CHANGE

Chapter 6

Before I knew it, the two days were up. I wasn't feeling any better, though. My stomach was still upset. My eyes were watering also. I was so annoyed with life. I didn't believe my doctor had given me enough days off. How could I go back to work still feeling like death? I still rose in the morning and got dressed to go. My time was supposedly up.

I didn't eat anything. I got in the car and left. When I arrived, the day went like it always did — shitty. At one point I was feeling too ill. I told them I needed to go and ended up going back home. When my mother saw me, she demanded to know what I was doing back home. I was already feeling unwell, she was not helping.

"I don't feel good," I growled.

She gave me a look and said nothing more. I just made my way back upstairs. I was tired. I was tired of being tired. I just wanted my health back so everything could go back to what I thought was normal. Normal for me, though, wasn't ever normal. Things could at least calm down a bit more."

"Geez," I muttered to myself, annoyed. "Lord, please have mercy on my life."

But I knew it wasn't that simple. I wished I could wish away all things that kept happening that were unfortunate. I wanted more out of life. But maybe life didn't want more out of me.

                                                 #

Things were getting more and more ridiculous at my job. I wanted to quit. Way too much was placed upon us. Every day I showed up and got treated like trash despite the hard work I put in every day. I wasn't innocent, though. I lost my temper about some things at times as well. I was very tired every day and ready for something else. I tried looking on a job site. But nothing really seemed to stand out very much. I tried applying to things anyway.

There was an incident the other day where I opened my big mouth about something the day before. It got back to the owners. He called me into the office and told me to get my shit together or leave. I couldn't quit not having anything else lined up. I had no choice but to keep my head down and wait it out. I felt horrible and stupid. I wanted to walk out like they wanted me to.

I had opened my mouth before which led to getting one of the two managers we had fired. This was probably my karma. I was pushed to do it by the first Mary. I wished I hadn't listened, but I couldn't lie to the owners and tell them she'd been doing great. That was not the truth. And now here I was. Was I in her shoes?

The owner told me I was negative and had to change. I didn't agree that I was the negative one. Mary was the one who always showed up late, had an attitude, and treated people poorly. I was there trying to be of help in all the chaos. I felt like all I did just went to waste. From even working alone at one of their stores and fixing it up.

Flashback

As I looked around the store I was now in, I noticed how run down and dirty it was. I sighed and went into the office and put my stuff down. This was the first official day that I'd be working by myself overall. It was gonna be hard. I wasn't trained very well. I took a deep breath and got down to business.

The first thing I did was clean. When I came in during each shift, I cleaned things up and organized them. I didn't like working in chaos. I worked hard taking care of orders and taking care of the store. I was proud of myself. When I was done with the place, it looked amazing. It was like a brand-new store.