Bringing new meaning to the term I gave my blood, sweat and tears...

I have been meaning to write about this for a few days, but I was reminded again by a conversation I had with my co-worker last night. I am not the only person who has it rough financially, nor am I the only one whose love for their family, drives them to do things that maybe they would rather not... My coworker that works in my department at Wally World aka W.M. loves to tell me stories about her granddaughters whom she loves very much. Every night it is "my granddaughters this and my granddaughters that." I think it is wonderful that she loves her granddaughters so much. She has told me numerous times how if it wasn't for the love that she had for her granddaughters she would be living a different life. You see, she is currently living with her daughter who is about my age, and is supporting her daughter (who is a single parent) and her two granddaughters. Everything she does centers around them and she does not have much time to herself. She does not like working at Wally World, but she has been there for about 5 years and if she were to start over again at another retail store she would be making a few dollars less, and she is barely making ends meet now. I was stunned to find out that she has been literally not just giving her sweat and tears for her family, but her blood as well... We were talking about another co-worker the other night, and she mentioned that she saw her at the blood bank. I lightheartedly asked my coworker what she was doing at the blood bank, and she replied, " I was giving blood to get a little money, so that I could get the girls some pampers and things." I was shocked and I got a little misty-eyed. I think it is horrible that some people struggle and struggle to make ends meet and it is never enough. Rather than just being able to give blood for the benefit of just helping to save someone else's life, some people may have to give blood in order to keep on living their own humble lives. She confides in me often about her hopes and disappointments in her life and her daughter's life. I have met her daughter a couple of times, and I think that her daughter deep down really loves her mother and is disappointed in herself, but I think she is the type of person, that needs an outside support system to help her realize, that is not too late; that she can still do something with her life. Sometimes people get depressed about their life and for a long time they feel pinned down and cannot move. I think that is what her daughter is experiencing right now. Some nights she cries and says to me, " I wish my daughter could be more like you." I try to tell her that I am not much to be glorified because I am not in school right now and I have not been able to achieve my goals yet, and that her daughter GOD-willing, will arrive at a better place someday soon. She says to me, " But you have your priorities in order and you have your head on straight." She tells me I have an old soul...I am not sure if I can grasp that. But I think she understands that if things had worked out the way I thought they would, I would have finished school by now. I want to get better; I want to pay back my parents (whom I am still staying with) for what they have done for me. In some people's eyes it is not enough, but in my eyes, it is all they could give, and money is not the most important thing to supply a child with. My mother went to school on and off for years while taking breaks to raise her kids, and when she finally graduated a few years ago at about age 43 with her two associate degrees, it was the most proudest day of my life. I felt so proud of my mom. Even my brothers were getting teary-eyed, one of my brother's screamed, "mom!" so loud when the MC called her name to get her diplomas. The guy sitting next to us looked at him, and my brother said, "That's my mom right there!" She may not know how much her kids love her and how proud we are of her, but we do, and we are very proud for what she has done, even if it is not much in her eyes. Hopefully one day when I have invited her to read this blog-journal she will understand the respect and love that I have for her even if I don't show it enough. Mum I love you and someday I hope to make you proud and I will attempt to repay your kindness and love you have given over the years. Thank you for enduring me in your womb and giving birth to me. I say thank you and give praise to the Most High for creating you, and thank you to your mother for having you; I LOVE YOU....

Potential not realized

"I write for me, and not for you." If that were true, then why do I care what other poets do? Why do I compare and stare at words that will never be mine? Why do I feel unsastified wth my work time after time? Is it ok to measure my efforts by the acheivements of others, when their work ignites the soul of true poetry lovers? Can I not be more subtle with my words, and not write so bold? Will I ever aquire this skill before it is too late and I too old? Questions that I may never have answers for; then I resolve to ask them no more.

Movement

Aside from going to work at Wally World, I have been making patterns for some of my designs for the past few days. It has been tiresome work, but I hope the end result will be good. I haven't auctioned anything new at Ebay because of that. I hope to be ready to start listing my new things in the next few days. Wally World---The thing that I hate most about retail work is having to put up with rude people. Whoever coined the phrase "the customer is always right" should be put on trial and sentenced to at least 25 years. Some people take this phrase and use it as an excuse to be evil towards other people. The other night I had a lady who tried to report me to the manager because I did not give her a shopping cart. As you may know, Wally World aka Wal-Mart has some stores that are opened 24 hours, so even though we have to stock the store overnight, we still have some sleepwalkers who love to shop at 2am in the morning. This can be a bit of a distraction when you have management on your back to do the impossible and do ten jobs instead of the one you were hired for. Anyway getting back to cart lady; I went to retrieve some carts to load boxes in and bought them back to my department as I was unloading boxes from off my pallet, I hear the sound of a cart moving, I turned around to find a lady attempting to take the freight that I had placed in the cart out of the cart (she was going to put the freight on the floor apparently). I politely said to her, "Mam I am using these carts." She responded snappy, "All of them?" I said, "yes mam." She walked away and a few minutes later my manager comes to me and says, " I had a lady come to me and complain that you took her cart from her." I couldn't believe it, I almost fell on the floor laughing. I thought to myself this lady was so petty and probably more embarrassed that I caught her taking the freight out, that she wanted to try to get me in trouble. I explained to my manager what happened, and he said, " I figured it was probably something like that." He was not upset with me because I have a reputation for being a pretty polite person, so he assumed that more than likely I had not done anything wrong. Furthermore, the cart coral was two steps away from my department and the lady walked past it about 3 times and did not get a cart, she was too busy trying to see if I was going to be reprimanded; I guess she did not want a cart that bad. When I worked at the fabric store I had a really unreasonable customer like that too. She liked to buy fabrics that had lighthouse motifs on it. One day she came in and one of the sales clerks waited on her, the sales clerk came to me later almost in tears and asked me if I could help the lady. I went to the customer (who I had dealt with before in the past) and told her I was the assistant manager and how could I help her. She told me, " Show me your lighthouse fabrics!" I showed her all the stock we had, and she said "so you did not order any new ones?" I said, "no mam, and we probably will not be, due to it being out of season, but if you would like we can possibly special order it for you really need it." She asked me real hastily, " why should I have to special order it?!" Then she threatened me with, " I guess I will just have to send a letter to corporate office then!" I looked at her without flinching, and asked, " Do you need anything else mam? After she answered in the negative, I went back to helping other customers. This lady had threatened my boss with that same statement before to get discounts and to use more than one coupon when it wasn't allowed. My boss gave in a couple of times and even ordered fabrics from special vendors outside of our regular stock without her putting any money down or paying for shipping, only to have the women come back in and buy maybe a half of a yard from a 15yd bolt, and use a 40% off coupon, so we did not really make a profit and we were stuck with bolts of fabric that not many people wanted to buy. My boss stopped accommodating the woman's rants after those couple of times. Don't get me wrong, I would always go out of my way to get things that my customers wanted, even going so far as giving customers things from my own fabric stash)more so than any other person in the store, including my boss, but my customers knew the procedure that we try to get a swatch card for them to view first, but when it came to ordering something that is not a regular selling item, it had to be paid for upfront or when we made an exception, half down and they had to pay for the shipping, because those specialty items did not come on our company truck and would come by UPS. Most normal customers were ok with this, they were just so happy to be able to get that rare item that no other fabric store in the area had or would try to order for them. You have some people who go into a store and think they are GOD or something because they are a customer...well I am customer too whenever I go to spend my money somewhere and I expect to be treated well; not because I believe as the customer I am always right, but because I expect the sales associate to treat me the way they want to be treated; with dignity, kindness and respect...