Huh

Bah, another day at the office; not good. I shouldn't complain, having had the whole week off, but god, I hate that place!
Well, hate's rather strong actually, there are occasions, depending on a wide variety of factors, where I get up and go to work, maintain a pleasant, cheerful and fun loving persona and enjoy the day.
Yes, sad as it is, I often enjoy my job.
Today, however, wasn't one of those occasions, I'm disappointed to say.
I was largely to blame for this. I came in (late courtesy of my father who somehow managed to struggle to get me there for the rather late hour of 11 oclock) in a sour mood, ridden with illness.
People who I normally like, became exceedingly annoying today, and for some reason I became everyone's slave. 'Get me a ruler' 'Go and fetch my paperwork from upstairs' 'Get me some carrier bags' 'Go to the toilet for me'
And the customers were even worse. 'I say 'Just go and get the item you'd like' '
They reply: 'Well can I not just tell you what it is and you go and get it'
Which brings me neatly on today's main topic: laziness.
This is something I cannot understand or justify on any occasion. I hate lazy people and, having spent a day at work, my colleagues highlighted the positive and negative attributes associated with this.
Example: It was five minutes to six, we were short staffed and were about to be crippled further by the departure of most of the staff we DID have. I asked one member of staff who finished at 6 if he would quickly put an item aside for a customer. In front of the customer he shrugs and says: 'I'm finished now'
Having expected this reaction from the blundering oaf, I decided on a small experiment and enlisted the help of a more reliable and hard grafting employee. Now, he also finished at six but he was more than happy, even after probably enduring the most stressful day out of everyone there, to carry out the task. And while he was delayed by a massive four minutes, he didn't show any sign of resentment. Hell, I have had to stay an hour and a half after my designated exit time before.
But here's where it gets unfair. We have a large quantitiy of lazy individuals working with us. No matter how late they are, how ignorant to customers they are, how much they refuse to do tasks given to them, how much they lie to get out of doing a job or trouble, they are kept on and paid the very same. Yet, we have people dashing around like maniacs, offering fantastic service and answering every call. The result? We stop calling the lazy ones and give all the jobs to the people who work, because they are reliable. I certainly felt very guilty and apologised on many occasions to one individual who must've surely thought I was picking on him. the truth was, he was one of two there who I could call upon and know that the job would get done.
Now while I have my fair share of non work related chatter with the people I work in close proximity with and often muck about, I still do my job.
Unlike one individual today who told us not to call any of her staff and only use our own. Which left us with one nutter rushing around doing everything and two checkout operators. The thing that annoys me about certain people in authority is that they can practically phone up, ask you not to give them anything to do and there's sod all you can do about it. Basically, the more power you have, the more right you weild to get out of doing your job.
Personally, my legs are sore and I have a headache with stress. I know two colleagues who, upon leaving work, have felt stressed and sore. And it just annoys me to see those who havent done a bit of work, slowly dawdling to the clocking out machine 10 minutes before their shift ends, pretending to read the notices they have looked at ten million times before on the staff bulletin boards and wandering out without experiencing the strains that come hand in hand with hard graft.
If everyone did their fair share then no one would need to overwork to clear up others' messes and end up stressed and fatigued.
Alas, the world doesn't work that way, and my workplace certainly doesn't.
I have applied for other jobs, no doubt they will be much the same, but I won't need to have such high responsibility. I can just look forward to sitting mindlessly at a till, scanning barcodes and then go home on time, with no stresses lingering with me and no responsibility to plague me at no extra gain.
Until then, I'll just have to make do with what I have got and bear it