It is going well Padraig. It is still retail, so it's hard work and I'm not used to a long 8 -9 hour shift on my feet with only a 45 minute break. And I had to work 7 days in a row of it to start, and was completely exhausted. Retail is not fun, but I view it as penance and offer it up. But a long shift does mean 40 hours a week which is a blessing. And yesterday I met with HR and went over all my benefits, which I haven't had for 4 years!! everything I took for granted...healthcare, dental, life insurance, disability, sick days, vacation days...wow, I can't believe the great benefits I am getting for just a retail position! and we ended the HR meeting talking about the mentorship program, which will be critical to my career development here. HR will be emailing me info on it, and were excited about me asking about it, since it seems it is a very under-utilized program. I was going to wait until after the holiday shopping peak to ask HR about it, but it came up so I may be moving on it a lot quicker It is interesting my peers at my last retail job were older and professional. Here, they are young and from a tough community and broken families. High school kids most of them, some very determined to get to college...a few others already single mothers at 20 years old. I am such a curiosity to them...older, non-minority, college educated, no children...they can't quite figure me out. And I'm trying to figure out how I can positively influence them while I am there. I hope my stay is short on the retail end of things, but will try to be a positive influence to these kids while I'm here.
