During our long-distance relationship, I had to drive up to San Jose every month to see Myz. We would hang out for a couple of days and run around and do things in the area. (But really, we spent most of our time in the bedroom. A couple of times, her cousin's parents would spend the night, so we had to get a motel room.)
But there were two times that Myz flew down to see me in San Diego. The first was around Christmas of 2002. Our big plan during that time was to go to Disneyland. (She had been to Disneyland before in high school, so this wasn't something new for her.)
My biggest concern was going to be the sleeping arrangements. When I lived in my last apartment with Abed and Pasd, I didn't have a bed. I had a twin-sized foam mattress that I slept on. (Well, it wasn't really a mattress. It was a large piece of foam with a sheet on it.) It was surprisingly comfortable and I had used it for some time before I was forced to buy actual furniture for an apartment. However, I noticed that it was no longer as comfortable as it used to be, so I decided to buy a double-sized air mattress. Unfortunately, I couldn't get the thick kind of mattress, so I had to settle for a camping air mattress and I had to buy an air pump to fill it up with because I started feeling dizzy trying to blow it up myself.
As it turned out, this was no better than the foam mattress. I decided to put the foam mattress under the air mattress and this gave me the level of comfort I was accustomed to. But be aware, I didn't know how it was going to feel to have two people sleeping on it.
I had to make special arrangements at Walmart with Ms. E to get Sunday and Monday off that week. We were planning to go to Disneyland on Sunday. However, Ms. E left and when the schedule was posted, I was given Saturday off and was scheduled to work Sunday and Monday. This was totally NOT what I asked for! In a panic, I talked to the Assistant Manager in charge of the Front End and he was able to make the adjustment for me. Whew!
Ahead of me picking her up at the airport on Saturday night, Myz told me there was something she expected when she saw me. She didn't tell me what it was, but I figured out she wanted me to greet her at the arrivals with flowers.
One of the things I decided to do before she arrived was set up some small candles in my apartment arranged in the shape of a heart. At first, I was going to light the candles and then leave to pick her up. But since I would likely be out an hour, I figured out this wasn't going to be a good idea because it would have constituted a fire hazard. I certainly did not want to bring Myz home to an apartment that was on fire. I decided to wait to light the candles until we got home. That wasn't going to be quite as romantic, but we needed someplace to sleep.
I got to the airport with the flowers. Myz was very pleased. I think we stopped by a Jack in the Box on the way over so she could get something to eat. We came home and I quickly tried to light the candles. I didn't have a lighter. I was trying to light all the candles with matches. It took much longer than expected, but Myz appreciated the effort.
We spent the night and left for Disneyland the next day. Chud came down to let us into the park for free. Before going in, we visited for a bit. The main thing Chud wanted to do before leaving us was go on the Indiana Jones ride. This was the first time I'd gone after Disneyland had instituted a reserve system. This meant we didn't have to wait in the line. In fact, there was no line and we sped through the pre-show and didn't get to do all the nifty stuff Chud had designed for the line.
Half-way through our day at Disneyland, Myz' feet started to hurt from the heels she was wearing. We had to go to a store and buy some flats for her feet while she carried the other shoes in her bag. Her feet didn't hurt so much after that.
Other than that, I didn't remember a lot of other events that took place that day. I know we went to Toontown and the Pirates of the Caribbean, but everything else was a blur. We definitely had a good time and she was exhausted and slept on the drive home.
I took her to the airport and dropped her off the next day. Our goodbye was very tearful. Everytime we saw each other, it made it more difficult to leave each other.
And I guess the "bed" didn't bother her too much, because she said she wanted to come down and see me again. If I'd had any extra money, I should have spend it on a proper air mattress, but when you're working at Walmart, it's a hard option to choose.
The next time Myz came to San Diego, it was for her birthday in April of 2003. I didn't have to worry too much about time off at work because I was working in the cash office at this time and my manager was very accommodating with the schedule.
This time we had plans to go to the San Diego Zoo and see a play at the Old Globe in Balboa Park. I met her at the airport with flowers like last time. We had lots of fun at the Zoo, but again, Myz wore high heels and had to buy another pair of flats so her feet wouldn't hurt so much. (Did she not learn anything from Disneyland?)
The play we saw was "Hours and Times," which was about a group of people who each got involved in relationships with people who were twice/half their age. It was very strange because a lot of the issues Myz and I were experiencing in our relationship were explored in the production. We both commented on this after leaving the play.
This was also the first time Myz had seen a professional stage production. She was used to seeing high school plays, where there was not a lot of risque activity and the students had to pretend to kiss each other. She was shocked to see people really kiss each other on stage. She was even more shocked during a scene in which the two main characters were under a sheet and she could tell that the woman was naked (at least from the waist up) under that sheet on stage.
We were sitting in the front row on the far left side of the stage. There was a scene in which a woman and a man met each other outside her house on the lawn. The woman's husband is inside the house while this is going on and suddenly realizes he needed to turn on the sprinkler system (unaware his wife was outside). Right in front of me and Myz, a sprinkler head emerged from the stage and started spraying water on the couple. However, the sprinkler was omnidirectional and Myz and I got wet as well. I mean, it was funny and it didn't ruin our clothes, but we should have gotten a warning like they give you at Sea World.
But it all had to come to an end. Myz gave another tearful goodbye and I didn't know how much longer I was going to want to remain in San Diego. Abed had moved up to San Francisco months ago, so I didn't have much of an opportunity to pursue my solo music project. I had no money for recording and I wasn't building up any kind of fan base that would have made it worth staying.
I didn't like that I was giving up on my dreams to be an artist, but I also didn't like the idea of being alone in San Diego.
Tuesday, November 10, 2026
Monday, November 9, 2026
Crash Office
So, I got to begin my dream job at Walmart: Working in the Cash Office. This was one of the few rooms in the store I'd never gotten to set foot in. It was probably 10' x 10' and there could be up to six people in there at one time. It could get really cramped very quickly. (I can't help but wonder how they functioned during COVID-19.)
But as it turns out, I started working in the Cash Office at the absolute WORST time.
The first thing I noticed when I went in was that they had set up several piles of bills to create the cashier daily banks. I wanted to go up, grab the money and throw it around. (That wouldn't have made a good first impression.)
They then showed me was how to put the banks together for the next day. I took the bills that had already been sorted out, grabbed $18 worth of rolled coin and put them into the individual cashier bags. After that was done, I was instructed on using the coin machine to sort the change that cashiers turned in at the end of their shifts. After the change was sorted, I had to roll the coins. This involved these hard plastic cups that we inserted the paper slips around to have an even $10 of quarters, $5 of dimes, $2 of nickels and 50 cents of pennies. I was then shown how this was all given to the person counting the deposit.
This was basically all I did for my entire shift that first day. A cashier would drop a bag in our mail slot, I'd open it up and put the coins in the sorter, and then write the total coins on a piece of paper and put it in the bag with the bills and coupons. At first, it was easy to keep up with the volume. However, at the end of the night, the bags would pile up and it looked like they wouldn't stop being dropped.
This wouldn't have been so bad, but they had just had a major protocol change right when I started in the Cash Office. All cashiers now had to turn in their cash to the Cash Office when they went to lunch and then had to get a new bank when coming back from lunch. I don't know why management did this, but it definitely created a lot more work for the Cash Office, since that meant we would have to keep counting the receipts ALL DAY LONG! Everybody complained that this kept them from accomplishing the other responsibilities that they had, because all they were doing was counting the money and making the deposits. Before, it would just be a few bags that got turned in at the middle of the day because there were only a few part-timers who left at that time. Now, there were about 20 bags getting turned in between 12pm and 2pm every day.
This created a real issue when our special program manager came in and DEMANDED that we count all the coins in the big charity bucket by the exit. She needed to give all the money to the charity RIGHT NOW! We tried to tell her that she just couldn't come in and get us to count this without prior notice. She got the store manager to come order us to count that money. It took THREE HOURS to run all that change through the machine. This put us WAY behind on our deposits.
I got to the point where I was able to count the deposits at the end of the evening. If there were three of us working at the end of the shift, this could all be done in fairly short order. However, one night, one of the other two had called out sick and we were behind. At 1:30am, I was shocked to hear the other employee STILL running the coin machine. There were still about 10 bags left! I knew there was no way we were going to finish before 4am. I felt bad because it meant we were going to have to make the opening person deal with all this.
But that was one of the nice things about the Cash Office. We were permitted to have overtime without prior authorization. I was making so much money, even much more than if I'd been a CSM. I just didn't like the frequent late nights when there was no end in sight.
Another nice thing about the Cash Office is that they could be informal about the schedule. It was usually easy to get someone to switch shifts with me if I wanted to come in later or take a certain day off. We were never afforded this when I was a cashier.
And I was allowed to wear T-shirts and jeans while I was working.
But here is the thing that REALLY got my goat about the Cash Office. When I was being interviewed for the position, I was told there was only one Cash Office position available. There was one Cash Office associate leaving the position and they were looking to train one person to take her place before she left. But I found out that they promoted a second person. It was a woman who had been a cashier less than three months at the store. (Supposedly, you couldn't get a promotion unless you had been working in your position for six months.) She was chosen because she used to work in the cash office at one of the nearby Indian casinos. This woman was the one who caused the most problems for me.
To the best of my knowledge, I did not do anything to this woman to make her despise me so much. She would be very vocal about her displeasure with me and would often voice insults about me when alone with the other women. And sometimes, she would voice these concerns to my face. No matter what I tried, she refused to get along with me. I'm certain that she was the one responsible for the complaints against me.
The biggest complaint was that I had a tendency to fart in the cash office. (And this was probably the catalyst for that woman's dislike.) It wasn't loud, but it was noticeable. But no one said anything to me directly. The assistant manager had to tell me that everyone was complaining, but she thought it was rather funny. This meant that anytime I felt a fart coming on, I had to leave the room. Sometimes, I didn't make it, and I knew the other women would probably start griping again.
What did me in was that we came up $100 short when balancing the room one time. Even though there was another cash office associate in the room with me when balancing, I was held solely responsible for the missing amount. This kind of thing wasn't considered uncommon. Often, the missing money would show up out of the blue a few weeks later. But that didn't happen for me. Loss Prevention got involved. No one accused me of taking the money, but it was clear that someone was going to be held accountable.
A couple of weeks later, I was coming to work after spending my days off with Myz in San Jose. I had driven all day and showed up for work at 4pm. I went into the cash office and got the key. I went back to clock in and came back to the office. The Cash Office Manager said, "You weren't supposed to get the key. The Assistant Manager needs to talk to you!" I went out and tried to find the Assistant Manager, but she was nowhere to be found. I had to go talk to a different Assistant Manager who was aware of the situation.
She told me that I was getting a Decision Day. That is when an associate is facing disciplinary action and a change in position. I was basically being given the day off with pay and would have to go back to being a cashier for my next shift. I asked if this was happening to the other associate who was in the office with me when the money went missing. I was told I was being held accountable because it was my name on the balance report.
I went home and called Myz. She got upset because if we'd known I was going to have the day off, I could have stayed in San Jose an extra day.
I was going to have to work the shift times I had been scheduled for the Cash Office, almost all closing shift. I showed up at Walmart the next day wearing my blue vest and showed up at the CSM podium. Everyone seemed surprised that I was there to take a register. I felt like I had my tail between my legs.
A few days later, the Assistant Manager in charge of the Cash Office saw me and wanted to speak with me. She told me she was sorry about what happened, but she did it for my own protection. She said she was aware that there was a problem with the Cash Office and that I wasn't really the problem. But by having me step down from that position, there wouldn't be any disciplinary action on my record. She also told me she wanted me to be a back up CSM and that they would start training me for that in the near future. I told her I wished she had been here to deliver the news. I would have felt a lot better about the demotion then.
I was really hoping that I would have walked in one day to find that everyone else in the Cash Office had been fired and replaced with new staff. That would have made it all worth it. But everyone who was in the Cash Office remained there for the rest of the time I was at that Walmart.
I never did receive any CSM training. However, they never did lower my rate of pay, so I did feel like I got something out of all that.
But as it turns out, I started working in the Cash Office at the absolute WORST time.
The first thing I noticed when I went in was that they had set up several piles of bills to create the cashier daily banks. I wanted to go up, grab the money and throw it around. (That wouldn't have made a good first impression.)
They then showed me was how to put the banks together for the next day. I took the bills that had already been sorted out, grabbed $18 worth of rolled coin and put them into the individual cashier bags. After that was done, I was instructed on using the coin machine to sort the change that cashiers turned in at the end of their shifts. After the change was sorted, I had to roll the coins. This involved these hard plastic cups that we inserted the paper slips around to have an even $10 of quarters, $5 of dimes, $2 of nickels and 50 cents of pennies. I was then shown how this was all given to the person counting the deposit.
This was basically all I did for my entire shift that first day. A cashier would drop a bag in our mail slot, I'd open it up and put the coins in the sorter, and then write the total coins on a piece of paper and put it in the bag with the bills and coupons. At first, it was easy to keep up with the volume. However, at the end of the night, the bags would pile up and it looked like they wouldn't stop being dropped.
This wouldn't have been so bad, but they had just had a major protocol change right when I started in the Cash Office. All cashiers now had to turn in their cash to the Cash Office when they went to lunch and then had to get a new bank when coming back from lunch. I don't know why management did this, but it definitely created a lot more work for the Cash Office, since that meant we would have to keep counting the receipts ALL DAY LONG! Everybody complained that this kept them from accomplishing the other responsibilities that they had, because all they were doing was counting the money and making the deposits. Before, it would just be a few bags that got turned in at the middle of the day because there were only a few part-timers who left at that time. Now, there were about 20 bags getting turned in between 12pm and 2pm every day.
This created a real issue when our special program manager came in and DEMANDED that we count all the coins in the big charity bucket by the exit. She needed to give all the money to the charity RIGHT NOW! We tried to tell her that she just couldn't come in and get us to count this without prior notice. She got the store manager to come order us to count that money. It took THREE HOURS to run all that change through the machine. This put us WAY behind on our deposits.
I got to the point where I was able to count the deposits at the end of the evening. If there were three of us working at the end of the shift, this could all be done in fairly short order. However, one night, one of the other two had called out sick and we were behind. At 1:30am, I was shocked to hear the other employee STILL running the coin machine. There were still about 10 bags left! I knew there was no way we were going to finish before 4am. I felt bad because it meant we were going to have to make the opening person deal with all this.
But that was one of the nice things about the Cash Office. We were permitted to have overtime without prior authorization. I was making so much money, even much more than if I'd been a CSM. I just didn't like the frequent late nights when there was no end in sight.
Another nice thing about the Cash Office is that they could be informal about the schedule. It was usually easy to get someone to switch shifts with me if I wanted to come in later or take a certain day off. We were never afforded this when I was a cashier.
And I was allowed to wear T-shirts and jeans while I was working.
But here is the thing that REALLY got my goat about the Cash Office. When I was being interviewed for the position, I was told there was only one Cash Office position available. There was one Cash Office associate leaving the position and they were looking to train one person to take her place before she left. But I found out that they promoted a second person. It was a woman who had been a cashier less than three months at the store. (Supposedly, you couldn't get a promotion unless you had been working in your position for six months.) She was chosen because she used to work in the cash office at one of the nearby Indian casinos. This woman was the one who caused the most problems for me.
To the best of my knowledge, I did not do anything to this woman to make her despise me so much. She would be very vocal about her displeasure with me and would often voice insults about me when alone with the other women. And sometimes, she would voice these concerns to my face. No matter what I tried, she refused to get along with me. I'm certain that she was the one responsible for the complaints against me.
The biggest complaint was that I had a tendency to fart in the cash office. (And this was probably the catalyst for that woman's dislike.) It wasn't loud, but it was noticeable. But no one said anything to me directly. The assistant manager had to tell me that everyone was complaining, but she thought it was rather funny. This meant that anytime I felt a fart coming on, I had to leave the room. Sometimes, I didn't make it, and I knew the other women would probably start griping again.
What did me in was that we came up $100 short when balancing the room one time. Even though there was another cash office associate in the room with me when balancing, I was held solely responsible for the missing amount. This kind of thing wasn't considered uncommon. Often, the missing money would show up out of the blue a few weeks later. But that didn't happen for me. Loss Prevention got involved. No one accused me of taking the money, but it was clear that someone was going to be held accountable.
A couple of weeks later, I was coming to work after spending my days off with Myz in San Jose. I had driven all day and showed up for work at 4pm. I went into the cash office and got the key. I went back to clock in and came back to the office. The Cash Office Manager said, "You weren't supposed to get the key. The Assistant Manager needs to talk to you!" I went out and tried to find the Assistant Manager, but she was nowhere to be found. I had to go talk to a different Assistant Manager who was aware of the situation.
She told me that I was getting a Decision Day. That is when an associate is facing disciplinary action and a change in position. I was basically being given the day off with pay and would have to go back to being a cashier for my next shift. I asked if this was happening to the other associate who was in the office with me when the money went missing. I was told I was being held accountable because it was my name on the balance report.
I went home and called Myz. She got upset because if we'd known I was going to have the day off, I could have stayed in San Jose an extra day.
I was going to have to work the shift times I had been scheduled for the Cash Office, almost all closing shift. I showed up at Walmart the next day wearing my blue vest and showed up at the CSM podium. Everyone seemed surprised that I was there to take a register. I felt like I had my tail between my legs.
A few days later, the Assistant Manager in charge of the Cash Office saw me and wanted to speak with me. She told me she was sorry about what happened, but she did it for my own protection. She said she was aware that there was a problem with the Cash Office and that I wasn't really the problem. But by having me step down from that position, there wouldn't be any disciplinary action on my record. She also told me she wanted me to be a back up CSM and that they would start training me for that in the near future. I told her I wished she had been here to deliver the news. I would have felt a lot better about the demotion then.
I was really hoping that I would have walked in one day to find that everyone else in the Cash Office had been fired and replaced with new staff. That would have made it all worth it. But everyone who was in the Cash Office remained there for the rest of the time I was at that Walmart.
I never did receive any CSM training. However, they never did lower my rate of pay, so I did feel like I got something out of all that.
Friday, November 6, 2026
Missing Chapter: Science Fairs
This is the first in a series of Friday posts that will go into detail about events I forgot to write about when they were chronologically relevant to the blog. I will refer to them as "Missing Chapters."
My son Boyd is about to take part in a Science Fair at his school. This brought back some memories I had involving my participation in science fairs in Artesia, NM during my elementary school years.
I first participated in Artesia's Annual Science Fair during the Spring of 1973 (when I was in 3rd grade). Just a couple of months earlier, the Cub Scouts at Hermosa had held a banquet in the cafeteria. All of the different troops decorated their own tables. My Dad had provided a decoration that was a jar full of vinegar with mothballs in it. We had drawn little smiley-face charicatures of the all the members of our troop on the mothballs. The mothballs would then sporadically go up and down in the vinegar. Dad said something to the effect that we were going to do this for my Science Fair project.
About a month later, I had to set up a display and write a paper about the project. Dad told me what to write. At the end of it, he said I had to write a "big liography." I had no idea what that was and I already felt like I had already written a great deal for the paper. (What? I wasn't finished yet?) I wondered how much I had to write. (I later found out he wanted me to write a bibliography. I still didn't know what that was at the time.) I just did what he said, but this project stopped being fun that that point.
We went to the high school on Friday night and started setting up the display. We poured the vinegar in the jar and then put the mothballs in. (We didn't decorate the mothballs this time.) And they just sat there. We didn't know what was going on. When we set up the decoration for the banquet, the mothballs started moving up and down right away. We didn't have to wait. After about 30 minutes of shaking the jar, Dad gave up and we went home.
The next morning, Dad got up early and turned on the radio to the local news. (He knew from teaching fourth grade classes that was when they announced judging results.) It turned out I had gotten a 2nd Place award. We figured that the mothballs must have started doing their thing before judging started the night before. I was quite pleased that all that effort had paid off.
We went to the Science Fair later that day and checked out my exhibit. The mothballs were indeed moving up and down, like they were supposed to. I was happy to see the 2nd Place Award on my display.
1974 came along and we had to do a different project for the Science Fair that year. The only thing I remember about it was that I had to grow a fern and put it in the display. I remember that I again had to write a paper and bibliography, but I don't recall the actual content of the project. I don't know what I was trying to prove, and I guess the judges didn't know either, because I didn't get an award that year.
For 1975, some other boys in my class were doing a display for dinosaurs. I was very interested in this and they said I could join them. Dad had other ideas. He said I was going to build a boat with a steam engine using a container for canned ham. (And at this point, it should be apparent that these were science projects Dad had either done when he was in high school, or had gathered from previous students. I didn't like that I had NO input on what my project was going to be. It was the Pinewood Derby all over again.) I actually would have preferred to be a part of the dinosaur project. And I did let those boys borrow my large dinosaur model to use. I just didn't get credit for it.
Dad put together the boat and the mechanism for creating the steam that would propel it in a small tub of water. I had written the report, but I really didn't understand how it worked. The steamboat did appear to work when Dad tested it. However, I was not named among those students who had received a ribbon that year. Another student told me he saw my exhibit and someone had pushed the boat under the water. Since any student could have easily wrecked my project without getting caught, we had no way of knowing who did it.
As it turned out, the boys with the dinosaur exhibit were awarded 2nd Place. That helped to overcome the disappointment of my project, but I would have preferred to have had credit for that. (And I wasn't clear if there was a rule that your name couldn't be on more than one project.)
I dreaded what would happen in future Science Fairs. I was not looking forward to Dad commandeering my project again. I wanted to come up with something on my own, or join a group instead. But I never had to worry about the Science Fair ever again. 1975 turned out to be the last Science Fair held in Artesia for the remainder of the years that I attended public school there.
For a long time, I had hoped that there had been other projects that year that had been sabotaged, and it was at a scale that caused the school board to stop the annual tradition. It turned out that was far from the case.
I actually did a Google search in AI mode to find out what happened. I was surprised to find out there was a substantial amount of detail involved in ending the Fairs. And this seemed to all be gathered from more than 50 years ago:
Historically, the Artesia Public Schools system in New Mexico shifted away from hosting traditional, district-wide science fairs in the mid-1970s primarily due to a broader administrative transition toward standardized curriculums, shifting extracurricular focuses, and regional alignment with agricultural and vocational programs.
While there isn't a singular, highly publicized "crisis" that ended the fairs, several converging factors during the 1975–1976 school year led to their discontinuation:
1. Shifting Focus to the Eddy County Junior Livestock Show and Sale: In the local community, student exhibition energy and school sponsorship heavily favored agricultural and vocational science. Since the late 1940s, Artesia High School and local civic clubs had been co-sponsoring the massive regional livestock and home economics exhibitions. As these grew significantly, they heavily competed with traditional science fairs for school funding, student interest, and faculty time.
2. The "Back to Basics" Curriculum Movement: By 1975, school districts across New Mexico and the broader United States faced immense pressure to return to a "back to basics" educational model. This movement de-emphasized large-scale, mandatory, inquiry-based extracurricular projects (like the standard tri-fold board science fair) in favor of structured, standardized in-classroom testing and instruction.
3. Evolving Science Education Formats: Following the era of the space-race boom (which heavily popularized the traditional 1960s science fair), educators in the 1970s began critiques regarding equity and the competitive nature of fairs. Many regional schools chose to pivot from competitive, district-wide extracurricular science fairs to standard-based classroom labs, or later into team-based alternative events like the Science Olympiad.
I can't help but wonder if Dad had known ahead of time that this was going to be the last Science Fair and that would explain why he was so adamant about doing the steamboat project. I don't know what he was going to do the next year when Loyd was going to be in the third grade and would have to come up with his own project. Was he really going to be in control of two projects at the same time?
So, I am letting Boyd figure out his own Project. I swore I wouldn't repeat the mistakes my Dad made. I will be able to assist him with setting up his display, but for the most part, the work will be ALL his.
Thursday, November 5, 2026
Shooting for a Promotion
In my previous work experiences, I found that by putting in a considerable amount of effort, I was able to rise through the ranks at an alarmingly rapid rate. This was certainly the case for Landmark Theatres and NDC/Aradiant. I thought this would be the pattern for the remainder of my life. However, this wasn't the case at Walmart.
But it shouldn't have been that way. There were always opportunities to move up in the store. They seemed to always be looking for Customer Service Managers, Department Managers, Support Managers, etc. But the one position I had my eye on was working in the Cash Office. One of my favorite things to do when managing at Landmark was counting up the cash at the end of the night and making the deposit. I couldn't wait to count the money that Walmart raked in every day. I thought that with my cash handling experience, I would be a shoo-in for the position.
At Walmart, you have to be in your current position for a minimum of six months before applying for another position. After I'd hit my six months, I kept my eye open for a Cash Office position to open. My patience paid off. They posted an opening. I went and applied for it. But I didn't hear anything about it for a month. I finally got called in for an interview. During the interview, I was told that it was a part-time position and I would have to give up my full-time status to work it. I had a lot of questions. Namely, why would this be part-time? I can understand part-time cashiers, door greeters, overnight stockers and floor associates. However, this was something that needed regular staffing and they already had a small staff to start with.
I asked if I could work the Cash Office part-time and cashier the other 20 hours of the week. No, they didn't allow Cash Office associates to work the registers. Okay, how about working the Cash Office and another department where I don't have to handle money? No, that wasn't an option, either. Well, I guess I'm not going to be able to work the Cash Office because I need to work full-time. I would just have to wait for a full-time opening.
In the meantime, I decided that if I wanted to feel like I was moving up in the company, I would need to become a Customer Service Manager. At one point, one of the CSMs told me that at one of their recent meetings, they had discussed the possibility of who could join their ranks and everyone was pretty much in agreement that they felt I would make a good CSM. I have to admit this made me feel good about my performance as a cashier. One time, I was at the podium and the Store Manager was talking to the CSM about something going on at the Front End, and he made some comment about how it would get straightened out if they just made me a CSM. I couldn't imagine a better endorsement.
I decided to take the opportunity to ask how much of an increase a CSM got. The CSM I spoke to said, "Oh, that's between you and the Store Manager." What? I need to negotiate this? That doesn't sound right!
Something unusual happened after this. Ms. E, the Front End Supervisor, decided they needed a little assistance among the CSMs. She asked another cashier, Leenz, to become a fill-in CSM. There was no announcement for the position. They just started training her. This wouldn't have been a problem, but Leenz started working for Walmart after I had. I'll admit that yes, she was very smart and friendly and was definitely CSM material, but I couldn't help but wonder why I hadn't been approached.
So, the next time they had a position for CSM, I went ahead and applied. They had two full-time slots available. I figured that Leenz would get officially promoted to one of the slots and I would get the other one. I felt the interview went fairly smoothly because I was able to draw on my previous supervisory experience. About a week later, I was informed that I did not get the position. I found out that they selected Leenz and a woman named Barrd who had worked in Electronics. Barrd was a real surprise. She was capable of working the register in Electronics, but she did not appear to be someone who you would expect to be upwardly mobile.
I did not express any kind of discontent regarding the results of the promotions. I also did not mention to any of my co-workers that I had applied for the position. But I'm pretty certain that everyone had been expecting that I was aiming to be a CSM. When Barrd was being trained, I came up to her in Customer Service at the end of a shift and asked for a 3 Action. (This would produce a printout of what my till balance was supposed to be.) She said, "Oh, I don't have my supervisor access yet." I told her, "You don't need supervisor access to do a 3 Action!" I grabbed the 52 key out of her hand, stuck it in the register, hit "3", then "Action Code," followed by my employee number. The printout came up. "THAT'S ALL YOU HAVE TO DO!"
Barrd just stood there kind of stunned. All the other cashiers in the area appeared to be working hard to stifle their laughter. I got the idea they knew exactly what was going on. However, no one mentioned this incident ever again.
A few months later, there was a posting for both CSM and Cash Office. Each department had one opening. This was great! I thought I should be able to land one of these. I applied for both. I wound up being interviewed for both positions at the same time. This time, the Cash Office slot was going to be full-time. However, the CSM was part-time, but I'd be able to work as a regular cashier those times when I wasn't being a CSM. I would still get paid the same amount of money. I asked what the increase was going to be and I was told each position would be 50 cents an hour. Finally, a straight answer.
A week later, I was told that I was being promoted to the Cash Office. HOORAY! I would be starting my training within the next week. I looked forward to not having to work the cash register anymore.
I told Leenz about the promotion. She asked me how much my wage was going to be in the Cash Office. I didn't give an exact figure, but I told her that I would have been making the same amount if I'd become a CSM. I think she was kind of disappointed in her experience as a CSM and wished she had held out for the Cash Office. (As it turns out, Leenz later went to the Philippines for a month. When she came back, she stepped down as CSM and worked in the Jewelry department.)
But I found out that working in the Cash Office resulted in a whole host of other problems I had never considered.
I'll get into that in Monday's post.
But it shouldn't have been that way. There were always opportunities to move up in the store. They seemed to always be looking for Customer Service Managers, Department Managers, Support Managers, etc. But the one position I had my eye on was working in the Cash Office. One of my favorite things to do when managing at Landmark was counting up the cash at the end of the night and making the deposit. I couldn't wait to count the money that Walmart raked in every day. I thought that with my cash handling experience, I would be a shoo-in for the position.
At Walmart, you have to be in your current position for a minimum of six months before applying for another position. After I'd hit my six months, I kept my eye open for a Cash Office position to open. My patience paid off. They posted an opening. I went and applied for it. But I didn't hear anything about it for a month. I finally got called in for an interview. During the interview, I was told that it was a part-time position and I would have to give up my full-time status to work it. I had a lot of questions. Namely, why would this be part-time? I can understand part-time cashiers, door greeters, overnight stockers and floor associates. However, this was something that needed regular staffing and they already had a small staff to start with.
I asked if I could work the Cash Office part-time and cashier the other 20 hours of the week. No, they didn't allow Cash Office associates to work the registers. Okay, how about working the Cash Office and another department where I don't have to handle money? No, that wasn't an option, either. Well, I guess I'm not going to be able to work the Cash Office because I need to work full-time. I would just have to wait for a full-time opening.
In the meantime, I decided that if I wanted to feel like I was moving up in the company, I would need to become a Customer Service Manager. At one point, one of the CSMs told me that at one of their recent meetings, they had discussed the possibility of who could join their ranks and everyone was pretty much in agreement that they felt I would make a good CSM. I have to admit this made me feel good about my performance as a cashier. One time, I was at the podium and the Store Manager was talking to the CSM about something going on at the Front End, and he made some comment about how it would get straightened out if they just made me a CSM. I couldn't imagine a better endorsement.
I decided to take the opportunity to ask how much of an increase a CSM got. The CSM I spoke to said, "Oh, that's between you and the Store Manager." What? I need to negotiate this? That doesn't sound right!
Something unusual happened after this. Ms. E, the Front End Supervisor, decided they needed a little assistance among the CSMs. She asked another cashier, Leenz, to become a fill-in CSM. There was no announcement for the position. They just started training her. This wouldn't have been a problem, but Leenz started working for Walmart after I had. I'll admit that yes, she was very smart and friendly and was definitely CSM material, but I couldn't help but wonder why I hadn't been approached.
So, the next time they had a position for CSM, I went ahead and applied. They had two full-time slots available. I figured that Leenz would get officially promoted to one of the slots and I would get the other one. I felt the interview went fairly smoothly because I was able to draw on my previous supervisory experience. About a week later, I was informed that I did not get the position. I found out that they selected Leenz and a woman named Barrd who had worked in Electronics. Barrd was a real surprise. She was capable of working the register in Electronics, but she did not appear to be someone who you would expect to be upwardly mobile.
I did not express any kind of discontent regarding the results of the promotions. I also did not mention to any of my co-workers that I had applied for the position. But I'm pretty certain that everyone had been expecting that I was aiming to be a CSM. When Barrd was being trained, I came up to her in Customer Service at the end of a shift and asked for a 3 Action. (This would produce a printout of what my till balance was supposed to be.) She said, "Oh, I don't have my supervisor access yet." I told her, "You don't need supervisor access to do a 3 Action!" I grabbed the 52 key out of her hand, stuck it in the register, hit "3", then "Action Code," followed by my employee number. The printout came up. "THAT'S ALL YOU HAVE TO DO!"
Barrd just stood there kind of stunned. All the other cashiers in the area appeared to be working hard to stifle their laughter. I got the idea they knew exactly what was going on. However, no one mentioned this incident ever again.
A few months later, there was a posting for both CSM and Cash Office. Each department had one opening. This was great! I thought I should be able to land one of these. I applied for both. I wound up being interviewed for both positions at the same time. This time, the Cash Office slot was going to be full-time. However, the CSM was part-time, but I'd be able to work as a regular cashier those times when I wasn't being a CSM. I would still get paid the same amount of money. I asked what the increase was going to be and I was told each position would be 50 cents an hour. Finally, a straight answer.
A week later, I was told that I was being promoted to the Cash Office. HOORAY! I would be starting my training within the next week. I looked forward to not having to work the cash register anymore.
I told Leenz about the promotion. She asked me how much my wage was going to be in the Cash Office. I didn't give an exact figure, but I told her that I would have been making the same amount if I'd become a CSM. I think she was kind of disappointed in her experience as a CSM and wished she had held out for the Cash Office. (As it turns out, Leenz later went to the Philippines for a month. When she came back, she stepped down as CSM and worked in the Jewelry department.)
But I found out that working in the Cash Office resulted in a whole host of other problems I had never considered.
I'll get into that in Monday's post.
Tuesday, November 3, 2026
Walmart - The Layaway and Return Desks
In my last post, I described a few more things I didn't like about working at Walmart. Here are a couple more to list, but they deserve their own post.
I got to the point that I actualy enjoyed working as a cashier. I was kept busy all day and didn't have as many problems moving the customers and ensuring I could do as much as possible without the involvement of the CSMs. I noticed other cashiers had issues with resolutions on their own and their lines were constantly getting backed up. This resulted in me generally exceeding my performance goals on a daily basis.
I enjoyed regular cashiering so much that it really bugged me to be sent to work the outlying registers, like the Layaway or the Return Desks.
Layaway wasn't really an issue when it came to ringing up the items the customers wanted to pay for later. I would enter in the customer's personal information, enter in the merchandise and create labels so we could identify them. They would then be taken to the storage area and catalogued so we could locate them later. It was also fine when customers just wanted to make a payment without retrieving their merchandise.
Between January and October, this wasn't too much of a hassle, as long as the storage location was properly entered in, along with the number of boxes the items were stored in. If all the information was accurate, it was easy to locate the customer's merchandise and bring it out when they were ready to pay the total amount and receive it. We would have a few hiccups from time to time, but I never had an incident in which we could not locate the merchandise.
However, for November and December, a LOT of customers were putting items into Layaway for Christmas. It exceeded our storage capacity in the back and we had to put the items in storage trailers outside. This was when we would encounter all kinds of problems with the documentation and storage of merchandise.
I was told that I was supposed to take the customer's final payment and then go look for their stuff. I had a few incidents in which I couldn't immediately find everything outside in the trailers. Sometimes, there would be a box that was put in a separate location or the item was moved since it was first put away to make room for larger items without changing the documentation. After this happened a few times, I waited until I came back to the desk with the item before I took the customer's payment.
One time, I went out to the trailer because there were supposed to be two boxes. I found one, but not the other. Another cashier came out and scolded me because I hadn't taken the payment. I told her I wanted to make sure I had the items because of the history of documentation not being accurate. I looked in the one box and found all the items on the ticket were in that one box, not two boxes. I showed this as exactly why I wouldn't take the final payment first.
I was working Layaway close to Christmastime when I wound up working more than six hours without a lunch break. The Assistant Manager wouldn't let me take my lunch. It didn't matter that there were about 20 customers waiting in Layaway, I started screaming at him that I needed to take my lunch. He still wouldn't let me go. (He was one of those First in Line twerps who had no awareness of California labor laws.)
But I didn't have to work Layaway that often. It was mostly unbearable before Christmas. I was surprised at how much I had to work the Return Desk.
People had to come see us if they wanted to return or exchange an item. If the customer had a receipt, it wasn't a problem most of the time. However, if you work the Return Desk on a regular basis, it starts to feel like everything you rang up at the front end was coming back to the Return Desk. It honestly felt like we weren't really making any money.
Not to mention that the Return Desks at the two Walmart locations I worked were consistently busy. There was ALWAYS a line! We had one cashier who transferred to San Diego from a store in Texas. She was flabbergasted that the staff just could not catch a break, even with four cashiers working the desk at once. She said that at her old store, there would be a few busy times, but they frequently had downtime to take care of all the go-backs and claims.
Once, I was asked to give a cashier at the Return Desk a break. I thought I was just going to be there 15 minutes. When she came back, I got ready to go. However, another cashier said I needed to stay so that ALL the Return cashiers could take their breaks. I got mad because the CSM did not indicate I was going to have to stay that long. So, I had to keep working the Returns for more than an hour until the other three had taken their breaks. (That's right. They didn't adhere to the 15 minute break they were supposed to take.) I got ready to go and the first cashier I had been sent to relieve said,"Oh, no! You can't go yet! It's time for my lunch!" I took my till and walked away. (Ugh! It was time for MY break!)
When a cashier works the Return Desk, they system won't account for your performance stats for that day, even if you just work Returns for 15 minutes. This could create a problem when it came to the annual performance review. I had one month in which I had no stats whatsoever because I had been sent to work in Returns at some point during every single shift.
And I'm not even going to get into the stories in which people tried to rip us off by returning items in exchange for cash or gift cards. I may revisit that topic sometime in the future.
I preferred the structured mayhem of the front end checkstands.
I got to the point that I actualy enjoyed working as a cashier. I was kept busy all day and didn't have as many problems moving the customers and ensuring I could do as much as possible without the involvement of the CSMs. I noticed other cashiers had issues with resolutions on their own and their lines were constantly getting backed up. This resulted in me generally exceeding my performance goals on a daily basis.
I enjoyed regular cashiering so much that it really bugged me to be sent to work the outlying registers, like the Layaway or the Return Desks.
Layaway wasn't really an issue when it came to ringing up the items the customers wanted to pay for later. I would enter in the customer's personal information, enter in the merchandise and create labels so we could identify them. They would then be taken to the storage area and catalogued so we could locate them later. It was also fine when customers just wanted to make a payment without retrieving their merchandise.
Between January and October, this wasn't too much of a hassle, as long as the storage location was properly entered in, along with the number of boxes the items were stored in. If all the information was accurate, it was easy to locate the customer's merchandise and bring it out when they were ready to pay the total amount and receive it. We would have a few hiccups from time to time, but I never had an incident in which we could not locate the merchandise.
However, for November and December, a LOT of customers were putting items into Layaway for Christmas. It exceeded our storage capacity in the back and we had to put the items in storage trailers outside. This was when we would encounter all kinds of problems with the documentation and storage of merchandise.
I was told that I was supposed to take the customer's final payment and then go look for their stuff. I had a few incidents in which I couldn't immediately find everything outside in the trailers. Sometimes, there would be a box that was put in a separate location or the item was moved since it was first put away to make room for larger items without changing the documentation. After this happened a few times, I waited until I came back to the desk with the item before I took the customer's payment.
One time, I went out to the trailer because there were supposed to be two boxes. I found one, but not the other. Another cashier came out and scolded me because I hadn't taken the payment. I told her I wanted to make sure I had the items because of the history of documentation not being accurate. I looked in the one box and found all the items on the ticket were in that one box, not two boxes. I showed this as exactly why I wouldn't take the final payment first.
I was working Layaway close to Christmastime when I wound up working more than six hours without a lunch break. The Assistant Manager wouldn't let me take my lunch. It didn't matter that there were about 20 customers waiting in Layaway, I started screaming at him that I needed to take my lunch. He still wouldn't let me go. (He was one of those First in Line twerps who had no awareness of California labor laws.)
But I didn't have to work Layaway that often. It was mostly unbearable before Christmas. I was surprised at how much I had to work the Return Desk.
People had to come see us if they wanted to return or exchange an item. If the customer had a receipt, it wasn't a problem most of the time. However, if you work the Return Desk on a regular basis, it starts to feel like everything you rang up at the front end was coming back to the Return Desk. It honestly felt like we weren't really making any money.
Not to mention that the Return Desks at the two Walmart locations I worked were consistently busy. There was ALWAYS a line! We had one cashier who transferred to San Diego from a store in Texas. She was flabbergasted that the staff just could not catch a break, even with four cashiers working the desk at once. She said that at her old store, there would be a few busy times, but they frequently had downtime to take care of all the go-backs and claims.
Once, I was asked to give a cashier at the Return Desk a break. I thought I was just going to be there 15 minutes. When she came back, I got ready to go. However, another cashier said I needed to stay so that ALL the Return cashiers could take their breaks. I got mad because the CSM did not indicate I was going to have to stay that long. So, I had to keep working the Returns for more than an hour until the other three had taken their breaks. (That's right. They didn't adhere to the 15 minute break they were supposed to take.) I got ready to go and the first cashier I had been sent to relieve said,"Oh, no! You can't go yet! It's time for my lunch!" I took my till and walked away. (Ugh! It was time for MY break!)
When a cashier works the Return Desk, they system won't account for your performance stats for that day, even if you just work Returns for 15 minutes. This could create a problem when it came to the annual performance review. I had one month in which I had no stats whatsoever because I had been sent to work in Returns at some point during every single shift.
And I'm not even going to get into the stories in which people tried to rip us off by returning items in exchange for cash or gift cards. I may revisit that topic sometime in the future.
I preferred the structured mayhem of the front end checkstands.
A few more things I didn't like about Walmart
I had previously posted a list of things that made working at Walmart a little less desirable compared to other jobs I'd had in the past. Here are a few more things to gripe about.
1. The bonus program
Every Walmart store had a profit sharing program. All the employees would get a year bonus based on the profits generated by the store. At the stores I worked at, it was generally about $600. But there were things that could affect the bonus, like if there were injuries to customers or staff. Those would reduce the amount significantly. This wasn't necessarily the problem. (We have to work hard to ensure a safe shopping and working experience.) The issue I had was the timing. Those bonuses would generally come out in March. In order to qualify for the bonus, you had to have been working for about the full year before. If you were hired for the holiday season, you wouldn't qualify for the bonus until the next year. However, if it was too early for you to get the bonus, you still benefited because they brought in a catered lunch for everyone the day the bonus checks were distributed. BUT, if you were hired between the end of January and March, you wouldn't qualify for TWO YEARS! So, this means that if they hired you in February, you had to watch everyone else get bonuses that first year. When the next March rolled around, you STILL didn't get a bonus. That free meal was not going to suffice. I don't know why the store didn't just put a freeze on hiring between the beginning of February and the time the bonuses were distributed. I had to field a call from an employee who had to watch everyone else wave their checks around two years in a row without getting anything. If they couldn't freeze hiring, they should have been able to at least give those employees left out some gift cards or something.
2. Revolving Assistant Managers
It was very common for Assistant Managers to be put in charge of different departments and eventually move around from store to store. I mentioned how we would frequently get Assistant Managers from other parts of the country to straighten up our stores' operations, which was really having to clean up the messes left by the previous Assistants. The really irritating thing about this is that we got very little heads up when an Assistant was going to be moving to another store. An announcement would be made during the daily store meetings (which cashiers were generally left out of). That announcement would come on the last day that Assistant Manager would be working at the store. This means that if you had some unfinished business with an Assistant Manager, it needed to be addressed that day. This would be difficult because the Assistant would typically have a lot of details to attend to before leaving for the next store. And if you happened to have the day off or were unable to attend that meeting, that meant you didn't find out about the departure until it was too late and you would have to start all over with your new Assistant Manager, who may be someone coming from a different part of the store, or a different part of the country. Why couldn't they give us more advance notice of these changes? What's even worse is that the Assistant Managers must know WEEKS in advance regarding their transfers and they should be sharing this with their Department Managers to avoid these hassles.
3. The Garden Center
Most Walmart stores have check out stations at their Garden Centers. This is supposed to make things easier for people buying plants and bags of soil and seeds to be able to buy their merchandise and quickly go out of the store. However, a large number of customers decide to use the Garden Center as an express check out (because the lines are typically shorter) without buying anything related to gardening. It's not a problem when we're not busy, but you'd think that if customers approached the check stand and see there's a line all the way to the back wall of the Garden Center for the two cashiers who are currently working, they would change their mind and go through the main check out. Once, I was working the Garden Center and needed a CSM to do an override and we couldn't make any progress for a full half hour because we could not get anyone to come all the way to the Garden Center.
4. Some of the Assistant Managers didn't seem to know the rules
When working as a cashier, we were told to not leave the check stand under almost any circumstances. If I needed to quickly assist a customer with something that didn't take me too far away, I would get yelled at for leaving the check stand. Sometimes, I would get an Assistant Manager who needed assistance with customers (because they didn't know how to resolve the issue themselves) and ask me to leave the check stand for an undetermined amount of time to attend to them. If I told the Assistant Manager I wasn't allowed to leave the check stand, they would yell at me for not doing what they asked. Yeah, you just couldn't win.
5. Sometimes, Assistant Managers could be helpful, but most of the time, they weren't
When I worked as a cashier in San Diego, it was not uncommon for an Assistant Manager to come to your station if you turned on the flashing light for assistance. If you needed an override, they had a 52 key and could resolve the issue. (They couldn't help with change.) However, I remember at the San Jose store, I saw a couple of Assistant Managers standing and chatting at the front end while all the cashier stations were going off like Christmas lights. And they just continued to stand there and chat while the CSMs were running around trying to take care of everybody.
As you will find out later, there was some other garbage that took place during my employment with Walmart that caused me to kind of burn my bridges with them. Those will be discussed later on in the blog.
1. The bonus program
Every Walmart store had a profit sharing program. All the employees would get a year bonus based on the profits generated by the store. At the stores I worked at, it was generally about $600. But there were things that could affect the bonus, like if there were injuries to customers or staff. Those would reduce the amount significantly. This wasn't necessarily the problem. (We have to work hard to ensure a safe shopping and working experience.) The issue I had was the timing. Those bonuses would generally come out in March. In order to qualify for the bonus, you had to have been working for about the full year before. If you were hired for the holiday season, you wouldn't qualify for the bonus until the next year. However, if it was too early for you to get the bonus, you still benefited because they brought in a catered lunch for everyone the day the bonus checks were distributed. BUT, if you were hired between the end of January and March, you wouldn't qualify for TWO YEARS! So, this means that if they hired you in February, you had to watch everyone else get bonuses that first year. When the next March rolled around, you STILL didn't get a bonus. That free meal was not going to suffice. I don't know why the store didn't just put a freeze on hiring between the beginning of February and the time the bonuses were distributed. I had to field a call from an employee who had to watch everyone else wave their checks around two years in a row without getting anything. If they couldn't freeze hiring, they should have been able to at least give those employees left out some gift cards or something.
2. Revolving Assistant Managers
It was very common for Assistant Managers to be put in charge of different departments and eventually move around from store to store. I mentioned how we would frequently get Assistant Managers from other parts of the country to straighten up our stores' operations, which was really having to clean up the messes left by the previous Assistants. The really irritating thing about this is that we got very little heads up when an Assistant was going to be moving to another store. An announcement would be made during the daily store meetings (which cashiers were generally left out of). That announcement would come on the last day that Assistant Manager would be working at the store. This means that if you had some unfinished business with an Assistant Manager, it needed to be addressed that day. This would be difficult because the Assistant would typically have a lot of details to attend to before leaving for the next store. And if you happened to have the day off or were unable to attend that meeting, that meant you didn't find out about the departure until it was too late and you would have to start all over with your new Assistant Manager, who may be someone coming from a different part of the store, or a different part of the country. Why couldn't they give us more advance notice of these changes? What's even worse is that the Assistant Managers must know WEEKS in advance regarding their transfers and they should be sharing this with their Department Managers to avoid these hassles.
3. The Garden Center
Most Walmart stores have check out stations at their Garden Centers. This is supposed to make things easier for people buying plants and bags of soil and seeds to be able to buy their merchandise and quickly go out of the store. However, a large number of customers decide to use the Garden Center as an express check out (because the lines are typically shorter) without buying anything related to gardening. It's not a problem when we're not busy, but you'd think that if customers approached the check stand and see there's a line all the way to the back wall of the Garden Center for the two cashiers who are currently working, they would change their mind and go through the main check out. Once, I was working the Garden Center and needed a CSM to do an override and we couldn't make any progress for a full half hour because we could not get anyone to come all the way to the Garden Center.
4. Some of the Assistant Managers didn't seem to know the rules
When working as a cashier, we were told to not leave the check stand under almost any circumstances. If I needed to quickly assist a customer with something that didn't take me too far away, I would get yelled at for leaving the check stand. Sometimes, I would get an Assistant Manager who needed assistance with customers (because they didn't know how to resolve the issue themselves) and ask me to leave the check stand for an undetermined amount of time to attend to them. If I told the Assistant Manager I wasn't allowed to leave the check stand, they would yell at me for not doing what they asked. Yeah, you just couldn't win.
5. Sometimes, Assistant Managers could be helpful, but most of the time, they weren't
When I worked as a cashier in San Diego, it was not uncommon for an Assistant Manager to come to your station if you turned on the flashing light for assistance. If you needed an override, they had a 52 key and could resolve the issue. (They couldn't help with change.) However, I remember at the San Jose store, I saw a couple of Assistant Managers standing and chatting at the front end while all the cashier stations were going off like Christmas lights. And they just continued to stand there and chat while the CSMs were running around trying to take care of everybody.
As you will find out later, there was some other garbage that took place during my employment with Walmart that caused me to kind of burn my bridges with them. Those will be discussed later on in the blog.
Monday, November 2, 2026
Back to the Blog
You may have noticed that this blog hasn't been very active during the past few years. I mostly just posted stuff around Christmas, just so I had at least one blog post a year. (Last year, I had three because of a personal situation arose and I wanted to document it right away. I had planned on doing more of those, but they just didn't happen.)
Essentially, what happened was that I was very bogged down with my work responsibilities and could not find time to concentrate on blogging on a regular basis. I was able to write a few articles, but I couldn't find time to produce a large number of them so that I could get ahead of the daily posting.
So, something has changed recently that will now allow me to produce a bank of articles so I shouldn't have gaps going into the future. I have retired from my most recent job. I am experiencing some major health issues (of which I will go into detail later on). These started to affect my ability to do my job at the level I expected to keep up with. I was also fed up with things I was required to do at work and had no heart to keep doing the same thing every day until I die. I had enough money in my retirement fund to support me the next few years, and hopefully, the removal of that stress will be better for me in the long run.
I will be picking up where I last left off on the regular blog posts, at the beginning of my relationship with Myz and my employment with Walmart.
I'm probably going to focus on my life's main story line and not delve so much into side quests, as I had in the past. This blog's style is probably going to be significantly different in the upcoming months.
I hope you enjoy it as much as you did before.
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