cimorene

Turns out last week was my last week at work. I had been planning from the beginning to simply renew the work practice for as long again (at past practices that step has always been a mere formality), so I hadn't packed up my stuff to leave or thought about it seriously, in spite of posting here about how maybe I should look for a new placement, because I liked the store and DON'T like getting used to new places... and I also completely failed to remember that I wasn't supposed to work Monday. The first practice period ended and we hadn't signed a contract for a new one yet, so I couldn't anyway - insurance and so on. Showed up at 8:15 as usual and had to wait for the meeting at 11:30.

Ironically, I was still mentally exhausted enough due to working too much to fail to take time to stop and plan things properly, which resulted in setting my alarms the same as always on autopilot Sunday night even though I was also considering, in a separate brain compartment, a desire to be done there.

To wit, it was over a month ago when the 'trying to switch to evening shift' thing happened and I discovered the bus schedule wouldn't line up to make the commute work if I wanted to stay later than like, six pm. In retrospect, that was when I mentally was like "Okay NO" and, if not for emotional attachment and hesitancy making decisions, I might have just quit then and called my couselor to find a new placement right away - I even recorded in that linked journal entry that the evening before I had tried to find a summer job here in town instead (failed though because the summer job application season was past).

The bus schedule problem that we didn't know in advance when setting up the practice and made it impossible to complete it as originally intended (ie learning the closing procedures too).

That was also when the boss was supposed to have a meeting with me about how I was doing and the possibility of increasing hours, but she was out of the store at professional development courses and the assistant manager didn't have time to have a conversation in a manager-like manner, and just sort of hurriedly sprang it on me, "When are you increasing your hours?" - and she hadn't even been briefed that that had been left open for deciding later depending how I was coping, so like the main manager apparently didn't find the time to actually prepare her for the conversation she had to have on her behalf.

IN OTHER WORDS, this conversation beautifully illustrated the deficient management and communication going on throughout the work practice, which my counselor pointed out to me Monday (it surprised me at the time but I've been thinking about what he said for two days and he was SO right). Maybe the manager technically was aware of how it was supposed to go, but was overhwhelmed by other demands on her time stressing her out. If I'm right about that, from her POV the assistant manager would be fine and anything she didn't remember to tell her I could in theory fill in, which was true, but it made for an unexpectedly unprofessional conversation that was disconcerting to both the assistant manager and me. The assistant manager didn't step in to have the one-on-one manager conversation with me that was what was actually required at this point even when I explained that was what had been agreed; she seemed inclined to treat herself more as a messenger than a substitute manager (possibly unanticipated by the true manager, who is more of a naturally take-charge person I guess). To make matters worse, through the entire above conversation - not the conversation we should've been having in the first place - the assistant manager continued to project that clear "I'm in a Hurry So Let's Get This Out of the Way" manner which I so commonly saw on both the bosses at this store. And yeah, she WAS rushed; she probably had a list of things to do longer than she could possibly manage, because that's the permanent situation there. But the fact is, there are parts of being a manager that are non-negotiable and one of them is communicating with your employees. You can make it as quick AS POSSIBLE, but you can't simply tell them you don't have time for it. If they didn't have time for communicating the necessary things to me, they shouldn't have signed the contract with social security agreeing to the work practice in the first place.

But thinking about the fact that they were apparently expecting to increase my hours at that point nearly gave me a nervous breakdown because I was already too exhausted by the schedule I was on... although not as exhausted as I got later. I think it physically and mentally/socially just required a LITTLE more energy than I could handle, so at first I was fine every Monday because I hadn't used up my energy reserves or whatever, but then I started having a harder and harder time getting my energy back on the weekends, until finally I just couldn't completely and Mondays I would have gotten all the sleep I needed and still be physically and emotionally too tired to handle being there at work.

The job is physical to the point that you're on your feet all day, but this isn't unfamiliar to me - you get that in daycares and other stores. I've done a similar level before (more actually) when I was a cashier and bagger at a supermarket, although that's when I was 21 so I probably had a bit more energy to spare. This job was one where there's always new things to do and some of them are urgent, and there's always a huge volume of products going in and out requiring a lot of shelving and organization work in both the store and the warehouse - that was what I liked the most actually, but admittedly it could get tiring sometimes. The other thing that made it physically demanding was simply that the store sells furniture and so the objects to be moved were sometimes kind of... too heavy. Like, if it was literally so heavy that I could not move it, someone else would, or someone would help, but it's way mroe common that it's just so big that I couldn't move it without great effort, or couldn't tell until you tried, etc. Obviously the sorts of stores I've been at before where the products are all smaller than that had a certain advantage. I definitely don't want to work at any place that sells anything that large again, at least not unless it's all moved around with the aid of heavy machinery.

In describing the physical demands of the work, the manager always talks about the fast pace, but I don't mind that exactly (I enjoy it usually - I naturally get excited when I focus on something); I think it's the sense of being in a rush that's the problem. You can do things quickly, but still deliberately at that speed and without the mental and social attitude that you're in a big hurry, that you're stressed, that you don't have time for anything... there's a psychological element. And although there are people who don't seem (always) seem rushed there, I think in large part the harrassed/hurried stance is probably socially contagious. (I definitely think I picked it up from everyone else without really stopping to question it at any point.) Here they get paid the same regardless, they don't get penalized for whatever they don't finish, and they don't get overtime or have to keep working indefinitely until some tasks are finished, so there's no benefit in rushing so much that you might make mistakes. Really they should just have more staff given the amount of stuff corporate wants done in the given time frame, but I assume that's out of the question. But regardless, an environment where everyone has an assumption/attitude that they're all too busy and stressed for (whatever) isn't psychologically healthy for anybody, and is probably particularly bad for me because of my traumatized overachiever past.

But by the breaking point when I started hoping I could just find a summer job in Pargas, that is, 10 March, I had already noticed that this job had too small a proportion of alone time. And I mean actually being alone where nobody else can see me, not just working on my own tasks, which I did get to do a fair amount in the store, but always on the floor of the store where customers could come by and make requests. I don't want a job where I am literally ALWAYS alone and don't interact with other people at all - that's also bad for my mental health - but I need to have more time at peace with my own thoughts, proportionally, to recharge from the demands of putting on a face and acting social with customers or coworkers. Just a less busy store would probably be fine though - the manager was saying she envisioned me in some tiny boutique or craft store where I could just potter around (that would be my ideal, it's just there aren't a lot of them in reach and they don't hire as often). This lack of alone time would be a big enough problem to drive me to nervous breakdown without any of the other issues - in fact it's the only one of these issues that I had at Kontti, and it did slowly overload me there.

It was my decision to end it rather than ask for fewer hours, by the way! There were some papers to go through and the counselor and manager and I discussed the commute, the physical demands of the job, and exactly how tired out I was getting, and they both agreed with me without any friction about it or anything, and the manager and I bid each other a friendly farewell.

Okay, now those things aside, there are two other things I've been trying to mentally chew over ever since the meeting on Monday.

The first is that the manager said it was obvious and clear to everyone when I was overtired, and that it's important that I become 'braver' and tell my supervisor things like that at my next job. She added that I didn't have to tell her if she was absent/too busy, but there was the assistant manager or any of my coworkers.

--Culture Barrier Time!--

This caught me COMPLETELY by surprise. Not the idea that somebody could notice that I was tired - I wasn't trying to hide it, I was just continuing to do things as well as possible while tired the same way I always would! -, but the suggestion that this was something I SHOULD do - it sounded not like a right, but an obligation? And I still think, after a couple of days' rumination, that my behaviour would have been correct in the American stores where I've worked (although there's a side issue here if that has to do with the cultural attitude to authority - like because I grew up and was working in the south where the culture is essentially authoritarian, while it perhaps wouldn't be in other regions).

My natural feeling is that if I had become too tired to do something I was asked to do, or so tired I actually needed a sick day, I would have said something. I was tired enough to not WANT to go to work, sure, but I wasn't too tired to get there, do the stuff, and function - not even tired enough to be psychologically unable to do that stuff. Except maybe that day when I was dissociated all day, don't know what was up with that. But anyway, it seems we just have really different ideas of when it's appropriate to ask the boss for accomodations? Like I guess I was sort of approaching 'need a vacation' type of burnout and this is such a normal and expected part of American work life that the idea of bringing it up with a boss as a problem is just laughable. The whole system is designed with the expectation that you'll be ground up to exhaustion in the cogs of the economy when you work in retail, surely. I knew I could be like, "Could we reduce my hours per week," but I also felt a bit ashamed because I was already working a rather low number of them and I thought I should be able to handle them, not to mention the above point where they had wanted to increase them! (Evidently before they all started talking about how exhausted I looked.) ... But beyond this cultural issue, my second thought was: If it was so obvious to my supervisors AND everybody else, why didn't THEY say something? Since the managers are the ones with authority, surely it is much more natural for them to bring it up to a tired employee if it's a question of ... you look exhausted, are you doing alright, are you okay with this task, do you need to take a personal day? I so easily picture a manager or authority figure saying this, it's really hard to believe - or understand - that apparently (culturally??) it's not their place to here? And what about all my coworkers who didn't have authority over me? If it was inappropriate for the boss to say it, if they all talked together about me (...) why not one of the others? ... Which reminds me of her suggestion, off-hand, that I could bring up being too tired to my coworkers if not to the bosses! Why would you raise what amounts to... a complaint, or request for help, with someone who doesn't have the authority to change that condition? I just... don't get it. I had already cried at this point in the conversation (they weren't mean, just accidentally triggered a thing related to my teenaged trauma from my mom's anger management issues) and the meeting was long, so I didn't want to get into a cross-cultural investigation right then with them and I just nodded wisely.

"Maybe you should try to work on that yourself [more bravely raising issues with your supervisor]," she finished. And like...

That's probably true, but how DO you work on that? Don't you have to have a manager to practice on...?

Big words from someone who is always too busy to be talked to and has created an environment where that's also true of all their underlings 🤨

But the other thing she said at the end is the one that I'm the most spun around about, because like, okay. We agreed when we signed the contract at our meeting before the work practice began that I would go through the store's cashier training and do some time in the cash register. I wasn't REALLY looking forward to it - I kind of enjoy operating a cash register a little, the flow of it and all that, but the quantity of customers isn't my favorite and it's more mentally draining having so many customer service interactions; however, since I speak Swedish and English, this skill is a selling point in retail, and I got experience for it at Kontti. Anyway, there was a TON of stuff you have to do before you can work the register there - a bunch of online classes and then little study sessions live with a coworker instructing you around the store, cramming background knowledge about the different product types, the return policies, etc, etc, only after she told me we would be able to get around to having a day where we could start practicing being in the register together... the assistmant manager kind of... dropped that. I mean literally just DID NOT MENTION IT AGAIN.

Soooo I was dealing with anxiety about that the entire time. What if due to a cultural difference, boss and assistant manager were expecting ME to take the initiative to make this happen in some specific way - SECRET specific way, but what? By demanding it? or doing something else, to make it possible? or nagging about it? I couldn't figure it out. And I was afraid that they were judging me inadequate because I failed to figure out whatever it was I was supposed to do and I was halfway convinced they were mad about it. At the same time, I was kind of relieved not to have to spend time in the register, because I was already feeling socially overloaded without it by the time I finished the online courses.

WELL, at the meeting - towards the END! - she comes out with "Remember when you were doing the cashier training program with the assistant manager?" Uh, do I REMEMBER it?! "She said she couldn't put you in the cash register because your Finnish wasn't good enough, maybe you should have some more language immersion? Because it doesn't come fast enough without hesitations. And she just didn't dare put you there, because what if some angry customer comes there in a rage, you have to be able to withstand that, and you would just fall apart. You're sensitive."

I mean I didn't really know what to... say? And I just kind of nodded and was like "Hm!"

But like... holy shit?

I've had customers talking at me in a rage a couple of times, and I did not fall apart. But also it's not like that happens constantly

I was put in the register at Kontti because they thought my Finnish was fluent enough to be in the register and I worked there doing that for like a year without any Customers in a Rage problems? My main problem was my feet hurting. That and social overstimulation.

Um, am I sensitive? Kinda, yeah, but not the kind of sensitive person that collapses in a heap from being yelled at, nor have I BEEN yelled at, nor indeed collapsed in any way shape or form, for any reason, while at this store. I'm honestly a bit baffled. I did cry when my cat died? When someone says something that pisses me off I am known to have my face go briefly blank and nod because it takes a while to formulate a polite response, and assistant manager triggered that a couple times but it wasn't a time when I was supposed to say anything at all anyway, so it's not like it would have created a problem? Like we're talking cases where in Alabama the expected response would've been 'Yes, ma'am' - did she want me to say something besides 'Right/Okay' to a simple directive (that pissed me off)? Or did she get the idea somewhere else?

It's not really a big problem in customer interactions, in my experience, if I have to stop and say 'um' while coming up with a word, even if it embarrasses me because I had a long time of always being fast, verbose and reputedly flawless at language usage before I started trying to master foreign languages as a teenager. But I'm pretty used to communicating with customers with imperfect Finnish and it isn't particularly slow and it's only been a problem like, twice in the four months I was there? But also, I... don't think I am all that hesitant about Finnish. I mean there are pauses while I search for a word sometimes, but the kind of interactions where people are asking you to explain something are much more common on the floor, where I was, than in the register, where they mostly want to buy things and return things.

So... like... I don't know! Maybe she DID just hate me? I thought about texting my Finnish friend who's an ex-coworker, and with whom I worked in the register plenty. But I realized I didn't even have to because my managers at Kontti saw me in the register themselves. If they thought it was a problem, they would've taken me out of it, and they didn't. It's perhaps more likely that this assistant manager has a mistaken idea of how, idk, sensitive... and shy... I am, possibly because like... um... I never really talked TO HER, because she was projecting a VERY strong aura of Not Having Time To Talk To You AT ALL TIMES. There was one coworker I had a few conversations with, and another who I talked to a tiny bit, but I never really did with her because. That. And also she did piss me off a few times, unlike them. And maybe the big boss took her opinion and was like "Yeah, she cried that time about her cat, and she did look really tired, it would make sense if she's really sensitive and fragile"???

I'm still curious but ultimately I guess I'm... mostly relieved to be done there. There's a certain impulse to be offended, and also to figure out what happened, but not enough to investigate. I should just be relieved I can put them in the 'not going to see them anymore, don't have to worry what they think of me' pile and move on.