Merry Christmas to Me

I returned to work yesterday after Christmas to find a Christmas present from my managers in my mailbox. I sure got spoiled this year, they must really have blown the budget for the staff.

Our First Christmas Tree

It took a while, but here is a picture of our first Christmas tree . . .

From now on, it won't be taking quite so long to get pictures up on this site, thanks to the cool new digital camera we got for Christmas from Mike's parents!! Yay!! Quite exciting, to be sure.

It's Been a While

It's been a little while since I've last blogged . . . perhaps not as long a drought as some other bloggers, but for a newbie like me, it seems like a long time. I've been so busy with work lately, it's been quite crazy. At the end of last week, the Staples computer system went down across North America, the result of which was that a whole lot of product piled up in the warehouse over a period of a day and a half, without being received. When the system came back up again Friday afternoon two hours before I was supposed to be done work I wasn't terribly impressed, and this week will be busier than normal because of the back-log. I am SO happy that I have Thursday and Friday off, you have no idea.
On Saturday, Mike and I went out and picked out our very first Christmas tree. It is interesting trying to combine two different ideas of Christmas traditions. I've grown up looking forward to the last day of school, because Dad and Mom would pick us up from school at noon and we would go, all bundled up in our snowsuits and boots, trudging out to the Christmas tree farm (usually Klaas' out by Rockton). There we would spend a good hour or two at least running from tree to snow-covered tree, trying to pick the very best one and then trying to convince the rest of the family that that tree was indeed the very best one. Then Dad would saw it down with the old red bowsaw and we would "help" him to drag it back to the van and tie it onto the roof with copious amounts of rope. Once the tree was set up in the living room with the lights and the decorations, it always smelled so good. Christmas tree scent is, to me, a very important part of feeling Christmas-y.
For Mike, the Christmas tree tradition was a little different . . . I imagine Mom or Dad would announce that it was time for the tree to be set up, and then all the kids would race downstairs and unpack whatever cupboard the tree happened to be stored in. All the parts and boxes would be dragged up the stairs and the tree would be assembled in the living room and then decorated with the familiar lights and decorations, and topped with a lighted angel. No needles to clean up, and no snowy footprints down the hall.
I just can't swallow the idea of having an artificial tree.
We went half-way (well maybe more my way) and chose a live tree from Home Depot. Perhaps a little bit cheating on the tradition side, but I can forget about that and just enjoy the cheery smell of pine tree and the cozy-ness of Christmas lights glowing in our little apartment. I took some pictures with Lauren's digital camera, but they will be a little while in coming as I have to download them from her.
Anyways.
Something somewhat gross and embarassing: I was cleaning out the fridge the other day and I found a small and quite forgotten container in the back corner. Perhaps it would be sad for some people to discard something which has been around for more than half of your marriage, but in this case, I wasn't too upset to throw away the kidney beans and their container, which had been hiding out since August 17, at least according to the label. Four month old kidney beans smell really, really disgusting, in case you were ever wondering . . .
Don't worry, our house is usually fairly clean . . .

What a Tragedy

I have to apologize for making yet another blog about my work. I certainly don't want to write exclusively about my life from 7:30 - 4:00 (or 5:30, or 6:30, or whatever it may be) as I am sure no one is really all that interested, and besides, there is more to life than work. However, I have a tragedy to report. Perhaps it's not really a qualifiable tragedy to the majority of people in the world, and I suppose it isn't even a true tragedy for me, even though I am going to proceed with calling it so. Every day, I receive and open boxes with product. Sometimes, these boxes are very full. Sometimes, they are half empty, and sometimes, it is just one large box with, say, a pencil in the bottom or something silly like that. The tragedy I am alluding to involves the half-empty and almost-empty boxes. To make sure these products do not get thrown around or broken in transit, all empty space is stuffed with stuffing paper or, more to the issue, large, large bubble wrap. This bubble wrap is so big that when you jump on it to pop it, it sounds like someone is having a heyday with a gun in the receiving dock. Just imagine how much fun that would be! Unfortunately, instead of jumping on all the bubble wrap that I come into contact with during the day, I rip it out of the box, slash it with my knife, and throw it away, all in one fell swoop. All this in an effort to be efficient! Thankfully, when I come home, I have so much bubble wrap left over from the attack on my car several weeks ago that I can pop bubbles to my heart's content.
I heard something today which was of note. One of the women I work with has been sick for a few weeks, and although we thought it was the flu or perhaps something slightly more serious, it wasn't the flu. She was diagnosed with cancer, and it doesn't look good. She was at the hospital yesterday, receiving a blood transfusion, and, hockey fan that she is, she was wearing her good old Edmonton Oilers jersey. And who did she figure out was beside her in the room, also receiving a blood transfusion? It was Wayne Gretzky's mother! Imagine that! But it gets better. Who came to visit Wayne Gretzky's mother while she was having a blood transfusion? None other than but Wayne Gretzky himself!! He talked to this lady I know for a while. I'm sure that picked up her spirits a little!!

The Receiver

Starting officially today, my territory at Staples has been decreased to less than 5% of what I previously was entitled to. Rather than wandering the store looking for customers to please, I will now be busy in the back, receiving boxes and boxes and boxes of products all day long. Scan, beep, cut, rip, grab, scan, close, move on. It's quite the juggling game and I'd have to say I'm quite tired now, even though I did manage to get home at 6:00.
Despite being quite anxious and concerned over how today was going to go, I'd have to say that I did alright. I didn't finish all the work I had to do, but my manager told me to go home, so I did. I would have gotten more done this morning, if I hadn't arrived at work to find about 30 large garbage bags, boxes full of garbage, and random loose garbage and empty boxes strewn throughout my work area. This was not a pleasant discovery. Neither was the discovery that the "baler", the machine which crushes down space-consuming boxes into non-space-consuming scrunched up bales of cardboard, was on the blitz. Also not pleasant was the discovery that the lights in the receiving area were not on and as much as my manager, Gord, tried to convince me that this was a "romantic atmosphere" in which to enjoy my first day of receiving, I didn't enjoy not being able to see. Thankfully, today was also the first day (actually I think it was yesterday but whatever), that our new general manager, Carm(en) was working. Gord assured Carm that an electrician had already been called to remedy the no-lights situation, but superhero Carm turned on the light switch and the lights were magically working again.
Although my new responsibilities do require me to spend my days in the back room away from people (well, non-truck-driver people), I do venture into the store once or twice during the day to bring away high-ticket items to be locked up. On one of those trips today, I noticed that the freaky phone (see an earlier post) has been taken out of commission. No longer will people walk by and have the phone talk to them - perhaps it didn't bother anyone but me, but I am personally quite relieved that the phone is leaving.