Advice On Stress Control

[Staci]

Greetings my fellows and friends at the CAA. I have a bit of a lengthy story to post, so if you get bored easily you may not wish to listen to my tirade. *grins broadly* However, for those who do stick around to the end I grately appreciate it!

Ooookay... Here goes:

I work for JCPenney on the Pricing Team. What is the Pricing Team, you ask? We are the individuals who put the ads into the system, mark down clearance items, and sign the merchandise on the floor. Our work never ends because a new ad is always coming out. We come in between 4AM and 6AM (2AM sometimes during the Christmas season) to make sure things are ringing up correctly and that the customers know what's on sale and what isn't. Our job is not easy because we deal with grumpy customers, associates, and managers alike. Furthermore, for those who have many years experience in retail, you know the pay is waaaaaaaaay too low for what you do.

Now, out of the Pricing Team Associates, I'm the most special. Sure, that sounds like I am boasting, and perhaps I am to some degree. My individual task is to input the ENTIRE AD into the system and make the coordinating signs to give them to my team to put out onto the floor. I do it all: Men's, Women's, Children's, Home Store, Jewelry, Shoes... ALL OF IT. I don't mind this! I LOVE MY JOB. Seriously, I do! It's the best job I've ever had and I am incredibly thankful that Management (and the Lord) decided to give me a chance. I type 100 words a minute and am even faster on the 10-key... Hence, why after three months, they promoted me into the desk job when the position opened up over a girl who had been there for three years. I'm an over-achiever, work-a-holic, and a prima donna.

I also get stressed way too easily and take offense when someone is snippy with me when I had nothing to do with the issue... This is where everything goes downhill.

Customer A yells at Associate B because their shirt or whatever isn't ringing up on sale correctly. Associate B calls me in a tiff, informs me that I'm not doing my job correctly, and that something needs to be changed in the system. I grin and bear their harsh tones and diligently put it into the system. Hey, it is my job, afterall. Unfortunatley... When this happens to you 10+ times in one day, it gets old and it is just one more straw on the camel's back.

Not only do I have associates yell at me, I've had them TRANSFER customers on the phone to my extention so they can yell at me too! That's a huge no-no... Managers get paid for that. Dealing with customers when I'm not on the sales floor is not in the job description. Sure, I take care of customers when I'm out and about but if I'm at my desk I don't interact with them one iota.

And Managers... Don't get me started on that. I'll just use an example of how one of the high up managers treated me today.

It's 8AM - I'm in the middle of signing the Shoe Department. My immediate manager has been gone for the entire week, so I'm kinda stressed as-is because I've been put in charge. Unfortunatley, my manager forgot to give me the plumate (what I input into the system) for the "Entire Stock Sandals For The Family" event which started today. What do I have to do? Scan each pair of sandals we have (between Juniors', Women's, Children's, and Men's), write down their sub/lot and what sale price they should be at, put the coordinating sticker on the sandal, and move on to the next one... Later on I'll return to my desk and put them into the system. Fun, right? I love it when the one person who is supposed to watch my back left my bottom hangin' out in the wind. (Oh, and he also forgot half the Jewelry Sale and the Jewelry Manager announced on the radio - management and myself carries around - that his ad wasn't ringing right... So I'm already grumpy that my manager y'know... Bah. Went on vacation and left me hanging.)

Anywhoo... back to my story. It's 8AM and the Manager-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named stops me in the hallway. I've already had my fill of the shoes not being in - or correct - and have had two hours of that. (I get in at 6am after a 45 minute comute.)

He asks, "Who signs the second floor?" (i.e. the women's floor)

I reply, "It depends on which department."

He responds, "Who knows which department?"

Not liking his tone, attitude, or brashness, I curtly say, "Tell me which department it is and I'll tell you who."

"It's women's pantyhose."

I respond with the coordinating Pricing Team Member's name and go back to the Shoe Department. Now I'm really peeved that this HIGH-UP individual got all grumpy with me when he's only been in for 5 minutes... It's seriously just rude. I work hard and I don't deserve to be treated like that.

I finish up with the shoes at 9:37AM - it took me three+ hours to do. That's not that bad when you have to scan over 700 pairs of shoes and half of them aren't ringing up correctly. (See, told ya I was a good worker.) I scurry upstairs for the morning meeting because we open at 10am. An ad broke today, and when I get to the meeting I realized I forgot to put the fliers out on the counter. I ask my fellow PTA's (Pricing Team Associates) if they put them out on the cash wraps. Nope, they sure didn't, so I grab one of them to get the ads and put them out.

My particular JCPenney store is HUGE. We have 4 floors and 225,000 square feet total. I did A LOT of running between cash wraps. So I get that taken care of... However, Management decided they didn't want the ad to go out today because there are coupons they'll have to honor on the front of said flier. So they go behind me and take it back down even though it's SUPPOSED to be out today. (It says "Friday Preview" for a reason... DUHNESS.)

My attitude after all this mess happened, how I've been treated the past week by everyone, my lack of a payraise after having been there for almost 11 months (and a job change with more work and added responsibility), and to top it all off one of my co-workers who usually understands copped an attitude with me. She asked me to put some stuff into the system.. However, she didn't write down the merchandise she wanted in! She only said, "St. John's Bay, $8.99". I'm sorry, I'll get WAY BUSTED if I put in $44 capris in for 8.99... I need more info than that. Instead of telling me what she wanted int (Women's, Petitie's, and Misses Tees), she rips the paper out from underneath me and storms out of the office to talk to management about my attitude!

Sure, I may have been curt with her and my tone of voice may not have been pleasant. I later on apologized for that but yeesh... She knows what we all go through and has to run off and tell on me? I'm 23 and she's 66 - who's more the child here? It's not like I yelled at her or anything! I just said, "What sort of merchandise is this? Shirts? Tanks? What because I can't put all of St. John's Bay in for $8.99! I'll get canned." I'm darned if I do and darned if I don't, right? *sighs*

[Staci]

Continued from post 1:

Anyway... My manager calls me shortly afterward and asks me how things are going. I start it off with a, "If you ever show up here again..." comment. (Niiiiice. I'm fumin', I have a quick temper and a quicker tongue than what's good for me. I know my faults and I'm working on them.) Anywhoo... To make a long story short, I list off everything I can remember that went wrong and he played a part of and end up sobbing through most of it. (I cry when stressed, I can't help it.) My manager apologized profusely and offered to let me take tomorrow off. Instead, I decided to cut out three hours early today and not be mean when he gets back tomorrow. We have Doorbusters for Heaven's sake - those sales that run 8AM - 1PM usually.. CRAAAAAAAAZY and it usually is a lengthy, stressful day. I don't want to shirk my duties and not show up when it's crunch time... I'm too stubborn for that.

Bah - so now you guys know what I do and a lot of other nonsense about how I'm treated. What I'm rattling on about is how can one - who is apparently sensitive - deal with stress in the work place? I try so hard to not let things get to me, and with the first few I succeed! But one after another after another, et cetera... I just can't handle it! I get grumpy, start ranting, then start crying.

I believe in treating others how you wish to be treated. If you smile and are courteous to me I'll be the same. If you call me every name underneath the sun I'll do the same. I know the latter isn't a very Christian mentality, and I'm REALLY working hard on changing it. It's just so hard having grown up in an athiest family reprogramming myself to not bite someone's head off when they wrong me.

Ideas? Thoughts? Comments? Rotten tomatoes to throw so I get off the soap box?

Thanks again to all of you who read this far. I really appreciate it. *HUGE HUGGLES* God Bless each and every one of you. *sniffles and goes to curl up with a dollie her hunnie gave her and cry*

[Mave]

Woa....you sound like me, 2-3 weeks ago.

I was getting very stressed out with my graduate research for various reasons:

1) nothing was working even though I worked very hard (late nighters, weekends)
2) things took longer to get done than they ought to (a simple 1 minute job became a 3 hour task)
3) ppl who were supposed to help me, messed things up instead and didn't take responsibility, I had to clean up after them!!
4) I get blamed for other ppl's mess
5) my professor was peeved, thinking I was slacking and picked on me

Like you, I broke down in front of my superiors. I was so upset and felt life was being unfair to me. "I'm going crazy, I can't handle it anymore! I hate it!!" Every morning I woke up with dread and despair in my heart. If you know what I'm talking about, it's a terrible terrible terrible feeling and I don't ever wish that upon anyone.

When I cried to my Christian friend, he told me that I had too much pride. Mortified, I was like "Dude, you're supposed to comfort and encourage me, not convict me."

But when I reflected on it, I had to admit that my pride was causing me so much stress. I thought that "I" could handle it myself and that I didn't need God. I thought I was smart and disciplined enough to survive grad school on my own. But no. Instead, I discovered my failures and weaknesses. Boy it wasn't pleasant at all. But, I knew I had to ask God to humble me and to teach to trust/rely on Him again.

Have things gotten better? Relatively, you may say. But all by God's grace only. Whenever I go to work now, I have to remind myself "It's OK if _____ doesn't work or I fail to do something, God is in control and He still loves me despite all my shortcomings. I'm just gonna keep trying my best but I'm not going to let my circumstances control me." I have to remind myself to pray for every single little thing in my work and I know I can't go through a day without His grace.

Funny how His convictions became words of comfort once I let go of my pride and earthly strivings to be Miss Perfect. Thus, I discovered that my antidote to stress was complete trust and reliance on God.

So, I concluded that in my case, I was needing another reminder lesson of humility and dependancy on God. I can't pinpoint what God has planned for you but all I know is that He has a reason for it and it's always good. That's the only hope that you and I have when all circumstances around us crash and burn. I'll pray for you and your work, that God will guide you through this valley and that you'll emerge a winner in God's eyes. ^_^ God bless you, sister!

[Zedian]

Well it sounds like you girls are kinda similar to me. Everytime I am at work, some new project prompts up and I am asked to do it, problem is the person who issues it to me usually wants things absolutely flawless. I understand that its' discipline and sure enough that will only make me a better individual. They way they come across, with sneering remarks and some slight sarcasm doesn't really hold too well with me. And if something goes wrong I am the first to be blamed--but then again that only will help me.

Its' kind of comforting to know I am not the only one who faced adversity at a job.

[Nia-chan]

I don't want a job....

[Staci]

Awww, I know completely how you feel too, Mave. My hunnie-bunnie knows that when I say I have three themesongs, they are as follows: "Miss Independent" by Kelly Clarkson, "Superman" by Five For Fighting, and "Kryptonite" by 3 Doors Down. And for the most part (even though two are sung from a guy's perspective), they are incredibly accurate about my work ethic. I work hard and get the job done, my manager and co-workers rely on me, et cetera, et cetera. It's very nice to know that someone else has gone through what I have.

Several months ago, my fiance confronted me (like your friend did) and said that I needed to learn how to rely on him and that I cannot take on the world. Coming from him it made me stop and think... So since then I've been working toward that goal of not being the overlord I can tend to be. Since Ben and I had that talk I have focused on my relationship with him, letting things go with the flow, and most importantly, putting my faith in the Lord that He will not let me down and He will take care of me, be it by divine intervention or people around me or both.

It's just that today... *sighs heavily* My co-workers let me down, my immediate manager let me down, and the store management let me down. I relied on them to help me when I needed it, and I asked for it, and I only received it from one person and not the team. I was second-guessed and usurped later on in the day (too many chiefs, not enough indians). I was yelled at for other people's mistakes, made to look a fool, laughed at by others in the store (who don't like me) because they saw me floundering, and reduced to tears because hey... I care about my job - and the team's job - and that it gets done.

I've been having anger issues... Coming home in a bad mood and taking it out on my lovie. I know that's an awful thing to do, I'm not trying to make excuses for it, so I won't. I've asked the Lord to help me with this and I'm sure He decided it was high time I was tested... Sure, I got grumpy at work, and I apologized to the person I snapped at before going home early. However, I'm REALLY happy to say that when I got home I called my pookie, ranted about my day (in a constructive fashion), cried a bit, and felt a whole lot better that he was there with me (in spirit, at least). I didn't get mad at him once! *beams* Maybe that's why I had this bad day, eh?

Bad day... make that a bad month since LPOTS (Lowest Price of the Season - ad that ran 2 weeks).

Edit: Thanks to everyone who posted already, heehee! I really feel like I am not alone in this and that... It's comforting to know. *~_~* YAY! We're all imperfect together! *hugs around*

[Ingemar]

I don't want a job....

Amen. I'm only in college because society says I should be.

[Zedian]

Heh it's funny how you guys say that. I actually watched Office Space earlier this morning and I find that movie very funny. Since it pretty much capitializes on all that is the 'work place'. Well anyways, sometimes I wonder if society just cripples our imagination with ties and cubicles.

[Fsiphskilm]

Whatever

[Staci]

That's why I like Nintendo. It's all about fun.

I thoroughly agree with that statement. Heehee, I love playing Final Fantasy 4/5/6 on the Playstation for stress relief... I just go around and level my characters for a good hour. Aaaaaah - besides, I grew up with those games on the SNES, it brings back the "good ole days" of gaming. (For me, at least. Heehee.) (Though FF5 wasn't on the SNES... just 4 and 6... *cough*)

Go Nintendo! *salutes*