Thursday 17 November 2011

Raising my cup to Specsavers

For the high level of discomfort I'm in right now, and the pain I was in last night, I'm desperately disappointed by the fact that I don't have a pair of black eyes to show off for my efforts in not watching where I'm going. Without said black eyes, Ben can't joke that he's been beating me about...not that domestic violence is ever funny in reality, but if you could see me and Ben together, you'd understand that even in the purely physical sense Ben is not the one who would be doing the beating in our relationship.

Nope, I am extremely disappointed that I don't have a pair of whopping shiners just to milk this for all the comedy value it's worth, because despite my constant throbbing headache and the fact that I can't even rub the sleep from my eyes without it stinging now, it is actually really very funny.

Yesterday at work was relatively stressful. Not because of the customers, who are often a cause for stress in our business (or...well....any business I guess!) but because of one thing after another piling up. For starters, I'm in the last phase of my probationary/training period, and this involves me learning to open and close the shop up on my own so my manager for the evening was taking me through the end of day procedures, which meant everything took three times longer than it usually would. So that just through everything off anyway.

It didn't help that the day shift had obviously been really ridiculously busy and the place was in a state. I mean, I went to sweep up and do a shop tidy and some dirty old beggar had trodden mini ritz crackers into the carpet. I was like dude, where's the party and why wasn't I invited? We were behind on our processing and some cash had gone missing in the system (but don't worry, we found it!).

To add worry to it all, we were waiting for a repairman to come and sort some pretty important stuff out and our cleaner has been away (not sure whether AWOL or just on holiday and without a replacement) so we had to take on the cleaning jobs after the shop had closed at 10pm. To add insult to injury we had a problem with the lock for the gate outside (I was momentarily locked out in the shop yard at about quarter past ten...oh yes, a fun filled night for all) and everything that could have gone wrong pretty much did.

When it got to 10:40pm, a time when after a late shift I'm usually ensconced at home eating my tea, we'd done what we could and decided it was time to lock up and leave. My duty manager sorted out the alarms and then unlocked the front door, while I took my phone out of my bag to let Ben know I was on my way. She stood by to let me out so she could lock up behind us and I flew like a demon out of that dastardly shop, eager for home, food and...

At this point there is the almighty sound of my face crashing into a steel shutter, which had been conveniently pulled halfway down to be on level with the bridge of my nose/eyes/glasses. The stupid thing? I was the one who'd pulled it down about half an hour beforehand. With the lights in the shop casting on the glass front door and the night outside being so dark, you couldn't tell it had been drawn and I'd completely forgotten about it. Obviously, with phone in hand, I hadn't been looking where I was going and I was power walking my way out of that shop.

The next thing I can remember is me standing out on the street with my hands over my nose laughing hysterically with my duty manager but also crying bucket loads of tears because oddly enough ramming your face into the bottom edge of a steel shutter really really hurts (If you don't believe me, you should try it some time!). I could well have knocked myself out but what I'm really chuffed about is that my glasses, which also took a fair bit of the force, survived without even a scratch. I would have really been up the creek without a paddle if they'd not survived...and the prospect of the lenses breaking into my eyes really doesn't bear thinking about.

So today I have a swollen nose and some icky brownish bruises under my eyes and purple blotches but sadly no really big brusing by which I can brag about my battle with our shutters (actually that's probably for the best putting all jokes aside, as I can use some cover up for this and get away with it!). But despite my throbbing head and wounded pride I can honestly say I've learned some valuable lessons from this whole experience;

  1. Stress leads to embarrassing and potentially dangerous mistakes
  2. I can survive being hit in the face with steel
  3. I still cry like a baby when I get a boo boo
  4. Watch where you're going
  5. Specsavers glasses can pretty much survive anything!
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1 comment:

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