19 November 2008

It's a beautiful day et cetera.

Actually, it's colder than the proverbial well-digger's arse in Alaska, but the stars are out.


And so begins Hell Week at the paper. The most horrible day in retail is the day after Thanksgiving. I try to avoid leaving the house on that day, never mind hitting the stores. I would rather do something comparatively fun, like letting rabid squirrels yank out my hangnails.


I worked retail for several years. I have nothing but respect for those who serve the public on the day after Thanksgiving.


It is the lunacy-inspiring sales that cause the hell that is this week at work. As the peons of the company, our department is responsible for putting the birdcage liners, er, advertising inserts, into the newspapers. Our inserting machine has five stations. We average about three inserts per day.


For Thanksgiving, we have nine.


And did I mention the five stations?


We are in the process of putting the inserts together by hand, which sucks mightily. Try it sometime. Get a bunch of random papers and put them in piles. Get a LOT of them. Now go from stack to stack and put them all together. Open up the last advertisment and slip the stack inside. Do it five thousand times. Be sure to spend the entire time standing on a concrete floor. Don't stop for lunch. Notice how your thumbs begin to dangle limply and eventually refuse to function. Behold the way your fingers swell and cramp. See the way your shoulders try to hunch up around your ears.


Now go home and try to knit even one row.


Do you feel my pain?


There is only one antidote for a week of days like this.


5 comments:

Dianne said...

I'm with you on the no-shopping on Black Friday. I worked retail all through college, and I will never, ever, ever venture out on that day. Except of course to go to work. I work in a museum and we're open that day. But shopping? Nope. I don't care how good a sale is, it's not worth it!!!

I now have a new-found respect for all of the advertisements in the paper, though....

Mags said...

Hey~
Your boy is getting sooo big! I can hardly believe it!! I see he's drooling...what about teeth? Don't you just love this age?? He's beautiful....okay I'm gushing!!!!!
I hate shopping. Never mind 'Black Friday"...love the paper 'tho...inserts and all. Sorry!
Happy knitting.

P.S. That yarn (and I don't mean the knitting stuff) on Penny Dreadful reads like you...so is it????

Mags said...

Hey~
Me again...had another peek at the boy.....maybe he isn't drooling just biting his bottom lip!!!!
Where did he get his beautiful big, blue eyes????
Happy knitting.

Anonymous said...

Cute kid! Wonder if he'd like to hang out with an older woman? Veronica is a cougar. Hardy har har.

Anonymous said...

Here, it is hot, hot, hot and wet, wet, wet. Would you like some of our sub tropical weather?