Juggling Isn’t Just For Clowns

As a CreCommer, you would know that we have speakers at seminars every week. Every week it seems like there are a few reoccurring themes. One is being able to juggle. Being able to juggle a schedule, people, along with all other aspects of your life – it really is a talent of its own.

Not everyone knows how to juggle or manage their time, and it’s obvious when it comes to working with other people, handing projects in or even for meeting a friend somewhere to hang out. If you don’t have this skill, you’ll not only suffer in school, but in work as well. It’ll also effect your reliability, and how others perceive you, and perhaps even your credibility.

This is something that is so important to learn how to do, yet we’re never directly taught it, or made aware of it. You may learn you need to do your homework now so you won’t hand things in late or have mountains of catching up to do in your school work but we aren’t being told this is time management when we chose or chose not to do our homework and go to our friend’s house instead.

You could also even go as far to say that anything we do in a day we’re learning or unlearning how to discipline ourselves and use time management and the art of learning to juggle different things going on in our busy and very chaotic lives.

It’s something that I don’t think has enough emphasis because once we do get out into the real world, we won’t just be busy anymore – we’ll become full-time jugglers, much like the speakers we see every week. Are we prepared for this? Maybe, some of may be already, and some might be by the time we finish CreComm. Maybe we won’t want to be when we realize that we’ll continue being this busy or even busier when the time comes. Going into this, we somewhat expected it. To what extent, I don’t know. My point being though that whether we have the skill now or not doesn’t matter because if we don’t, soon or later we will need it, and desperately. It’s vital.

How To Procrastinate Like A Pro

You realize you might be a good procrastinator now, but you could be even better. I, friends, will show you the way.

First off, don’t read the assignment sheet. If anything, take a glance, or quick skim, but don’t absorb any information. That way when you go to write your assignment in the few remaining wee hours of the morning, you’ll feel especially stressed and panicked, and really, it’s the only way you’ll know you’ll get it done.

Secondly only take mental notes, so you can stay extra unprepared. This is good. Then you have an excuse to text all your classmates at terrible times of the night, trying to figure out what is going on. If they didn’t like you before, I’m sure they’ll love you after this!

Third, don’t write any reminders about when the due date is, you don’t want to know, it’ll only ruin your week and all those fun plans you had.

Should you bother getting any work or notes prepared ahead of time like the keener you aren’t? No, this only adds to the stress and fun later when panicked. Also, now you don’t need to worry about losing those notes or making time to make them in the first place. You’re welcome.

Now all you need to do is stay occupied until the night before the assignment is due. This can virtually include anything and everything. Yes, anything. Want to go snowboarding? Do it. Feel like having an eating contest and making yourself sick? You’ve got time! Have you been meaning to getting around to having a t.v. marathon? Now is the PERFECT opportunity for it. Especially the day before the night the assignment is due, so you’ll tired and have to power through the sleep deprivation. This is an excellent reason for you to also take up the habit of drinking coffee. Or Energy drinks. Or coffee flavoured energy drinks. In this step, anything goes. You can do anything, be lazy or have a social life. The skies’ the limit!

Now, the weekend before it’s due, your classmates are starting to worry! But not you! 😉 You’re calm and under control, you’ve got all weekend and frankly, didn’t remember at all until now. Keep on keeping on.

As the weekend goes on, find other things to do to put your assignment off. Read you library book – It’s due in two weeks! Watch that movie on t.v., you’ve only seen it like 8.79 times but you still don’t know all the lines by heart! Get down to business, common!

It is now Sunday, and you’ve managed to get through the day, slacking off while the stress rises, knots build in your chest and the panic is making it hard for you to focus on anything and is making it harder and harder for you to breathe.  Now you know it’s time to get started. After supper though of course, you can’t work on an empty stomach!

Also, wait until after your favourite Sunday night soap because you still haven’t gotten around to obtaining the privileges of the PVR yet. It could make procrastinating harder if everything is pre-recorded for you to watch later when you actually have nothing going on in your life.

Now you’re ready to write! It’s definitely after 9 pm and your eyes are getting droopy. You’ve already done your typical Facebook and Twitter scans for the evening, but another five or six times couldn’t hurt though right?

While opening your blank Word document, it may occur to you that you don’t know what to write about. It’s time to go back and actually read the assignment. Actually see what your teacher has been talking about for the past 3 weeks. This is when you realize you need more information, and back to Facebook and Twitter you go, messaging everyone, because you don’t know who is still awake at this hour!

Finally some heaven-sent person has responded to you and now you’re back in business, time to start researching. Time to get distracted by Google, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, StumbleUpon, Facebook again, research a little more, go see if anyone is tweeting you, text that ‘special someone’ and check the time.

Oh no! You have to write pages about how thoroughly you know this topic and you know close to nothing and now it is nearly 12 am. It’s time to begin staring at the page, hoping your assignment will write itself. It won’t, but how will you know if you don’t try?

Since you have discovered no matter how hard you try, staring does nothing but dry out your eyes, it’s now time to take a quick 2-hour nap because you are exhausted or get down to business.

Assuming you get down to business, or get to it after napping, now it’s about 2 am at least and it’s time to get writing! You finally have enough motivation to work! You’re welcome, I know. Now you write anywhere from 20 minutes to the next 3 hours and just pump out the gold. After you’ve finished your definite masterpiece, it’s time to print.

Please note this is what your printer lives for. It is THE opportune time to jam, run out of ink, paper or just try to explode. But usually the printer will realize that this is a bad time for printing dramas and therefore will *usually* cooperate.

OH BOY-O! You sir or madame have just printed your assignment! Apart from getting up in the morning and handing it in you are now done. Give yourself a pat on the back, and get some rest while you still can! Be prepared for the long crappy day ahead since the chances of you running late, the dog eating your homework, forgetting your lunch, and falling asleep in class are way likely. As long as you remember to put on clothes, eat and maybe brush your teeth, you still can make it through your day relatively unscathed!

Now that you know how to procrastinate like a pro, put your new-found skills to the test and put off using them!

*please note this can also be a guide for everything you should not do. Especially because it shows in your work, and your teacher probably won’t like it as much if you put legitimate time and effort into the assignment*

Things I Don’t Like About Being in Customer Service

Well for those of you who know me, you might know that I work as a cashier currently. For those of you who don’t know me or where I work – I’m a cashier. Haha. Anyways, as you might have noticed, this post is titled “Things I Don’t Like About Being in Customer Service” therefore let’s get onto that  and I’ve made it into a lovely list format just for you!

1. Customers with Bad Attitudes

Yes, while I understand that no one person will be happy all the time, the least you could do is not take it out on your awesome cashier. I obviously realize that you might be having a bad day, that you might be in a rush from your rude and relentless  tapping, but it isn’t going to make our exchange at the counter go by any faster unfortunately. I am probably already going as fast as I can, if not already feeling rushed and pressure from your impatience, not to mention if there’s a growing line-up, I am probably just doing the best that I can. So please, calm down, it’ll all be over soon…

2.People Who Throw/Hand You Very Tiny Folded-Up Dollar Bills

Honestly, that’s so annoying on so many different levels. For starters, it would be nice if you could at least unfold it for me, but no, people never usually do. It takes times to unfold and shove into my til, and the more time I have to waste on doing something as small as that, the longer everyone in the line-up has to wait. You know who to thank for that now. If by some chance you do unfold it (hurrah!) now it’s all bent/crumpled, ya, thanks for that, now it won’t stay flat in my til. I don’t exactly have any bricks or encyclopedias lying around for that kind of thing, thanks. But even if I did, I highly doubt it’ll ever resemble flatness or some sort of smooth piece of paper again.

3. People Who Get Mad Because We Can’t Find Something

Sorry, but it’s not our fault. If you come into the store looking for something and you need help, by all means ask, we’ll help you the best we can. If we can’t find it because we don’t know where it is or it happens to be out of stock or we just don’t carry it, well we can’t do anything about that. We try our best to know what we do have, but we carry a lot of items in the store, so we probably won’t know where exactly they ALL are, nor if we carry that particular crazy thing you assumed we MIGHT have had. I personally suggest calling ahead as to not waste your time, nor ours, and if the clerk can’t find what you were promised on the phone, please, feel free to hunt down the one who did tell you that or ask to speak with whoever you spoke to on the phone. It’ll just make everything so much easier for everyone.

4. Rushes

It seems like people rarely come to the counter one at a time, unless they happen to be the only ones in the store. Seriously, we stand there a long time, and not to have anything to do is really boring. That’s why getting customers (good or bad) is usually pretty exciting, or if not, at least a relief from doing nothing. What’s awful though is going from doing absolutely nothing, to a rush of over 3 people. It’s not fun, it makes your experience rushed and gives me anxiety because I just want to help everyone in some sort of timely matter without making anyone wait too long. So instead of dawdling when you’ve found everything you were looking for, go to the counter while it’s empty!  Instead of joining the long line-up and waiting for me to finally get to you, then maybe hang back a minute or two and look around the store. You might be done shopping but at least you’re giving yourself something to do, and when you’re done the line will probably be much shorter!

5. People Who Sneak Behind the Counter

Whoa, whoa, whoa…What do you think you’re doing?!  I can get in trouble for customers going behind the counter! Not cool! So if you need anything, like lighters, the phone, or anything else, just ask and I’ll help you to the best of my ability, just don’t go running into my space with no warning though. It’s just not allowed. If I invite you behind, to use the phone for example, go for it, you still shouldn’t be there, but at least I know what you’re doing and why you’re there, and that’s okay. Going behind my counter without my permission is not okay because I don’t know what you’re doing, and for all sorts of legal and security reasons you just shouldn’t be there because you’ll probably get me and yourself into trouble.

6. People Who Sneak into the Store, Literally a Minute Before Closing

Come on! We all just want to go home. You’ve literally had from 9 am -9 pm to go shopping, and you want to do it now, when we’re getting ready to leave? I can assure you, no one in the store will be pleased if you do this, especially if you decide to grab more than one item. Seriously, we don’t want to be there all night and you had all the time in the world to do this earlier! Also printing out your entire 200+ photo album of that wedding you just went to last weekend does not need to be printed out within the last half hour of closing. I realized you might be inconvenienced to be coming here so late, but you need to understand, you’re inconveniencing us as well, and need to appreciate the fact that we’re letting you stay in the store 5 extra minutes when you aren’t supposed to be here anymore.

7. Misbehaving Children and Other Inconsiderate People

All in all, I like kids. What I don’t like however, is when they stink-bomb my place of work, linger about when we decide to not get them into trouble and then later on cause further troubles. Very annoying, and very rude. Parents, if that’s your kid, keep better tabs on them because we’re not here to discipline them, you are, and it’s your job to teach them what’s okay and what’s not. Pranks can be fun and harmless, I completely understand, but pranking public businesses in a way that affects a large group of people isn’t acceptable.

8. People Who Think the Store is a Bank

So I’m sure that we all, from time to time, pay for insignificant amounts of money with $20 bills. What’s irritating is when people do it constantly, and with larger bills. Paying for a $2.0 dollar purchase with a $100 is absolutely ridiculous. Sometimes I don’t have enough money in my til to give you back that much change, or it is immensely inconvenient along with taking up most or all or my remaining cash. This is what a bank is for. Not anywhere else, and especially not our store. I understand it’s inconvenient to go to the bank, but sometimes I can’t afford to give you that much cash. Also the least you could do is ask before passing me the $100, if I can give you cash for it. If I accept then I’ll accept the fate I’ve decided for myself to help you, but forcing me to give you all my cash is not cool. It will annoy and possibly piss off your cashier and you just shouldn’t do that.

That’s it for now, I might update this post or make another when more things come up! And remember, be nice to your cashiers! They’re humans with feelings and emotions too!!