Ok, I’ve had a little break now but I feel like I don’t want the gap between posts to be too long right now. It’s also quite therapeutic, and yesterday was another weird day although nothing like early last week so I can talk about that. Yesterday was the first day since starting this thing I haven’t posted or at least been writing something that I could post later on.
I had an early shift, which means waking at 5 in the morning. It’s not that difficult, but I’ve had mild insomnia since I was a little kid which comes in waves so I get several days or weeks in a row where I really struggle to sleep and then weeks or months where it’s fine. It’s easy to manage, but it will just come out of nowhere and if that’s the night before an early rise it can really fuck your day up. I can probably count the times it’s really fucked me on two hands though, due to being a NEET for a while and also just generally a useless cunt who never has plans I can usually just sleep in later, so again it isn’t the worst thing in the world. Anyway, after it happening to me on my second morning shift just after starting this job I found some sleeping pills to prevent this happening again. As always, recommended by an anon on r9k. They help, but you wake up in the morning feeling pretty groggy and they can also cause some pretty intense dreams although I’ve always had vivid dreams anyway. So I thought because this last week I’ve been sleeping better than I have in a long time, I don’t know what it is but since early last week I’ve just been falling asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow, I’ll skip the pill this time. Maybe writing my thoughts down clears my mind so I’m not thinking about things when I try to fall asleep. I didn’t fall asleep immediately, it took me a while so I probably got about six hours of sleep in the end roughly. Not ideal but I can work with it. I went in and did the work, and nothing of note really happened until about 15 minutes before I usually finish.
The shift was meh, nothing happened really. I got there and put on Klu Klux Glam, a collab album by Ariel Pink and R. Stevie Moore which I start every morning shift with. Not sure how that habit started, it’s one of the only “rituals” I really have other than my general morning routine on days I’m not working early or at all. The customers came, some were friendly some were cunts and most were just trying to get their shit and go. There was one 30 year old boomer type who said “at least this isn’t more bloody rap” about my music, which made me chuckle. Then just before it was time to go my manager arrived, along with one of the new workers. There’s two new people, one to replace someone who left a few weeks ago and the replacement for the girl who left last week. Speaking of her, I’m quite shocked about how quickly I’ve gotten over that whole situation given how I felt last week. I was seriously messed up for a couple days there, and every other time I’ve been in a similar situation it’s been rough for weeks and still might pop back into my thoughts months later. It could be that writing has helped me, in getting my thoughts out and having them heard like in a therapy session. It could be the distraction of writing and feeling of a new project or purpose (admittedly very small scale, but from literally nothing it’s still an improvement) that’s been helping. Maybe it’s getting that text from the other girl, I mentioned in my “first real post” that this powerful feeling of exhaustion came over me after the initial surprise and then internal freak out, but I didn’t elaborate on that at all. I think maybe I had what people call a moment of clarity. The whole thing was so out of left field, I was miserable and stuck inside pining for this girl who won’t even remember who I am soon I imagine and then this other thing I’d been upset about and thought was tied up in a neat little bow and left in the past was suddenly right back on my mind. It first completely took my mind off of oneitis girl being gone, after two days of trying and only making myself feel worse. Secondly it reminded me that I had been in almost the exact same situation only a few months earlier. When I woke up the next day, I saw still reeling from the previous couple days but it was different. I haven’t gone back to that video of the youtube cover, or checked any of her social media or even really thought about her once since the blogpost about that whole situation was finished.
Anyway my manager showed up yesterday with one of the new people. I’ll explain the situation at work to help understand things. There’s two different branches in the area of the city I live in both run by one manager. One is quite a bit smaller and gets a lot less customers, also the shifts are shorter. So when you do your training for the job you’re at the big place, then after you start properly you mostly work at the small shop or do weekends at the bigger place. At least that’s how it was for me, kinda, I’m gonna go deep on this shit be warned. When I had my first real shift, I had to go to the small shop and the person who had been doing the morning there was asked to quickly explain the slight differences between it and the main one. It was phone message girl who was there that day actually, if it was even her who sent that message which now I’m not even sure about. I know last time I said my main theory was it was an accidental message but now after realising it was the same number from before with the same local area code despite her leaving the country it might just be a completely different person. I’m very happy for this to be the case, it means things actually are still wrapped up neatly and the last exchange from when she left is where things were left after all. Or she never changed to a new number, I don’t fucking know. So she had to explain the slightly different till and a few other small things like that. I was expecting that I would be asked to do the same, and when I saw my manager show up with the new girl early I was surprised when instead I was just told I could go home early. I know I should be happy about getting to leave early but I’d be lying if I said this didn’t bother me. See this isn’t the first thing like it that’s happened at work, in fact it’s one more in a long list of things that have been really bugging me for a while now.
I’m going to try and hit everything, might forget some smaller things though. So the first thing that made this an issue I paid attention to was shortly after the last time I ever did a weeknight at the main shop, I didn’t stock up perfectly and I also spent like half an hour longer than normal closing the place. I haven’t been there on a week day since, except one time where I was asked really last minute because the person there left mid shift and I was around. Also after that point I stopped getting weekends there for months. I’ve also never had a weekday morning there once, other than when I was training and with someone else. The busiest the place ever gets is the mornings, or certain special occasions when the area is way more busy than normal. Even before that point I wasn’t there week nights very often, I only ever had a week I was there multiple evenings one time. So this bothered me a tiny bit, but I prefer the smaller place anyway so I didn’t really think about it much. I did get to thinking about some things though when the subject did pop into my head. I know I look young for my age, I’m 21 now but I still get people thinking I’m way younger. I had a customer, this old lady, say I looked about 15 not too long ago. If I ever try to buy alcohol I need ID, and even the people who know I’m a legal adult often assume I just turned 18. When I mentioned it was my birthday to oneitis girl she assumed I was about to turn 19. I think you can tell where I’m going with this, I’m fairly certain this leads people to think I’m less competent than I am. That fact combined with my criminally vulgar shyness anyway. I’m not saying I’m especially competent, but I think I could manage whatever the rest of my co-workers can. Anyway, after message girl (I guess that’s what I’m calling her now..) left and she was replaced the replacement was working weekday mornings at the main shop her first or maybe second week. I think she’s done very similar jobs before so had experience, but still after this I started feeling really insecure. The same thing is happening again with one of the new people, the guy who I haven’t met yet. Lastly, my manager seemed kind of annoyed at me too when she was there yesterday. More abrasive and in a rush than usual, usually she’s really friendly. I thought that maybe it was because she had to explain things to the new girl herself because I couldn’t do it (even though I could) but thinking about it now more clearly it’s probably just been stressful having to find new people and do interviews and all that crap. I have a tendency to make things that have nothing to do with me all about myself.
I’m not sure how to feel, I have enough reason to be insecure at this point but not to say for certain that the reason I’m being kept at the smaller shop is because I can’t handle more responsibility. After all, I have mentioned to some of my co-workers that I prefer the smaller place so maybe my manager is just trying to be nice, plus everyone else seems to feel the opposite so it does work out fairly well this way. There’s good reason to believe this too, because a similar thing happens with the evenings and mornings. That is, I prefer the evening shifts because I can wake up late and everyone else prefers the morning shifts because they’re normies who have crap to do during the day. I know everyone at the job knows this, and I just happen to be given mostly evenings. I work less than everyone else too, I only do part time so an average of three or four days a week whereas everyone else does five normally. Writing it out like this really does make me realise just how petty I’m being, how I’m worrying about nothing. Even if they do all think I’m a stupid child who can’t do anything why should I care, it’s literally making my life easier to be thought of in such a way. Anyway that’s what was bothering me all day yesterday, I feel like this post does a bad job of expressing how I felt but a good job of explaining what I was feeling.
I felt small and useless, I know it’s silly but I get into this negative spiral over the tiniest things. To try and relax and clear my head I thought I’d run a hot bath before going to sleep. I can’t even not fuck that up though because the bath ended up practically scalding hot. I wanted to wait for it to cool down for a few minutes so I thought I’d choose a new album to listen to while I had the bath, and I’ve been slowly going through /mu/core stuff for a while now so I thought Loveless would be a good pick. I know a lot of people think of /mu/core as pleb tier but I’ve said before I’m new to this as a real hobby and I have to start somewhere. It’s taking me a while too because I’m mostly using the chart as a jumping off point to find other things I like. I haven’t yet listened to the main 15 at the top even. I like to mention what I’m listening to, if I am listening to anything that is, at certain points in these blogposts because it’s kind of like giving it a soundtrack. I put Loveless on and get into the ridiculously hot bath that hasn’t cooled down a bit. I haven’t listened to much shoegaze but a few times when I have it’s given me this feeling like something pressing me down. It’s like being on an aeroplane or underground and that feeling of pressure you get. This was no exception, and combined with the heat I had to stand up after about ten minutes because I was going to faint. I stood against the wall, and I was hardly paying attention to the music it was like this whirring in the background. Then eventually I slid back into the water and it had cooled down some, I stayed there for a while just staring up at the ceiling until the record finished. I’m not retelling any of this for a reason, it’s just the only noteworthy thing that happened. It was a strange experience, I enjoyed the album a lot more on my second listen today sitting in my main room with the window open.
This post is a fucking mess, I did a bad job getting across the feeling I wanted to. I feel like that one about the nightwalk and surrounding events really conveyed the place I was in at the time well but I can’t do that tonight. That was also an unusual few days, I suppose I could try and make life more interesting so this online diary thing is worth reading. I’m not sure how I’d do that though, I’m all alone out here it’s difficult to even force myself out of the door for the necessities. Either way hopefully next time I upload it’ll be something I can be proud of like with the other entries, because I really am happy with those.
Ramblings of a neurotic mess 