I thought that since it's been a week since I started my new summer job, I would fill you all in on how things are going. In all honesty, I'm really enjoying myself, besides the part about having to get up so early in the morning, and I think that I'm going to have a fun and stress-free summer working at the store. I've worked four times since I started last Friday, and each day has presented its own unique little mini-challenges...but they're the kind where it's something you learn how to deal with once and then you never have to worry about it again. Each of these little challenges has made me laugh after the fact, because never have I stressed about something so ridiculous as to how to get a pallet of salad in a bag off of the things for my department left in the cooler. Goofy goofy stuff! Today was actually a pretty exciting day because I got to get some feedback from my boss, who had been off on the two days in between my first day at the store and today. I found out that he was really happy with what I had done on my first two days alone, and he thought that I was ready to start learning how to do the ordering for the department. I thought that was pretty good progress for only a week a new job. I've always said that one of my best qualities is that you only have to show me how to do something once and I'll be able to do it just fine the next time. Once again I was really very impressed with the high-tech nature of the store systems, particularly when I learned that the ordering system for the entire store worked based off of individual ordering guns that each department has. The system informs you when you can begin ordering and then tells you every half hour that you have to complete the order until the time is up. The program also keeps track of what you order and when so that it can tell you what your best sellers and worst sellers are in any given department during any week or month. Since we are able to order for delivery on five particular days of the week, I knew that I was going to have to figure out these big sellers or slow sellers, as well as what was going to be coming up or going off of sale in a particular week so that I make sure I have enough of what I need in stock. Another thing that I'm in charge of worrying about is keeping the invoicing in check for the department. I have to keep up with what we get or don't get, as well as the total cost of merchandise that we get in...and how many things we end up having to throw out due to spoilage or expiration. It doesn't sound like it's very complicated, but when you sell about two hundred different products, each of which might have one or more expiration dates that you need to keep track of, it gets to be a complex little daily project to manage. It's the perfect job for me though, as I've learned, because it allows me to be just a little bit anal retentive and also exercise the perfectionist in me. It kind of reminds me of when I worked at the GAP when I was in undergrad...instead I'm just merchandising meat rather than clothes. I suppose that by now you all are probably a little bit sick of hearing about my work adventures, since I guess that I started talking about my summer job search over three weeks ago. I guess that I'm just pretty excited about how everything has worked out. I'm glad that I was able to get the job quickly and with very little hassle and that I was able to get started working before the summer began. It's been a great end of the semester, and I think that I would have been almost bored had I not started working early. I'm nearly done with all my work for the semester, with the exception of one paper to finish up this weekend...so then I'm really going to be ready to get to work on a number of different things. In my next few posts, I've found some pretty neat articles about financial things that I'd like to share with you. I guess that's better than sharing my personal financial stuff with you as related to my finding a job as I've been doing on and off over the past little while. I think that that is one of the appeals for me about writing this blog though. I really like being able to talk about anything financial, and I think that it's more real and more genuine for me to be able to talk about stuff that I'm experiencing. I like being able to share my own stories with you and having you get to know me and vice versa. I look forward to keeping you all entertained with my little stories and quips for a long time to come.