First day at a new job

Well, I got the job at Stater Bros. and today was my first day. I am working in the service deli, as I said. Papa gave me a ride to work, where I was to report at 8 a.m., which isn't that bad except that for the last couple months I haven't been waking up till then.

I started out the day receiving my apron, name badge, and cravat (sort of like a tie) from the manager who hired me, Erika. Then I waited for the other person who was going to be trained to show up, after having gone to the bathroom to put my cravat and apron. Once the other person, a guy named Chris (who I think is the 6'7'' guy I met at my orientation), showed up, Erika took us up to a room and told us about safety stuff and some other things and had us sign off on that stuff. Then she took us to our departments. She left me in the service deli and went on with Chris to the bakery, which is located next to the service deli. I was then entrusted to the tutelage of Tami, the service deli manager, for the rest of the day. She gave me a second apron made of plastic to wear, and later while with her I got a visor from Erika.

The day was mainly spent following Tami around to learn stuff. Tami took me on a tour of all the back area. It's pretty cool and sort of like a secret passage. It goes from behind the service deli counter through the area behind the bakery into a big storage area with some freezers and the trash compactor and stuff that empties out onto the other side of the store.

The time went surprisingly fast, mainly cause there were a lot of customers. The oven-roasted turkey was particularly popular, probably cause it's healthy and on sale. I made a few mistakes -- accidentially not selling the roast beef and oven-roasted turkey for the sale price because I pressed the wrong button on the scale, and cutting too much roast beef for a guy who wanted a pound of thickly sliced roast beef. (I cut 1.96 lbs).

They asked me if I wanted to stay later (I think cause some guy called in sick) but after some thought, I said no, since I had developed a headache mid-morning that wasn't going away. So they let me go.

So the first day went ok. I work 7-4 tomorrow. Yeah, that's right -- I have to be at work at SEVEN A.M. Since I plan to walk, that means I have to get up at the crack of dawn basically, since it takes about an hour to walk there.

After getting off work and waiting for some manager so I could get my stuff out of the office (since I didn't have a lock I couldn't put my stuff in a locker in the breakroom) , I sat down somewhere to eat the lunch I'd brought (a sandwich and apple slices) and then headed home.

At least I'll be working a lot of hours tomorrow. 7-4 is 9 hours I think. Do I get overtime for that? No, probably not cause it would be technically 8 hours cause I will most definitely get a lunch break, which is an hour. I will have to figure out what to do with all that time, because I'm used to having half-hour lunch breaks, so I have trained myself to eat lunch in like 20 minutes. If I had the money I would get something from the deli. The chicken looks really good. The chicken includes quarter legs which are huge legs that look like the kind you see people brandishing in paintings of medieval scenes.

The breakroom is kinda nice. You approach it via a flight of stairs from the sales floor, and it's a big wide room with lockers down the hall and a couple big tables pushed together in the center with chairs. There is a microwave, a bulletin board with all the things businesses have to display in the breakroom, like OSHA laws, minimum wage info, and so on, possibly a small fridge (the microwave was sitting on something that I assumed was a fridge) and two very outdated-looking vending machines. I mean, they are like '70's-style. One of the people I met while up there on my break, Meg (who works in the bakery), said they don't get much use since people usually buy stuff for their break out in the store. At least this way I don't have to make sure to attach the receipt to stuff (something they require when you buy something, even a magazine). Plus the soda machine sells cans of soda for 50¢, a real bargain. The other machine is a coffee machine that charges I know not what. It probably doesn't get used much because you can get a cup of coffee at the store for 69¢, and plus there's a Starbucks next door. I don't care about the coffee though. I'm fine with 50¢ soda cans (or 80¢ if I go to the donut store on the other side of the shopping center), and if I want a bottle, they sell them there, and there's also a soda machine over by Big Lots.

I may not have much money for soda though. Mom says once I get my first paycheck I am going on a budget. Hopefully, though, I will have some spending money. With my first check, combined with a $25 check from my grandpa (from Christmas) that I still need to deposit, I am going to get a bus pass for February (it's too late to get one for January), a nice jacket I can wear when walking to or from work, and some other clothes item my mom told me to get that I forget now. I may buy a spare pair of black pants and a spare white shirt for work also.

I found out today I have to go to a class to get my Food Handler's Card. There's one this Sunday, so I was told to go to that. The nice thing about this is that I get Sunday totally off because of it, which will be good after four days straight of work, three of which are full workdays (8 hours). The bad news is that the class is at 8am and lasts three hours, which means I'm going to have to miss church to go to it. I was thinking it was after church, but apparently not. Shoot.

Well that's basically everything. Bye for now.