own clarity. Maybe ask for a different person to show you what they do. It may help you understand and process the work better if you have someone else's perspective on it.

One thing that I've learned over the years is that meditating helps tremendously. You don't have to be any specific religion to meditate, either. It has nothing to do with religion (unless you choose to) and can calm you down and help you collect your thoughts. Meditation can even take many forms. You could just sit down and daydream for a few minutes, or say a prayer to your god(s), or read a little story, or write a little story, whatever you want. The most important thing about meditating is to remove your thoughts from whatever is going on, focus your thoughts on something, control your breathing, and relax.

Meditation can be done any time. You don't have to be in a quiet place to do it, but it helps concentrate when there aren't any distractions. It's a good way to start your morning, a good way to end your evening, and a good way to de-stress yourself during the day. You don't have to take a long time to do it, but by stepping away from the situation and collecting yourself, you are more refreshed when you go back in. Also, with tough problems that are really stumping you, it sometimes helps to step away for a few moments, take a break, and then go back to it. Course, when you go back, you see what had been staring you in the face the entire time... "Why didn't I see that before?!" Just keep in mind that when you're deep in the forest, all you can see are the trees... (I hope that makes sense!)

Good luck, and keep us updated!

[Shangri-laschild]

When I was at the gas station, being trained to be an assistant at a different branch, I was originally trained some under my manager there. I did great. I could alway get everything to add up perfect and never had any problem. Paperwork maybe maybe took an hour not counting bank run. Got to my new location where I was meant to be assitant. My boss was an idiot. She left me to do all the work with various excuses and I could never count on her. (it was so bad it ended in me saying either I got moved or I would quit) Paperwork there never came out right no matter how hard I tried. I couldn't get things to add up despite knowing what I was doing. It would always take several hours if not up to 4-5 or more and that was when I didn't have to say screw it and leave it for her to help me with after deadline...

Sometimes it's the environment and not you. Don't be so hard on yourself. No matter how you're doing, she's out of line in how she's responding. This is not a good work environment.

[Horsetuna]

Well, so far things are going better. I'm still making mistkaes, but definitely not as many. I need to mostly work on Phone Ediquette now... and the fact that one of the other girls books in computers in a different order than I, and we got into a bit of an argument (I didnt want to argue, I just wanted to explain why I did things a certain way, was because the supervisor said to ALWAYS do it in this order.)

We're friends though, and it seems that people aren't as scary as I think.

[Horsetuna]

Worse thing to hear when you're a new employee on the phone:" Hi! I'm calling *supervisor* Back about the position to be filled??*

Trying not to worry though... Trying.

[Ree]

Maybe it's a different position that you don't know about. Don't let worry and negativity overwhelm you.

[Horsetuna]

Good news and bad. Good news: The position is a tech position. With two girls calling about a 'position' in a computer store, of course the chances of them being receiption is more than being techs, so I worried.

Badnes is, I messed up badly... charged a lady 7114.90 cents instead of 114.90 (Because the numbers on the keypad are reversed to th ekeyboard, so 7 is where 1 is and when I hit CORRECTION, it didnt delete it!). Then we couldnt' refund that much and my supervsior spent an hour on the phone with her CC compny to fix it. Its fixed, but I was very upset (The lady was understanding).

THEN I batched off, and I should've waited till AFTER the refund so we balanced.

So I got called into BigBoss' for a lecture, where I sat very pale, and nodding and going "okay. I'm sorry. Okay." repeatedly and trying to promise I wont screw up again.

Ten I lost some of the slips from the CC machine. AUGH! I looked EVERYWHERe, asked every empoyee in the store if they'd taken them... no sign.

O her way out, I spoke to my supervisor, basically babbling a little and proising to do better. She reassuerd me, said "We'll work on it' and that I need to calm down and stop panicking... at least she understands.

On one note I think she's realizing that her 'you dont understand this!" omments aren't helping, and only one comment got to me "You aren't taking your job seriously!" I came back with "I am! My life DEPENDS on this job!" (which it does.)

So we did a smaller cash out and she emailed HO with an explanation. Ugh...

Sometimes I wish there were painkillers for emotions. -.-

[Teysa]

*hugs*

You oopsed. You know what you did wrong though and you're very unlikely to make the same mistake again. Sounds like your bosses know it was an honest mistake and they're not making too huge of a fuss over it. So stop beating yourself up about it. As far as the CC slips go, it's always possible you accidentally gave your customers both copies. If so, that's also an honest mistake and you know to be more careful next time. i.e. it's alright to make mistakes, just learn from them and move on.

Don't forget that if your bosses didn't think you could handle the position, they wouldn't have hired you. Have some faith in yourself. I know several members here are rooting for you to succeed.

[Horsetuna]

These aren't the slips that print out when we run CCs though. At the end of the day (or ratherm at 4 pm), we print off the batch slips... the 'totals' of that time period since the last batch slip.

Thanks. I'm going to keep trying that's for sure.

[Ree]

Hmmm....it's been a while since I've been on cash, and I don't know how our new system work, but I do know, on the old Transelect™ system from Moneris™ we used to be able to reprint batches as long as we knew what the batch number was.

If it had been the original CC slip that was missing, and you accidentally gave it to the customer, the only major problem could be that, if they were the dishonest type, they could file a dispute and claim they never made the transaction. (We had that happen once.)

Without the copies showing the actual transaction, the store gets screwed. That's why I can see a manager being upset about missing slips and errors.

It may seem harsh to you, and your manager may not be handling it well, but I can understand the frustration of having someone who, after a week, still seems as if it's their first day.

The important thing is not to panic and stay calm. Focus on exactly what you are doing at that exact moment.

Don't be thinking about a whole bunch of other stuff, "Am I doing this quickly enough?" Are there other people waiting?" "Is my supervisor watching?" "Is the customer getting ticked off?"

Just think about the transaction and focus only on you.
"Are my fingers in the right position on the keypad?" "Am I pressing the correct keys?" "What was the total?" "How are they paying?"

[Horsetuna]

Well, again, its not the slips that print out when I run a Credit Card. And sadly, apparently the batch slips can't be reprinted. Sigh...

IT all worked out though. Everything added up.