Well, it's been a while, so you definitively deserve a post, right? :)
To be honest, during my first few days of work (ALL public holidays!), I was sure I'd died and gone to H*LL. My mind was telling me it was bound to become better once everybody - including myself - would get into the flow, but my heart screamed to abandon ship.
On my second morning, Jeroen (one of the assistant store managers or shift supervisors - I'm not quite sure which) asked me what my thoughts on the previous day (Easter Sunday) were and I told him I was still thinking about that...
Why? As previously mentioned, the store is extremely busy and there is hardly any way to connect to people (either customers or partners - Starbucks colleagues) which was the reason to start working in the first place.
The process of learning (which takes longer if you only work 2 days a week) AND the fact that just about every day, previous agreements (on numerous things!) would change again, made working very energy draining.
Now we're into the third week when the following happened:
Combined with a) Aunt Flo's visit b) Mother's Day (which, due to "a" made me miss my mum badly) c) having received an e-mail the day before, stating that our Beethovenstraat store opening is postponed two months, made me break down during my lunch break.
I practically ran out the door with tears already streaming down my cheeks and spent all of my time crying on the phone with Paul (poor guy!).
To tell you the truth: had it been during my trial period, I would have left there and then. Or, knowing me: I would have told the person in charge and finished my shift with a heavy load lifted from my shoulders :)
Back in the store, my red eyes betrayed my feelings and unfortunately everybody was so sweet and asked me if I was OK... BAD!!! It only made me cry more and I just told everybody to ignore me and that I would be back to normal real soon! Which obviously happened soon after, with the help of some ice cubes that I held under my eyes! :)
After some time, that horrible feeling left and during my 10 minute break I was able to let Paul know that I was doing better.
I knew I had to have a chat with Helene (one of the store managers and the one who, together with the HR manager, hired me) and about a week later, she pulled me out of the busy (what's new?!) store for a heart to heart.
She really made me feel I was a valuable partner and asked me what she could do to make things smoother. We agreed upon bringing down my contract to one day a week and not scheduling me every weekend, but every other week at max (at Paul's request :)
She understood my disappointment concerning the postponement of the opening of the store I had initially applied at and hinted that I would most probably be asked to go there. Helene has a very intuitive personality, people wise, and I guess she felt I'd leave if I'd be asked to stay at the Leidsestraat store.
Now for the twist of fate :D
A few days after our talk, Helene asked me if I would be interested in working one of my shifts at the Starbucks store in the office!!!
Starbucks ARP - Amsterdam Roasting Plant - has a little store in the canteen of the office and we have had part of our training there. It's a little different, with more variety of food for all the partners and as Helene stated, I would be able to "re-connect with coffee" and "meet up with the office people I'd met during training" :D
I was very happy that I would still be working two days (otherwise the money is hardly worth the trouble) and I'm really looking forward to seeing how things are run at Sloterdijk.
Tomorrow's my first day (Friday May 27th) and I'll work from 10:30 to 18:30, which means I'll be closing. By coincidence, Daniel (an Australian guy that works at the ARP store and who I met during training) came by yesterday and when asked if he was scheduled for Friday, because I'd be working there, replied: "Oh yeah! We'll be closing together!".
Will be taking the car and on the look out for careless bus drivers...
Good! On Fridays, we can sleep late, because Maeve doesn't need to be at school at 08:30 but 50 minutes later, so tomorrow I'll drop her off and drive to work.
Need to go shut my eyes (after reading a bit :) so I'm through with
Blessings, sweet friends!
Sundae
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