Judgement Calls.

Work all of the sudden became interesting starting a week ago, and it managed to progress itself from simple "new learning" to "potential for promotion" within the span of about a week. I'm not sure if that's a new record or not, but it's suddenly given me a spark of pride and respect for the front end, and may be enough to reject any proposition for a transfer by a manager, something I have bugged them about for a while.

It all started a week from Sunday. I was working until 7 with my favourite CSM, Jon, and it had become ridiculously dead. He had sent me zoning for a while, until he called me back up.

"Have you ever done a layaway before?"

"Nope"

"Want to learn how?"

Sure! Why not? It's a change, and it may mean that I can occasionally go off till every once in a while.

So we went back, and while I wasn't ctually able to do it, he showed me the whole steps behind it, and how to do it all. A few days later, I managed to con another CSM to actually walk me through it, and I was then layaway trained. Nothing major, but definitely a happy step for me.

In order for me to ensure that I would be able to do them, I wanted to make sure that all the CSMs knew that I was trained in there. They were all very happy about it, meaning that they wouldn't need to go there as often, as I'm pretty sure they have some kind of aversion to it. Whatever. It means "off front till" time for me.

The last CSM I saw was Sheila, who is an amazingly funny and wonderful person to deal with. I had just walked in for lunch, and decided to tell her that I was now trained, in case there would be any layaways that night that I could do.

"Wow...that's great! I'm sure that'll really help push your case"

What the...? Had they planned on firing me or something? That can't be right - I'm one of their best part time cashiers out there. Surely they wouldn't fire me.

"Oh no, it's about the oppertunity to get you a promotion"

At this point in time, up until about ten seconds from now, a "promotion" to me would be to move onto the floor and work there. In other words, get as far away from the front checkouts as possible.

This was about to drastically change.

"Well, it's isn't official yet, but I'm getting support to have you trained as a part-time CSM"

Hello! Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined that I would be able to get *that* position! Wow....that made the floor seem rather insignificant now.

So, during my lunch, she went on to tell me the whole situation. I apparently have the support of our personnel manager, and of another CSM along with her. The big thing is to have the manager approve and to get me trained. Fair enough. Now, this is still, in my mind, a relatively long shot, but my hopes are high.

Come yesterday, I was closing with Jon. I mentioned that my weekend was interesting, and he immediately realised how. We got into another discussion as well, and he then decided to give them all the reason in the world to see me as a good candidate for the job. He trained me behind the desk, and while I've only done one, I've essentially trained myself. This means I can now do everything up front, and would only need to be trained int he actual tasks of a CSM in order to do it. I'll be sure to keep updating everyone on this as I can, but I am certainly pumped to see what the future holds.

-Patrick